I am not going to spend a lot of time discussing annual physical examinations because I've already shown you that for at least 30 years, the peer-reviewed scientific literature has been saying they are largely a waste of time and money (HERE).  Sure, there are people who are "saved" by routine exams. But another of those dirty little secrets is that for every person who is saved by these and the myriad of similar tests we typically refer to as "PREVENTATIVE," someone is dying on the back end due to a phenomenon that has been dubbed by the medical research community as "OVERDIAGNOSIS & OVERTREATMENT" --- largely the result of false-positive tests (a Google search will show you just how prevalent this problem really is). 

My opinion of "routine" blood work has for years been about the same as I feel about bone-density tests for OSTEOPOROSIS --- it's mostly used as a tool to get more people taking more medicine and making more visits to more doctors.  It seems that this thought process is gaining traction in academic circles.  I say academic circles because just like we saw with practicing physicians and physical examinations, they will probably push back to the bitter end (HERE), ignoring their own "EVIDENCE". 

Enter Dr. Ken Lin of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (a practicing GP who also acts as a professor for preventive medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, and Johns Hopkins University.  After addressing routine CT SCANS, Lin said the following, while writing for the American Academy of Family Physicians in an editorial that was published one decade ago today (Are Some Screening Tests Doing More Harm Than Good?).

"Big-ticket tests are easy targets for those seeking to reduce waste in health care. But what about the seemingly innocuous practice of performing routine tests such as a complete blood count (CBC) or urinalysis? Both are far less expensive than CT scans and can often be performed in the office at the time of the visit. More than one third of family physicians in the United States think that CBC and urinalysis should be offered routinely at health maintenance examinations, and these tests are ordered for 25 to 37 percent of patients who present for such visits.  Many physicians have anecdotal recollections about detecting a serious disease with routine CBC or urinalysis.  In fact, large prospective studies performed in the early 1990s concluded that these tests rarely identify clinically significant problems when performed routinely in general outpatient populations.  Like unproven big-ticket screening tests, screening CBCs and urinalyses waste time and money, interfere with providing worthwhile tests, and may end up doing more harm than good."

There is an increasing number of physicians and researchers coming to similar conclusions.  Writing for one of the journals that fall under the umbrella of the British Medical Journal (this one BMJ Opinion), three physicians (two orthopedists and an public health official from Cambridge) authored an article just a few months ago called Should We Abandon Routine Blood Tests?  I'll try to sum up the gist of this short article by cherry-picking you a conclusion.

"Historically, blood tests in secondary care were requested for defined indications and only after a detailed clinical history and examination of the patient. Every investigation required justification. However, requesting a standard battery of blood tests without due regard to clinical indication has become the norm.  Figures from the Department of Health for England show that over 230 million biochemistry and 47 million hematology investigations were requested in 2014-15... with some estimates of up to £3 billion (four billion dollars) for the NHS [Britain's national healthcare system] as a whole.  [Routine blood work has become a] psychological comfort blanket for clinicians, masking an over-reliance on investigations or a lack of confidence in clinical judgment."

In other words, not only are these tests expensive when taken as a whole, running them on everyone is a relatively new phenomenon that does not pay the huge dividends the public has been led to believe it does.  What has this done?  Just ask older doctors.  It has created a dependency (these authors used the term "over-reliance") on technology and diagnostic testing.  What's the solution?  Easy.  You must understand what the term "preventative medicine" really means (HERE); not our perversion of the term (HERE, HERE, and HERE). Unfortunately, we are using it in a way that expands medicine (it doesn't really "prevent" much of anything), while doing little to actually help corral said problems or help people actually get healthier.

If you are interested in getting healthier and getting your life back, most of you are going to have to quit relying on your doctor(s) to save you.  The proof that this seemingly harsh statement is true has to do with the fact that even though America (at a population of about 5% of the world's total) is consuming almost three quarters of the world's medications; we consistently rate around 30th as far as overall health, and about 90th when it comes to CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY DEGENERATIVE and / or AUTOIMMUNE diseases (HERE).  It's a travesty that proves just how UNSUSTAINABLE our healthcare system really is, whether controlled by democrats or republicans.

If you are interested in getting your life back, getting out of pain, and starting a journey back to true health, just remember that your doctor can't do it for you.  It's largely up to you to do it yourself.  You have to do the heavy lifting here.  The promises of medicine are empty in this regard.  So why not start today?  I have actually created a free (generic) protocol that could help you turn the tide and start winning the fight (HERE).  No matter what your problem is (even many of you who have been told there is no solution because your issue is "GENETIC"), this is information that you should at least take a look at.  And the doubly cool thing is that I am not trying to sell you anything.

"The fundamental question we must confront is: why, for four decades, since the mid-1960s, were millions of women prescribed powerful pharmacological agents already shown, three decades earlier, to be carcinogenic?"  From the study discussed directly below

I well remember when the SHTF concerning HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy).  It was 2002, and the massive WHI study (Women's Health Initiative) had reached conclusions that were 180 degrees opposite of what women (not to mention their doctors) had been told for the better part of four decades --- that HRT was not only safe, but could actually help prevent a bevy of female diseases and health issues.  Shortly after, a massive response to this study by over twenty elite researchers and physicians was published in one of the many journals put out by BMJ --- the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health (Hormone Replacement Therapy, Cancer, Controversies, and Women’s Health: Historical, Epidemiological, Biological, Clinical, and Advocacy Perspectives).   Pay attention as these authors release a firestorm.

"Routine acceptance of use of HRT was shattered in 2002 when results of the largest randomised clinical trial of HRT, the women’s health initiative, conducted in a population of mainly healthy women, indicated that long term use of the combined estrogen plus progestin not only was associated with increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer but, contrary to expectations, did not decrease, and may in fact have increased, risk of cardiovascular disease. Similar results were reported in 1998 by the smaller heart and estrogen/progestin replacement study (HERS), conducted among women with a history of cardiovascular disease. Together, these findings were treated as unexpected in both the scientific literature and popular media, given nearly four decades’ worth of recommendations, based on clinical experience, laboratory research, and observational epidemiological studies, for using HRT to stave off ill effects of aging and to prevent cardiovascular disease."

What was the Women's Health Initiative and should the results have been "unexpected"?  The NIH (National Institutes of Health) started following 162,000 post-menopausal American women back in the early 1990's, looking at HRT as it specifically related to HEART DISEASE, CANCER, and OSTEOPOROSIS (in this case, the authors were trying to determine the magnitude of benefit or HRT for slowing down said diseases).  What was not surprising is that the study found no benefit of CALCIUM PLUS VIT D for preventing fractures.  Nor did they find any sort of RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIET AND CANCER.  What they did find, however, was that HRT did not perform as universally touted.  Our nation's highest pinnacle of truth and firmest pillar of exactitude (Wikipedia) put it this way.

"The HRT component had originally been designed to include a follow-up period of nine years. However, interim monitoring of the combined estrogen/progestin treatment group indicated an increased risk of breast cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, and pulmonary embolism, which outweighed the evidence indicating a benefit in preventing colorectal cancer and fractures. As a consequence, the study was stopped in July 2002, with an average follow-up period of 5.2 years. The unopposed estrogen trial was halted in February 2004, after an average follow-up period of 6.8 years, on the basis that unopposed estrogen did not appear to affect the risk of heart disease, the primary outcome, which was in contrast to the findings of previous observational studies. On the other hand, there were indications for an increased risk of stroke.  As a consequence of the findings, which indicated that the incurred risks of HRT outweigh the identified benefits, the study authors recommended that HRT not be prescribed for the purpose of chronic disease prevention in postmenopausal women."

Gulp!  How many times have you heard of a study this huge being halted midstream because the authors realized just how dangerous the thing(s) being studied (MEDICAL PROCEDURES / DRUGS) really are?  That, folks, is exactly what happened here.  But it's not like these findings were really new a decade and a half ago in 2002, even though most "experts" were walking around in a daze as though it were.  In the section labeled "History" in the BMJ study, the authors addressed the fact that we've known about the many problems associated with HRT since the 1930's --- not much different, really, than the amazing work of DR. OTTO WARBURG that both the practicing and scientific medical communities continue to ignore en masse. 

For instance, these authors revealed of the first wave of HRT biomedical research decades earlier that, "in the 1930s, once laboratory techniques succeeded in making estrogens available as a manufactured drug.... biochemists and endocrinologists conducted animal experiments that provided evidence of the carcinogenicity of sex hormones. For clinicians, these studies translated to debates about the correct dose to be given, as hormones were viewed as 'natural' and thus not intrinsically harmful."  The second wave of HRT research started in the 1960's, mostly as a result of widespread use of "The Pill".  The FDA had approved the drug Enovid for contraceptive use by women in 1960, which is a large part of what led to Robert Wilson's famous book.  Here are some cherry-picked sentences from Forever Health dot com (A Brief History of Hormone Replacement Therapy).

"In 1966, Robert A. Wilson, M.D.'s book, Feminine Forever, informed women that 'menopause is completely preventable' and advised them to take estrogen. The promise of remaining 'feminine forever' was met with enthusiasm, and synthetic estrogen became the standard therapy for women undergoing 'the change'. When it later became obvious that estrogen encourages the growth of the uterine lining, which could increase the risk of cancer, the medical community suggested progesterone to protect the uterus. But rather than combine bioidentical progesterone with estrogen, pharmaceutical companies added progestin, a synthetic form of progesterone that was patentable.  As a result, Prempro was born. It combined synthetic progesterone (progestin) with Premarin, a drug composed of three estrogens (estrone, equilin, and equilenin) that are derived from horse urine [Premarin = pregnant mare's urine].  While the drugs relieved menopausal symptoms for millions of women, the long-term effects were unknown."

This last sentence is true of most drugs (actually it's not completely true of most drugs --- we already know that long-term use of most drugs takes you to bad places --- HERE).  You'll never hear me argue the fact that drugs (at least many drugs) don't do what they are supposed to do as far as relieving symptoms is concerned.  For instance, CORTICO-STEROIDS are almost miraculous in their ability to relieve pain and the effects of unbridled INFLAMMATION.  However, click the provided links and you'll see just how scary these drugs really are over the long haul (not to mention the fact that the relief is usually extremely short-lived).  We see the same thing for the rest of THE BIG FIVE as well as HEARTBURN MEDICATIONS, ANTIDEPRESSANTS, OSTEOPOROSIS DRUGS, DIABETES MEDS, etc, etc, etc, etc.  And we've seen it with HRT.  What did BIG PHARMA do about the situation?  Believe me when I tell you that they did not go down without a fight.

Shortly after making the statement, "Only a small fraction of the roughly 100,000 chemicals in commerce have been tested for endocrine activity, and some 2,000 new chemicals are brought to the market each year," the BMJ authors discussed the reason we have so much trouble trusting EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE.  "[The pharmaceutical industry's] influence has been achieved not only through the direct funding and control of research, but also by funding the training and continuing education of scientists and physicians alike. These latter practices, however, are rarely if ever regulated by governments, which instead chiefly have been concerned with regulating marketing of pharmaceutical products and providing funds for basic research critical for industrial science. Together, these priorities have fueled the rise of a subsidiary biomedical industry involving the conduct of clinical trials and clinical epidemiology."  And while I'll not belabor it here, the next point these authors made was the manner in which public regulatory agencies such as the FDA are incestuously (financially) bound to said industry.  It's a filthy round-robin --- a vicious cycle of payoff and deceit, deceit and payoff.  A profit-at-any-cost game that proves just how little this industry cares about anything besides their bottom line.

Not surprisingly, said industry has made sure there are significant numbers of studies and scientific papers refuting the WHI study and showing how the data was interpreted incorrectly.  After all, Big Pharma will never intentionally leave this kind of money on the table. How much money are we talking about?  Beyond the billions for the HRT itself, there's the cost of treating the massive amount of collateral damage.  According to a dozen researchers writing in the May 2014 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine (Economic Return From the Women’s Health Initiative Estrogen Plus Progestin Clinical Trial), it adds up to as much as 68 billion dollars.  Honestly, it's almost numbing to contemplate.

"Compared with the no-WHI scenario, the WHI scenario resulted in $35.2 billion in direct medical savings. Most of the savings came from fewer [HRT] users and associated office visits ($26.2 billion), decreased breast cancer incidence ($4.5 billion), and decreased cardiovascular disease incidence ($2.2 billion)...   Thus, the WHI scenario created $49.5 billion ($31 to $68 billion) in additional net monetary benefit compared with the no-WHI scenario."

Fast-forward to the post-Y2K era. Even though the late Dr. John Lee was talking about bioidenticals back in the 1980's, thanks to Oprah, Suzanne Somers, Dr. Jonathan Wright, and any number of others; as the HRT option sagged, the bioidentical movement exploded (it's usually referred to as BHT or Bioidentical Hormone Therapy).  While BHT is undoubtedly better than HRT, health columnist Christopher Wanek, writing for LiveScience (Suzanne Somers' Health Advice May Be Dangerously Wrong) explains why it's not as "better" as you might think.

"Bioidentical hormones are identical at a biological and chemical level to hormones made in the body, and are mostly made from plants.  There is no evidence that bioidentical or FDA-approved non-bioidentical hormones behave differently in the body. Both are natural in that they can be derived from plants and sometimes mare urine. Both are unnatural in that they are made in a factory… and, well, derived from plants and mare urine."

While this might seem harsh to women who have used these "natural" hormones with good results, there is no good science showing that bioidenticals are better than HRT.  This point was driven home by a paper published six years ago this month by the Mayo Clinic's journal, Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Bioidentical Hormone Therapy).  What's especially interesting is that this paper took BHT a step further and also dealt extensively with CBHT or Compounded Bioidentical Hormone Therapy --- the very specific hormone mixtures one gets from a compounding pharmacy, with a scrip from a doctor who specializes in such.

"In 2002, results from the estrogen plus progestin arm of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) revealed an increased risk of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and thromboembolic events in women taking conjugated equine estrogen and medroxyprogesterone acetate compared with those in the placebo group. These findings prompted many women to discontinue HRT or to seek a safer alternative to FDA-approved HRT for treatment of menopausal symptoms. As a result of the WHI, many women ask their physicians for non–FDA-approved compounded bioidentical HRT (CBHT), which is also known as natural HRT, believing that it is safer than FDA-approved therapy. It is estimated that CBHT is a multibillion-dollar industry, possibly affecting millions of women.  No evidence currently suggests that custom CBHT formulations offer clinically relevant benefit over the FDA-approved products available to treat the symptoms of menopause."

Granted, much of the outcry against BHT / CBHT is coming from the pharmaceutical industry itself, who wants to see the bioidentical industry take a hard fall like it did with the WHI HRT fiasco.  The truth is, drug companies cannot make big money on bioidenticals.  Why not?  What drug companies did with HRT (think Premarin and Prempro here) was to slightly "tweak" the chemical structure of estrogen or progesterone, turning a natural hormone into something ever so slightly different that could be patented and sold for a lot of bucks.

The problem is that unfortunately Wanek's assertion is largely correct.  Even though bioidenticals are definitely better options than the synthetics used in HRT, they carry many of the same potential side effects, one being ESTROGEN DOMINANCE (ratios of these hormones are as important as individual hormone levels)  Also be aware that there are any number of potential issues from taking Progesterone Creams (HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE).  For instance, most of these preparations are made mostly with SOY --- a known PHYTOESTROGEN --- as opposed to the wild yam. 

The truth is, when it comes to bioidenticals, there are many different approaches that women are taking, depending on what approach their doctor deems best or does in their clinic.  Some practitioners will throw out lab testing altogether, prescribing from patient symptoms.  Some will use lab levels to determine what hormones are "low" so that those that are "deficient" can be bumped up into the normal range. Still others use, in many cases along with HGH, CBHT to achieve (or at least try to achieve) youthfulness. In theses cases, doctors are trying to get these women's hormones back to the peak levels they had in their younger days (youthful hormone levels become the goal).  All three of these approaches to CBHT have their problems.

Suffice it to say that despite what Suzanne Somers told you on her late night infomercial, BHT / CBHT is not necessarily everything it's often been made out to be.  Could there be a better way to do hormone replacement?  Or better yet, what if you could do away with hormone replacement altogether and figure out a way to help your body regulate it's own hormones?  After all, knowing what we know about all forms of HRT / BHT / CBHT and increased health risks, it only makes sense.

