The Hypertension Dilemma

High Blood Pressure, or Hypertension, is one of the more common diagnosed conditions that results in a prescription medication or two to manage it. The problem is that while the medication does artificially lower the blood pressure, it does not address the cause - the reason the body decided that an elevated blood pressure was essential to survival. Hypertension is often the first sign of cardiac distress. It foretells of heart disease and potentially deadly consequences. I get why the MD's are so concerned about it, but addressing it with medications as the sole solution is misguided and should be malpractice.

One thing I tell patients when I recommend supplements is that there are few supplements that you should be on for life. Herbs, Glandulars, Vitamins, Minerals - anything that comes in a pill or powder should be used to support a healing process in the body, not as a natural substitution for medication otherwise the only difference is less side effects. Both Medications and Supplements have their time and place in management of Hypertension, but a study done at the University of Chicago Hypertension study reveals that a Chiropractic Exam could uncover a treatment with permanent results that are more effective than two blood pressure medications combined.

The study concluded that when misalignments of the Atlas bone (C1 - or the first cervical bone in the spine) existed, and chiropractic adjustments were given to correct the misalignment, patients saw decreases in blood pressure greater than that of those on two blood pressure lower medications combined. The study was made popular by its appearance on WebMD and has been promoted by pro-chiropractic groups worldwide.

Not everyone with high blood pressure has it because of a C1 misalignment. It is important to understand why the body increases blood pressure in order to track down the cause of the hypertension. Under acute (short-term) stress, the body increases cardiac output to support key organ systems involved in the "fight or flight" stress response. This is why blood pressure increases when we are upset, nervous, scared, disoriented. It's also why our blood pressure increases in higher altitudes, when we engage in vigorous exercise, or when we experience a trauma (whether it be physical, mental , or emotional). This is an intelligent response by the body because the increased cardiac output is required to get us through that stressful environment.

It's when the stress becomes chronic (long-term) that high blood pressure is dangerous. Chronic stress can exist for the body if you are overweight, lacking certain nutrients, have a heavy toxic load, or suffer from mental and emotional issues for a prolonged period of time. It is still intelligent for the body to elevate the blood pressure in order to cope with the effects of long-term stress. So what do you think happens when we artificially cover that up with medications or supplements? The body is going to find another way to adapt to the chronic stress. It might stop converting DHEA to sex hormones so it can make more cortisol (your primary stress hormone), ultimately leading to high cholesterol because the liver has to make more to convert it to cortisol. Increased cortisol levels lead to insulin resistance (Type II Diabetes)  and constriction of blood vessels which leads to ---- yep ---- high blood pressure. So if you have high blood pressure and you suppress it through medication, you could end up with.....high blood pressure and additional problems which I'm sure the drug companies have "answers" for.

That's why addressing the cause is so important. If chronic stress at work is causing your high blood pressure, learn coping mechanisms or find a new job if it's impossible to fix the current situation you are in. If being overweight, or some other medical condition is the cause of your high blood pressure, you may need some sort of medicinal solution while you combat the cause of the other condition. I've always said that medication has it's time and place, but the goal of any good doctor should be to get you on as few medications and the smallest doses possible for the shortest time possible.

And that brings me back to the misalignment of C1. When C1 is misaligned, interference of the regulatory messages between the brain and heart can cause blood pressure to remain elevated when no the body is not under a stressful stimulus. Removing this interference by adjusting C1 back into its optimal orientation in the spine allows the heart and brain to communicate efficiently and properly regulate blood pressure.

If you are not sure what the cause of your blood pressure is, see your chiropractor. If you don't have one, find one. And if you live near me, come to my office (details in the youtube video above) and I'll get down to the cause of your Hypertension. If it's something that chiropractic care can help whether that be through correcting misalignments of C1 or addressing nutrition, exercise, and detox, we are equipped to determine if medical referral or co-management is necessary.

http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20070316/chiropractic-cuts-blood-pressure

Is Chiropractic Care Effective for Back Pain?

I'm taking a break from posting about my personal journey of healing from Ankylosing Spondylitis to talk about several common conditions that people around the world suffer from needlessly. By the time you reach 40 - unless you have been adjusted since birth and never engage in potentially harmful activities - you have had at least one episode of low back pain. So what is the best way of dealing with this?

You are reading a blog written by a Chiropractor, so I know you think I'm going to be biased here. I can provide a bit more input from my personal experiences with an autoimmune disease that specifically causes low back pain. I know what it's like to wake up in the morning and be unable to move from excruciating back pain. I know what it's like to crawl on your hands and knees because walking is either too painful, or because you can't get your back to extend enough to be upright. I know what it's like to take pain killers, muscle relaxers, steroids, cortisone injections, NSAIDs, and immune suppressors to get out of pain. I also know the only thing that has ever provided me with long term relief with no side effects. Let's be real - it's why I became a Chiropractor. Chiropractic works! But don't take my word for it, or my experiences.


The Ontario Ministry of Health hired a renowned heath care economist to make a recommendation on the best approach for Low Back Pain (LBP) due to increasing health care costs for this condition. The first “Manga Report” was published in 1993. This comprehensive study reviewed all the scientific literature on low back pain and made what many in the medical community found to be astonishing recommendations. It concluded that: chiropractic should be the treatment of choice for low back pain – excluding traditional medical care altogether!

