Chiropractic Subluxation Dogma or Fact?
FEATURE
Do we need to review the “Science & Research”?
Joseph Cannillo
BS, MS, PhD, DC
Though we have been detecting and correcting it with chiropractic spinal adjustment for over 100 years, the chiropractic spinal subluxation complex is still not fully understood or scientifically proven. Scientific research in the past was not sophisticated enough to theorize or determine the neurophysiological impact and changes that spinal subluxation has on human physiology. Hundreds of brand-name techniques and instruments have been invented and offered to reveal and correct subluxations, but the clinical usefulness of subluxation existence and correction has yet to be experimentally demonstrated. Does that mean that we do not adjust our patients because it has not been proven scientifically? Absolutely not; I treat my patients as if each spinal chiropractic adjustment has virtually unlimited potential in improving their health and physiology and, at the same time, theorize and research ways in proving its existence.
D.D. Palmer stated in The Chiropractor’s Adjuster (1910):
The philosophy of chiropractic is founded upon the knowledge of how vital functions are performed by innate in health and disease. When this controlling intelligence can transmit mental impulses to all parts of the body, free and unobstructed, we have normal action, which is health. Innate directs its vital energy through the nervous system and volition through the cumulative and vegetative function. Displacement of any part of the skeletal frame may press against (or stretch) nerves, which are the channels of communication, intensifying or decreasing their carrying capacity, creating either too much or not enough functioning, an aberration known as disease. Chiropractors adjust, by hand, all displacements of the more than 200 bones, more specifically those of the vertebral column, to remove nerve impingement, which is the cause of deranged function. The long bones and the vertebral processes are used as levers by which to adjust displacements of osseous tissue of the body. By doing so, the normal transmission of nerve force is restored.
D.D. Palmer has always stated that tone depends on the amount of nerve tension, which depends upon the position of individual bones in the osseous frame (the keyboard) to which the nerves cross or are attached. Mechanical causes or irritation due to falls, strains from lifting, postural stresses, occupational distortions, automobile accidents, blows, etc., can cause subluxation. The site of the actual subluxation is likely to be preordained by the structural weakness of the individual vertebral column because of the hereditary anomalies, history of injury, and postural, chemical, occupational, or recreational abuses, which may have produced frank trauma or merely microtrauma, which tends to summate, or by mechanical force being concentrated upon a localized area. The tension of an emotional nature and muscular contraction due to chemical irritation within the body all play a part in establishing a susceptible region to a vertebral articulated kinetic aberration “fixation“ for the occurrence of vertebral subluxation.
Gravity, gravity waves, gravity line, and mechanical force alteration all play an important role in life, subluxation, and disease. Human differentiation and embryology are also based on a three-dimensional organization of metabolic and mechanical force fields or mechanobiological principles. E. Blechschmidt, a medical embryologist, introduced this concept over 50 years ago, and it seems like gravitational and mechanical forces are at play in embryology, being the primary essence of innate, vital force, or the breath of life that governs the development of the organism. Human organs are understood as resulting from a step-by-step differentiation of the growing human embryo. Through Blechschmidt’s research, it has become known that differentiation is not only the result of a gene effect but also brought about through growth initiated by extra genetic gravitational-mechanical force information. Hereditary factors are an important part of differentiation but not the only one; the living process of differentiation is not only governed by genes, which in reality do not contain any type of three-dimensional pattern for later differentiation, but through the help of mechanical forces.
...microtubules drive neuronal morphogenesis during normal development, as well as during regeneration after injury.
Genes are a constant, a cookbook, but it’s the mechanometabolic force field that governs the function of genes. The external gravitational mechanical forces that dictate gene reaction and function through cell membrane receptors, microtubules, cytoplasm receptors acting on the nucleus, and finally, genes. Space and microgravity research has shown us that embryogenesis and cell differentiation are drastically altered in a weightless state, and genetic expression is altered with a final deformity of the organism, thus confirming the necessity of mechanical gravitational forces in embryogenesis.
Changes in the cytoskeleton have been noted, and studies on microtubules in gravity have shown that they are gravity sensitive. Microtubules seem to be the main players or mediators through which external forces and gravity alter gene function. Microtubules are self-assembling polymers of protein dimers tubulin; along with actin, kinesin, and other cytoskeletal structures, microtubules establish cell shape, direct growth, and organize the function of all cells, including brain, spinal, and peripheral neurons. The notion that microtubules process information was suggested in general terms by Sherrington (1957) and Atema (1973).
With a physicist colleague in the 1980s, Hameroff developed a model of microtubules as information-processing devices, specifically molecular (“cellular“) automata, self-organizing computational devices. Synchronized discrete time steps in microtubule automata, tubulins in microtubules were assumed to oscillate synchronously in a manner proposed by Frohlich for biological quantum coherence. Biophysicist Herbert Frohlich (1968; 1970; 1975) suggested that biomolecular dipoles constrained in a common geometry and voltage field would oscillate coherently, coupling or condensing to a common vibrational model of a quantum wet computer-generating consciousness.