"More than half of the entire benzene production is processed into.... polymers, adhesives, plastics, and nylon fibers, which are processed into textiles and engineering plastics. Smaller amounts of benzene are used to make some types of rubbers, lubricants, dyes, detergents, drugs, explosives, and pesticides. As a gasoline additive, benzene increases the octane rating and reduces knocking. Benzene increases the risk of cancer and other illnesses, and is also a notorious cause of bone marrow failure...  aplastic anemia, acute leukemia, and bone marrow abnormalities.The American Petroleum Institute stated in 1948 that "it is generally considered that the only absolutely safe concentration for benzene is zero". Because benzene is ubiquitous in gasoline and hydrocarbon fuels are in use everywhere, human exposure to benzene is a global health problem. Benzene targets liver, kidney, lung, heart and the brain and can cause DNA strand breaks, chromosomal damage, etc. Benzene causes cancer in animals including humans. Benzene has been shown to cause cancer in both sexes of multiple species of laboratory animals exposed via various routes."  From Wikipedia's entry on Benzene

You see, in the big scheme of things, HRT for menopause, let alone any other purpose, is something brand new in history. Women have been going through "the change" --- mostly without major difficulties or serious problems --- ever since there were women.  It was just that it was always considered a normal part of life as opposed to a pathological condition.   But then came the POLLUTED, chemicalized (see above), stressed out, OVER-VACCINATED, SYNTHETIC, artificial, PROCESSED, 20th century. Suffice it to say that nothing on this way-too-short list is getting better in the 21st.

In order to understand why regulating your own hormones is the best option, it's important to realize that for the most part, these hormones didn't go awry on their own.  You need to understand the chief reason(s) female hormones get out of balance in the first place.  There are three biggies in modern America (honestly, they would be the top three for most NON-GENETIC endocrine problems). 

• STRESS:  What can I say?  It was the brilliant Hans Selye who showed us that 2/3 of all sickness and disease is related to stress (ACTIVATION OF THE HPA AXIS) --- clear back in the mid 1900's.  And whether that stress is physical, mental, emotional, or dietary, technology may have made life easier over the course of the last seventy years, but it sure hasn't made it less stressful.  Speaking of dietary stress.....

 

• SUGAR / CARBS:  I've shown you how our national fixation with LIVING THE HIGH CARB LIFESTYLE not only feeds our national epidemic of infertility (HERE), but is actually turning men into women, and women into men (HERE).  Over the last two decades, I have heard any number of leaders in the field of natural endocrinology say that most hormonal problems (sex hormones or otherwise --- CHOLESTEROL INCLUDED) start with blood sugar regulation issues (don't be fooled by "good" numbers on your blood sugar test (HERE) --- especially just because you are young and thin --- HERE).

 

• HORMONE DISRUPTORS:  If we compare estrogen to one of the single most common industrial chemicals on the planet, benzene, what we see is that they look very much alike (benzene is a hardcore XEHOHORMONE / XENOESTROGEN).  This is true of any number of other chemicals as well.  We (appropriately) call these "ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS". As you might notice from the pictures below, string together a chain of six-sided benzene molecules, and you have a pretty good estrogen mimic on your hands.  Now make sure these mimics can be found in your food, your clothes, your house, your car, your colognes / perfumes / scents, etc, etc, etc, and you can see how this exposure adds up.  In essence, both men and women are swimming in a sea of estrogen, leading to the Estrogen Dominance I spoke of earlier, and saturating receptors to the point that the body starts becoming "resistant" to its effects --- sort of like what we see with INSULIN RESISTANCE (TYPE II DIABETES) or any number of similar.

What makes the Functional Endocrinology approach to HRT different than the other two approaches? Simple --- the fact that it's not based on "replacement".  It's instead based on solving the underlying problems above, particularly ratcheting up the body's ability to detox excess hormones or endocrine disruptors (BIOTRANSFORMATION is the medical word for this process, whether it occurs via GUT MICROBIOTA, the liver, or the kidney), as well as supporting your body's natural ability to make its own hormones.  Why is this approach better? 

The "Functional Endocrinology" approach is better because in most cases, YOUR ENDOCRINE GLANDS are not defective, nor are your symptoms caused by a "deficiency" of hormones.  On top of the problems mentioned earlier, the feedback loops to the PITUITARY GLAND get fouled up, as do the hormone receptors themselves. Not to mention; how many women are aware that diminished THYROID HORMONES, progesterone, or estradiol, can cause LEAKY GUT SYNDROME? 

The cool thing is that even though you might need to see a true specialist in female hormones (in our neck of the woods that title is held by DR. CARRIE CARDA of Poplar Bluff, an OB/GYN who does some very cool Functional Endocrinology work), I have left you with a generalized protocol that helps squelch SYSTEMIC INFLAMMATION, while supporting all the various pathways we've already mentioned (including BALANCING FATTY ACIDS).  You'll find it all HERE.  No; it's not a "cure-all".  It is, however, a great place to begin, giving you a huge head-start if indeed you need to see a Functional Doctor.

The PLACEBO EFFECT is quite amazing.  People think they are getting a real drug, which kicks in their body/mind connection to their immune system, and bam --- they get better.  Why is this so amazing?  Because a placebo is, by definition, an inert substance (sugar pills, water, etc).  As defined by Webster's, the word 'inert' means, "lacking a usual or anticipated chemical or biological action."  One of the things I showed you in my LAST POST is that, "studies are being finagled in every way possible, forcing some of the heaviest hitters in the field to admit that yes, academic medicine is for sale to the highest bidder (HERE, HERE, and HERE)."  Allow me to show you how this "finagling" sabotaged the findings of an entire study on HPV VACCINE.

Dr. Manuel Martinez-Lavin is a rheumatologist at Mexico City's National Institute of Cardiology who specializes in FIBROMYALGIA.  Dr. Amezcua-Guerra is an immunologist at the same institute, whose specialty appears to be various sorts of cardiac or cardiac-related autoimmunity.  Having teamed up for studies on HPV Vaccine previously (HERE), they authored a similar study called Serious Adverse Events After HPV Vaccination: A Critical Review of Randomized Trials and Post-Marketing Case Series that was published in this month's issue of Clinical Rheumatology.

Interestingly, these authors have become the center of a whirlwind of controversy (see HERE) for exposing the fact that the vast majority of studies on HPV Vaccines are a sham --- a huge fraud.  How so?  They have virtually all compared children vaccinated with HPV Vaccines that contain ALUMINUM ADJUVANTS, to children vaccinated with aluminum adjuvants only.   In case you are not grasping the magnitude of the chicanery being perpetrated on the American tax-paying public........

"The overwhelming majority of randomized HPV vaccine trials did not use inert placebo. They used aluminum-containing placebo or other aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines. For clinical studies, a placebo is defined as a pharmaceutically inert substance. This definition cannot be applied to an adjuvant substance.  Aluminum adjuvant mechanism of action remains poorly understood and its safety has been questioned. Aluminum adjuvants are known to stimulate TH2 immune response, activate dendritic cells, and activate NLRP3 inflammasome. Aluminum adjuvants have been implicated in the development of chronic illnesses such as the autoimmune and inflammatory syndromes induced by adjuvants (ASIA) syndrome."

It would be like me reviewing studies on Dr. Pepper showing how safe the soft drink is for children to consume in mass quantities.  Noting that most of the previous research is based on their old slogan 10/2/4 (you'll have to be old to get this one --- people were supposed to drink Dr. Pepper for that pick-me-up boost of "pep" at 10:00 am, 2:00 pm, and 4pm --- HERE), my team of elite researchers (PAID FOR BY THE SUGAR INDUSTRY, OF COURSE) starts combing through the studies.  What we find is that in every single study, the experimental group of children drank their three DP's a day, while the "placebo" groups, instead of drinking something inert like say water, drank three COCA COLAS or similar per day.  It sort of reminds me of the absurd study set up by Big Sugar to "prove" that sugar before bed does not cause hyperactivity (see "sugar industry" link above).  What Drs. Lavin and Guerra really proved here is that if you set up your study the right way, it's possible to prove anything.

This is probably why in most HPV Vaccine studies, the rate of side effects for both groups (experimental and placebo) was about the same (around 45%).  Furthermore, when adverse events did occur (particularly serious ones), they were swept under the rug by saying they were outliers and not related to the research.  For instance, in one large study, there were 14 deaths in the vaccine group and only three deaths in the aluminum adjuvant-only group.  The authors of this study essentially shrugged it off by declaring that, "None of the deaths were believed to be related to vaccination."  One study from Spain showed that the rate of adverse events for the experimental group was ten times higher than the placebo group (in this case, other vaccines) because of, "HPV vaccine bad publicity."  Another study, this one from Canada, concluded that, "Ten percent of all HPV vaccinated individuals visited a hospital emergency department within 42 days after immunization," even though the authors didn't think this was an important enough finding to provide an explanation.

Some of the the more serious side effects mentioned in this study (beyond death) included COMPLEX REGIONAL PAIN SYNDROME, ADRENAL FATIGUE, CHRONIC FATIGUE, ovarian failure (way beyond PCOS), chronic fainting when changing positions (orthostatic tachycardia / syncope), VARIOUS AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES, HEADACHES, ARTHRITIS, INSOMNIA (all sorts of symptoms associated with SYMPATHETIC DOMINANCE), problems with equilibrium and balance, SMALL FIBER NEUROPATHY (the most objective finding in fibro), nausea, DIGESTIVE ISSUES, MUSCLE PAIN, etc, etc, etc, etc.

The authors ended by telling us something we already knew.  Not only do we see that at least some vaccines far more dangerous than we have been led to believe (HERE, HERE, and HERE), but we simply cannot trust a great deal of the so-called "evidence" in EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE.  Lest you think I'm being harsh, let me show you what the authors had to say in conclusion (yes, it's CHERRY-PICKED).

"Based on our previous fibromyalgia research, we speculate that in susceptible individuals, the HPV virus-like particles and/or aluminum adjuvant may be neurotoxic, damaging the dorsal root ganglia and triggering dysautonomia and small fiber neuropathy. The recent case reports describing antibodies to different autonomic nervous system receptors [AUTOIMMUNITY] in patients that became ill after HPV immunization go along with this hypothesis.....  The unquestionable statistical results derived from two of the largest HPV vaccine randomized trials must take preeminence over the investigators’ judgment ascribing the disproportionate severe adverse events and excessive death rate to external factors. One possible explanation for the apparent severe side-effects under-recognition.... would be the investigator leniency towards a promising vaccine trial, which would decrease vaccine-related adverse events in both arms of the study."

All you have to do to see that this sort of thing is rampant in biomedical research is look at yesterday's post, or thumb the titles of our posts on EBM (link above).  Fortunately, if yours is one of the myriad of children who has been injured by vaccines, there may be hope thanks to the growing numbers of physicians like AMY DAVIS or TERRY WAHLS, who not only acknowledge that vaccines can cause damage, but have also come up with some extremely cool protocols for reversing said damage.  For those of you looking to create an EXIT STRATEGY from chronic pain or chronic illness, take a look at the link.

For some reason I ended up a "member" of an online group of doctors, researchers, nutrition whizzes, heavy-hitter athletic trainers, a chiro or two, along with people from various other walks of life.  The leader of this merry band (I'll call him "Eric") throws out a study, and whoever wants, comments.  The whole thing works like an online message board.  I'll give you an example of something I said about a recent analysis dealing with the side effects and ineffectiveness seen in so many probiotic studies.

Here's my two cents worth on the probiotic study XXXX,

I think that there is no doubt that probiotics can cause certain types of infections, mostly along the lines of dysbiosis.  The reason is when you give someone a probiotic --- even a "high quality" probiotic (whatever that really means) with a significant number of strains of bacteria --- it falls far short of looking even remotely like one's microbiome.  For instance, how can a probiotic with 1, 2, 3, 8, 12, or even 20 different strains of bacteria come close to approximating the normal ratios of the 300 - 600 strains of bacteria that the average person has?  They can't.  This is why even though probiotics are going to help lots of people, in more individuals than we probably care to admit, they have the potential to foul up the normal ratios of bacteria to each other, and actually cause problems in some individuals.  

This is why FMT not only makes sense, but in my opinion from looking at an awful lot of peer-review on the subject, remains of the single hottest areas of study in the biomedical field (I am not talking about FMT for C. Diff infections here).  The biggest thing is to have donors who are family members (preferably), healthy, not overweight, not depressed, no allergies / sensitivities, not taking any meds, etc, etc.  The numbers of positive studies on FMT is overwhelming.  I promise that if I were diagnosed with an autoimmune issue, FMT is the first thing I would be taking a long, hard look at.

Russ

Probiotics, GUT HEALTH, and Autoimmunity are certainly interesting topics, but after someone asked a question about rotovirus vaccines in this thread, I responded thusly.

Not that mine will be popular opinion on a board with I'm not sure how many MD's and researchers, but I feel that as a nation we have gone way overboard with vaccines (HERE) --- particularly these newer ones for things like hypertension, high cholesterol, and the like, that work by purposefully inducing autoimmune reactions that have at least thus far proven impossible to control (HERE).  And while my brother (KSU / KU Med --- a few years later than Eric) would not agree with all my spouting, there are increasing numbers like him questioning the status quo (HERE). 

As for rotovirus, if you lived in Ethiopia where two of my children were born, you might (might) consider vaccinating.  Here in America; it's your choice (still, thank God) but with the CDC dishing out comforting advice like this ("Children, even those that are vaccinated, may get sick from rotavirus more than once. That is because neither natural infection with rotavirus nor rotavirus vaccination provides full protection from future infections."), I'm not sure why one would bother?  And if your child gets roto, which he / she likely will, count it as a win according to the HYGIENE HYPOTHESIS. 

My opinion is that today's absurd vaccine schedule is a significant part of why we are trading (mostly) self-limiting childhood diseases for chronic inflammatory degenerative diseases and autoimmunity that essentially lasts forever.  No, I am not an "antivaxxer," but I am certainly a freedom of choice kind of guy on this and most other healthcare issues.

Russ S

Because Eric loves a good hearty debate (not to mention he actually agreed with my position), he decided to follow this up by throwing out a study from the journal Progress in Health Sciences called Neurologic Adverse Events Following Vaccination that was authored by four doctors from the Department of Pediatric Rehabilitation at Poland's Medical University of Białystok (HERE is the study). After telling him I was going to tackle this study for my blog he replied, "you must really be stupid" as in I must really love heaping punishment and ridicule on myself.  What can I say?  As as a homeschool dad, a chiropractor, and a crazy CREATIONIST to boot, my skin has grown fairly thick.

The first thing I want everyone to understand is that the authors of today's study are not crazy "ANTIVAXXERS" like I have been labeled.  In fact, they begin their study by saying, "postvaccinal complications  among  children  can  be  observed  in  sporadic cases and that they are disproportionate to  the  benefits  of  vaccination  in  the  elimination  of  dangerous   diseases   in   childhood."  After combing through dozens of studies on the topic (the bib contains 74), the authors came to some interesting conclusions that sort of made me wonder how they could defend their statement.  But before we get to their conclusions, I'm going to show a few of the reasons these sorts of studies are rarely published in America.

• EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE IS ALL TOO OFTEN A GIANT FARCE:  If you thumb my scores of posts on EBM, one thing begins to become apparent --- that when it comes to research and peer-review, little is as it seems.  Not only do we have a system where half of all studies are not being published (typically the half that doesn't show the results that BIG PHARMA is looking / paying for --- HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE), but a large chunk of what is published cannot be reproduced / replicated; a foundational premise of science (HERE).  Click the link and you'll see that cancer research is by far the biggest offender, which is discouraging considering a paper that came out just days ago revealed that one in three biomedical studies now pertains to cancer (BTW, the latest research shows that less than 1 in 10 cancer studies can be reproduced by either the original authors or a third party).  Beyond this, studies are being finagled in every way possible, forcing some of the heaviest hitters in the field to admit that yes, science is for sale to the highest bidder (HERE).  And to top it all off, the agencies whose job it is to monitor this whole shindig and keep us safe have been shown to be just as prone to CORRUPTION as our POLITICIANS (HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE).
  

 

• SIDE EFFECTS (ADVERSE EVENTS) ARE FAR MORE COMMON THAN IS REPORTED, AND RARELY REPORTED TO THE PROPER GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES:  For two decades studies have consistently shown that only between 1 in 20 and 1 in 100 (1-5%) of drug reactions are ever reported to the proper agencies (HERE and HERE), with the majority falling on the lower end.  And nowhere is this more apparent than with VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System --- HERE).  It's what led Barbara Loe Fisher of the NVIC to once quip, "Former FDA Commisioner, David Kessler, estimated in a 1993 article published in JAMA that less than one percent of doctors report injuries and deaths following the administration of prescription drugs.  This estimate may be even lower for vaccines.  In one study that our organization conducted in New York in 1994, only one doctor in forty had ever reported to VAERS."  What does under-reporting adverse events do?  It dramatically skews the safety profile, making drugs and vaccines much better than they actually are.  Without proper reporting there is no way to get an accurate picture of what's really going on, and with doctors already up to their eyeballs in ignorant paperwork and "administrative duties" (HERE, HERE, and HERE), it makes this aspect of their job that much harder.  For the record, on Friday I saw a 65 year old extremely fit woman for a shoulder problem, who is still fighting horrendous butterfly rash and swelling in her face that developed hours after her first ever FLU SHOT back in December.  After being tested and told that she doesn't have LUPUS, she says she has been blown-off and told there is nothing more that can be done.   BTW, some new Flu Vaccines now contain aluminum adjuvant, which you will see in a moment, is a big deal.
  