Let's look at some of the specific Findings of the report:

"Chiropractic management of low-back pain is more cost-effective than medical management"

Many Insurance companies have done their own studies to arrive at the same conclusion. This is the sole reason why Chiropractic Care for Low Back Pain is a covered service by Medicare.

"Many medical therapies are of questionable validity or are clearly inadequate"

Where many insurance companies could cut premiums is right here. By eliminating questionable therapies and surgeries, health care costs for low back pain would drop significantly. The frustrating thing of the new Health Care Act is that while Chiropractic Care is supposed to be included as an essential service in the same way it is covered by Medicare, States are beginning to enact local exchanges that are excluding Chiropractic Care altogether. I imagine this will end up in the court system sooner or later, but it will be extremely frustrating for some as these "kinks" in the system are worked out.

"There is no valid study that demonstrates or even implies that chiropractic is unsafe in the treatment of low-back pain."

This is where people have somehow missed the boat. I regularly encounter people who are under the impression that Chiropractic Care is not safe. There is clearly no valid research to suggest this, and the Magna Report concurred.

"Some medical treatments are equally safe, but others are unsafe and generate further complications for LBP patients." 

Most of these claims are of no surprise to Chiropractors. We routinely talk to people who are worse off after their surgery, nerve block, or cortisone injection. The reason is that none of these address the cause of the problem - lack of motion integrity in the joints of the lower back. There is only one way to restore this integrity - Chiropractic Care. What the report did not address is that the procedures that are considered equally safe may reduce pain, but rarely improve function. Function is what allows you to pick up your grandson. It's what allows you to play golf, make dinner, clean the house, exercise, and enjoy life. "Safe" surgeries and medications may dull the pain, but they do not restore function which sets up further damage down the road. Pain is there for a reason. Your body is telling you to stop or else you will permanently damage your spine. When we dull the pain instead of addressing the loss of function, we further injure damaged tissues and potentially create a problem that is beyond the help of Chiropractic Care.

"Chiropractic is more cost-effective. There would be highly significant cost savings if more management of LBP was transferred from medical physicians to chiropractors."

I do not know a single Chiropractor that would not refer a true surgical issue to an MD. There are just some spines that you can't fix. That being said, more often than not we can help people with their low back pain. It just makes sense if Chiropractic is the safest and most cost effective treatment that delivers results that Chiropractic be tried first in all scenarios..

"Patients are very satisfied with chiropractic management of LBP and considerably less satisfied with physician management"

This definitely embodies my personal experience with the management of my LBP. Those who are generally not satisfied with Chiropractic Care usually do not complete their recommended number of visits, do not engage in rehab therapy to strengthen deconditioned muscles (either by choice or because their Chiropractor did not recommend it), or their poor experience is unrelated to their treatment (billing, personality conflict, issue with office staff, etc...)

"They were even so bold to recommend that chiropractors should act as the gatekeepers for all musculoskeletal complaints."

I've come across several journals that imply this, but this is the first non-chiropractic organization to make this claim that I know of. It is a sign that the grasp the medical community has on the insurance companies is loosening slightly. My wish is that all doctors could freely practice in their area of specialty and recognize the value that each other brings without being worried about who gets a "piece of the pie" when it comes to insurance dollars. The most emphasized topic in Chiropractic School, believe it or not, is properly identifying when a patient needs to be referred to another office for their condition, including musculoskeletal complaints.

The one thing the Report did not address, nor does it even seek to investigate, is the effect Chiropractic Care for Low Back Pain has on the function of organ systems supplied by the nerves in the lower back. The number of patients is too many to list that report improved digestion, lessened severity of menstrual cramps, resolution of irregular cycles, ability to get pregnant after years of unsuccessful infertility treatments, improved immune function, reduction in prostate swelling, resolved numbness and tingling in the legs, and many other issues we know Chiropractic Care impacts but we don't claim to treat because of law won't allow it. Chiropractic Care is the most effective treatment for Low Back Pain for the following reasons:

1. It addresses the cause of the pain.
2. It restores function and motion to the spine
3. It removes interference in nerve transmissions from the brain to the organ systems supplied by the nerves that exit the spine in the lower back.

If you have back pain, go see your Chiropractor. If you don't have a Chiropractor, get one. If you do not know what to look for in a Chiropractor, ask around, check their reviews online. If you are near Bloomington, IL...call my office and I'll be happy to let you know if your issue is something Chiropractic can effectively treat. (Office information is included in the Youtube video description above)

Back to "Normal" Eating

It's only been 2 days since I stopped Intermittent Fasting and I already miss it. I can definitely tell that the increased energy used for digestion of solid foods throughout the day has left me with less energy overall. I notice it mostly about 30 minutes to 2 hours after a meal. I do feel that overall energy levels now compared to before I did the 7 days of Intermittent Fasting have dramatically improved. I just don't feel as energized as I did while doing the Intermittent Fast.

