And how we need to avoid duplicating it with chiropractic care, functional medicine and diet
In the middle of the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis came up with a revolutionary idea. He thought that if surgeons washed their hands between patients, fewer people would get sick and die after surgery. He was shunned and lost his job. The medical authorities knew better, and his theories were “unproven.” We like to think we have grown since then and that medicine has become more “scientific.” Sure, surgeons wash their hands now, but fixed ideas in our health care system are still getting in the way of people getting better, and can be addressed with functional medicine and diet.
Focusing on restoring health
Medicine is fixated on finding patentable treatments. It ignores the following, because these ideas are “unproven” much the same way Semmelweis’ ideas were unproven:
- Subclinical vitamin deficiencies may have a lot to do with many of our diseases and symptoms.
- The environment is making us sick.
- Our digestive systems are the key to many health problems, including autoimmune disease, allergies and even autism.
- The bacteria in our intestines are vital to keeping us healthy. They affect our immune system, inflammation levels and even our mood.
- Balancing the nervous system through chiropractic can help the body heal itself.
- You can reduce inflammation and even heal with diet.
- We are focused on fighting disease and not restoring health.
Why we are getting sicker
The average American eats 10 pounds of chemical additives and 200 pounds of sugar each year. The Centers for Disease Control has found most Americans have 125 different chemical additives in their bodies; 77% of us have plastic in our bodies.
Our crops are sprayed with glyphosate (Roundup), which disrupts the bacteria in our intestines. This practice is linked to Parkinson’s, autism, autoimmune diseases and allergies. We feed our infants soy formula — which has been sprayed with Roundup. It disrupts their microbiome, and then we wonder why there is so much autism (autistic children all have gut ecology issues).
Glyphosate has literally made most grains toxic; no wonder we love ketogenic diets. In the meantime, medicine ignores diet, the environment and the microbiome; probably because there is nothing patentable to be found there.
In addition:
- Autoimmune diseases are increasing by a rate of 7% per year.
- The number of people with allergies has more than doubled since 1970.
- Autism affected one in 150 children in 2000. It now affects one in 44.
- The prevalence of Parkinson’s disease has grown by 50% in the last five years!
- The rate of new diagnosis of celiac disease has increased 7.5% every year for the past few decades.
No longer ‘A Pill for Every Ill’
Our bodies are under assault. Our diets and what has been done to the food supply and environment are making us sick.
Simply manipulating symptoms with a drug (or even an herb or a vitamin), is not going to be enough. We have to fight to restore balance — both chemical and physical — to our bodies by applying functional medicine and diet. Whenever I talk to doctors, they ask me things like: “What do you do for migraines? What do you do for ADHD? What do you do for…” Treating symptoms is a medical concept; we need to be smarter than that.
It’s not the symptoms, it’s the cause
Let’s use migraine headaches as an example. Adjustments, of course, can help. But what if you are not getting the desired result?
You can read the research and find that magnesium and B vitamins (especially riboflavin) give relief to some migraine sufferers. You try that; some get better, some do not. Why did you fail with some? Probably because B vitamin and magnesium deficiencies were an issue.
You may find that avoiding gluten helps (celiac disease increases by 7.5% per year). If you have two patients with migraine headaches and one of them is overweight, craves sugar and has breast tenderness and cramps during her period, she may well respond to B vitamins and magnesium (and anything else you can do for her insulin insensitivity).
If you have another patient who is thin and has spider veins, you may need to take a different approach. You may find that liver and gallbladder support helps. You may also deduce that since her capillaries leak in her legs, the same thing may be happening in the meninges. Giving vitamin C and quercetin may help that particular patient a lot. The point is that the symptom does not tell you the best course of treatment. We don’t treat symptoms; we treat patients.
These are all very superficial approaches. You may have to do a deep dive and address the microbiome, cellular energy, nutrient absorption or other issue. Even if the symptom improves, other issues will need to be addressed.
The road to good health is always under repair. The environment is a mess and 60% of all Americans have a chronic disease. Also, a lot of the damage is self-inflicted. Giving an adjustment and a little adrenal support is not going to bear the fruit it did 35 years ago.
A lot of our patients feel they are “pretty healthy,” but have this one problem (or two or three). They also all eat “pretty good.” They may feel they can continue with their current lifestyle and simply take their statin, blood pressure medication, SSRI or other drug. You, after all, are just there to fix their backache (prior to patient education).
Chiropractic functional medicine and diet is the solution
U.S. health care costs are spiraling out of control. Health care costs individuals and companies more than $11,000 per year for every man, woman and child in the country. This is simply because the system is built around getting patents.
Unfortunately, the kinds of health problems we are having do not have patentable solutions. If we break out of our “backache” role and start addressing these issues, and educating patients in our offices, we can do a lot of good. Applying functional medicine and diet is not that difficult. Sometimes it is literally like telling someone who is hitting himself in the head with a ball-peen hammer, and complaining of headaches, to stop. You can start by offering a wellness plan in your office.
PAUL VARNAS, DC, DACBN, is a graduate of the National College of Chiropractic and has had a functional medicine practice for 34 years. He is the author of several books and has taught nutrition at the National University of Health Sciences. For a free PDF of “Instantly Have a Functional Medicine Practice,” email him at paulgvarnas@gmail.com, or for a patient handout on the anti-inflammatory diet.