 

• AUTHOR A STUDY LIKE THIS AND YOU CAN LIKELY KISS YOUR CAREER AND REPUTATION GOODBYE:  In today's environment (an environment that has been carefully cultivated by Big Pharma), a researcher being labeled an "antivaxxer" would be the equivalent of you or I being labeled incompetent, homophobic, Klan-loving, racist, sexist, bigoted, misogynistic, intolerant, global warming-denying, gun-loving, hater.  If an American team of neutral, third-party researchers published a study like the one we are getting ready to discuss (not that they could ever find funding), they would likely be kissing their careers goodbye, not to mention having their reputations besmirched in unimaginably ugly ways.  Someone in XXXX's group brought up Dr. Wakefield --- the poster-boy for this very thing (you can read about it in the section of Ted Koren's paper called L'AFFAIR WAKEFIELD or listen to the YouTube interview he did with Dr. Mercola). There are plenty of others, including DR. HUGH FUDENBERG, the immunogeneticist who associated Alzheimer's Disease with consecutive years of Flu Vaccines --- a practice we already know dramatically diminishes what little effectiveness these shots have in the first place (HERE). Or DR. DEAN BURKE.  Or any number of others.  Even the grassroots biomedical community realizes this (HERE) but has little collective power to change the system. 
  

Before I begin, realize that when I quote I am often cherry-picking.  I am not trying to alter what the authors say or mean, but instead to condense this for space and time, as well as make it easier to understand for my readers, who are mostly laypersons.

The authors talk at length about the fact that newborns have undeveloped immune systems, and even though they do not mention it here, it is critical that you understand that 80% of one's immune system cells is found in the Gut (HERE) --- the reason that so many vaccine reactions are, among other things, associated with poor gut health. The authors go on to say of these infants and babies immune systems....

"Vaccination  against  certain  microorganisms  administered  shortly after  birth  does  not  lead  to  long-lasting immunity.  It should be emphasized that  the  immune system  reaches  full  immunoregulatory  and defensive maturity at about 3 years of age.  It is well established that early-life, immune responses are weaker and of shorter duration than elicited in immunologically mature hosts. Consequently, vaccine   efficacy   in   early  infancy (particularly in the first 6 months of age) is limited. Thus, in order to provoke and sustain an adequate immune response in a neonate, strong immune adjuvants and repeated closely spaced booster doses are needed."

Not only are the numerous "repeated" shots problematic, but once you understand how adjuvants work and what they are specifically designed to do, best guess is that you'll be more than a little pissed when you realize just how much of this stuff has been pumped through your family's collective systems. Plainly stated, an adjuvant is a helper or facilitator.  In the world of vaccines, an adjuvant is defined by our government as, "a substance that is added to a vaccine to increase the body's immune response to the vaccine. Vaccines containing adjuvants are tested for safety in clinical trials before they are licensed for use in the United States, and they are continuously monitored by CDC and FDA."  It's important to note that phrases like "increasing the body's immune response," means, among other things, dramatically increasing the amount of INFLAMMATION present in the body.  The problem is, as seen in my 65 year old patient, inflammation can be difficult enough to control in adults, let alone little ones.

What is the number one most common adjuvant present in virtually all vaccines?  Can anyone say ALUMINUM?  Aluminum is a wonderfully versatile metal as far as industry is concerned, but unfortunately, has proven to be hell on nervous systems --- especially developing nervous systems.  In the definitions section of this paper, the authors say of aluminum adjuvants.....  "Adjuvants: the aim of which is to enhance the immunogenicity of the vaccine --- aluminum  hydroxide or aluminum phosphate are the most commonly used." I am going to leave you some quotes concerning aluminum that I pulled from sources that you may or may not feel are reputable.  Note that the first two quotes are from our "trust us" government; the first from the FDA and the second from the CDC.  BTW, if this bores you, just skip to the next section (by its very nature, some of it is a bit more technical than I like to put on my blog).  They go from most recent to oldest (1911).

"Because the public has expressed concerns that aluminum in vaccines might pose a risk to infants, FDA performed an updated analysis of the safety of aluminum adjuvants.  Aluminum is incorporated into some vaccines as an adjuvant.  The purpose of formulating vaccines with adjuvants is to increase the immune response to the antigen (the component of the vaccine that stimulates the immune system to make antibodies).  Benefits of aluminum-containing vaccines administered during the first year of life outweigh any theoretical concerns about the potential effect of aluminum on infants.  A previous study done by others also concluded that the risk to infants of aluminum in vaccines is not significant. Vaccines containing an aluminum adjuvant have a demonstrated safety profile of over six decades of use and have only uncommonly been associated with severe local reactions."  From the FDA's website (Study Reports Aluminum in Vaccines Poses Extremely Low Risk to Infants).  BTW, local reactions are a far different animal than are systemic neurological reactions.  Oh, and I am certainly glad that the results of these other studies are only "theoretical".

"Treated animals did have significant increases of  aluminum in the liver, serum, bile, kidneys, lungs, and spleen.  Throughout the 128 day study, the liver of  exposed rabbits had over 80% of the total body burden of aluminum.  Persistence of aluminum in the  various tissues, organs, and fluids varied. Estimated half-times of aluminum were 113, 74, 44, and  42 days in the spleen, liver, lungs,  and serum, respectively.  The half-life of aluminum in the brain of rats receiving an intravenous dose of aluminum citrate was approximately 150 days.  Following intramuscular administration of aluminum hydroxide or aluminum phosphate vaccine adjuvants in rabbits, increased levels of aluminum were found in the kidney, spleen, liver, heart, lymph nodes, and brain."  Cherry-picked from the CDC's 357 page treatise on Aluminum called Toxiclogical Profile of Aluminum.  There was surprisingly little information one way or another on vaccines (about four pages total)

A collaboration of a dozen researchers in Canada, the UK, and France, published a study in this past January's issue of Toxicology (Non-Linear Dose-Response of Aluminum Hydroxide Adjuvant Particles: Selective Low Dose Neurotoxicity) showing that when it comes to aluminum and neurological damage, it doesn't take much of the former.  "Aluminium (Al) oxyhydroxide (Alhydrogel®), the main adjuvant licensed for human and animal vaccines. Concerns about its safety emerged following recognition of its unexpectedly long-lasting biopersistence within immune cells in some individuals, and reports of chronic fatigue syndrome, cognitive dysfunction, myalgia, dysautonomia and autoimmune/inflammatory features temporally linked to multiple alminum-containing vaccine administrations.  We conclude that Alhydrogel® injected at low dose in mouse muscle may selectively induce long-term aluminum cerebral accumulation and neurotoxic effects. To explain this unexpected result, an avenue that could be explored in the future relates to the adjuvant size since the injected suspensions corresponding to the lowest dose, but not to the highest doses, exclusively contained small agglomerates in the bacteria-size range known to favour capture and, presumably, transportation by monocyte-lineage cells [immune system cells]. In any event, the view that Alhydrogel® neurotoxicity obeys "the dose makes the poison" rule of classical chemical toxicity appears overly simplistic."  There was a similar study in Medical Hypothesis by some of these same authors published back in 2009 (HERE).

"Aluminum oxyhydroxide (Alhydrogel(®)) is a nano-crystalline compound forming aggregates that has been introduced in vaccine for its immunologic adjuvant effect in 1926. It is the most commonly used adjuvant in human and veterinary vaccines but mechanisms by which it stimulates immune responses remain ill-defined. Although generally well tolerated on the short term, it has been suspected to occasionally cause delayed neurologic problems in susceptible individuals. In particular, the long-term persistence of aluminic granuloma also termed macrophagic myofasciitis is associated with chronic arthromyalgias and fatigue and cognitive dysfunction. Safety concerns largely depend on the long biopersistence time inherent to this adjuvant, which may be related to its quick withdrawal from the interstitial fluid by avid cellular uptake; and the capacity of adjuvant particles to migrate and slowly accumulate in lymphoid organs and the brain, a phenomenon documented in animal models and resulting from MCP1/CCL2-dependant translocation of adjuvant-loaded monocyte-lineage cells (Trojan horse phenomenon). These novel insights strongly suggest that serious re-evaluation of long-term aluminum adjuvant phamacokinetics and safety should be carried out."  From a study published in last June's (2016) issue of Morphologie (Aluminum Adjuvants of Vaccines Injected Into the Muscle: Normal Fate, Pathology and Associated Disease).

"Currently, ethylmercury and adjuvant-Aluminum are the dominating interventional exposures encountered by fetuses, newborns, and infants due to immunization with Thimerosal-containing vaccines. Immunological and neurobehavioral effects of Thimerosal-ethyl mercury and Aluminum-adjuvants are not extraordinary; rather, these effects are easily detected in high and low income countries....."  From a Brazilian study (Exposure to Mercury and Aluminum in Early Life: Developmental Vulnerability as a Modifying Factor in Neurologic and Immunologic Effects) published in the January 2015 issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

"Concerns linked to the use of aluminum particles emerged following recognition of their causative role in the so-called macrophagic myofasciitis lesion detected in patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome. We previously showed that poorly biodegradable aluminum-coated particles injected into muscle are promptly phagocytosed in muscle and the draining lymph nodes, and can disseminate within phagocytic cells throughout the body and slowly accumulate in brain. This strongly suggests that long-term adjuvant biopersistence within phagocytic cells is a prerequisite for slow brain translocation and delayed neurotoxicity."  The findings of five French researchers from the Faculté de Médecine Sciences and Technologie (Biopersistence and Brain Translocation of Aluminum Adjuvants of Vaccines) published in the February 2015 issue of Frontiers in Neurology

From a 2014 issue of Immunotherapy (Are There Negative CNS Impacts of Aluminum Adjuvants Used in Vaccines and Immunotherapy?)  "In spite of a common view that aluminum salts are inert and therefore harmless as vaccine adjuvants or in immunotherapy, the reality is quite different. In the following article we briefly review the literature on aluminum neurotoxicity and the use of aluminum salts as vaccine adjuvants and consider not only direct toxic actions on the nervous system, but also the potential impact for triggering autoimmunity. Autoimmune and inflammatory responses affecting the CNS appear to underlie some forms of neurological disease, including developmental disorders. Aluminum has been demonstrated to impact the CNS at every level, including by changing gene expression. These outcomes should raise concerns about the increasing use of aluminum salts as vaccine adjuvants and for the application as more general immune stimulants."

Biomed Research International published an Italian study done at Milan's Università degli Studi in 2014 called Aluminium Involvement in Neurotoxicity. "One of the most commonly toxic metals studied, aluminum, is implicated in many diseases.  Aluminum toxicity is caused by disruption of homeostasis of metals such as magnesium, calcium, and iron: in fact, aluminum mimics these metals in their biological functions and triggers many biochemical alterations. In particular, aluminum both exerts direct genotoxicity in primary human neural cells and induces neurodegeneration, through an increase in iron accumulation and oxygen reactive species (ROS) production."  For those who were not aware, ROS are the same thing as OXIDATIVE DAMAGE & FREE RADICALS.

"Aluminum exposures during neonatal and pediatric parenteral nutrition (PN) can impair bone mineralization and delay neurological development. Adverse effects to vaccines with aluminum adjuvants have occurred; however, recent controlled trials found that the immunologic response to certain vaccines with aluminum adjuvants was no greater, and in some cases less than, that after identical vaccination without aluminum adjuvants. The scientific literature on the adverse health effects of aluminum is extensive."   From the October 2014 issue of Critical Reviews in Toxicology (Systematic Review of Potential Health Risks Posed by Pharmaceutical, Occupational and Consumer Exposures to Metallic and Nanoscale Aluminum, Aluminum Oxides, Aluminum Hydroxide and its Soluble Salts)

"We have examined the neurotoxicity of aluminum in humans and animals under various conditions. The literature demonstrates clearly negative impacts of aluminum on the nervous system across the age span. In young children, a highly significant correlation exists between the number of pediatric aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines administered and the rate of autism spectrum disorders. Many of the features of aluminum-induced neurotoxicity may arise, in part, from autoimmune reactions, as part of the ASIA syndrome [Autoimmune/Inflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants]"  From the abstract of a 2013 edition of the journal Immunology Research / Etiology Pathogenesis of Autoimmunity (Aluminum in the Central Nervous System (CNS): Toxicity in Humans and Animals, Vaccine Adjuvants, and Autoimmunity)

"Our results provide strong evidence supporting a link between autism and the aluminum in vaccines. A literature review showing toxicity of aluminum in human physiology offers further support. Mentions of autism in VAERS increased steadily at the end of the last century, during a period when mercury was being phased out, while aluminum adjuvant burden was being increased."  From another of Dr. Seneff's studies at M.I.T. (Review Empirical Data Confirm Autism Symptoms Related to Aluminum and Acetaminophen Exposure) published in a 2012 issue of MDPI Entropy

"Aluminum is an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin and the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant. Despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants, medical science's understanding about their mechanisms of action is still remarkably poor. Experimental research clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences. In our opinion, the possibility that vaccine benefits may have been overrated and the risk of potential adverse effects underestimated...."  From a 2011 copy of Current Medicinal Chemistry (Aluminum Vaccine Adjuvants: Are They Safe?)

"Possible causes of Gulf War Syndrome include several of the adjuvants in the anthrax vaccine and others. The most likely culprit appears to be aluminum hydroxide. In an initial series of experiments, we examined the potential toxicity of aluminum hydroxide in mice injected subcutaneously in two equivalent-to-human doses. After sacrifice, spinal cord and motor cortex samples were examined by immunohistochemistry. Aluminum-treated mice showed significantly increased apoptosis of motor neurons and increases in reactive astrocytes and microglial proliferation within the spinal cord and cortex."  From the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Inorganic Chemistry (Aluminum Hydroxide Injections Lead to Motor Deficits and Motor Neuron Degeneration).  By the way, astrocytes and microglial cells are GLIAL CELLS that are caused by neuroinflammation and strongly associated with chronic pain.

"Associated with some cases of Gulf War Illness are increased incidences of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurological disorders. Whereas many environmental factors have been linked to GWI, the role of the anthrax vaccine has come under increasing scrutiny. Among the vaccine's potentially toxic components are the adjuvants aluminum hydroxide and squalene. Significant cognitive deficits were observed in the combined aluminum and squalene group compared with the controls.  Aluminum-treated groups also showed significant motor neuron loss (35%) and increased numbers of astrocytes (350%) in the lumbar spinal cord."  From a 2007 study (Aluminum Adjuvant Linked to Gulf War Illness Induces Motor Neuron Death in Mice) in Neuromolecular Medicine

Writing in a 2005 issue of the Internet Journal of Toxicology, Dr. Prasunpriya Nayak, Assistant Professor for the Department of Physiology at NRI Medical College & General Hospital in India stated, "Extensive researches on every aspect of aluminum toxicity for the last 35 years proved that the metal should not be taken as safe. In spite of persistent arguments, it is well accepted that aluminum is a potent neurotoxicant. The risk is more at the perinatal age, because of more vulnerability of neuronal tissues...and it is well accepted that it is capable of inducing neurobehavioral deficit even without altering the morphology.  Elevated aluminum exposure level at this vulnerable age might produce a lifelong toxicological consequence."

I couldn't help but include this for the folks who think that BABY FORMULA --- particularly the stuff with SOY --- is OK. "Some infant formulas may contain relatively high concentrations of aluminum. The reported concentrations of aluminum in soy formulas and premature infant formulas are higher than those in other infant formulas."  From the issue of Pediatrics that came out the month I was married, March 1996 (Aluminum Toxicity in Infants and Children)

"Injection of aluminum adsorbed vaccines into mice causes a transient rise in brain tissue aluminum levels peaking around the second and third day after injection. This rise is not seen in the control group of animals or with vaccine not containing aluminum. It is likely that aluminum is transported to the brain by the iron-binding protein transferrin...."  From the April 1992 issue of Toxicology and Pharmacology (Aluminium-Adjuvanted Vaccines Transiently Increase Aluminium Levels in Murine Brain Tissue)

"These studies have convinced me that the use in food of aluminum or any other aluminum compound is a dangerous practice. That the aluminum ion is very toxic is well known. That aluminized food yields soluble aluminum compounds to gastric juice (and stomach contents) has been demonstrated. That such soluble aluminum is in part absorbed and carried to all parts of the body by the blood can no longer be doubted. That the organism can ‘tolerate’ such treatment without suffering harmful consequences has not been shown. It is believed that the facts in this paper will give emphasis to my conviction that aluminum should be excluded from food."  From a 1911 issue of JAMA (Some Objections to the Use of Alum Baking Powder).  Check that out folks --- 1911.  Do you realize how long ago that was?  It was six years prior to America's entrance into WWI as well as the year that John Browning introduced the sidearm that is more popular today than it was back then --- the "1911" in .45

Before we delve back into the study we are actually dissecting today, I need to know what the FDA says is "safe" concerning the amount of aluminum adjuvant that children (or adults for that matter) can be exposed to? According to the same article from the FDA that I quoted from earlier, "the maximum amount of aluminum an infant could be exposed to over the first year of life would be 4.225 milligrams [4,225 micrograms -- mcgs], based on the recommended schedule of vaccines." Note that this figure is not "based" on hard evidence, it's "based" on the government saying this is what we are currently doing and we say it's safe.  In other words, it's not "based" on much of anything other than guesswork, conjecture, and opinion. The Immunity Education Group (Is YOUR Baby Getting Too Much Aluminum?) makes some interesting statements concerning these numbers, which are echoed via the title of an article (Vaccines Deliver 4,925 mcg of Aluminum by 18 months, Safe Limit is 25 mcg) from Natural Health 365, and explained in more detail by renowned biochemist, Dr. Barry Sears, on his site (HERE).