Vibrations in neuronal cells were also hypothesized by D.D. Palmer; microtubules make up the cy to skeleton of cells and could be the communication lines of innate through which the nervous system communicates with all cells in the body through gap junctions. Microtubules could be defined as the body’s primary nervous and skeletal system. Proper organization of the microtubule network is particularly important in neurons; microtubules drive neuronal morphogenesis during normal development, as well as during regeneration after injury.
Microtubules are major architectural elements without which the neuron could not achieve or maintain its exaggerated shape. In addition to serving as structural elements, microtubules are railways along which molecular motor proteins convey cargo. Microtubules are important for neuron homeostasis, as indicated by severe peripheral neuropathies in cancer patients treated with chemotherapeutic microtubule poisons (Schmidt and Bastians 2007; Baas and Ahmad 2013; Funahashi et al. 2014). Several neurodegenerative disorders are caused by gene mutations that impair microtubule-based transport (Perlson et al. 2010; Kuijpers and Hoogenraad 2011). Transport defects associated with the abnormal accumulation of proteins (Tau) and organelles in axons have been suggested to contribute to the pathology of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Mechanical stimuli also affect microtubule formation, conformation, and proliferation; microtubules exist in all cells and their influence in the mechanotransduction of mechanical stimuli is fundamental. Mechanical force is known to affect a diversity of physiological areas at the cellular level in all cells, including cardiac, fibroblast, bone, vascular, and nerve cells. Strain stiffening of cytoskeletal polymer networks may be the underlining cause of fixation. The nonlinear force-extension relationship of semiflexible polymers (microtubules) in which the force to extend the end-to-end distance of the filament increases the more the filament is stretched, suggesting that networks made from such filaments wifi also become stiffer as they are deformed by larger strains. The strain stiffening of these networks is reversible, with the modulus returning to low levels when the shear strain is reduced, unless the networks are strained to magnitudes large enough to break cross-links between filaments or break the filaments themselves. With increasing strain, the bent filaments reorganize so that more filaments align along the direction of the shear.
The network deformation then comes mainly from the enthalpic stretching of the aligned stiff filaments. This transition from bending to stretching gives rise to strain stiffening. The bending, buckling, and reorganization of filaments cause nonaffine deformations in the network. Reconstituted biopolymer networks span a stiffness range from l Pa to .10 kPa, depending on the concentration of filaments, the presence of cross-links, and the prestress applied. Live, isolated eukaryotic cells span a similar stiffness range. Beyond single-cell properties, changes in the cytoskeleton are also related to tissue-level mechanics throughout the body, including in the central nervous system (Frame etal. 2013), kidneys (Yao etal. 2004; Weins et al. 2005), heart (Hein etal. 2000), smooth muscle (Gunst and Zhang 2008), and Others (Omaryetal. 2004; Fletcher and Mullins 2010).
Mechanotransduction is a topic of increasing research interest, particularly for those in the neural sciences, because of the ability of physically based forces to induce neuronal biochemical changes directly responsible for a host of complex and integrated neurological responses. Mechanoreceptors of neurons are localized on the cellular cytoplasmic level, providing a mechanism of response to pressure, vibration, and stretch. Scientific studies have shown that neural action potential firing through nerve terminals is linked to specific mechanical deformation and extracellular matrix interactions.
The environment that surrounds the cells and is strictly controlled and regulated by it is called the extracellular matrix (ECM).
• The ECM is created by none other than the cells themselves. They generate it, control it, regulate it, and remodel it in many different and complex ways.
• The ECM is the environment where cells live, differentiate, and move. It controls and regulates individual cells in many ways.
• The main feature that contributes to generating tissues, organs, and body plans, together with cell differentiation, is cell migration. Cells have to move to migrate according to a precise and strictly regulated plan. Without controlled migration, no tissue and no organ can be formed. Cells that differentiate differently must migrate to different places in the growing organism.
• Cell migration is not only a pillar of organism development, it also remains a basic feature of many cell systems, even in “adult“ life. That is especially true for important cell systems — first of all, the immune system.
• All cell migrations happen in the ECM and are controlled and implemented by the complex interactions between the cells and the ECM.
• Those interactions, surprisingly, are not only biochemical (as we usually imagine cell interactions to be), but mainly mechanical.
Since extracellular matrix (connective tissue)-interfacing neurite outgrowth on soft substrates has been linked to integrins (cellular mechanoreceptors), this suggests the potential for the transmission of mechanical stimulation through transmembrane integrins in the nerve cell. Abnormal occlusion or stretching of a nerve root at a vertebral level could alter microtubule orientation and function, leading to aberrant nerve conduction/ communication. A study has shown that neural action potential firing through nerve terminals is linked to specific mechanical deformation and extracellular matrix interactions. (Yi-WenLin etal. 2009). A vertebra fixed in an abnormal motion vector could alter nerve root mechanics (compression or stretch), changing nerve conduction and communication through the altered microtubule orientation in the nerve cell.
