With an aging population and people increasingly living sedentary lifestyles, the statistics show that chronic LBP is becoming more common. In tandem, the chiropractic industry is growing year to year, and providers promising anything from short-term pain relief to long-term injury recovery.
Is chiropractic treatment effective at resolving the underling cause of low back pain? Or is it just a placebo effect which can alleviate some of the symptoms?
What is Chiropractic?
The NHS categorises chiropractic as a type of complimentary and alternative medicine, and as a result is not readily available via the NHS. Chiropractors believe that many health problems stem from misalignments in the spine (called subluxations) that can affect the nervous system.
Founded in 1895, by Daniel David Palmer, an alternative medicine practitioner who begun treating patients with a combination of magnetic healing and psychical manipulation. Stories online suggest that the revolutionary idea for treatment came to him at a séance, via the spirit of a deceased doctor. Although both the relevance and basis of this origin story is heavily disputed by modern chiropractic.
Have Chiropractors cracked it?
A spinal adjustment, sometimes called a spinal manipulation is a technique used by chiropractors to correct “misalignments” in the spine. The chiropractor applies a controlled, sudden force to a spinal joint which will often create a crack or popping sound, caused by the release of gas bubbles in the synovial fluid (the joint’s lubricating fluid).
A randomised clinical trial in 2016, looked at the efficacy of supervised exercise, spinal manipulation, and home exercise for the treatment of chronic LBP. A total of 301 individuals aged between 18 and 65 years of age, with sustained low back pain, undertook 12 weeks of treatment. The study found supervised exercise was significantly better than chiropractic spinal manipulation and home exercise, in terms of satisfaction with treatment and trunk muscle endurance and strength.
A 2011 review of 26 randomised controlled trials on this subject, concluded that “high quality evidence suggests there is no clinically relevant difference between spinal manipulation and other interventions for reducing pain and improving function in patients with chronic low back pain”.
Nothing more than a placebo?
Spinal adjustments can only hope to address the symptoms and provide short-term pain relief, but will never address the underlying cause. Which in the majority of cases is likely to be a core muscle weakness or imbalance.
An analogy I like to use, is to compare it with cold and flu medicines. There’s very little, if any scientific evidence (in many cases) to show how cold remedies help us. Yet they can still create perceived symptomatic relief, simply because you’ve been proactive to take them. But, these remedies do absolutely nothing to strengthen your immune system or reduce your chance of catching another cold.
Addressing the core issue
Any positive effect of expensive chiropractic spinal adjustments is likely to fade as fast as your bank balance. Meanwhile, strength training with a focus on compound movements can strengthen the muscles that support your spine, improving both core strength and overall stability.
That’s why we believe strength training offers a far better return on investment when it comes to resolving low back pain for the long-term, not to mention the many added benefits for your overall health and wellbeing.
Our client, Sam, is an incredible example of the impact that strength training can have. Her journey from spine surgery to setting a powerlifting record was recently featured in a Client Stories post, which you can read here.