"What would you say if you found out that almost every baby in America receives up to 1,225 micrograms of aluminum in vaccines at every infant check up? That’s 50 times the FDA safety limit, and it happens three times in just the first six months. Even at birth, all babies get 10 times the FDA safety limit of aluminum in one hepatitis B shot.  The strongest argument defending aluminum in vaccines comes from the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philedelphia (CHOP), where some vaccines are made. The Center claims there is no cause for concern because we eat and drink far more aluminum than we ever get in vaccines. But CHOP ignores the fact that swallowed aluminum does not enter the bloodstream, whereas all of injected aluminum does." 

Now, back to the study we are actually talking about today, Neurologic Adverse Events Following Vaccination.  After talking extensively about various ALLERGIES and ASTHMA that these authors clearly show have been linked to the large uptick in the numbers of immunizations being included in the government-mandated schedule, they say something rather shocking about these aluminum adjuvants in relationship to the immune system. "Other than not providing an effective stimulus for proper immune system development, recent research has shown that vaccines are actually capable of disrupting it. For example, annual vaccination against influenza has been shown to hamper the development of virus-specific CD8+ T-cell immunity in children."  In other words, the inflammation being created by aluminum adjuvants isn't even doing what it's supposed to do.  Also, I've shown you what happens when T-cells are not properly "trained" by your immune system (HERE --- something that many {but not these authors} would argue is impossible with vaccinations).  These authors, however, take things a step further.

When we talk about one's immune system being fouled up, most laypersons think in terms of an under-active immune system or immune system suppression.  In most cases, this is 180 degrees opposite of what really happens.  Messed up immune systems are more commonly ramped up because TREGS stop limiting immune system responses, causing they to burn out of control like a wildfire (see previous link), resulting in the body attacking itself --- something we refer to as AUTOIMMUNITY --- the reason you rarely want to "BOOST" your immune system.  After thumbing through a few of my posts on the subject (HERE), you realize how serious (and common) autoimmune diseases really are.  In fact, after talking about various specific autoimmune issues, here is what the authors say about the immune system's relationship to vaccine adjuvants.

"These reports present a picture of neuroimmune disorders which may be the result of vaccinations carried out on an increasingly wider scale.   An infant receives 24-26 doses of xenogenic antigens.   Indeed, in adults multiple vaccinations have been associated with a variety of autoimmune phenomena, yet children are regularly exposed to a much higher burden of vaccines than adults under the assumption that such exposures are safe. How will the not fully mature, still developing immune system of a healthy child and the still forming central nervous system respond to such intense stimulation?  Autoimmunity appears to be the inevitable consequence of over-stimulating the host's immune system by repeated immunization with antigen."

If this last sentence does not freak you out a bit as a parent or grandparent, I'm not sure what will. Webster's defines the word inevitable as, "incapable of being avoided or evaded."  When we add all the neurological issues, such as AUTISM, ALZHEIMER'S and the array of others on top of this (that the authors discussed but I don't have time to get into now), it truly gets scary --- something essentially admitted by these authors if one reads between the lines just a little bit.  "Despite the dogma that peripheral immune responses do not affect CNS function, substantial evidence points exactly to the contrary.  Thus, it is not reasonable to assume that manipulation of the immune system through an increasing number of vaccinations during critical periods of brain development will not result in adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes."  The term "adverse neurodevelopmental outcome" is never a good thing; particularly if it 's being used in relationship to your child.

Before we leave, I want to mention something that I have talked about for a very long time (mostly falling on deaf ears) --- yet something discussed at length by these authors --- the fact that decades of governmental data clearly shows (this particular study used five easy-to-understand graphs --- HERE is one that's simple to understand and comes straight from our own CDC's website) that by the time that vaccines were introduced for their various diseases, said diseases were already in serious decline --- many to the point of being gone.  Why?  Better hygiene. 

While I am a fan of the HYGIENE HYPOTHESIS, exposure can certainly be carried too far.  In other words, if you are living in filth and squalor, open sewers flowing into water sources, doctors never washing hands, instruments or clothes, a complete and total inability for many people to ever really get clean, etc, etc, etc, you are more prone to come down with some really nasty diseases.  Listen to what a 2002 issue of the oldest and most prestigious medical journal in the world, Lancet, said concerning this subject (quoted from today's study).

"The weight of evidence collectively suggest that personal and environmental hygiene reduces the spread of infection... Thus results from this review demonstrate that there is a continued, measurable, positive effect of personal and community hygiene on infectious disease. The same report showed that the crude death rate from infectious diseases decreased to nearly negligible levels long before introduction of universal vaccination practices."

I could go on and on and on.  One study on Aluminum said that much of it concentrated in the liver, where most BIOTRANSFORMATION takes place.  With the crazy numbers of people who have genetic (or EPIGENETIC as the case may be) MTHFR issues, not only are we loading kids up with aluminum and OTHER NASTIES, in many cases they can't clear it from their systems either.  This study ended with the authors saying, "Despite the assurances of the necessity and safety of vaccinations, there are more and more questions and doubts, which both physicians and parents are waiting to be clarified," and then described, "the problem of reporting adverse reactions following vaccination, by medical personnel and parents."  In other words, just like I stated earlier, if it isn't reported, the statistics don't reflect it, and people who are trying to raise awareness continue to be labeled as quacks and antivaxxers, while Big Pharma continues to lie and do what they do best --- make money hand-over-fist --- in many cases, at the expense of human health.

One last note to those who are on the fence concerning the rotovirus vaccine ---- the specific vaccine that started this whole firestorm; make sure to read the entirety of Dr. James Lyons-Weiler's paper about Paul "FOR PROFIT" Offit (Paging Dr. Offit! Your Aluminum Neurotoxicity Reading Assignments Are Ready), including comments.  Weiler's credentials and Curriculum Vitae read like a veritable Who's Who of academia. I might also suggest J.D. Handley's recent article, Did Chinese Scientists Find Autism’s Missing Puzzle Piece?   Comments for this article were good as well. 

As always, be sure to remember that I'm just a southern Missouri chiropractor who spends as much time on the CURRENT RIVER as is humanly possible in the summertime.  Don't trust anyone elusively (YOUR DOCTOR INCLUDED).  Do your own research because one cares about you and your family more than you.  And if you are enjoying our site, be sure to show us some love on FACEBOOK as it's a great way for you to reach those you love and care about most with information like this.

As I have shown you previously, most "MUSCLE INJURES" are actually injuries to connective tissues --- usually fascia.  This is important to know because as you saw just a few weeks ago, fascia is your body's major organ of proprioception (HERE).  That's why if you are basing your current model of human physiology, injury, rehab, and general health and wellness, on yesterday's information from yesterday's anatomy texts --- with an inordinate emphasis on individual muscle function instead of a "BIG PICTURE" viewpoint --- you are already behind the curve.

Considering fascia's inherent capacity to act in such a wide variety of ways ----- support (TENSEGRITY), COMMUNICATION, CONTRACTILITY, ELASTICITY, HEALTH, ETC, it's important to rehab and train it appropriately.  What does this mean and what does it look like?  For starters it means that you need to do exercises that improve proprioception and kinesthesia (see the second link of previous paragraph).  This will help you not only in the present, it will help you in the future to avoid pain, dysfunction, and DEGENERATIVE OSTEOARTHRITIC CHANGES, not to mention providing a much better chance of enjoying life into your old age, instead of repeating ignorant cliches like, "Gee doc, If I knew I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself".

People like to talk about the Body / Mind connection; and fascia is where the rubber meets the road. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to helping every person with every situation, but there are some overarching principles --- principles that have a big upside and virtually zero downside and are not going to make you worse.  In other words, controlled movement is better than being totally sedentary, and eating a diet based on WHOLE FOODS is better than eating a diet based on junk.  A fairly simple concept that will never be misconstrued as rocket science.  Unfortunately, many people find it difficult or even impossible to exercise because they are struggling with Myofascial Syndrome (see my RECENT ARTICLE ON JFK).

SCAR TISSUE and TRIGGER POINTS are different sides of the same coin that is Myofascial Syndrome (HERE), and I've shown you that while certainly related to each other, most cases of Trigger Points --- especially the severe and nasty ones --- will not respond very much to the TISSUE REMODELING that I do for Scar Tissue.  The other day I showed you that problems in fascia are intimately tied to loss of proprioception, which is itself intimately tied to chronic pain (HERE). It stands to reason that if we know what sorts of things create said problems, it would logically follow that a person should be able to diminish their chronic pain by reversing the process.  While this is certainly not always the case (it can't always be that simple), it is the case much, probably the majority, of the time. That's why today we are going to start by talking about diet.

In case you are one of those folks who didn't got the memo, diet is important.  No, I take that back.  It is so critical to your effort to get out of pain and regain your health and normal weight that you could be doing everything else right, and completely sabotaging your efforts by eating CRAPPY FOOD.  There's no middle ground folks; the foods you eat are either driving inflammation or squelching inflammation. And while a little inflammation is important for normal healing processes (HERE), the last thing you need is SYSTEMIC INFLAMMATION --- inflammation coursing throughout your body and disrupting virtually every single physiological and metabolic function, including healing and the way you perceive pain (inflammation hyper-sensitizes the nervous system --- potentially leading to CENTRAL SENSITIZATION.  When you chronically expose Scar Tissue to inflammation, said tissue can become over 1,000 times more pain-sensitive than normal tissue --- see DR. CHAN GUNN'S WORK).

The diet I recommend for most people with CHRONIC PAIN, CHRONICALLY ADHESED FASCIA, AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES, and / or CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY DEGENERATIVE DISEASES? That's easy; the PALEO DIET; and if you simply click the link you'll see what makes it so effective for dealing with out-of-control inflammation (or for that matter, subtle inflammation).  You see, inflammation from diet is common, and any and all inflammation over the perfect amount needed for healing, always leads not only to Fibrosis (the medical name for Scar Tissue), but to various sorts of degeneration as well (HERE). 

The cool thing about starting this post with diet is that there is a strong potential that if you'll figure out what foods --- even "good" and "healthy" foods --- you might be sensitive to, you can dramatically lessen your body's inflammation profile (which reduces inflammation, diminishes fibrosis, and improves or at least helps halt the progression of proprioceptive loss).  This is the function of an ELIMINATION DIET and is so important that I made it the very first item on our DIGITAL PATIENT HANDOUT.  As to the "safety" of eating this way, not only is it far better than the dumbfoundingly idiotic brand new old governmental recommendations that are trying to catapult us back into the 1970's (HERE), but it's safe enough to try on your own (HERE).

Diet effects proprioception because SUGAR AND JUNK CARBS are the single most inflammatory things most people put in their mouths on a daily basis.  Inflammation always leads to fibrosis, and fibrosis not only always leads to degeneration (HERE), but also happens to be America's leading (that would be leading as in #1) cause of death as well (HERE).

For those of you who are either healthy or dealing with minor or sometimes even moderate pain, the plan is simple.  Move.  As the old saying goes, motion is lotion.  What kind of motion?  All sorts. Literally.  There are great examples all over the web, so while today's post will help get you started on this endeavor, it is in no ways the definitive or final word.  Probably the best suggestion I can give you here is to mix things up constantly.  One of the reasons that athletes have so many musculoskeletal problems is that beyond the fact that they so often eat inflammatory diets similar to the rest of the population, they are doing the same repetitive activities over and over and over again in their training regimens (running, weightlifting, swimming, biking, etc).  Extreme repetition (with the exception, of course, of SHOOTING FREETHROWS) has huge potential to produce unexpected (i.e. "rotten") fruit in the form of pain and dysfunction.

"There  is no neurophysiological evidence that proprioception  can  be  trained  through  physical  training,  and  proprioception  is  effectively  used  only  during  the  slow  closed-loop  control  of  movement.  In  addition,  overemphasis  on  proprioception  may  cause  training  program to ignore the role of the CNS in carrying out  motor abilities and skills.   simultaneous  training of dual task with intentional shift of attention  between balance and cognitive tasks is most effective  in transferring the training effect  to  real  life  multiple  task situations."  From a 2011 issue of Research Gate (Overcoming the Myth of Proprioceptive Training).  I included this because of  Guido Van Ryssegem's work in this area.

I was listening to a podcast on Coach Boyle's website (BODY BY BOYLE) with Dr. Guido Van Ryssegem, author of the quote above.   Here, however, is what he said of the concept of proprioceptive training essentially being bogus on a podcast.  "It's not completely wrong, it's just a misconception of words".  I think what he means here is that it's a matter of semantics.  Call it whatever you want, motivated people have the capability and potential to improve in this area (many times both quickly and easily) if it is addressed in the right way.

Although we are certainly talking about stretching here, I am not going to present a treatise on stretching as the internet is loaded with such information; much of it conflicting.  It's important, however, that you understand a couple facts about stretching.  First is that yes, it is possible to overdo it (HERE or HERE).  Another is that for every study that says stretching a certain way is good, I can probably find you just as many showing that stretching that way is problematic.  This is why you need to realize that the stretching pages for my clinic (HERE) are generic and created specifically for post-treatment use (Tissue Remodeling).  One other thing I want you to understand is that if you are struggling with Scar Tissue or Myofascial Syndrome (Trigger Points), some -- not all, but some of the bullets below not only may not be effective in relieving your symptoms, they might even make you worse (HERE and HERE).

A good stretching protocol is going to address the various external layers of the fascia (HERE), as well as the fascia's inner layers --- the epimysium, perimysium, and endomysium (HERE).  I have become a huge fan of Yoga stretches (see first bullet below) because they are done slowly and require progressive CORE STRENGTH, depending on how complex you want to go with them.  I also tout EXTENSION THERAPY because most of us are being continually drawn into THE POSTURE OF AGE. And while I have never done it personally (there are no studios in our neck of the Ozarks) Pilates seems to be knocking it out of the park for lots of people.

When talking about the viscoelasticity of fascia, it is important to realize that you will have to stretch across numerous planes and ranges, as well as through multiple joints.  This is because the most up-to-date functional anatomists have shown us that fascia has made the concept of individually functioning muscles all but completely obsolete.  The viscoelasticity properties of fascia also happen to be why you need to wait to stretch until your fascia is warmed up and hydrated (i.e. don't stretch without going through some kind of warmup to get your blood pumping, and make sure you are drinking plenty of water).

In a great article by the American Posture Institute by a pair of CARRICK-TRAINED FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGISTS (5 Reasons Why Posture Rehabilitation Improves Proprioception), the authors talk about Cortical Mapping; another brain / body connection principle.  The body's map as represented in the brain cortex is called the homunculus or "little man" (HERE is a picture). 

"Proprioception is processed in the sensory homunculus, the cortical map in the parietal lobe. Communication about joint position and precision of movement occurs between the sensory and motor cortical maps....  Because the brain uses the map to make decisions about how to move, it is obvious that the better and more detailed the map, the better and more precise the movement. By contrast, if the map is ambiguous or indistinct, navigation of the different movement possibilities will be uncoordinated. Accurate maps produce better motor output. Consequentially, the better we move, the better we feel. When a joint and associated muscle are not moved, the brain does not sense it as “important” and the cortical map becomes more and more indistinct at that region due to lack of movement. This is an example of the “Use It or Lose It” phenomenon of neuroplasticity.  Sensory motor mismatch is a conflict in the information represented by the brain maps. Inaccuracies in the body maps of the sensory and motor cortices can be a significant contributing factor in many chronic pain conditions. Improving proprioception in these areas improves motor output, and contributes to the reduction of symptoms associated with chronic pain."

Besides what we've already discussed, what are some of the best ways to stimulate proprioception beyond moving regularly and through a complete range of motion?  Just remember that proprioception training is about making sure to always mix things up and never getting into a rut, which can frequently happen with most training regimens. Another simple trick to fire off more proprioception is to do as much of this as you can barefoot, as it will dramatically increase your proprioception over wearing shoes.  Also understand that anything that is restricting your ability to move through normal ranges of motion has the ability to foul up proprioception as well (yes, some of you are fooling yourselves --- HERE).