Strains of 16%, 10%, and 9%, at 0.01 mm/sec, 1 mm/ sec, and 15 mm/sec, respectively, led to a 50% probability of complete conduction block in the nerve roots of L5 dorsal nerve roots from male Sprague-Dawley rats that were each subjected to a predetermined stretch strain. The study investigated the functional and structural responses of spinal nerve roots in vivo to various strains and strain rates. (Anita Singh et al. 2009). With nerve root compression, blood flow in some venules ceased at 5 to 10 mmHg, and nerve conduction was altered at 50 mmHg of pressure (Michael G. Fehlings et al. 2005). In a normal vertebral range of motion, the pressures that were generated in the IVF exceed 30 mm Hg. When considering the concept of a joint fixated in a diminished sphere of its normal range of motion in conjunction with mild pressure increases over 50 mmHg, it becomes apparent that nerve function can be significantly altered because of cellular microtubule alteration.
Mechanical pressure also alters mutation rates of genes and DNA, changing the cell’s long-term function. A publication identified mutagenic mechanisms of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) on organisms and treated Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster) eggs with HHP. Approximately 75% of the surviving flies showed significant morphological abnormalities from the egg to adult stages compared with control flies (p 0.05). Some eggs displayed abnormal chorionic appendages, some larvae were large and red, and some adult flies showed wing abnormalities (Hua Wang etal. 2015).
As time and biological research continue, more studies are beginning to prove the basic premises of the chiropractic subluxation complex as a root cause of physiological organic disturbance through mechanical distortions of the spine and nervous system. Mechanical forces seem to alter microtubule conformation and mitochondrial energy production, altering transmission, which then brings about altered autonomic function, influencing the endocannabinoid system and all metabolic and immune functions. Results from two clinical research studies support endocannabinoids’ involvement in short-term manipulative therapy analgesia. Serum AEA (AEA, N-arachidonoylethanolamine) levels increased 168% from baseline 20 minutes after the spinal manipulative treatment and 17% after the sham manipulative therapy treatment. Endocannabinoid system receptors can be altered through long-term adjustments, regulating the psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology (PNEI) system.
Joseph Cannillo BS, MS, PhD, DC is a graduate of the Long Island University CW Post, BS in Biology, MS in Molecular Genetics, Cornell University PhD in Biochemistry, New York Chiropractic College in 1988. In private Chiropractic & Functional Nutrition practice in Italy for over 30 years, teach Nutrition and Plerbology at the University level. Scientific Director of Forza Vitale Nutrition Labs, and CITIVAa Medical Cannabis manufacturing and Research laboratory at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Research interests, Cell Microtubule Physiology, Endocannabinoids & Phytocannabinoids, Epigenetics and Plant active principles isolation and bioavailability through Nanoparticles. Presidentof the Italian Chiropractic Association (AC) Research Committee, [email protected]
References
1. The Microtubule Cytoskeleton Organisation. Function and Role in Disease. Editor Jens Lunders. Springer-Verlag Wien 2016.
2. The Cytoskeleton in Health and Disease. Editor Heide Schcitten Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015.
3. Mechcinosensitivity and Mechanotransduction. Editors. A. Kamkin, I. Kiseleva Springer Science+Business Media B. V. 2011.
4. The Ontogenetic Basis of Human Anatomy a Biodynamic Approach to Development from Conception to Birth. Blechschmidt, North Atlantic Books 2004.
5. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the 'Orch OR' theory. Stuart Hamerojf, Roger Penrose Physics of Life Review, Volume 11, Issue 1, March 2014, Pages 39-78.
6. Structured and Functional Changes in Nerve Roots Due to Tension at Various Strains and Strain Rates: An In-Vivo Study. Anita Singh, Srinivcisu Kcdlcikuri, Chcioycing Chen, John M Cavanaugh. Journal of Neurotrauma 26(4), 627-640, 2009.
7. Current status of clinical trials for acute spinal cord injury Michael G Fehlings, Darryl C Baptiste Injury 36 (2), S113-S122, 2005.
8. Mitotic drug targets and the development of novel anti-mitotic anticancer drugs Mathias Schmidt et al. Drug Resist Updcit. Aug-Oct 2007.
9. Retrograde axonal transport: pathways to cell death. Eran Perlson et al. Trends Neurosci. 2010 Jul.
10. Centrosomes, microtubules and neuronal development Marijn Kuijpers et al Mol Cell Neurosci. 2011 Dec.
11. Molecular Mechanisms for High Hydrostatic Pressure-Induced Wing Mutagenesis in Drosophila melanogaster. Huci Wang, Kai Wang, Guanjun Xiao, Junfeng Mci, Bingying Wang, Site Shen, Xueqi Fu, Guangtian Zou & Bo Zou, Scientific Reports, Nature, volume 5, Article number: 14965 (2015).
12. Mechanical Properties of the Cytoskeleton and Cells, Adrian F. Pegoraro, 1 Paul Janmey, 2 and David A. Weitzl, Cold Spring Hcirb Perspect Bio . 2017 Nov l;9(ll):a022038. doi: 10.1101/ cshperspect.a022038.
