Chiropractors are offering 'worthless' form of treatment

No surprise then that the professor's findings have been roundly rejected by chiropractors and osteopaths alike, who have criticised both the methodology of his research and his conclusions, and accused him of waging a campaign against practitioners.

"This report is misleading," says David Byfield, head of the Welsh Institute of Chiropractic at the University of Glamorgan. "Ernst has said spinal manipulation is not effective for an aggregate of diverse conditions, and for some reason he has included back pain alongside infant colic, allergies and asthma.

"Very few of our patients come to us with infant colic. They come with headaches and back and neck pain, for which spinal manipulation can be very effective."

The freeing up of my upper back sent signals to my nervous system that abruptly altered the blood supply, said Savory, which was why I suddenly felt lighter and more flexible. Two weeks on, my back feels fantastic. Spinal manipulation may not be for everyone but it worked for me.

Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation
Neck tension can cause tension and pain in the head. Such “cervicogenic headaches” overlap closely with tension headaches. Chiropractic spinal manipulation has shown some promise for these conditions, but the evidence is incomplete and somewhat contradictory.

In a controlled trial of 150 participants, investigators compared spinal manipulation to the drug amitriptyline for the treatment of chronic tension-type headaches. 8 By the end of the 6-week treatment period, participants in both groups had improved similarly. However, 4 weeks after treatment was stopped, people who had received spinal manipulation showed statistically significantly better reduction in headache intensity and frequency and used fewer over-the-counter medications than those who had used the amitriptyline.

In another positive trial, 53 participants with cervicogenic headaches received chiropractic spinal manipulation or laser acupuncture plus massage. 9 Chiropractic manipulation was more effective.

However, a similar study of 75 participants with recurrent tension headaches found no difference between the two groups. 10 Other, smaller studies of spinal manipulation have been reported as well, with mixed results.

In a recent controlled trial, 200 people with cervicogenic headaches were randomly assigned to receive one of four therapies: manipulation, a special exercise technique, exercise plus manipulation, or no therapy. 12 Each participant received at least eight to 12 treatments over a period of 6 weeks. All three treatment approaches produced better results than no treatment, and approximately the same effect as each other. These results prove little, however, since any treatment whatsoever will generally produce better results than no treatment, for a number of reasons having nothing to do with the treatment itself. Ordinarily, researchers get around this problem by using double-blind, placebo-controlled trials (For more information on this important subject, see Why Does The Natural Pharmacist Rely on Double-blind Studies?) While it isn’t possible to do a truly double-blind trial of chiropractic, the better trials noted previously used a form of placebo treatment, making them more reliable than this one.