• MAKE SURE YOU AREN'T "CROSSED UP":  Although many of you have never heard of either UPPER CROSSED or LOWER CROSSED syndromes, they are deal-breakers as far as solving chronic pain, chronic restriction, and chronic dysfunction are concerned. Along these same lines, if you have hardcore FORWARD HEAD POSTURE (exceedingly common in today's posture-of-age society), it will be hard to truly restore proprioception.  Part of solving these issues is simply getting your body out of the posture of age, chronic illness, and chronic pain (flexion), and into EXTENSION.

 

• LEARN BALANCE GRASSHOPPER:  There are so many ways to stimulate proprioception via balance training that it could actually be its own post.  I am a huge fan of EXERCISE BALLS for a variety of things, including simply sitting on them in place of your chair (I have seen many cases of chronic low back pain solved using this one simple little trick).  I often use a bosu ball (it's half an exercise ball with a hard back) to stand on or kneel on and do certain yoga poses (HERE for instance) of even as an unstable base to do dumbbell work from. TRAMPOLINES are amazing for proprioception as well, and every child should have a Hippity Hop or 'hop ball' (just don't use it as a weapon like we did as kids).  There are wobble boards of almost every conceivable design, wobble chairs, balance pads, balance discs, balance boards (M Board, Bongo Board, SI Board, Goof Board, etc), slack lines (I'm getting ready to put one up), and paddle boards (HERE).  Heck, even a simple 2x4 you get from your local lumber yard can be used for Functional Proprioceptive Training.  For the record, this list is far from exhaustive and many of these can be done DIY via YouTube.  I actually had a patient build something similar to THIS for an LD child that both bounced on a spring and spun freely on a pivot.  The device was made to specifically increase proprioception, and the results were amazing!

 

• FUNCTIONAL TRAINING:  If you are one of those people stuck in a bench press and curls sort of weightlifting routine, you need to pay attention.  I could write twenty five posts on this topic alone and barely begin to scratch the surface.  You need to go to YouTube and start watching videos on Functional Training.  You'll usually get some of this sort of thing with CROSSFIT as well.  If you don't think Functional Training is the real deal, sometime just for grins try a TURKISH GET UP or some PARKOUR.  When I think of Functional Training, I can't help but think of ADAM ARCHULETA in the heyday of the Kurt Warner-led St. Louis Rams.  The beautiful thing about Functional Training is the way that it stimulates the brain and nervous system.  Once you realize that fascia is itself a second nervous system (see earlier link), some of this will begin to make more sense.  One last thing here; I will put FOAM ROLLING here even though it probably could have been put in the previous bullet.  Foam Rollers and FASCIA STIMULATING DEVICES (especially the former) both work largely by stimulating proprioception. And if you like to run, try trail running. Biking?  Get off road with your mountain bike.  Weightlifting?  Follow the advice in this post. These are all ways to continue with the sport(s) you love, while ratcheting up the level of balance, kinesthesia, and proprioception. 

A quick side note to these last two bullet points.  When children are not out playing and doing the things they would typically be doing if they were not watching TV, on their computers, playing VIDEO GAMES OR WATCHING PORN, on their phone, or any number of other "plugged-in" diversions, they would probably be outside, climbing trees, making up games, and generally being active.  This is why parents need to be the parent and monitor everything their young kids do as well as educate them about health and diet from an early age. 

• WHOLE BODY STRENGTHENING USING COMPLEX MULTI-JOINT MOVEMENTS:  I've been a fan of KETTLE BELL SWINGS for a long time, but there are other great exercises that involve the whole body, namely the deadlift and squat.  Just be sure to constantly vary what you are doing as the body is always looking for that new thing --- some sort of neuromechanical stimulation it hasn't seen before, not to mention the fact that repetitive motions will sooner or later land you in hot water as far as pain and dysunction are concerned.  One last thing about this bullet; as you may know if you follow my blog, I am a huge fan of RESISTANCE TRAINING (Strength Training).  For the most part, machines are not going to get it done for you --- you need free weights (preferably dumbells) done like this (HERE).  Even things like training with a different pace can benefit your fascia.  For instance, I sometimes work out using Dr. McGruff's "Super Slow" principles (particularly if I am fighting an injury of some sort).  Historically, my biggest problem has been pushing myself too far.  Not surprisingly, injuries seem to happen when you spend a lot of time training in the "very heavy" or "very repetitive" zone.  

 

• WHOLE BODY VIBRATION:  I use a WBV MACHINE in my clinic's gym and typically do planks from it, along with various modified yoga poses.  Whole Body Vibration is a fantastic way to strengthen your brain, while stretching, shaking, and generally loosening tight fascia.  When done correctly, WBV produces a veritable proprioceptive explosion.  Oh, I frequently try and do WBV exercises with my eyes closed and if possible, in a POSTURE OF EXTENSION instead of flexion.  And in light of what Van Ryssegem said earlier about needing to add "cognitive tasks" to your workout; allow me to give you an example I have stickers I move around to various parts of the wall in front of me, that I will touch in sequences or touch one and then touch my nose, touch the next, and then touch my nose, etc, sometimes to the beat of the music I am listening to.  There are lots of ways to add things that make you think into your workout.

 

• BODYWORK, INCLUDING TISSUE REMODELING:  Be aware that aside from changing one's diet, this is where things must start for those with chronic pain or restriction.  What do I mean?  Only that if you have FIBROSIS / SCAR TISSUE or TISSUE DENSIFICATION occurring in your fascia, both stretching and strengthening are not only not going to work properly, they will OFTEN PROVE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE.

 

• DRY NEEDLING:  I find that DRY NEEDLING works well for chronic Trigger Points much more so than it does FASCIAL ADHESIONS (even though these are related, they are two very different things).  Make sure to check out our posts on the subject.

 

• CUPPING:  Although I learned cupping back when I was certified in acupuncture by Dr. John Sunderledge over 25 years ago, it was done with glass cups and moxabustion ("Fire Cupping").  Today, cupping kits can be purchased on Amazon for 15 bucks that actually work pretty well.  There are tons of YouTube DIY videos, as cupping can be a godsend for people, especially people fighting chronic Trigger Points.  I am currently experimenting on myself and my chronic right-sided LEVATOR TRIGGER POINT.  I sometimes draw the TP into one of the smaller cups and then needle it.

 

• CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENTS: Just because this is last on the list does not mean it is the least. There are no medical treatments or medications that address proprioception.  In fact, many of them make it worse.  Once Scar Tissue has been addressed, CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENTS produce a veritable firestorm of proprioceptive activity, as well as helping keep joints freely moving (which itself is proprioceptively stimulating).  Actually, things like SPINAL DECOMPRESSION THERAPY or do-it-at-home INVERSION TABLES are fantastic proprioceptive restoration as well.  The biggest key to chiropractic adjustments doing what they are meant to do is first making sure fascial adhesion have been addressed.  Otherwise, the TETHERING EFFECTS of fascial adhesion will prevent you from holding adjustments for a reasonable amount of time.

I have talked a number of times here about WOLF'S LAW as stated by Dr. Julian Wolf --- that bones will change (remodel) over time, whether good or bad, depending on the manner they are stressed mechanically.  It is critical that you also understand Davis' Law.  Davis' Law, developed by Dr. Henry Gassett Davis, an orthopedic surgeon in the Civil War era, stated that.....

"Ligaments, or any soft tissue, when put under even a moderate degree of tension, if that tension is unremitting, will elongate by the addition of new material; on the contrary, when ligaments, or rather soft tissues, remain uninterruptedly in a loose or lax state, they will gradually shorten, as the effete material is removed, until they come to maintain the same relation to the bony structures with which they are united that they did before their shortening. Nature never wastes her time and material in maintaining a muscle or ligament at its original length when the distance between their points of origin and insertion is for any considerable time, without interruption, shortened."

Why is this a big deal to grasp?  Listen to what the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine had to say in a 2013 issue of Visceral and Somatic Disorders: Tissue Softening with Frequency-Specific Microcurrent (by the way, I have a Mens-O-Matic microcurrent machine I sometimes use on Tissue Remodeling patients).

"The fascial network is pervasive, extending to the capsules and interiors of organs, and could therefore be involved in both the origin and resolution of both somatic and visceral disorders. When the body is injured, stressed, or traumatized, fascia responds by laying down new fibers to provide support for the injured area (Davis's Law) and by 'gluing' adjacent muscles to each other. Thickening and gluing of fascial layers can persist long after an injury has healed and leave behind dense pockets or nonresilient bands that can be felt deep in the tissues. These palpable densities may correspond to the trigger points and taut bands described by Simons and Travell and/or to the inflammatory pockets described by Hans Selye.  Residual local tensions and gluing in the fascial network can give rise to compensating tensions extending throughout the musculoskeletal system. Such compensations can disturb more distant structures, leading to compromised movement patterns that leave the body vulnerable to further injury."

What I really want you to grasp here is the first sentence.  Yes, adhesed fascia can cause an array of movement problems and compensations that can wrack the entire body with pain and spasm.  But fascia is also involved in, "both the origin and resolution of both somatic and visceral disorders."  This is why very smart people such as DONALD INGBER and HELENE LANGEVIN (both are Harvard MD / Ph.D researchers) believe that problems in the fascia are the root of all sickness and disease. Look; I didn't say that, they have. Even if they are only partially correct, it still means that our EVIDENCE-BASED MODEL for treating chronically sick people or people with chronic pain, is outrageously obsolete.  Why not try something new and different.  What have you got to lose?

"The 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy (JFK), experienced chronic back pain beginning in his early 20s. He underwent a total of 4 back operations, including a discectomy, an instrumentation and fusion, and 2 relatively minor surgeries that failed to significantly improve his pain. This pain affected him nearly continually from his undergraduate years at Harvard until the day of his assassination."  From the study being discussed today

With a presidential legacy that includes MASSIVE TAX CUTS (not simply Income Tax but "the confiscatory property taxes being levied in too many cities"), increasing the spending on national defense to half of all federal expenditures (nearly 10% of GDP), as well as a hard stance against abortion (he appointed Byron White to the SCOTUS who wrote the dissenting opinion in Roe v Wade), I'm not sure JFK would feel much at home in today's Democrat Party. 

On the other hand, despite the fact that he is deeply beloved and considered by public opinion to be one of America's greatest presidents, many have forgotten that his legacy also includes the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion which subsequently led to him being verbally and politically bludgeoned by Nikita Khrushchev at the Vienna Summit --- an event that arguably led to both the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis --- not to mention moving US military "advisors" into Vietnam.  JFK was also responsible for starting our failed war on poverty in earnest (even though LBJ usually gets the credit), along with avoiding the Civil Rights issue like a hot potato solely for political reasons until it literally backed him into a corner, fell into his lap, and forced his hand. That being said, Kennedy was undoubtedly a war hero.

Shortly prior to the famous PT-109 incident of WWII, Kennedy became a commander for a Motor Patrol Torpedo Boat in a squadron of PT boats in the South Pacific (he served in the Solomons and Russell Islands -- Tulagi, Kolombangara, New Georgia, Rendova, etc).  In going up against the resupply barges and the hit-and-run tactics of the warships of "The Tokyo Express," PT-109 encountered the Japanese destroyer, Amagiri.  JFK's PT-109 was sitting at idle on a pitch black night waiting for an opportunity to attack the enemy, when the Amagiri appeared from nowhere and cut Kennedy's vessel in half, killing two of his crew, and severely injuring two more.  Clinging to the wreckage for 12 hours before coming to the realization it was sinking, Commander Kennedy understood that to survive he and his men would have to abandoned the sinking debris and make a break for shore. Heroically, JFK towed a severely burned crew member to shore by swimming (between 4-5 hours) while clenching the strap of the man's life jacket in his teeth. 

Because the island was deserted -- only about 100 yards across -- with no water, Kennedy swam 3 miles to another island to find water and see what could be done about the possibility of rescue. Kennedy and his men survived for six days on coconuts and coconut water before being found by natives that had been dispatched by an Australian naval observer living on top of a dormant volcano on KOLOMBANGARA ISLAND --- and island holding 10,000 Japanese troops (the observer had seen the explosion and sent the natives out to look for survivors).  Kennedy scratched out a message on a coconut that was taken back to lieutenant Arthur Evans (the observer), who then sent natives back to pick him up in a canoe, bring him back to Kolombangara, where he could help coordinate a rescue for his crew.

Not only is this story amazing, it's made all the more amazing because of the terrible back pain Kennedy suffered with his whole life (his politically powerful father had to pull several strings to get "Jack" OK'd for military duty by burying his failed military physicals due to "a bad back").  In similar fashion to the article on ELVIS PRESLEY'S HEAD INJURY that led to (or at least heavily contributed to) his rapid and premature downfall; just days ago, the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine ran a story by a pair of well known physicians called John F. Kennedy’s Back: Chronic Pain, Failed Surgeries, and the Story of its Effects on his Life and Death.

Because I dealt with a decade of chronic pain myself before finding someone to help me solve it (HERE), and because five days a week I deal with people who struggle with debilitating chronic pain (HERE), and because I watched the incredible strength and toughness of my FATHER-IN-LAW who managed to lead a "normal" life despite spending a year in an iron lung with polio and suffering through terrible post-polio syndrome as he got older, I have at least a tiny (tiny) degree of understanding of what JFK went through. CHRONIC PAIN changes people --- it destroys mind, body, and soul.  I find it astounding that Kennedy was able to accomplish what he did despite living with the kind of pain and health problems that he did.

There have been slews of articles written about JFK's back pain, as well as the fact that for years his personal physician was DR. JANET TRAVELL, who, along with Dr. David Simmons, wrote the "bible" on MYOFASCIAL TRIGGER POINTS (Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: Trigger Point Manual).  She and Simmons not only mapped out the areas where Trigger Points tend to occur most frequently, but their crazy pain-referral patterns as well.  These authors say of Dr. Travell.

"In 1955, Kennedy was introduced to Dr. Janet Travell, a Cornell University pharmacologist and internal medicine specialist known for her work using trigger-point injections of local anesthetics to treat myofascial pain. Senator Kennedy was treated with ethyl chloride spray [Spray and Stretch] and procaine trigger-point injections.  This hospitalization marked the first of hundreds, if not thousands, of procaine trigger-point injections.... [and] marks the end of his major back surgeries and a shift in focus toward muscular and environmental factors contributing to his back pain."

On May 29th of this year, JFK would have been 100 years old.  Something that the general public was unaware of (at least initially) is that despite his public persona of health and vitality, Kennedy (in similar fashion to Teddy Roosevelt) was a very sickly child, having nearly died from Scarlet Fever at age two. His childhood troubles didn't end there, however.  According to several sources supplied by these authors, "he would be treated for a host of illnesses prior to his graduation from preparatory school." The most interesting health-related fact in this entire story, however, had to do not simply with the fact that he had back pain, but with the cause of his back pain. 

"Dr. Marius Smith-Petersen concluded: 'I don’t think this is a disc since the pain complained of does not even remotely resemble a disc.' Dr. Smith-Petersen requested that JFK also consult with Dr. James White, a naval neurosurgeon who agreed that Kennedy’s current pain was inconsistent with sciatica.  The Mayo team stated that 'a diagnosis of a protruded disk was not definite … at this time you are not in need of surgery.'"
 
In other words, Kennedy was debilitated with back pain that was probably not DISC-RELATED, but not having better solutions (or at least not having been introduced to better solutions by a HIGHLY ANTI-CHIROPRACTIC MEDICAL PROFESSION), he decided to undergo SPINAL SURGERY in 1944 --- over a year before the war's end.  This leads me to a couple of conclusions that I have discussed on this site many times.  Debilitating low back pain has several causes that have nothing whatsoever to do with spinal discs (HERE).  It also leads to the conclusions that Dr. Travell came to in her studies, and what eventually led Kennedy to her --- albeit unfortunately after his failed back surgeries --- that the TWO SIDES OF THE MYOFASCIAL SYNDROME --- Scar Tissue / Fascial Adhesions and Trigger Points can produce debilitating / crippling pain (LH of Indy, I am thinking of you right now) that leaves the vast majority of the medical community starring at you with a deer-in-the-headlights look because these sorts of problems do not show up on MRI (HERE). 

Shortly after the war's end, JFK leveraged his name and war hero status to be elected first as a Representative and then a Senator.  During this time he was diagnosed with Addison's Disease --- a near total loss of adrenal hormones that is a step beyond ADRENAL FATIGUE and HARDCORE SYMPATHETIC DOMINANCE, although it carries some of the same general symptoms. Wikipedia says the chief signs of Addison's Disease include, "fatigue; lightheadedness upon standing or difficulty standing, muscle weakness, fever, weight loss, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, sweating, changes in mood or personality, and joint and muscle pains." Think for a moment about this.  JFK not only dealt with horrendous back pain, but the nightmare of Adrenal Insufficiency as well (yes, Addison's is another of the numerous AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES).

