Neuroimmune Changes After a Spinal Adjustment | Podcast Ep. 403

Foreign hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langme. Today's episode, we are back with more research and it is another brand new study with a really, really interesting topic. It is all about neuroimmune responses after spinal adjustments. This is a randomized placebo controlled trial. Just came out and we are going to dive to what the researchers found on today's episode. Before we get started, I'll say a few words about Patient Pilot by the Smart Chiropractor. Send emails, get reactivations. If you have an email list over 300, you're missing opportunity. If you're not sending weekly email newsletters, we make it easy. And this week we are launching a huge upgrade to Patient Pilot which includes daily patient reactivation reports. So from now on you will receive a daily report showing you exactly the first and last name of people who clicked the call to schedule and click to schedule buttons so that you can ensure they aren't just clicks, but they're actually people that end up back on your schedule. That's all happening at the smart chiropractor.com hop on a demo at the smart chiropractor.com but as I said at the top of today's episode, we're talking research. I'll drop a link down in the show notes to the paper itself. It came out in scientific reports in 2023. Brand new, it is titled Immediate Systemic Neuroimmune Responses following Spinal Mobilization and Manipulation in People with Nonspecific Neck Pain. A randomized placebo controlled trial. So we've seen some of these studies in the low back lumbar spine. This one's taking a look at the cervical spine and specifically those individuals with neck pain. They were measuring tumor necrosis factor IL1 10 minutes and 2 hours after the intervention. And let's just dive into those details right now. So we know spinal mobilization and manipulation is pretty common management technique at this point that's endorsed by pretty much everybody out there for individuals struggling with spine pain. Additionally, we've seen systematic reviews, which is a very high level of evidence showing that mobilization and manipulation improve pain and function at short term follow up. And we've even seen that extending into mid range and long term follow up. And even with maintenance care as we talked about last week and the reasons for this are varied. As we know, understanding the mechanisms of action are pretty difficult to ascertain. We have clues, we have little bits here and there, but it is a story that continues to unfold. But the Thought is there is effects on neurophysiology, there's biomechanical effects, there's psychological responses. Those are sort of the buckets, which are, no surprise, sort of a biopsychosocial model in some respects, but that is how we see it working. But we're continuing to discover and learn more about how does it work at a cellular level. And we've again, great studies have come out. This study adds to that. So systemic inflammatory markers, such as C reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor, are commonly elevated for people that have pain, and specifically people that have persistent or chronic neck pain and radicular pain. And these immune responses have an association with pain intensity and perceived recovery. And this suggests that spinal pain has an inflammatory component. No surprise there. And we've broke down on previous episodes, sort of the buckets of pain, so to speak. And inflammatory pain is a component of this. And an inflammation can happen in a variety of different pain patterns, whether correlative or causative. Inflammation is not a good thing to have going on when you have pain. Now, incidentally, the early inflammatory response typically is actually the beginning of the healing process, as we know. But if it hangs around too long and things become chronic, that's when we start to become sensitized. That's when the cascade of all the real negative stuff starts to happen. So it's previously been talked about that spinal manipulation, spinal adjustments, stimulate the, and this is a tough one, hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Wow, that's a mouthful. And the sympathetic adrenal medullary axis. And it promotes autonomic nervous system and immune system interactions that diminish systemic inflammation. So there's a lot of, a lot of words going on in that statement. But the bottom line is the thought is when you get a spinal adjustment, that there's an impact on the autonomic nervous system, there's an impact potentially on the neuroimmune system, and that can potentially decrease systemic inflammation. That's what they were trying to take a look at. So there have been previous studies that showcased how spinal manipulation and mobilization can attenuate the inflammatory immune response. So we've seen that previously. This study sought to kind of extend that knowledge base. So this was a placebo controlled randomized trial with immediate follow up, and it basically had about 100 people with nonspecific neck pain. They had a little bit more than that, and they narrowed it down to 100. And these individuals were randomly allocated to an experimental group. 75 went that way. And a placebo control group 25 went that way. Now, the experimental group, as you can imagine, they received the spinal mobilizations and at the site of pain and at the site of restriction. And they received a spinal manipulation at the cervicothoracic joint. So this is an interesting point. I wanna highlight this early on before we get to the results. They only mobilized the painful and restricted cervical level. They manipulated or adjusted the cervical thoracic junction. So this is a key aspect because we've highlighted on this podcast previously the differences. Mobilization and manipulation are really two totally different things. And the body takes that input in dramatically and processes that input in dramatically different ways. So make no mistake, this is not that they were providing an adjustment at the level of challenge. They were not. They were immobilizing the painful and restricted level and adjusting the cervical thoracic junction. So key to point that out. Now, the aim was, of course, as you can imagine, to decrease pain intensity. Makes sense. Improve cervical range of motion. And the control group went with a placebo mobilization and manipulation. So that was how they split this apart. But I have a little bit of bone to pick with the fact that the cervical thoracic joint was manipulated or adjusted and not the level of challenge. I think that that plays a role in some of what we'll see in the results, although they don't really highlight it in their discussion. So with results, they talked about the fact that there were meaningful differences in the effect of spinal mobilization and manipulation on clinical outcomes such as pain intensity, cervical range of motion. We've seen this happen time and time again. When you get in and get movement into a joint that is painful, it is a good thing. Now, too much movement, of course you can overdo it, but the bottom line is movement based care works. It is the frontline strategy. It's the first line strategy and it's what's recommended for a reason. There's exceptionally high efficacy, it works an overwhelming majority of the time to a really high degree, and there's very little risk or side effect. Now what they also noted was they did not identify any differences in neuroimmune response at the systemic level between the experimental and the placebo interventions. And they highlight the fact that this is not easy. There