New Study Shows That the Spinal Discs are Viable!
By Randall Pruitt, DC, DACNB, DAAPM, FACFN, MUAC, CES-NASM
Over the past 12 years I have offered a program centered around spinal decompression. In those 12 years I have steadily improved on my program and have added techniques and technologies that I have found to be valid and results producing.Therefore, I can honestly say that my program works for the majority of chronic back and neck pain sufferers. So when a study comes out that inadvertently proves what I have seen in my practice for many years I get a bit excited.
To explain this,let me start with a common question I get from patients and that is “would it help if I lost weight”? Referring to their current and ongoing back pain. In the past my knee jerk reaction was always…it certainly couldn’t hurt, but I always knew intuitively that their weight really wasn’t the issue. The other question I answer routinely is, “can my disc really heal, because my doctor said it can’t” and my answer to this questions is always “of course it can, they just have yet to see what I have seen in my practice.”
Now you may not see the relationship between these two questions, but the correlation is profound, which brings me to the study I mentioned above. You see recently at the meeting of the North American Spine Society a paper was presented that came to some rather alarming conclusions. These particular researchers looked at identical twins to determine certain factors on disc degeneration and what they found was unexpected to say the least. The twins involved in this study had one very important difference, one of the twins was at least 30 pounds heavier then the other. What they were looking for was how this impact of extra weight would effect the discs in the lumbar spine. Would there be accelerated degeneration? Would there be more disc breakdown? Would the situation in general for the spines of these overweight twins be worse in comparison to their lighter sibling?
On completion of the study several finding were relayed. The overall message was that being heavier actually slowed down the process of degeneration. What??? That is precisely the opposite of what most would expect, right? Well, here is what they found…Higher body weight was associated with a 6.2% higher bone density in the lumbar spine, Disc signal results were 5.4% higher (better) in the heavier twin. The heavier twin also had a greater disc height (2.6% higher) and a higher adjusted disc signal (2.9%).
So am I advocating that you gain an extra 30 pounds to fix your back? Of course not, the take away from this study is simply that the disc is a viable structure! It can adapt and it can respond to stresses. That is why I was excited to see this study, because it clearly indicates the discs ability to heal. Something that I have seen in my practice now for over 12 years!