This is where things started to go off the rails.  After his second surgery, Kennedy had several near-death experiences due to staph infections and an inability of his wound to heal.  A friend said of Kennedy's wound, "the area where they cut into his back never healed. It was oozing blood and pus all the time. It must have been painful beyond belief…. It was an open wound that seemed to be infected all the time. And now and then a piece of bone would come out. His pain was excruciating."  Despite Travell's help with strengthening and rehabilitating his spine, which "led to significant improvement in JFK’s low-back health and overall functioning during this time," Kennedy ended up requiring one more surgery (his fourth spinal surgery) to "fix" staph-induced abscesses (not to mention a ton of ANTIBIOTICS that would have further degraded his GUT HEALTH along with his overall health and IMMUNE SYSTEM FUNCTION).

While running for the 1960 Democrat nomination for POTUS, his opposition, LBJ, revealed and harped on Kennedy's health problems in similar fashion to the way Trump did with Hillary, before eventually becoming his running mate (and then President after the events of November 22 of 1963).  Right before his FAMOUS DEBATE (remember the sweating?) with eventual Republican President, Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon, JFK had his first dose of "medicine" ("a vitamin cocktail that included amphetamine derivatives") from DR. FEELGOOD.

"Although his back was in comparatively decent shape, the 1960 campaign took its toll, prompting Kennedy to seek the services of Dr. Max Jacobson, a German immigrant practicing in New York.  Over the ensuing summer JFK’s physical condition was at its worst point in years. Not for a long time had he been in such agony. This prompted a return to frequent use of crutches, procaine injections, his corset brace, and an increase in the illicit injections from Jacobson. The poor state of his back and its effect on JFK’s overall well-being may have had a considerable and negative impact on the President’s performance at the crucial Vienna Summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in June 1961. In fact, on the 1st day of the tense summit the president received at least three of the methamphetamine-containing shots. Reeling from the nerve-wracking summit, his aching back, and the likely side effects of Jacobson’s methamphetamine shots, the very gloomy Kennedy admitted immediately after it ended that the summit did not go well—reflecting that Khrushchev just beat the hell out of me."

One of the White House physicians, Rear Admiral George C. Burkley, took it upon himself to have Kennedy evaluated by yet another expert --- this time, renowned orthopedist and physiatrist HANS KRAUS.  President Kennedy was, "placed on an exercise and rehabilitation program built around the White House pool and gym. The program consisted of a combination of thrice-weekly weight-lifting sessions and near-daily swims, along with massage and heat therapy — and paid immediate dividends. Within months, the improvement was dramatic."  Interestingly enough, there are many, including these authors, who suggest that Kennedy's continued reliance on a rigid back brace is what held him upright so that Lee Harvey Oswald could get off subsequent kill shots after a first shot that was, according to these authors, "potentially survivable".

The conclusions that the authors came to were that at least at first, there was nothing radiographically to show that JFK had a serious back problem, nor anything in his examinations that led experts to believe his problem was related to a disc herniation.  Because these authors also believe that Kennedy's problems started out as (and I quote) "MECHANICAL LOW BACK PAIN," it's nothing less than shameful that CHIROPRACTIC CARE was never tried (there is no historic record of such, nor have I seen anything about Dr. Kraus doing any spinal manipulations).

No matter what your political bent or opinion of him as a leader, Kennedy's ability to continually move forward in the face of incredible pain and dysfunction is nothing short of miraculous.  To read the entire paper by T. Glenn Pait, MD, and Justin T. Dowdy, MD, simply go HERE.

The SCAR TISSUE widely known as FIBROSIS within the medical community is so ubiquitous in our society that besides being a top cause of CHRONIC PAIN, it also happens to be our nation's number one leading cause of death (HERE).  Just remember that much of the time, this tissue adhesion comes in a form that is a bit more subtle (HERE).  Either way, dysfunctional soft tissues can be disruptive and life-altering --- particularly when it occurs in the FASCIAL LAYERS.  In fact, there are people who are smarter than everyone you or I know put together, who believe that fascial restrictions are the basis for all sickness and disease (HERE).   While three decades of clinical experience has led me to the conclusion that this model is more accurate than not, there is a big problem with this biological model.

Because our current insurance-based healthcare system is all about diagnosing things that can be seen or tested for, issues in the tissues --- particularly in the fascia --- can make suffering people think they are loosing their minds.  For instance, I have a patient who earlier this year ran into a small herd of cattle on the roadway that had gotten out of their fence in the middle of the night.  She has struggled with her WHIPLASH-TYPE INJURY, even though testing, orthopedic and neurological evaluations, and ADVANCED IMAGING techniques have all been "normal".  In other words, other than pain and some relatively minor restrictions in mobility, she has no visible / tangible (testable) basis for her pain. 

Today I want to touch on the main ways that fascia winds up causing problems, including pain. They are mechanical reasons, chemical reasons, and electrical reasons.

• MECHANICAL:  There are any number of mechanical / physical ways that people can wind up with stretched, torn, or injured fascia (HERE).  While most people tend to associate this bullet point with traumatic injury, as often as not (probably more so) it comes from repetitive injuries (chronic overuse) or POSTURAL CONSIDERATIONS.  Other reasons include impacts (getting hit BY SOMEONE or something), or overstretching tissues such what one might see in many SPORTS INJURIES or WHIPLASH INJURIES.  And while mechanical causes of fibrotic, adhesed, or restricted fascia are super ultra-common, they might not actually be the biggest reason.

 

• CHEMICAL:  There is a chemical process that occurs in our body that is specifically designed to allow us to heal injured or insulted tissues -- it's called inflammation.  While these chemical mediators that we collectively refer to as INFLAMMATION are vital and necessary to any and all healing processes, too many of these chemicals can create problems --- particularly if they are in the blood stream all the time.  In other words, if they are present on a "SYSTEMIC" basis. A big part of this has to do with the fact that inflammation always leads to fibrosis (HERE). Another big thing I have shown you previously is that according to renowned neurologist and medical professor CHAN GUNN, this inflammation can also hypersensitize scar tissue, helping make it over a thousand times more pain-sensitive than normal tissues.  Not surprisingly, inflammation is the root of most of the pain and chronic illness people deal with on a day-to-day basis.  And because we are talking about the chemical aspect of tissue adhesion here, remember that we have not even began to discuss the fact that in many ways fascia acts as an endocrine organ as well (HERE). 

 

• ELECTRICAL:  Because fascia acts as another nervous system (HERE), it transmits messages of all sorts.  Foul its PROPRIOCEPTIVE ABILITIES and as you'll see if you click the link, you'll also disrupt the motor side of the nervous system.  Not only can this whole scenario tilt your nervous system away from proprioception and toward nocicpetion (pain and spasm), it helps create aberrant motor and sensory loops that both CHIROPRACTORS and OSTEOPATHS have been talking about since the late 1800's and early 1900's.  Ultimately this can lead to a wide array of problems including CENTRAL SENSITIZATION.

 

• IMMUNE / ENDOCRINE:  Because inflammation is an immune system function, I could actually put AUTOIMMUNE FASCIA PROBLEMS here.  And this does not even begin to touch on the fact that fascia is actually a NEURO-ENDOCRINE ORGAN.  Once you begin fouling these two systems, things start to get much worse.
  

My next post is going to show people how to deal with (and hopefully restore) adhesed fascia and loss of proprioception (HERE it is).  Meanwhile, if you are struggling with chronic pain or chronic illness, make sure to read these two posts (HERE and HERE).  And if fascia really resonates with you --- makes sense --- be sure to at least bookmark my "FASCIA SUPER-POST" with about 175 articles on the subject, as well as a ton of peer-review!

"Credibility is everything for science, and it is built over time in both obvious and subtle ways. Within the last 12 months, the reproducibility of science, a lynchpin of credibility, has come under intense scrutiny, both from the NIH and other government funding bodies, as well as in the lay and scientific press."  Dr. Emilie Marcus (Yale University / Salk Institute) CEO of Cell Press and Editor-in-Chief of Cell, from the November 2014 issue of Cell (Scientific Credibility and Reproducibility)

"Unfortunately, in the past few years, many studies have reported that the majority of results within biomedical research cannot be replicated."  From one of Harvard University's blog posts (Reproduce or Bust: Bringing Reproducibility Back to Center Stage) by Steph Guerra

"It can be proven that  most claimed research  findings are false." Dr John Ionnidis from the study mentioned directly below

When Dr. Marcus in the first quote above says that "credibility is everything for science," she is only partially correct.  Credibility is everything for everything.  Whether you are running an organic ranch (HERE), building houses, educating our nation's children, running a medical clinic, or (ahem) serving in government, credibility is paramount.  Without it, nothing works properly and nothing or no one can be trusted.  A society without credibility is a society in decay.  So; what about the credibility of our scientific and biomedical research communities?

What is the one thing that makes "science" scientific?  Although you will find about a million slightly different definitions, the one thing --- the maxim if you will --- the property that makes science scientific is reproduciblity.  Reproduciblity is essentially the same thing as (or at the very least, intimately related to) falsifiability --- the various methods of testing a hypothesis to learn whether or not it is true or false; accurate or inaccurate.  The whole point of the science laboratory is to remove variables so that experiments can be duplicated over and over again to make sure that they are accurate and that further science is built on sound principles.  When scientific experiments cannot be reproduced either by other teams of scientists or by the scientists that did the experiment in the first place, it's not science.

The famous medical doctor, JOHN IONNIDIS, said it best via the title of the study he published in PLoS One a dozen years ago next month --- Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.  I've shown you why this is on many levels, one of the most recent being just a few weeks ago (HERE).  Today we are going to tackle yet another aspect of EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE that proves exactly what Ionnidis stated well over a decade ago; that for any number of reasons, biomedical science cannot be trusted to be true or accurate. 

This problem irreprocudibility is so pervasive in the scientific community that Wikipedia actually has an entry for it called "Replication Crisis" that says, "Scientists have found that the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to replicate on subsequent investigation, either by independent researchers or by the original researchers themselves.  The crisis has long-standing roots.  Since the reproducibility of experiments is an essential part of the scientific method, the inability to replicate the studies of others has potentially grave consequences for many fields of science in which significant theories are grounded on unreproduceable experimental work."  In other words, what you are going to learn today is that the VERY FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN PHARMACEUTICAL-BASED MEDICINE are based largely on misinformation.  Whether this misinformation is deliberate (outright lies and fraud) or accidental, is something you'll have to decide for yourself.

For the record, this problem is not confined to medical research.  The same thing is happening in other fields as well.  For instance, the website of the Federal Reserve contains a study called Is Economics Research Replicable? Sixty Published Papers from Thirteen Journals Say 'Usually Not'.  After looking at an awful lot of research, the authors concluded that, "Because we are able to replicate less than half of the papers in our sample even with help from the authors, we assert that economics research is usually not replicable."  We see the same thing in the field of chemistry.  Listen to what Dalmeet Singh Chawla said in the March 2017 issue of Chemistry World (Taking on Chemistry's Reproducibility Problem).

"A survey of over 1,500 scientists conducted by Nature last year revealed that 70% of researchers think that science faces a reproducibility crisis. Over half, however, still have faith in published literature in their field – with chemists being amongst the most confident despite reporting the most difficulty replicating other researchers’ or their own work."

Why is this such a big deal?  For the very reason I mentioned to you earlier --- that modern medicine is based on the field of chemistry.  And while I can see where some experiments might be tougher to duplicate because they involve living organisms and there are inherent differences in living organisms one to another, chemistry is just that; working with non-living chemicals.  Nothing should be easier than reproducing experiments with non-living chemicals.  Not only is this not the case, but the icing on the cake is the fact that even though scientists are often getting it wrong, the quote above shows that they think they are getting it right. Allow me to show you some of the sources revealing just how wrong we've been getting it for the past half century.

• 1960's:  A few months ago, NPR reporter, Richard Harris, released his book Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions.  In it he says, "The issue of reproducibility in biomedical science has been simmering for many years. As far back as the 1960s, scientists raised the alarm about well-known pitfalls—for instance, warning that human cells widely used in laboratory studies were often not at all what they purported to be.  At issue is not simply that scientists are wasting their time and our tax dollars; misleading results in laboratory research are actually slowing progress in the search for treatments and cures. This work is at the very heart of the advances in medicine.  if preclinical discoveries are deeply flawed, scientists can spend years (not to mention untold millions of dollars) lost in dead ends."  Stick with me to see just how "flawed" the science really is.

 

• 2005: This is the year that the barrage against irreproduciblity in science started in earnest. Besides the study by Ionnidis mentioned earlier, he authored another one that year; this one for the Journal of the American Medical Association (Contradicted and Initially Stronger Effects in Highly Cited Clinical Research) dealt with the number of times studies contradict other studies. After looking at 45 highly cited studies and then looking at research trying to duplicate their results, Ionnidis concluded that, "A third of the most-cited clinical research seems to have replication problems, and this seems to be as large, if not larger, than the vast majority of other, less-cited clinical research."  As you will see, however, either the problem of irreproducibility is growing exponentially, or Dr. Ionnidis dramatically underestimated the severity of the problem 12 years ago.

 

• 2008:  That January's issue of Nature Genetics "evaluated the replication of data analyses in 18 articles on microarray-based gene expression profiling published in Nature Genetics in 2005–2006. One table or figure from each article was independently evaluated by two teams of analysts. We reproduced two analyses in principle and six partially or with some discrepancies; ten could not be reproduced. Repeatability of published microarray studies is apparently limited."  In other words, in this study the independent scientists were not even trying to reproduce the entire experiment, just a single table --- and could not get it done in over half the cases.

 

• 2011:  A group of researchers from Bayer (yes, the same company famous for their ASPIRIN) published a study that can be found in the September 2011 issue of Nature Reviews: Drug Discovery (Believe It or Not: How Much Can We Rely on Published Data on Potential Drug Targets?) that looked at "published data from 67 in-house projects." (forty had to do with cancer research)  They concluded that at the very most, they were able to duplicate results that were "completely in line" with the original research a quarter or less of the time.  Furthermore, "In almost two-thirds of the projects, there were inconsistencies between published data and in-house data that either considerably prolonged the duration of the target validation process or, in most cases, resulted in termination of the projects because the evidence that was generated for the therapeutic hypothesis was insufficient to justify further investments into these projects.  Talking to scientists, both in academia and in industry, there seems to be a general impression that many results that are published are hard to reproduce. However, there is an imbalance between this apparently widespread impression and its public recognition, and the surprisingly few scientific publications dealing with this topic."

 

• 2012:  In March of 2012, a team led by Glenn Begley, former head of cancer research at pharmaceutical giant Amgen, revealed just how bad things really were in the field of cancer research.  Published by Nature, the study (essentially this was a decade-long whistleblower sort of thing) Drug Development: Raise Standards for Preclinical Cancer Research concluded after trying to reproduce 47 of the industry's "landmark" cancer studies that, "clinical trials in oncology have the highest failure rate compared with other therapeutic areas. Unquestionably, a significant contributor to failure in oncology trials is the quality of published preclinical data."  How bad was it?  "Scientific findings were confirmed in only 6 (11%) cases. Even knowing the limitations of preclinical research, this was a shocking result."  How do we know that BIG PHARMA is talking out of both sides of their collective mouths when dealing with this issue?  All of the companies forced Amegen to sign non-disclosure agreements.  In other words, they knew in advance that their published research would not stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

 

• 2013:  The December 2013 issue of Nature published a study (Modelling the Effects of Subjective and Objective Decision Making in Scientific Peer Review) on a phenomenon known as "herding".  "Given the increasing concern surrounding the reproducibility of much published research, it is critical to understand whether peer review is intrinsically susceptible to failure. Here we show that even when scientists are motivated to promote the truth, their behaviour may be influenced, and even dominated, by information gleaned from their peers’ behaviour. This phenomenon, known as herding, subjects the scientific community to an inherent risk of converging on an incorrect answer and raises the possibility that, under certain conditions, science may not be self-correcting."  This is not really news, nor is the propensity to only publish data that makes one's products (in this case drugs) appear more safe and wonderful than they really are. One of the best examples of herding (probably caused by fear of being blackballed by the research community) has to do with vaccines.  Both FLU VACCINES as well as the relationship between VACCINES & AUTISM provide many examples.  If you want to understand this concept a bit better, take five minutes to learn who DR HUGH FUDENBERG was.