I should be getting more Beyond Organic products this Wednesday so I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I encourage you to get a copy of Jordan Rubin's book, "Living Beyond Organic". He uses very simple to understand methods of teaching nutrition that most of America desperately needs to learn. Even with the extensive Nutritional Training I have as a Chiropractor, I even learned a few new things. The biggest eye opener was the role that Cultured Whey/Dairy plays in Glutathione production. If you don't know what Glutathione is, consider it the body's garbage collector in the cell. When your cells make waste products, are exposed to toxins, or experience oxidative stress, Glutathione comes to the rescue and cleans the mess up. But if you can't make enough Glutathione to account for the amount of toxins/waste present, you end up with sickness and disease. You make most of your Glutathione in the Liver, but it needs supplies of essential precursors to keep up with the body's demands. This is where Cultured Whey and Dairy come in. They provide a bounty of precursors for Glutathione.

With Autoimmune conditions of any kind, the body is under constant oxidative stress. Very few people with Autoimmune diseases consume enough nutrients to make enough Glutathione to clean up that mess. This is why I felt great while doing the Intermittent Fast, but feel worse now even though I'm eating very healthy food (I haven't touched a single grain in over two weeks). My Glutathione levels were at an all-time high while doing the fast, but have dropped significantly since. Because my body still needs insanely high Glutathione levels to clean up the mess, the benefits of the Fast do not completely carry over to the normal diet.

People with Autoimmune conditions have to attack it from 3 perspectives: Remove the sources of toxicity in their life (Food, Mold, Heavy Metals, etc...), heal their gut (most have leaky gut), and decrease cellular inflammation. Glutathione plays a major role in all three. Cultured Whey and Dairy plays a huge role in all three as well, but I'll save that for a future post.

Intermittent Fasting done...do I have to stop?

Yesterday was Day 6 and it was by far the easiest day - not because it was the last day and I knew it was ending, but because I had the most energy and fewest cravings of any day. I really enjoy intermittent fasting and only wish I had stocked up on more SueroGold and Amasai to continue. I have enough for Day 7, but I'm out of the Plain Amasai which is really what you want to use when intermittent fasting as the flavored Amasai have more sugar than you want in them regardless of whether or not it is just the natural occurring sugar in the fruits. Biggest benefits I noticed while intermittent fasting:

• Decreased sugar and salt cravings after day 3
• I was enjoying dinner more than ever before eating with little variety, but all organic and healthy
• In the past, we've done "cheat meals" from time to time and when my wife asked for one last night, I had no desire to partake in it. That's never happened before.
• Maybe it's just me, but I see muscular changes, however subtle, in my body. Looks like I'm either retaining more muscle mass than before, or possibly gaining. 
• Despite the extreme drop in caloric intake over a 6 day period, I did not lose any weight and may have even put on a pound or two.

That last bullet point deserves further attention. I have always had a problem gaining weight. Prior to becoming a Chiropractor or even learning about healthy eating, I did some crazy things to gain weight. In undergrad, I went on the Big Mac/Whopper diet where I would have 1-2 of the toxic sandwiches per meal along with fries and a shake. I did that for almost a month and gained a whopping 2 pounds. Most people would expect a 10-15 pound gain if not more. In my early twenties, I went on the most successful weight gain campaign ever. I would consume 30-40 grams of protein per meal and do high intensity weight training 3-4 days per week. After 30 days, I put on a grand total of about 7 pounds. 

The problem was I never addressed the root cause: hormone resistance. My body was so effective at burning sugar, that I rarely stored it as fat, But because it became so efficient at burning sugar, it could not burn fat. My leptin receptors became blunted and my brain would never get the messages to burn fat for energy. As a result, my body would catabolize my muscle for sugar to make energy. The 30 day fast food diet I did made things worse as I look back on it because it increased my overall cellular inflammation and the little weight I did gain was due to fat stores increasing while muscle mass was rapidly decreasing. When I finally took on the weight training and high protein intake diet, I was finally able to burn that fat off and build muscle at a slightly faster rate than my body was breaking it down. 

The missing piece was addressing cellular inflammation, which I have done throughout the years through chiropractic care, the cellular healing diet, exercise, and detox. Intermittent fasting has been so successful for me in only 6 days because it addresses two of the above four items: cellular inflammation and detox. Detox pathways are supported by intermittent fasting, especially when consuming large quantities of cultured whey and dairy along with fermented vegetables and purely grass fed beef like the kinds you can get from Beyond Organic. Since discovering Chiropractic and its benefits to promoting optimal function of the entire body, I have regularly been adjusted. Exercise is one of the areas I still need to improve dramatically on, but I am making huge leaps there. I'm getting 2 burst training sessions in per week which incorporate resistance training. I should be getting in 3 cardio focused burst training sessions per week with a 15-30 minutes resistance session prior to each. I'm working my way up. 

If you'd like to experience the above benefits of Intermittent Fasting, read my previous blogs that explain the process, and go to Beyond Organic and stockup on the Amasai and SueroGold. Indulge in some GreenFinished Beef and Grass-fed cheese while you are at it. The more you enjoy the process, the easier it is.

Beyond Organic products can be purchased at http://joeramirezdc.mybeyondorganic.com