Chiropractic Treatment For Blood Pressure Explained

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Chiropractic treatment for blood pressure is yet another alternative treatment option available to hypertensive individuals. Scientific results largely show that it is effective in blood pressure reduction.

With a history going back as far as 1895, chiropractic treatment has steadily gained acceptance world wide. Between 2006 and 2007, for example, as many as 18 million adult Americans received chiropractic treatment.

Mostly concerned with the manipulation of the spinal code, chiropractors consider chiropractic treatment a complimentary health approach that can be used to treat systemic diseases including high blood pressure. It is an alternative to costly pharmaceutical anti-hypertensive drugs both in terms of financial cost and side effect associated discomfort that significantly degrades the quality of life.

Along with other natural remedies for high blood pressure, these benefits make chiropractic treatment for blood pressure an inviting and viable option for many high blood pressure sufferers.

Chiropractic treatment is heavily focused on mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system which when in a bad state leads to high blood pressure and other life shortening serious diseases and conditions primarily through effects on the nervous system.

The question that many people do ask is whether or not treating high blood pressure using chiropractic methods really works. While there maybe a lot of claims, in our view, the best answers are found in credible scientific investigations.

Scientific Studies Supporting Chiropractic Treatment For Blood Pressure

An August 1988 study published in the Journal of Manipulative & Physiological Therapeutics reported a drop in mean blood pressure of between 10-20 mm Hg following chiropractic adjustments of subluxations in the cervical spine. This simply refers to a misalignment that occurs within the seven uppermost vertebrae of the spine.

The clinical study carried out at Palmer College of Chiropractic Clinic in the United States, involved a total of 75 participants who were divided into two groups following a chiropractic examination, one experimental the other being the control group.

Systolic blood pressure (the top number) and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) were both lowered in the experimental group which had chiropractic adjustments performed on them.

Another December 1988 study by a different set of researchers also published in the Journal of Manipulative & Physiological Therapeutics, supported the proposition that chiropractic treatment for blood pressure is effective.

The study randomly divided a total of 21 patients suffering from high blood pressure into three groups namely those on active treatment, those on placebo treatment and another group on no treatment at all. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure values decreased significantly in the first group which is the group that received chiropractic treatment.

 Unlike the August 1988 study, the December study noted that there was need to research further on the long term effects of blood pressure lowering using chiropractic treatment.

In 2013, the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine published a study by researchers who investigated the effect of  chiropractic treatment on blood pressure numbers of a sub-group of the American population in the form of African Americans,

The study raised interesting questions on the possible benefits or lack thereof of chiropractic treatment on high blood pressure among overweight members of society suffering from high blood pressure.

In the study, 24 African Americans who were diagnosed with prehypertension with blood pressure readings of 120/80 mm Hg to 139/89 mm Hg and also diagnosed with hypertension stage 1.

When results included all the 24 participants, the study could not confirm chiropractic treatment for blood pressure as a viable alternative treatment for hypertension. However, when the results excluded data gathered from 4 individuals who were overweight, there was a drastic drop in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure particularly for the hypertension stage 1 group.

Long Term Effects of Chiropractic Treatment and Blood Pressure

As could be expected, there is general interest to know the long term status of lowered blood pressure using chiropractic treatment. Most studies seem to remain focused on immediate and short term results associated with chiropractic treatment for blood pressure.

A case study published in the 1993 edition of the Journal of Manipulative & Physiological Therapeutics (1993 (Oct);16 (8): 544-549) showed that a 38 year old man who had suffered from high blood pressure for some 14 years had his blood pressure lowered using chiropractic treatment.

In addition to hypertension he also suffered discomforting side effects from the use of anti-hypertensive drugs. Following chiropractic treatment using the Gonstead technique, he discontinued the blood pressure meds. Follow-up checks after one year and a half indicated that his blood pressure remained within normal levels.

Researchers in a 1993 edition of  the journal, Neurological Fitness (Vol.2 No.3 April 1993), warned that extra precaution needed to be taken when treating high blood pressure patients with chiropractic when such patients are also on blood pressure medications. The fear is that the combination of the two could possibly drive patient blood pressure to below normal levels which is also known as hypotension.

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