 

• 2015 PART I: Two years ago next month, the journal Science published a study on the field of psychology called Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science.  After looking at and trying to reproduce "100 experiments reported in papers published in 2008" using teams of scientists from around the globe, the authors had to conclude that, "A large portion of replications produced weaker evidence for the original findings despite using materials provided by the original authors.  Ninety-seven percent of original studies had statistically significant results. Thirty-six percent of replications had statistically significant results." In case you didn't grasp the sheer magnitude of the scientific deceit going on here, re-read that last sentence.

 

• 2015 PART II:   April's issue of The Journal of Cell Biology carried a paper called Reproducibility and Cell Biology, which showed this continued pattern.  "Growing concerns about the reproducibility of published research threaten to undermine the scientific enterprise and erode public trust.  Research reproducibility is crucial to the scientific enterprise, not only because it underpins the accuracy and integrity of our published literature, but also because basic research increasingly contributes to the development of innovative clinical therapies.  Recent accounts describe frustrating experiences of pharmaceutical companies attempting to build upon research studies, notably in cancer biology. These companies encountered surprisingly low reproducibility (less than 25%) of published work."

 

• 2015 PART III:   The October 2015 issue of the Journal of Controversies in Biomedical Research ran a study (How Medical Practice Has Gone Wrong: Causes of the Lack-of-Reproducibility Crisis in Medical Research) by Henry Bauer, a professor of chemistry and science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, that hit the nail squarely on the head.  Listen to Dr. Bauer's shocking conclusions.  "Finding solutions to problems requires identifying their causes. Without that, only symptoms are likely to be addressed, leaving the root causes to generate further problems. The lack-of-reproducibility crisis in biomedical research is one of the indications that modern medicine in the most advanced countries has gone wrong in recent decades, as described and documented in many books and articles.  Modern medical practice has gone wrong by over-emphasizing drug-based treatment for chronic, constitutional conditions. The failure to distinguish between infectious and innate conditions was exacerbated by misinterpretation of quantitative measures, inappropriate statistical analysis, and inadequate regulation. The drug industry has become too influential as a result of these mis-steps and is a source of many conflicts of interest that are barriers to improving matters."  Let me summarize (after I find Dr. B and give him a hearty fist-bump).  Most chronic diseases (INFLAMMATORY and AUTOIMMUNE), while having some degree of GENETIC CULPABILITY, are diseases of lifestyle that will never really respond to what our medical community is trying to do with their drugs-for-everything approach.  While there are many, the best example I can think of off the top of my head is DIABETES (HERE is the blistering expose showing how grossly ineffective this class of drugs really is). 

 

• 2016 PART I:   In May of 2016, the journal Nature did a survey of nearly 1,600 scientists called 1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility, which concluded (cherry-picked for time and space as are most studies I talk about), "More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments.  Data on how much of the scientific literature is reproducible are rare and generally bleak. 73% said that they think that at least half of the papers in their field can be trusted.  Several respondents who had published a failed replication said that editors and reviewers demanded that they play down comparisons with the original study.  The survey asked scientists what led to problems in reproducibility. More than 60% of respondents said that each of two factors — pressure to publish and selective reporting — always or often contributed."  In other words, publish or find a new job, along with the whole "Invisible & Abandoned" thing I mentioned earlier.  For those of you who are not aware, this would be a good time to mention that I am the current world record holder in consecutively-made free throws (HERE) --- 43,548.

 

• 2016 PART II:  Drs. Kornfield (professor of psychiatry and special lecturer at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons) and Titus (former director at the US Office of Research Integrity) published a scientific paper a year ago next month in Nature called Stop Ignoring Misconduct.  Their premise?  That the journals and institutions that actually are addressing the issue of reproducibility are not owning up to reality.  They are trying to blame this phenomenon on anything but fraud.  These authors take a different approach saying, "Irreproducibility is the product of two factors: faulty research practices and fraud. Yet, in our view, current initiatives to improve science dismiss the second factor.  To dismiss the role of research misconduct is mistaken and unfortunate. At best, ignoring deliberate misconduct in efforts to reduce irreproducibility is a wasted opportunity, like tilling a field without clearing it of rocks. At worst, it permits destructive behaviour to persist and flourish.  Only 10–12 individuals are found guilty by the US Office of Research Integrity each year. That number, which the NIH used to dismiss the role of research misconduct, is misleadingly low, as numerous studies show. For instance, a review of 2,047 life-science papers retracted from 1973 to 2012 found that around 43% were attributed to fraud or suspected fraud. A compilation of anonymous surveys suggests that 2% of scientists and trainees admit that they have fabricated, falsified or modified data. And a 1996 study of more than 1,000 postdocs found that more than one-quarter would select or omit data to improve their chances of receiving grant funding."

 

• 2017:  I can see where experiments with animals or people could be harder to duplicate because of the variances in living systems.  However, replicating experiments in chemistry should be relatively simpler. In March of this year, Chemistry World published an article called Taking on Chemistry's Reproducibility Problem by saying that, "Not a week passes without reproducibility in science – or the lack of it – hitting the headlines. Although much of the criticism is directed at the biomedical sciences or psychology, many of the same problems also pervade the chemical sciences."  The author went on to show that the problem of replicating studies in chemistry is essentially as big a deal as it is in the biological sciences.

 

• ONGOING STUDY:  The website Psych FileDrawer keeps a running tally of experiments from the field of psychology.  Although the ongoing study is called Top-20 List of Studies Users Would Like to See Replicated, it contains more like 35 or 40 studies.  I counted 35 successes and 66 failures --- a success rate of about 1 in 3 --- not very good odds, but as good or better than most of what we have looked at so far.

Although the Nature survey revealed "why" our biggest and most important scientific experiments and trials can't be replicated / duplicated, the bottom line is money.  If you have thumbed titles of my dozens of posts on EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE, you are already aware of this.  How much money are we talking about?  According to the website of our government's National Institutes of Health (NIH), research is big business.  "The NIH invests nearly $32.3 billion annually (2016 stats) in medical research for the American people.  More than 80% of the NIH's funding is awarded through almost 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state and around the world."   Listen to what Dr Danielle Teller (Pulmonologist and intensive care specialist as well as a past faculty member at both Pitt and Harvard) says in the Jan 2016 article, Nearly All of Our Medical Research is Wrong.

"Academic medical research functions as a gargantuan cottage industry, where the government gives money to individual investigators and programs--$30 billion annually in the US alone—and then nobody checks in on the manufacturing process until the final product is delivered. The final product isn’t a widget that can be inspected, but rather a claim by investigators that they ran experiments or combed through data and made whatever observations are described in their paper. The quality inspectors, whose job it is to decide whether the claims are interesting and believable, are peers of the investigators, which means that they can be friends, strangers, competitors, or enemies." 

Dr. Sarah Weil from her Feb 2014 article Why Biomedical Research Has A Reproducibility Problem shows how this whole thing is related  to the "Invisible & Abandoned" research problem I have talked about over and over on my site.  "Unfortunately, scientists are typically evaluated based on the number of papers they have published and the quality of the journals in which they have published, but not on whether their findings can be reproduced. The “publish or perish” culture drives researchers to dig for significant results they can publish, and in the process may create subtle biases to report results in a manner that inflates the importance of a study and, by proxy, its authors. Whole sets of experiments that do not fit squarely with a hypothesis may be omitted from the published work to make the findings seem more convincing."  Why is this such a huge issue for the American taxpayer?  Maybe because of the 32 billion being spent by our government, the huge majority is paying for research that cannot be replicated.  The June 2015 issue of PLoS One (The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research) showed just how bad things really are.

"Low reproducibility rates within life science research undermine cumulative knowledge production and contribute to both delays and costs of therapeutic drug development. An analysis of past studies indicates that the cumulative (total) prevalence of irreproducible preclinical research exceeds 50%, resulting in approximately US$28,000,000,000 (US$28B)/year spent on preclinical research that is not reproducible—in the United States alone."

Holy cash-cow batman!  That's a lot of dough!  As you might of guessed from what you've seen thus far, nowhere is this research a bigger money-maker, not to mention a bigger producer of unduplicatable studies, than is the field of CANCER RESEARCH.  Think about this when you hear 'BROTHER JOE' or anyone else for that matter calling for yet another cancer-curing "MOONSHOT".  The problem is, despite all the rhetoric about stopping this problem --- or for that matter, even slowing it down, it continues picking up steam and crushing everything in its path; sort of like a cartoon snowball rolling downhill.

"There may be no more important issue for authors and reviewers than the question of reproducibility, a bedrock principle in the conduct and validation of experimental science. For most types of experiment, there is an unstated requirement that the work be reproducible, at least once, in an independent experiment, with a strong preference for reproducibility in at least three experiments.  Most experimental results reported in the literature will not be subjected to the test of precise replication unless the results are challenged."   From a 2010 issue of Infection and Immunity (Reproducible Science)

On the evening of April 27, 2015, past president of Cal Irvine, atmospheric scientist, expert on global warming, and then president of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone gave an applause-filled speech to NAS members called Research, Reproducibility, Replicability, Reliability.  It was to be sure, feel-good material that left those that heard it all warm and fuzzy inside. Cicerone stated, "I have  learned that there is much good work underway.... I am very encouraged by reproducibility experiments that I have learned about, like those in cancer biology and in psychology." Dr. C might be encouraged, but if you've been following along, you can see that others aren't necessarily feeling that same vibe.

Just two short weeks ago, PLoS One published a study whose title asked a question, Can Cancer Researchers Accurately Judge Whether Preclinical Reports Will Reproduce?  Although the short answer is no, let me show you what they actually said.  "Whether scientists can accurately assess which experiments will reproduce original findings is important to determining the pace at which science self-corrects.  Science is supposed to be self-correcting. However, the efficiency with which science self-corrects depends in part on how well scientists can anticipate whether particular findings will hold up over time."  After looking at how well scientists predicted the ability of six mouse studies in the field of cancer would hold up over time, the authors of this study concluded that...

"Experts generally overestimated the likelihood that replication studies would reproduce the effects observed in original studies. Experts... did not consistently perform better than trainees, and topic-specific expertise did not improve forecast skill. Our findings suggest that experts tend to overestimate the reproducibility of original studies and/or they underappreciate the difficulty of independently repeating laboratory experiments from original protocols."

If we can't replicate studies in mice, what makes us think that we are getting it right in people?  In many cases, we're not.  Despite what you are led to believe by industry, this field is not advancing like we are being told it is.  Just a few days ago, Wired ran a story called Biology's Roiling Debate Over Publishing Research Early.  The author, one Megan Molteni, concluded that, "Posting scientific papers online before peer review—in so-called preprint archives—isn’t a new idea.  Preprints could solve these issues by decoupling distribution of results from their certification via peer review. But publishers and some scientists worry preprints will only further dilute the research literature and endanger fields already struggling with reproducibility failures....  One of the concerns with preprints is that scientists will sacrifice accuracy for speed—that in the rush to be first on the scientific record, they’ll wind up filling the internet with crap. Traditional peer review is supposed to catch mistakes and make sure a paper’s scientific reasoning is sound, and uploading a virgin paper means people will see work that could be wrong."  We've seen just how wrong much of what we today call science really is.

This is why I believe that when it comes to your health, you need to be about he business of taking matters into your own hands.  There are some simple rules to live by if you want to get healthy and stay that way. The MORE OF THESE POINTS you understand, the better the chances of regaining your health and living a life without pain and dysfunction.  For instance, when "science" tells us that WHOLE FOODS and organic foods are no better than their processed, genetically altered, and chemically saturated counterparts, we should all start to realize just how bought and paid for science really is.

"Fascia contains mechanoreceptors and proprioceptors.  In other words, every time we use  a muscle, we stretch fascia that is connected to  spindle cells, Ruffini and Paccini corpuscles and  Golgi organs.  The normal stretching of fascia thus  communicates the force of the muscle contraction  and the status of the muscle regarding its tone, movement, rate of change in muscle length, and  position of the associated body part to the central  nervous system."  From Dr. Warren Hammer, the chiropractic profession's leading expert in soft tissues and fascia (The Fascial System is a Sensory Organ).  Dr. Hammer went on to say in another article (Why We Need to Fix the Mechanoreceptors) that, "One of the most relevant discoveries in the world of anatomy over these many years is that muscle spindles, the chief proprioceptive cell affecting our muscles, are not in the muscle, but in the fascia surrounding the muscle and its muscle bundles. A mechanoreceptor is stimulated when it is deformed, but when it is restricted in fascia that is unable to glide... it is unable to stretch, which is critical for the function of the spindle cell."

"This study demonstrated an abundant innervation of the fascia consisting in both free nerve endings and encapsulated receptors, in particular, Ruffini and Pacini corpuscles.  The hypothesis that the fascia plays an important role in proprioception, especially dynamic proprioception, is therefore advanced. In fact, the fascia is a membrane that extends throughout the whole body and numerous muscular expansions maintain it in a basal tension. During a muscular contraction these expansions could also transmit the effect of the stretch to a specific area of the fascia, stimulating the proprioceptors in that area."  From a 2007 study from the journal Morphologie (Anatomy of the Deep Fascia of the Upper Limb)

"It is now recognized that fascial network is one of our richest sensory organs. The surface area of this network is endowed with millions of endomysial sacs and other membranous pockets with a total surface area that by far surpasses that of the skin or any other body tissues. A myriad of tiny unmyelinated 'free' nerve endings are found almost everywhere in fascial tissues, but particularly in periosteum, in endomysial and perimysial layers, and in visceral connective tissues. If we include these smaller fascial nerve endings in our calculation, then the amount of fascial receptors may possibly be equal or even superior to that of the retina, so far considered as the richest sensory human organ. However, for the sensorial relationship with our own body - whether it consists of pure proprioception, nociception or the more visceral interoception – fascia provides definitely our most important perceptual organ."  Dr. Robert Schleip from Fascia as an Organ of Communication

"There really is a sixth sense: it’s called proprioception. It is the sense of position and movement. It is produced by nerves in our connective tissues (ligaments, bone, fascia) and our 300-or-so muscles. Without proprioception, you couldn’t stand up (standing up is actually shockingly complicated). You couldn’t so much as scratch your nose, because you wouldn’t be able to find it."  Paul Ingraham from his article, Proprioception, The True Sixth Sense.  I included Ingraham's article only because he was a previous editor of Gorski & Novella's SCIENCE-BASED MEDICINE and has written a large article decrying fascia as being an important target of manual therapies.

When we think of the nervous system, most of us automatically think of its sensory side --- things we feel.  While the sensory side is certainly important, even more important is the motor side of the nervous system --- the part of the nervous system that makes things work; that makes muscles and organs function.  There is, however, another side of the nervous system; a part of the sensory system that's critically important, yet hardly ever discussed by lay persons --- mechanoreception, aka proprioception.

First off, don't confuse these two terms with nociception; something completely different. Nociception (certain kinds of nerve endings are called nociceptors) is associated with things like pain, constricted blood vessels (vasoconstriction), MUSCLE SPASM (this and the previous can cause hypoxia or lack of TISSUE OXYGENATION) as well as various deficits in the autonomic nervous system (can anyone say SYMPATHETIC DOMINANCE?).  Functional neurologist DR. DAVID SEAMAN puts it this way.....

"Nociception and pain are two completely different animals. However, a devastating consequence of both pain and nociceptive stimulation of the hypothalamus, is the release of cortisol by the adrenal glands. Over time, elevated levels of cortisol will promote glucose intolerance, inhibit collagen formation, increase protein breakdown, inhibit secretory IgA output, and inhibit white blood cell function."

In other words, nociceptive stimulation coupled with proprioceptive loss means that you are far more likely to end up with ADRENAL FATIGUE, BLOOD SUGAR ISSUES, PROBLEMS HEALING (the body enters a catabolic state of breaking itself down as opposed to anabolic state of building itself up), various sorts of IMMUNE SYSTEM PROBLEMS, HORMONAL ISSUES (true for men as well --- HERE), not to mention CHRONIC PAIN.  Mechanoreceptors are the numerous and various nerve endings (mostly "encapsulated" --- Ruffinis, Pacinis, Golgis, etc) that are greatly responsible for proprioception.  What is proprioception? 

When mechanoreceptors are stretched, compressed, or sense almost any sort of movement or vibration, they fire off input into your nervous system to give a person what is called "kinesthetic awareness" (kinesthesia).  In other words, along with mechanoreception; inner ear function and visual input allow for balance and an awareness of where your whole body, as well as the various parts of your body, are in space.  Of the three, it is widely believed that mechanoreception is the most important. Together, this kinesthetic integration of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems is known as proprioception.

When joints and tissues are being moved through normal ranges of motion on a regular basis (EXERCISE, PERIODIC ADJUSTMENTS, STRETCHING, YOGA, etc, etc, etc), mechanoreceptors of all kinds are being fired.  This is important on many levels.  Although I cannot find the study he was referring to, I attended a WHIPLASH seminar in Little Rock 25 years ago where the instructor (the brilliant Dan Murphy) said that for every proprioceptive impulse not fired off due to loss of or abnormal mechanoreception (usually due to loss of or inhibited ranges of motion), thirty responses are inhibited on the motor side.  It's likely what caused the father of FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGY, Ted Carrick, to say (I am loosely quoting here), "chiropractors don't move bones off nerves, they put pressure on mechanoreceptors".  This helps explain some of the CRAZY MIRACLES that occur in my clinic from time to time (the link deals with an individual getting his hearing back as the result of a single adjustment after 42 years of deafness --- I did not realize he was deaf).

