Coherence: A Revolutionary Way to Approach Human Health
FEATURE
LTC(P) Daniel T. Johnston
MD, MPH, US Army Medical Corps, US Executive Wellness Clinic,
US Pentagon*
As chiropractors know better than anyone else that the brain communicates through the spinal cord and the vast network of the nervous system to control every function the body performs. From musculoskeletal health, control, and function to immune system regulation, the entire body depends on the brain as the central organizing and regulating system. When the brain works right, the body works right. I learned this principle mostly after medical school while serving in the US Army in places such as Korea and Iraq in high-stress situations. Through its focus on the physiological and anatomical “hands on” approach to helping solve acute and chronic musculoskeletal conditions, chiropractic is also the only healthcare field that focuses specifically on removing the stress, pain, and interference disrupting the central nervous system’s control over the body’s systems. Over time, this enhances the coherence between the brain and the entire body, dramatically improving aspects of both mental and physical health. They also advocate more about the importance of strong cellular nutrition and optimal fatty acids. While the idea is simple, the implications are profound. If we can give our patients overall cellular health and resilience, lower inflammation, and improve nerve function, they can revolutionize their longevity and quality of life. In other words:
(CNS: enhanced neuroplasticity, conduction, and function) + (ORGAN: end-organ resilience to stress) + (CELL: low inflammatory states) = total well-being and resilience to disease.
“From musculoskeletal health, control, and function to immune system regulation, the entire body depends on the brain as the central organizing and regulating system.
Do patients get this message from you, though? Let me give a little background. Research has shown that chiropractic adjustments can improve the way the brain functions. A study was conducted over a three-year period with approximately 100 volunteers. Their brain functions were monitored with electroencephalogram (EEG) before and after chiropractic adjustments. After receiving a chiropractic adjustment, post-EEG scans revealed improvement in all areas of brain function. This is referred to as positive neuroplasticity and positive neurophysiological coherence. Optimal chiropractic care in the twenty-first century should not only focus on removing neural interference, but also on directly improving the cellular structure and function of the engine behind hu-
man health—the central nervous system (CNS)—while also improving the “target” of the CNS—the end-organ array of cellular and vascular health.
Because a set of critical fatty acids dictates cell membrane health and classes of major proand anti-inflammatory hormones, there is what I call a central class of nutrients critical to all wellbeing: omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Life just seems to have been designed to evolve around them. Without them in the right amounts, cell membranes are dysfunctional, which creates a cascade of intracellular and extracellular problems with dramatic tissue and organ damage, especially when we apply even just a mild amount of external stress. These fatty acids dictate not just the inflammatory state of the cells, tissues, and organs, but on their overall resilience and gene expression over time. They also dictate the health of the function of the CNS to a large extent. Now, if we mess up the function of the CNS, we create an engine of dysfunction at very high levels from relationships to self-damaging behaviors to specific end-organ dysfunction in autonomic and direct regulation or control.
I believe that clinicians can drive total well-being and condition-dependent improvements very simply and efficiently with one comprehensive assessment that quantifies both types of health:
1. F atty acid cellular health - the nutritional health of neural membrane reflecting resilience and inflammatory status (including omega-3 and omega-6 status).
2. Functional nerve performance globally - how efficiently the brain is organizing and regulating its functions.
With advances in dried blood-spot and laboratory analytics, we can now get a window into the health of every cell in our body. We can actually quantify critical fatty acid biomarkers (from a two-minute simple finger-stick blood-spot test) that define cell membrane and inflammatory health and pairs and correlates some of that data with the metrics around cognitive function to include attention, memory, executive function, and cognitive flexibility. We all have heard of the trend toward “quantified self’ and the growth in activity monitors and wearable technology, but with combined blood and brain analytics, we have the “quantified cell and the quantified functional control” that dictates the longevity and quality of our lives and relationships with others that we know is so critical. We are living in the age of “big data,” but also “big biochemical data.” If presented properly, such data will revolutionize the health of patients today and in the future while allowing us to detect problems at cellular and CNS levels long before clinical manifestation has developed at the tissue and organ levels. Chiropractors can be seen as not just mechanical pain relievers by some, but also as mechanical, functional, and biochemical restorers of true health. Revolutionary, I say!
IF THERE IS ROOM:
In an article published in the American Journal of Clinical Chiropractic, Chiropractor, the author stated, “The omega-6/ omega-3 fatty acid ratio (AA/EPA) is innately critical for brain function, heart health, immunity, joint health, pain syndromes, and more. I believe that everyone should have the AA/EPA ratio tested to see if they are in the ‘target ratio’ of 1-2/1, AA/EPA.” While I did question later the author’s knowledge of the best method to do that, I do firmly agree with the concept. Our data
and the studies published by others suggest that most Americans are 20:1 and greater—clearly 10 to 20 times higher than normal, which greatly contributes to the risk of chronic illness of the brain and body. Thus, we have an epidemic of imbalance in life at the most fundamental level: the cell composition/stracture.
However, focusing on just the nutritional inputs to cell health is greatly missing the mark. We also need to measure the functional control of those cells/tissues/organs, which conveys a much stronger message to the patient on the need to change. We all know that chasing numbers doesn’t create true wellbeing. We need to provide numbers in the context of life quality and life function. With today’s technology, we can now tie the nutritional environment to cellular and hormonal health and then to functional regulatory control by the CNS. That drives self-awareness and behavioral change because meaningless metrics get us nowhere, while metrics with functional meaning to the quality of my work and relationships tell me something drastically more profound.
The ability to track, measure, and quantify both the functional health of the CNS and the inflammatory and resilience state of all organs/tissues in one blood-spot test, paired with a brief cognitive challenge in one assessment, and link them together to track them over time is a game changer. With this tool, we can create an awakening in patients! It develops true brain-body coherence and longevity and gives patients a road map (or what we call “intelligence” in the Army) to fight the enemies of disease and make it to their destination. It opens the door to a much broader scope of practice that no other health-
care profession is routinely addressing. My MD colleagues are completely guilty of ignoring the importance of optimizing the most important component to human health: the central nervous system and the organ cellular milieu and state. We have turned lab values into numbers that must be in certain “zones” rather than demonstrating how a number correlates directly to function today. Resilience to cellular dysfunction and “playing the wrong genes” should be our highest priority beyond the acute mechanical pain relief we provide. Brain health is a top priority for patients and their family members. With just a little education, patients can make a few changes that can dramatically affect them, and, through epigenetics, also affect generations to follow. There is no better group of clinicians than chiropractors to help all patients begin a journey of optimal cellular and neurological health, better brain function, and positive neuroplasticity and neurophysiological coherence. Everyone else is just waiting for the system to fail so some prescribed treatment can fix this dysfunction, but none ever truly will.
Medicine certified Daniel by the with a Master’s T. American Johnston, Board Degree MD, in MPH of Preventive Public is Health board from Emory University. Dr. Johnston has 19 years of active-duty service and practices medicine at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. He published the
first omega-3 neurocognitive study in combat while deployed to Iraq while serving in the US Army. * These statements are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Army or US government. The US government or its affiliates do not endorse Brain span. You can learn more by contacting us at infoahrainspan.com. You can also visit our website at www.brainspan.com
