Chiropractic Care Shown To Reduce Blood Pressure

A specialized chiropractic adjustment can lower high blood pressure significantly, a controlled study has suggested.

"Utilizing this procedure has the effect of not one, but two blood-pressure reducing medications given in combination," study leader George Bakris, MD, tells WebMD. "It seems to be adverse-event free. We have seen no side effects and no other problems," adds Bakris, director of the University of Chicago hypertension center.

Eight weeks from the time of undergoing the procedure, 25 patients that had early-stage high blood pressure significantly lowered their blood pressure more than 25 similar patients who underwent a fake chiropractic adjustment. Since patients can't feel the technique, they were unable to determine which group they were in.

X-rays revealed that the procedure realigned the Atlas vertebra -- the doughnut-like bone at the very top of the human spine -- with the spine in the treated patients, but not in the fake-treatment patients.

Compared to the fake-treated patients, those who got the actual procedure saw an average 14 mm Hg greater drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure count), and an average 8 mm Hg greater drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom blood pressure number).

None of the patients in the study took blood pressure medicine during the eight-week study.

"When the data statistician presented me with the data, I actually could not believe it. It was too good to be true," Bakris says. "The statistician said, 'I don't even believe it.' But we checked for everything, and there it was."

Bakris and colleagues will report their findings in the advance online issue of the Journal of Human Hypertension.

Atlas Adjustment and Hypertension

The procedure in question calls for adjustment of the C-1 vertebra. It's called the Atlas vertebra because it holds up the head, just as the titan Atlas holds up the world in Greek mythology.

Marshall Dickholtz Sr., DC, of the Chiropractic Health Center, in Chicago, is the 84-year-old chiropractor who performed the procedures in the study. He calls the Atlas vertebra "the fuse box to the body."

"At the base of the brain are two centers that control all the muscles of your body. If you pinch the base of the brain -- if the Atlas gets locked in a position as little as a half a millimeter out of line -- it doesn't cause any pain but it disturbs these centers," Dickholtz tells WebMD.

This subtle adjustment is practiced by only a very small subgroup of chiropractors certified in National Upper Cervical Chiropractic (NUCCA) techniques}. The procedure employs precise measurements to determine a patient's Atlas vertebra alignment. If realignment is determined to be necessary, the chiropractor uses his or her hands to gently manipulate the vertebra.

"We are not doctors. We are spinal engineers," Dickholtz says. "We use mathematics, geometry, and physics to learn how to slide everything back into place."

So, what does this have to do with high blood pressure ?

Bakris notes that some researchers have suggested that injury to the Atlas vertebra can affect the blood flow in the arteries at the base of the skull. Dickholtz thinks the misaligned Atlas triggers release of signals that make the arteries contract. Whether the procedure actually fixes such injuries is unknown, Bakris says.

Bakris began the study after a fellow doctor told him that something strange was happening in his family medical practice. The doctor had been sending some of his patients to a chiropractor. Some of these patients had high blood pressure.

Yet after visiting the chiropractor, the patients' blood pressure had normalized -- and a few of them were able to stop taking their blood pressure medications.

So Bakris, then at Rush University, designed the pilot study with just 50 patients. He's now organizing a much bigger clinical trial.

"Is this going to be for everybody with high blood pressure? No," Bakris says. "We clearly need to identify those individuals who can benefit. It is pretty clear that some kind of head or neck trauma early in life is related to this. This is really a work in progress. It is certainly in the early stages of research."

Dickholtz has been teaching, practicing, and studying the NUCCA technique for 50 years. He says high blood pressure is far from the only thing an Atlas misalignment causes.

"On the other hand, if people have high blood pressure, there is a tremendous possibility they need an Atlas adjustment," he says.

Tannenbaum Chiropractic
4059 Stone School Rd Ann Arbor Michigan 48108
Phone: (734) 929-0444 Fax: (734) 929-0350