Explore how chiropractic care, a natural health approach, can positively impact the quality of life for people with AIDS. Dr. Adrian Wenban shares his experience.
Chiropractic and AIDS
Interview with Adrian Wenban, Doctor of Chiropractic. Author of a study analyzing the relationship
the relationship between chiropractic care and improved quality of life in HIV-positive individuals. It is
ready to begin another study focused on the effects of chiropractic care on the nervous system
autonomic and, by extension, cardiovascular, for which he has received a grant from the AEQ.
“The AIDS ”reflects society's problems"
-Why study AIDS?
AIDS is a disorder of the immune system that prevents the body from defending itself against external threats. AIDS affects millions of people worldwide and reflects the problems facing society. We were interested in studying how chiropractic care improves and influences the quality of life and well-being of people who have developed AIDS.
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– Does chiropractic care improve the quality of life for these types of patients?
The goal of chiropractic care is to detect and correct subluxations—nerve interference in the spine. One possible explanation for why HIV-positive individuals notice an improvement in their quality of life with chiropractic care is that subluxations cause our sympathetic nervous system to become overactive.
And an overstimulated autonomic nervous system weakens the body’s immune system. Since chiropractic care strengthens and treats the nervous system, it has a positive effect on the immune system by boosting the body’s defenses and its ability to protect itself, thereby substantially improving patients’ quality of life—especially in cases—such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome—where the disorder itself weakens the immune system.
-The study shows that the use of so-called alternative and complementary medicines to alleviate AIDS-related disorders is very high.
Of these, chiropractic care is one of the most highly regarded. Why?
Chiropractic does not seek to compete with allopathic medicine. The goals of the two are different.
The ultimate goal of chiropractic care is to optimize each person’s health potential and educate them so they can maximize their quality of life. It is important to remember that the quality of life in countries around the world does not always correspond to the efforts and resources devoted to improving and promoting it.
It is absurd that in countries such as the United States, 97% of resources are allocated to medicines and only 3 percent to promoting well-being—a significant figure when one considers that over the past 100 years, life expectancy in the Western world has doubled.
It is essential to take into account other factors such as climate, diet, family and social environment, and genetics, since improvements in the environment and living conditions have been the real drivers behind the increase in life expectancy and health levels.
Only 10% of the problems have been resolved medically. Chiropractic takes all these variables into account, and by addressing the health of our nervous system, it directly helps strengthen the immune system—a system that is severely weakened in both patients who have developed AIDS and those who are antibody carriers.
-There was a statistically significant improvement in patients' quality of life between the time before they began chiropractic care and after six months of weekly adjustments.
After three months, the patients had already experienced an improvement, and this trend became more pronounced after six months of chiropractic care. It is unfortunate that the study had to be limited to a certain number of patients and could not be extended over a longer period of time to obtain more accurate results regarding this correlation and gain the endorsement of the international scientific community.
Nor should we forget that many patients do not tell their allopathic physician that they have visited a chiropractor or that they have combined their care with other alternative or complementary therapies. However, the results obtained are a step in the right direction, confirming the general trend and providing an incentive to continue researching the effectiveness of chiropractic care.
In this type of study, many patients drop out halfway through, and it is very difficult to persuade them otherwise because the researcher cannot directly and individually control the process; instead, he or she works with data provided primarily through questionnaires. For chiropractic and chiropractors, these results represent an encouraging success that could be extrapolated to other types of conditions, such as cancer.
-You have received a grant from the AEQ for a new study. What will be the focus of this study?
This grant will allow us to purchase a machine called the Powerlab 4/20 (Power spectral analysis of heart rate variability), which will enable us to measure the effect of chiropractic care on the nervous system and thus study the extent to which chiropractic care acts on it, strengthens it, and influences heart rate and rhythm.
It will be a high-level, far-reaching study for which I will need about 40 collaborators. A similar line of research has been launched in Japan, which has shown that, of the two groups analyzed, the one that received chiropractic care experienced improvements in the function of its nervous and cardiovascular systems compared to the group that received a placebo.
I will also begin another study on my own with the goal of analyzing the benefits of chiropractic care during the maintenance phase. I am interested in investigating, in the phase following intensive care, the extent to which chiropractic care improves quality of life and well-being, as well as its impact on socioeconomic and health-related aspects.
-Is it very difficult to conduct research in Spain?
Research is very difficult everywhere. It’s hard to balance research with the day-to-day practice of the profession. In Spain, since there are no chiropractic universities, it is difficult to study because—unlike in the United States or England—there are no stable working groups, nor is there any specific, up-to-date chiropractic literature to draw upon.
It is also more difficult to obtain funding for projects and studies. For now, here in Spain, conducting research is part of our ethical commitment and is an act of voluntary service and respect for chiropractic and for the people who entrust their health care to us.
Marc Bony,DC .bcchiropractic.es
