LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

genetics

Novel Common Genetic Risk Factor for Lumbar Disk Disease – (05-10-01)

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Novel Common Genetic Risk Factor for Lumbar Disk Disease

With the completion of the human genome project there seems to have been this burst of wanting to blame genetics for the chronic diseases of today’s society. With diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, it is shown consistently that environment plays a much larger part in disease determination than genetics. In addition, all these diseases are multi-modal, meaning that, if genetics do play a part, it is a series of multiple genes all contributing to an end result and not likely to benefit from genetic manipulation towards a single gene. My thoughts on a genetic factor for LBP are based on what I see in my office. Most patients have experienced some event that created an initial injury and they never completely healed from that injury. Future episodes of LBP are just extensions of that initial injury. There may be some genetic factor contributing to the condition in a small percentage of the population, but money would be better spent promoting chiropractic for LBP than discovering some pharmaceutical to fix the underlying genetic problem.

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Relative importance of genetic effects in rheumatoid arthritis – (02-04-02)

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Relative importance of genetic effects in rheumatoid arthritis

Actually, this study shows the relatively “un” importance of genetics. While I do believe that genetics plays a role in development of this condition, I feel that (much like most other chronic diseases), it is the environment that we plunge these genes into. Given this study’s findings, should we not reconsider the barrage of pharmaceuticals given RA patients (despite lack of impact on long term disease progression) in lieu of lifestyle changes?

bmj.com Abstracts: Svendsen et al. 324 (7332): 264

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MY DAD HAD LOW BACK PAIN, SO I GUESS I’LL GET IT

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It is not an uncommon belief for a person to think that, because one or both of their parents suffered from low back pain that they, too, will suffer from low back pain.  While genetics may play a role, it is nowhere near the most critical one.

This particular study on twins finds that genetics only play about a 11-13% role for patients who have both low back pain and lumbar disc degeneration.  This means that there are other factors at play in the risk for developing low back pain.

In general, the better we take care of ourselves, the lower our risk of developing disc degeneration.  This means adopting a lifestyle that avoids diabetes, exercising and maintaining flexibility through things like yoga.

You see, the discs of our spine do not have their own blood supply. Rather, they are fed nutrients through smaller blood vessels.  So what happens if plague begins to form on these important blood vessels bringing nutrients to the disc?  You guessed it–reduced nutrient delivery and the disc cannot keep up with physiological demands so it begins to break down.

So, protecting your heart will also protect these important blood vessels which will, in turn, protect the discs of your spine.  Certainly other factors like imbalance, poor posture and past trauma play a role as well, but I do not feel that the role is as great as protecting the blood vessels that feed nutrients to our discs.

The lucky thing is that an anti-diabetic lifestyle just so happens to also be an anti-heart disease / pro blood vessel health lifestyle.  See how nicely that works out?  Just when you thought you were going to have to pick a disease you wanted to avoid with lifestyle..