Chiropractic and Longevity

Chiropractors help patients live pain-free, longer lives by keeping their spines healthy so their bodies can heal and function at their best.

How does chiropractic care improve joint mobility and help people become more active?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Immobility, or a loss of motion, is usually a sign that a joint is degenerating. It’s kind of similar, I guess, if we had that old car that we just parked around in the backyard and starts rusting away. When no one uses it, the rust will accumulate and build up on a lot of the moving parts, it’ll make it harder to move, it’ll start to degenerate. That can happen inside the engine as well. And doing something as simple as starting the car and driving it about five to 10 minutes, two to three times a week, will keep that car in much better running condition.

As people get older, they have more pain, and then they start to move the joints less, because when they’re in pain, they’re going to be less active. And the interesting thing is when we move the joints, we swirl up the synovial fluid, which lubricates the cartilage and keeps all the nourishing elements in there, because joints don’t have a big blood supply, so they have to move across the joint membrane, and the only way that happens is by moving the joint. That action swirls up the synovial fluid, puts it in contact with the membrane of the joint capsule, and then all the nutrients and things that the joint need diffuses across that membrane.

If that’s not happening, then the joints, just like that old car, will start to rust. They’ll see changes in the articular cartilage. The cartilage becomes a little bit more rough, and then that creates more friction and becomes more painful, and then they use the joints less. That cycle will feed on itself until, if there’s enough rust in the car, the engine won’t start, it’ll seize up. Enough rust in the joint, then they don’t move, and they become more painful. The more painful they are, the less they use them. The less they use them, the more they degenerate. And that process keeps going on and on.

By realigning the vertebrae, getting them to move smoother, it takes a lot of the pressure off the cartilage, and we see less deformation, less arthritic changes, and we can slow that process down. Maybe not eliminate it, but it’ll keep those joints moving healthy. The more they move, the healthier those joints are.

What effects can posture have on our organ function, such as breathing and digesting?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Wow, that’s a great question! It’s interesting, this affects a lot of people. The most common thing that I think of when I talk about people with difficulty breathing or digesting food, it really brings me to the more severe scoliosis cases. Scoliosis is when we have those lateral curvatures, and if you take an X-ray, their spine doesn’t look straight up and down when you’re looking at it from head on, it looks almost serpentine. And so, when people have poor posture, or these scoliosis curves, or they hunch over, something called extreme kyphosis, we’ve all seen that old person really hunched over, that changes the shape of the spine and changes the shape of the chest cavity, and that can compromise lung function, by diminishing the amount of surface area the lungs have.

So, when everything’s all twisted up and hunched over, breathing is one of the biggest problems, and that’s why they’re worried, in some of these kids that demonstrate severe scoliosis when they’re kids. Sometimes they go in and they insert these Harrington rods to try and straighten up, because they’re worried about the compression on the internal organs. Now, those are rare, and those major scolioses aren’t quite as common, but we can see a lot of scoliosis in misalignment.

The other thing that’s important to understand is that the ribs attach to the vertebrae, and when we breathe, they go up and down, like this bucket handle motion. And if you change the alignment, it changes that bucket handle movement, and that alters the pressures, and makes it harder to draw air in. So, that type of misalignment or aberrant mechanics through the thoracic spine, or the mid-back, can certainly affect breathing. If the scoliosis and these things become even more significant, they can compromise and shut down the amount of room around the stomach, which can affect digestion.

When there’s enough stress, tension, and poor posture to create these misalignments, the chiropractor will step in, correct those alignments, get the pressure off the nerves, and allow a freer movement. So, once there’s freer movement, then we’ll get better movement through the ribs up and down, better respiration, better breathing, and better oxygenation. So, it’s important that we make sure that everything is moving right, because oxygenation of the blood is vital for health. So, by the same token, if you misalign the vertebrae and the nerves that weave from that vertebrae segment go to the stomach, and those nerves are irritated, if we speed up the nerve impulses, we’ll have indigestion, constipation, or diarrhea, and all these different things.

It’s so important that there’s nothing irritating the nerves that control these organs. Our bodies do millions of different processes every day, and thousands of these processes are going on simultaneously, so it’s a big job, and the brain has to communicate and control everything. And the clearer that pathway and the better the messaging in the body, the more harmoniously the body works on healing, running, and regulating itself, and it’s optimized.

There’s a lot of different effects that we can see from misalignment, irritation to the nerves, and changing the shape of the thoracic cavity. So, that’s why it’s so important to make sure that we have proper alignment in that area, and really, we can see how misalignments of the spine can affect breathing and digestion.

How does chiropractic care help reduce the likelihood of injuries from slips and falls by increasing flexibility, balance, and coordination?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Liz, I love that question because you kind of answered the first part of the question with the second part of the question. Chiropractic is really good at correcting alignment, improving mechanics, and increasing flexibility, balance, and coordination. Better balance and coordination, yes, you’re going to be less likely to slip, trip, or fall, whether you’re performing just something as simple as walking, or you’re playing football, running a complex pattern to receive a pass, or whatever your sport of choice is. So, better coordination and better movement patterns through the body are less likely to have you slip, trip, and fall.

However, if you do slip, trip, and fall, the more flexible the spine is, the more malleable it is, the easier it is for the spine to disperse the forces and adapt to the forces that happen in that accident or fall. Remember, the discs in between the vertebrae act like a shock absorber. So, any stress, tension, or falls, or anything like that, can affect the body’s ability to absorb shock. So, if things aren’t lined up right, that shock can be more intense, and doesn’t disperse the forces. Then that force goes into the spine and creates injuries or misalignments where those bones slip out of place and start to put pressure on those delicate spinal nerves.