is conflicting results in previous studies on the potential to change serum and salivary cortisol levels following mobilization or manipulation. And it's proposed that pain might be inhibited due to the anti inflammatory or antinociptive effects of cortisol. But these things are really difficult to analyze and due to why? Well, there's like a nonlinear neuroimmune response. As they point out, it makes the interpretation of the data pretty complicated. So while we see trends and humans respond in a general way, there's a lot of complication that occurs. And it's not exactly A plus B equals C, which is typically that's what a paper is trying to analyze. If I do A plus B, what happens with C. But when things are nonlinear, such as a neuroimmune response, there's a lot going on. There's a lot going into that. It is really dynamic. It makes narrowing things down pretty difficult. Now, they do highlight the fact that future research may want to focus on localized neuroimmune responses at the level of the drg, the dorsal root ganglion, the spinal cord, or the brain, as opposed to systemic. I feel like that's an interesting point. Tying back to how they segmented the audiences in this group or how they segmented the control and the experimental groups. Not only was there more people in the experimental group than the control group, but again, I'll kind of tie this back around. I like the idea of a follow up study highlighting what's going on locally because we know when you get in there and adjust a level of the spine, there is peripheral change, there's local change, and there is central change. We've seen that again highlighted many times on this podcast. So the challenge with this study, in my mind, I love the fact that they're doing the research. I love the fact that we saw decrease in pain, we saw improvement in range of motion. I'd pretty much expect that at this point in time, pretty much no matter what the design of the study, because we just know getting in there and providing movement works. But my bone to pick with the researchers and it's not a big one. They did their best. But I would love to see, maybe as a better way to put it, I'd love to see a future study that has an adjustment take place at the level of challenge as opposed to the cervical thoracic junction. I feel like that's going to give a much more accurate representation of what's going on, quite frankly, in both capacities, both systemically. I'd love to see it redone with systemic changes evaluated when somebody is adjusted at the level of challenge. Additionally, I'd love to see the localized changes at the dorsal root ganglion at the spinal cord, what's going on peripherally as well as centrally when somebody is adjusted at the level of pain or challenge. Now this opens up A can of worms. Cause you could say, well, how specific is an adjustment really? And that's a conversation for a different day. But the bottom line is this is a really, really interesting study. I love the fact that they're continuing the conversation and they bring up the fact that this is a story that is literally unfolding as we speak. This study just came out in 2023. It's building upon previous literature. As a matter of fact, it was published online just this month. And. And it's building upon previous literature and it's highlighting what can be done in the future to drive further understanding of how an adjustment works. Which to me is the core essence of everything that is involved in this study. And what they cite as we get in there, as clinicians and quite frankly, as chiropractors have known since the 1930s, it works. People come in with challenges, you know, musculoskeletal that sometimes they come in with outside, you know, organic challenges. And we see the transformation. But it takes a long time, as we've also seen, for the research to catch up and understand that. And it starts with just being able to actually measure things. It's really hard to measure how dynamic what we do is because it impacts so much of the central nervous system. So being able to really niche that down segment out. What's happening with biomarkers in the brain, what's happening with just biomechanics at that level, what's happening at the dorsal root ganglion, what's happening at the central nervous system, what's happening with pain gating. All of this has taken decades to unfold. And I'm really excited for the coming decades as we continue to learn more about how an adjustment impacts the body. Because the more that we understand how that that happens. I got a feeling because we've already seen this teased, we've seen sports performance. Cortical drive increases temporarily. There is a lot to what we do that as we learn more, it will not, in my opinion, restrict our ability. In other words, saying, oh, these people do well with it, these people don't. And we should be fearful that the amount of people that do well with the care we provide is gonna dwindle. And that's going to limit our ability to help people. I actually think it's gonna go totally the other way. Considering how dynamic we know an adjustment to be. And we see this again, I think about it in terms of sports performance. Cause it's the easiest way to think about it. Why would professional sports teams that have the most on the line trust chiropractors to adjust most of their athletes not for medical reasons, but for performance benefits. Yet the irony being the person down the street who's 50 pounds overweight, doesn't move, is terrified that a chiropractic adjustment is is total hogwash. It's completely crazy when you look at athletes worth billions of dollars being adjusted. Talk about having a lot on the line. If what was going on with an adjustment was any bit risky, was any bit of snake oil, those individuals would not be doing it. I'll tell you. They have the most to lose and the most on the line and all of them basically see a chiropractor. But transmitting that information to knowledge is what we're still trying to do. So keep getting out there telling the story, hopefully keep paying attention to this podcast, amongst other great ones, to continue to learn more about what's going on in and around what we do as chiropractors. Also, thank you for being a chiropractor. I think that's one of the most important things that you can be in today's day and age, that is for sure. And if your practice is building and growing, which I hope it is, and you're looking to add on a virtual chiropractic assistant, 70% less cost than in office, by the way, an in office chiropractic assistant or a new associate, now is the time to do so. And Cairo Matchmakers is the company that can make it easy. Instead of relying on gut and having high staff turnover that costs you a lot of time and money. Hiring the right person can create more revenue and time freedom for you. And Cairo Matchmakers has the entire process dialed in because they are professional recruiters and you are not. So if you want to hire the right person the first time to ensure that you're generating the most revenue possible, just schedule a complimentary call, have a conversation Chiromatchmakers.com, schedule a call with the team and we are happy to guide you in terms of what's the best plan of action for you to achieve your ultimate result. So if you're thinking about hiring ChiroMatchmakers.com, otherwise, have a fantastic week in practice and I will talk to you soon.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. If you want to grow your practice, come back for next week's episode. If you want to grow faster, visit the evidencebasedchiropractor.com and join our MD Marketing membership today.