A majorly important thing to remember is that in the same way nociception can inhibit mechanoreception, the opposite is true as well --- mechanoreception has the potential to inhibit nociception. In other words, when joints are moving through normal ranges of motion and being moved on a regular basis (trust me when I say that people are often fooled -- HERE --- I was totally fooled by a 26 year old female yesterday), it has a pain-inhibiting / spasm-inhibiting effect, that tends to push the body away from SYMPATHETIC DOMINANCE and towards the parasympathetic side of the nervous system, meaning the body has a better ability to both relax and digest.  It's also why having joints --- particularly joints of the spine --- that do not move through normal ranges of motion, even in the absence of pain, is never a good thing.

FASCIA is the thin, cellophane-like membrane that covers and clings to numerous anatomical structures and tissues, including muscles.  Not only is fascia the most abundant connective tissue in the body, it is known to be loaded with mechanoreceptors of various sorts.  Why is this a big deal?  It's a big deal for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, remember that when fascia and other connective tissues (TENDONS, LIGAMENTS, etc) are injured (TRAUMATICALLY, REPETITIVELY, OR OTHER), it creates what the medical community calls FIBROSIS.  In my clinic, I call it SCAR TISSUE because it's a simpler concept for most people to grasp, and despite those who want to debate the matter, are essentially the SAME THING.

Adhesed fascia leads to a phenomenon known as DENSIFICATION.  Due to the adhesive nature of this problem, it tends to perpetuate subluxation, or at the very least, an inability to reduce subluxation (SUBLUXATION is defined as a loss of normal alignment or motion of joints --- usually vertebrae).  This is why there are so many people CANNOT HOLD AN ADJUSTMENT.  They often do amazingly well with Chiropractic Adjustments for a little while, but no matter what they do, they cannot seem to hold adjustment more than a few days, or in some cases, just a few hours. 

How long have we known that fascia is loaded with mechanoreceptive abilities?  For starters, in 1974 the Bulletin of Tokyo Medical and Dental University published a study called Mechanoreceptors in Fascia, Periosteum and Periodontal Ligament (PERIOSTEUM is the membranous fascia that covers bones).  But there are many others.  Thus, after realizing the intimate relationship between pain and abnormal proprioception, it should make you stop and think yet again about fascia as a potential generator of chronic pain.  Let's briefly look at some more early research.

A 1992 study on the THORACOLUMBAR FASCIA (Sensory Innervation of Human Thoracolumbar Fascia from Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica) takes us back even further, when the authors state, "Recent  studies  have  proclaimed  a  significant  role  for  the thoracolumbar  fascia  in  the  biomechanics  of  the  lumbar  spine.  To  our  knowledge,  there are  only  two  histologic  studies on  the human  thoracolumbar  fascia  (Stilwell,  1957, Hirsch  1963).  Methylene-blue   positive elements  were   found  by  Stilwell  in  the  thoracolumbar  fascia,  such  as  numerous   free   nerve  endings   and  large   pacinian  corpuscles.  Hirsch  spoke  of  'complex  unencapsulated  endings.'"  The thing is folks, this study was 25 years ago, and dealt with a study that is now sixty years old.  Thankfully, however, there are many such studies on fascia and it's proprioceptive abilities now.

For instance, listen to what our own government said of fascia in this cherry-picked quote from a 2014 issue of one of the journals published by the Veterans Administration ---- the Journal of Rehabilitation, Research, and Development (Fascia—Current Knowledge and Future Directions in Physiatry: Narrative Review).  For the record, physiatrists are medical doctors who, although they do use drugs to treat patients, sometimes treat in similar fashion to chiros or the old fashioned DO's. "Fascia can be considered part of the connective tissues that permeate the human body.  In medical education, trainees are taught about various organ systems, including the cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, and neurological systems. Fascia is part of all of these systems...."  So, why isn't mainstream getting this message?  One of the biggest reasons has to do with imaging.  It takes VERY SPECIAL IMAGING TECHNIQUES to actually see fascia (MRI will not image fascia).  But honestly, the lack of understanding starts long before that.  The authors go on to explain why most physicians (and yes, even chiros) don't have much of a grasp of the importance of fascia when coming out of professional school.

"With embalmed cadaveric specimens, the majority of fascial tissues are either ignored or difficult to discern during a dissection. However, if unembalmed cadavers are dissected using 'fascia-sparing' techniques, much more may be garnered regarding the structure and function of the musculoskeletal system. These 'fascia-sparing' dissections demonstrate functional connections and emphasize the continuity of fascia throughout the human body. Fascia is more evident in living bodies.  When defining fascial tissue via anatomical dissections, it may be difficult to define it only structurally, especially if fascial tissue has a dynamic and widespread role. For example, functions such as force transmission and sliding are not easily demonstrated in static specimens." 

I had intense cadaver-based anatomy / physiology courses both at Kansas State University and at Logan College of Chiropractic, and in neither case do I recall fascia being as much as mentioned let alone its astounding properties being studied or discussed.  The cool thing though, is that this is changing. There are now "Functional Anatomists" that are doing special dissection seminars.  I believe that Tom Meyer's of ANATOMY TRAINS is doing this as is GIL HEADLY, JAAP VAN DER WAL,
JOHN SHARKEY, along with any number of others.  Thanks to new research and new dissection methods, things are starting to change and this information is slowly filtering down to practicing physicians.

Some of this new research includes studies on the relationship between fascia and proprioception not just in an anatomical sense, but in a functional sense as well.  For instance, a handful of studies from the March 2014 issue of the Journal of Motor Behavior (including The Medium of Haptic Perception: A Tensegrity Hypothesis, The Stresses and Strains of Tensegrity & Proprioception, Tensegrity, and Motor Control) each deal with proprioception as related to TENSEGRITY, which is the molecular and microscopic shape / structure that fascia uses to be both firm (strong) and springy (elastic).  In other words, tensegrity allows fascia to resist not only mechanical loads that pull on it, but the axial loads that compress it as well.

"It is critical to understand that fascia is what gives our soft tissues structural support.   We now know that there exists a state of structural and functional continuity between all of the body’s hard and soft tissues, with fascia being the ubiquitous elastic–plastic, gluey, component that invests, supports and separates, connects and divides, wraps and gives cohesion, to the rest of the body – the fascial, connective tissue network. Without fascia, our muscles would be like a jelly substance without much form at all.  The fascia contains sensitive nerves that convery proprioception (joint position sense) as well as pain nerve fibers. Fascia, when healthy, forms a gliding interface with underlying muscle allowing free excursion of the muscle under the relatively immobile skin. When fascia gets mechanically loaded, injury can occur resulting in fibrosis and adhesion formation.  This adhesion formation disrupts the normal 'sliding and gliding' of the tissues.  As the fascia thickens, it can disrupt balance and proprioception.   This can result in binding up tissues that should slide and or stretch and thus disrupting motor patterns.  This can lead to chronic tissue loading, further injury, and global soft tissue holding patterns".   Matt Fontaine of Potomac Physical Medicine discussing a video by Dr. C (Leon Chaitow Talks About the Explosion of Fascia Research), much of it being transcribed word for word  Dr. Leon Chaitow is a British osteopath, naturopath, author, researcher, and university professor.

So, what happens when we lose proprioceptive abilities --- when mechanoreception becomes fouled up?  One of the biggies (I wrote about it HERE years ago) is degenerative arthritis.  Joints that don't work properly wear, with this wear turning right around and causing the affected joints not to work properly --- an ugly "vicious cycle".  Actually, we must also throw inflammation into this loop as related to fibrosis and Scar Tissue (HERE).  I've already shown you how fouled fascia is related to dysfunctional mechanoreception, and that dysfunctional mechanoreception leads to dysfunctional nociception, which leads to pain.  This has become common knowledge as seen in the October 2015 issue of the medical journal Biomed Central (Fascia as a Proprioceptive Organ and its Role in Chronic Pain - A Review of Current Literature).

"Latest research shows that the fascia is highly innervated. Especially the thoracolumbar fascia exhibits a high density of mechanoreceptors. They are responsible for proprioceptive information, i.e. implicit information about joint position and movement. In chronic pain patients, proprioception is impaired and studies indicate that connective tissue structures in painful body parts exhibit pathological changes.  Fascia should therefore be considered a cause of pain and proprioceptive deficits and treatment should be applied accordingly."  

We'll get to treating proprioceptive deficits of fascia in part II of this shindig, but for now, lets take a look at a couple of real life applications of this phenomenon that are not related to DEGENERATIVE OSTEOARTHRITIS. What happens when you have a WEAK CORE, lose THORACOLUMBAR INTEGRITY, or find yourself locked into LOWER CROSSED SYNDROME?  Take a look at the conclusions of this amazing study that was done by three medical doctors and published almost two decades ago in a 1999 issue of the journal Spine (The Effect of Lumbar Fatigue on the Ability to Sense a Change in Lumbar Position: A Controlled Study).  After comparing the backs of those with back pain to the backs of those without, the researchers determined that.....

"Protection against spinal injury requires proper anticipation of events, appropriate sensation of body position, and reasonable muscular responses. Lumbar fatigue is known to delay lumbar muscle responses to sudden loads. Patients with chronic low back trouble had significantly poorer ability than control subjects on the average to sense a change in lumbar position, which was noticed before and after the fatiguing procedure. This feature was found in patients and control subjects, but patients with low back trouble had poorer ability to sense a change in lumbar position than control subjects even when they were not fatigued."

Why does this matter?  Only because one's ability to sense joint position is one of the many functions of proprioception.  When proprioception goes bye-bye, sooner or later (probably sooner) you will end up with pain.  It really is that simple.  But it's also far more complex.  Remember a few paragraphs ago when FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGIST David Seaman was discussing proprioceptive dysfunction as related to Adrenal Fatigue (FIBROMYALGIA --- or HERE)?  CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME is intimately related to both Fibro and Adrenal Fatigue.  Now listen to what the May 2013 issue of Frontiers in Physiology had to say about this in a study titled Neuromuscular Strain as a Contributor to Cognitive and Other Symptoms in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. 

"Individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) have heightened sensitivity and increased symptoms following various physiologic challenges, such as orthostatic stress [changing position], physical exercise, and cognitive challenges. Similar heightened sensitivity to the same stressors in fibromyalgia has led investigators to propose that these findings reflect a state of central sensitivity.  Work by Brieg, Sunderland, and others has emphasized the ability of the nervous system to undergo accommodative changes in length in response to the range of limb and trunk movements carried out during daily activity. If that ability to elongate is impaired-due to movement restrictions in muscles, fascia, and other soft tissues adjacent to nerves, or due to swelling or adhesions within the nerve itself, the result is an increase in mechanical tension within the nerve. This adverse neural tension, also termed neurodynamic dysfunction, is thought to contribute to pain and other symptoms through a variety of mechanisms. These include mechanical sensitization and altered nociceptive signaling, altered proprioception, adverse patterns of muscle recruitment and force of muscle contraction, reduced intra-neural blood flow, and release of inflammatory neuropeptides."

They use a lot of big words, but here's the thing folks.  Although he used different descriptive language than we are used to today, DR AT STILL --- the founder of osteopathic medicine --- was talking about this exact same thing back in the 1800's (HERE) as was the developer of chiropractic, DR BJ PALMER.  It also happens to be why you have extremely educated people today (for instance, DR INGBER and DR LANGEVIN of Harvard) who believe that problems in the fascia are a root cause of all sickness, pain, and disease.  That was not a misprint folks.  That would be all as in all.  Which is why you shouldn't be shocked to learn that fascia is intimately related to cancer --- HERE and HERE.

If you are looking for more detail on this subject (including information on the various types of mechanoreceptors found in fascia as well as what they do), I would suggest you try Dr. Robert Schleip's Fascial Mechanoreceptors and Their Potential Role in Deep Tissue Manipulation (HERE).  Oh, and make sure to take a look at Part II of this post -- WHAT IT TAKES TO SOLVE PROPRIOCEPTIVE DYSFUNCTION IN FASCIA.  And for those of you who can't seem to get enough information about this amazing tissue, I have organized all 160+ of my posts on fascia into one post (HERE).

Jalopies certainly have a "cool" factor, but they don't exactly make for good transportation.  Back in October of 1991, Richard Smith showed us that in many ways, we've been confusing that old beater with a million dollar sports cars.  You see, this Richard Smith wasn't just any old Richard Smith (I know several).  From 1991 through 2004 this Richard Smith happened to be the editor of one of the world's oldest and most prestigious medical journals (established in 1840) --- the British Medical Journal, better known by its initials, BMJ.  Over a quarter century ago --- the year he took over as editor --- Smith published an editorial called Where is the Wisdom? The Poverty of Medical Evidence.   In these few cherry-picked sentences, you can feel the tone of Smith's scathing indictment of the medical community.

"There are perhaps 30,000 biomedical journals in the world, and they have grown steadily by 7% a year since the seventeenth century. Yet only about 15% of medical interventions are supported by, solid scientific evidence, David Eddy, professor, of health policy and management at Duke University, North Carolina, told a conference in Manchester last week.  This is partly because only 1% of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound. And partly because many treatments have never been assessed at all.  For 21 problems tackled so far, the evidence has been judged — by the experts — to be between poor and none for 17, and usually the best available evidence was something less than a randomized controlled trial. Often the evidence that was available contradicted current practice."

It was one of those proverbial "shots heard round the world" in the field of healthcare --- the moment when we all knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the emperor really was naked.  But 1991 was a lifetime ago for many of you reading this, and things have surely changed in the last two and a half decades?  After all, it's 2017. Medicine is more scientific now.  We have the internet, and lasers, and robotic surgery, and vaccines for everything and then some, and the FDA. Science is surely enough to save us from ourselves; isn't it?

Unfortunately, a brand new study from the very same journal --- BMJ (How Good is the Evidence to Support Primary Care Practice?) showed us that the emperor is just about as naked today as he was 26 years ago.  After looking at over 10,000 medical recommendations and industry guidelines that encompassed almost every imaginable category of healthcare, we leaned that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Despite the authors telling us that, "Evidence-based practice has been an important paradigm shift in modern healthcare education and practice," the so-called 'evidence' reveals that even though we may have thought we were buying a Testarossa or Countach, all too often, we are still riding in the turkey wagon.

"Previous studies have used observation of physician decisions to determine the extent to which physician decisions are based on high-quality evidence. In this study, we take a novel approach that evaluates the strength of evidence for a broad range of conditions in primary care and also assesses the extent to which that evidence is based on patient-oriented outcomes. Few medical references rate the strength of evidence of all key clinical recommendations. One is Clinical Evidence, which reported that 11% of the treatments reported in randomized trials were beneficial and another 24% were likely to be beneficial."

The July 2 issue of MedPage Today (Mediocre Evidence Behind Many Primary Care Decisions --- Only 18% of Clinical Recommendations Based on High-Quality, Patient-Oriented Evidence) by Alexandria Wilson Pecci did a better job of summarizing the situation.

"Researchers, led by Mark Ebell, epidemiology professor at University of Georgia's College of Public Health, analyzed 721 topics from an online medical reference for generalists and found that only 18% of the clinical recommendations were based on high-quality, patient-oriented evidence."

Twenty six years and we made it from 15% to 18%.  A 3% improvement in medical "evidence" since my third year of chiropractic school.  Are you kidding me?  The emperor might not be completely naked, but he's not wearing much more than a string mini-Speedo made of tissue paper.  For those that would doubt the veracity of this study, don't. I've shown you many times that the very things you thought you knew were true of the practice of medicine (get your annual physical, get your annual flu shot, get your regular colonoscopy, drugs are safe and effective and you need lots of them) are all too often, anything but (HERE).  Furthermore, the research that makes it into the public eye is being shown to have been tinkered with in ways that are nearly unfathomable to the average citizen (HERE).  This means that EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE is frequently little more than a feel-good oxymoron created to make doctors feel better about what they are doing clinically, and patients feel better about having it done to them.

What do I suggest people do who are chronically ill and / or dealing with CHRONIC PAIN?  In many cases, probably even most cases, people need to be taking their health into their own hands and addressing unbridled inflammation at its source (HERE).  Why?  No one is going to work for your cause like you are.  To see a generic template; a starting point as far as figuring out what you may need to do to begin taking your health back, HERE is something to look at --- something to at least get you thinking about creating your own "Exit Strategy".  An Exit Strategy is one of the best ways I know to get off the turkey wagon and start turning your body into a fine-tuned Lamborghini.