Now, if the body can’t disperse the forces or adapt to that force, then it could actually cause breakage or a fracture of the vertebrae, or even of the ribs. So, a healthy, malleable, springy spine is much better at absorbing shock and rebounding quickly, opposed to one that’s stiff and brittle, right? When that spine hits the floor, it’s more likely to break. A young kid or an infant, their spines are super flexible and malleable: they bounce. Older adults, we break. So, there’s a big difference.

Keeping the spine as healthy, flexible, and as malleable as possible is going to mitigate the amount of forces that come in, and what effects they have on the vertebrae and prevent injury. So again, it’s not a panacea. It doesn’t guarantee if you’re getting adjusted, that you’re never going to get hurt. But the more flexible and bouncy and elastic things are, the less likely they are to do more permanent damage, break, tear, and rip.

Having a positive mental attitude contributes to longevity. In your experience, have you seen how chronic pain can contribute to poor mental health and a negative outlook on life?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Absolutely, Liz. I think the answer is pretty obvious to that. And when you’re in pain, it’s your body communicating and letting you know that something’s wrong. Symptoms are the body’s way of telling you that, “Hey, there’s a problem, and something needs to be done.” So, people in chronic pain tend to have a negative outlook because nothing in life looks good or positive. They’re not excited about going out and taking a walk, they’re not excited about seeing people, because they’re in pain, and they can’t do the things that they used to do, which kind of leads them into depression, or can drive people into that fight or flight reaction, right?

When people are getting depressed, and they get anxious and stressed, then their body starts cranking out adrenaline and cortisol, and we all know how that negatively affects our body, right? Cortisol shuts off the immune system, which slows down healing even more. Adrenaline tightens up the muscles, increases your pain acuity. So, when your body’s loaded up on adrenaline and cortisol, it’s hard for it to calm down the muscles. The muscles are very tense and tight, and your pain acuity goes up, and the body’s ability to heal goes down. So, if you’re constantly in sympathetic overdrive, and stressed out, and under the influence of cortisol and adrenaline, you’re going to be depressed, you’re going to be anxious, you’re going to be angry, you’re going to be easier to anger. And it’s really important, by balancing the nerve system and getting pressure off the nerves, we can restore the balance between cortisol, adrenaline, and get the body into better chemistry, because the neurology of the body dictates the chemistry.

So, also understanding that when you’re constantly running the immune system to heal, the immune system is very metabolically expensive. It runs a lot, and it takes a lot of energy to run it. And then your body can’t focus on just regeneration and all these other things that it should be focusing on. And when the energy is diverted just to constantly trying to heal and regulate, then its body is distracted from its other functions. So, it’s important because the body really wants nothing to do with healing and regenerating when it’s under stress. So, having a positive mental attitude will rid your body of stress, and those dangerous chemicals become more balanced. And then the less dominance of sympathetic overdrive, the happier you are, and the more healthy you are.

It’s also important for older folks to have multi-generational contact. If all you’re doing is hanging out with your peer group, and they’re all getting sick and they’re all passing away, it’s really hard. That’s why, when I watch my parents, they always looked so much younger when they were sitting around and playing with their grandchildren. So, those are important things for longevity, and really important to make sure that you maintain your positive mental attitude, because your attitude of gratitude is everything.

When people are living pain-free due to a healthy spine and nervous system, they take less medication. Could you explain how taking fewer medications has a positive effect on our longevity?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Absolutely. Look, medications, it’s interesting, a lot of people have symptoms and chronic conditions and things like that. Let’s say if someone has chronic headaches, are their headaches really a deficiency of painkillers, muscle relaxers, or anti-inflammatories? I don’t think so. But taking fewer medications can have a positive effect on your health and longevity because all medications are toxic. There are always warnings, and limits to who can take them, how much you can take of them. So, these are chemicals that we put in our body that need to be broken down and detoxified, and then eliminated by the kidneys and liver. So, if you take medications for long periods of time, the toxicity in your body will slowly build, right? And we all know people who’ve taken aspirin for years and years and years, and then all of a sudden, they develop a stomach ulcer. And it wasn’t the first aspirin that caused the ulcer, it wasn’t the last one, it was the constant taking of those medication for years and years and years. And NSAIDs will affect the kidney, and all these other medications will affect the liver.

These things put stress on our body, and we have to waste valuable energy of the body to break down these chemicals and rid them. So, it’s so important that you decrease the toxicity of your body. That’s why people try to eat organic food, they’re filtering their water, and all those different things. It’s so important that we don’t really take a lot of medications, because there’s always side effects. And I love how they call them “side effects”, but they’re really a direct effect of taking the medication, it’s just not the intended effect that they want. You’ve got to be important about the side effects, and making sure our body has the ability to break down those toxins.

Less chemicals means less toxicity in the body, and that gives you a healthy person, who has more energy. His energy is focused on rebuilding and strengthening the body, not wasted on just detoxifying these chemicals that we have to take in. So, it helps our body adapt more when our nerve energy is focused on the positive things, not breaking down these things. They’re necessary. Our kidneys and liver are always constantly filtering and functioning. The better the nerve supply and the healthier those joints move, then the healthier those nerve supplies are to the organs, the better the organs function, the healthier you’re going to be.

It’s all tied in to understanding that the nerve system is the master system, and the healthier the nerve system, the healthier your organs and your body are.

Learn More

To speak with Dr. Gregg Rubinstein, visit www.ChiropractorMidtown.com or call (212) 977-7094 to schedule an appointment.

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