Understanding Chiropractic

Once again, we have an idea that has mostly been bogged down in the septic tank of pseudoscience. There seems to be some therapeutic benefit to chiropractic care, but there's so much crap spread on top that it's difficult to find. We dig into the aspects of this that are worth saving vs throwing out. 

Recommendations

• Abraham: Drop (https://www.peacocktv.com/stream-movies/drop)
• Shane: Strange Pictures by Uketsu (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/strange-pictures-uketsu?variant=42921568141346)

Holidays (9/10/2025):

• Blame it on the Large Hadron Collider Day
• International Creepy Boston Dynamics Robotic Horse Day
• International Makeup Day
• National Hot Dog Day
• Sew Be It
• Swap Ideas Day
• TV Dinner Day
• World Suicide Prevention Day
• Direct Support Professional Recognition Week
• International Air Ambulance Week
• Line Dance Week
• Malnutrition Awareness Week
• Minimally Invasive Surgery Week
• National Assisted Living Week
• National Biscuit and Gravy Week
• National Suicide Prevention Week
• National Waffle Week
• Sobriety Checkpoint Week
• Substitute Teacher Appreciation Week

Links and References: 

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8915715/
2. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/chiropractic-adjustment/about/pac-20393513
3. https://www.jpsmjournal.com/article/S0885-3924(07)00783-X/fulltext
4. https://ascentchiropractic.com/the-crazy-unadulterated-history-of-chiropractic-spinal-manipulation/
5. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/chiropractic-pediatrics-conference-features-anti-vaccination-ideology-as-usual/
6. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8564978/
7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK91735/#:~:text=RESULTS%3A%20Twenty%20six%20fatalities%20were,have%20occurred%20after%20chiropractic%20manipulations.
8. https://www.healthline.com/health/is-chiropractic-pseudoscience
9. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4326543/ 

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.

Support our podcast: www.patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
to Why we do what we do. I am your
innately intelligent host, Abraham.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I'm your cricky, cracky host Shane.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
that humans and non human animals do. And I said,
the kind of weird and non human animals that's what
it is, what they do too. And sometimes we talk
about I don't want I want, I want to like
get us there. I want to build up to it.
Sometimes we talk about stuff that we need to build

(00:45):
up to. Sure, Yes, that's what it'll be today. So
thank you for joining us. I hope that you enjoy
what you hear in this discussion today. And if you
do a joy it and you like to support us,
you can leave us at rating and review, which is
super helpful. You can like in somebscribe, tell a friend,
join us on Patreon. I'll talk more about the ways
that you can support us at the end of this discussion,

(01:06):
but I'd also like to welcome you your first time.
Happy to have you here. Thanks for joining us. I
hope that you enjoy it. If you're a returning person,
thank you for coming back. Either way, It is September tenth,
which means happy blame it on the Large Hadron Collider Day.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Call a day?

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Why is that a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's that today? And it's also International Creepy Boston Dynamics
Robotic Horse Day.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Okay, so we're going with a sort of broadly we're
a little bit scared of science feel I get sure
that's the sort of yeah, which actually is ary on
par with what we're going to talk about today.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
It is also International Makeup Day. That's cool. We did
a whole episode on makeup Day.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I know we did.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
I love that or not makeup Day, but makeup Yeah
we didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, makeup days is a whole different episode for a
different day. Well today it would have been good for it.
I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah. It's a National hot Dog Day Joey Chestnut Day.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Then, yeah, eighty hot dogs.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
It is so be it with so spelled sew because
you know English, so something to do with textiles. I guess.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah. It's Swap Ideas Day.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Ohthough works, we're going to swap ideas with y'all. Yeah,
well it's kind of a one sided swap, but you
can always right into us and then it becomes a
dynamic swap.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
It is TV Dinner Day. Man, I've almost I haven't
heard those words together, and sometime right.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
I feel like there's just a whole market for like
good vegan TV dinners that are like a la kid
cuisine style, and we just they just haven't hit they
haven't tapped that market yet, you know, mis opportunities. Yeah.
It is World Suicide Prevention Day.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Extremely important suicide hotline in the US is nine to
eight eight. Give them a call if you were struggling
with those thoughts.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
It is Direct Support Professional Recognition Week. Yeah, that's great,
we support.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah. A good way to support them also is like
I don't know, working with legislation to raise the rates
that they get paid so that we can pay them
more because they don't get paid nearly enough for the
amazing work that they do, so we want to make
sure we support them in those ways. It is International
Air Ambulance Week. I just pictured like a flying ambulance,

(03:21):
like a dry like a car.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Right when you said that, Yeah, that was that was
the image of my mind. I was like almost like
a catapult, but like it was propelling itself. Yeah, yeah,
I get the arc sort of in my mind. Yeah,
if you're into it as line dance week.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Sure, it's also a malnutrition Awareness.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Week, Minimally Invasive Surgery Week. Sure.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Ooh. It is National Assisted Living Week.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Okay, man man, we did maybe talk about assisted living.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
We should at a point.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Sure, that's got to go on the list.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
All right.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
National Biscuit and Gravy Week.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Love that being from the South, No, that that's true.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, that's right in your wheelhouse.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I make a mean vegan biscuits and gravy. So if
you're ever when you're when you're in town, yeah, yeah,
I got you.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
It is National Suicide Prevention Week.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Okay, I see Suicide Prevention Day and Suicide Prevention Week.
That makes sense. This should have overlap. Sure is National
waffle Week. Oh waffle House, this is the this is
their week.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah yeah, that's well. This is usually when they do
the boxing tournaments and stuff in the parking lots at
the waffle houses. Nice, you know this is like this
is there's it's tournament week there, like there's some people
are going to get into and fisticuffs, which is every
also every week at waffle House. So yeah, it's a
Sobriety Checkpoint Week. Love that, yeah for sure. And it
is substitute teacher Appreciation Week. Ugh, so great.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah we need them. They help us. Yes, all right,
but we talk about things other than just holidays. And
I think we are ready to dive into our discussion
today because there is a lot to unpack here, and
I do want to say up front this this is
a topic about which I'm expecting us to offend some people, sure,

(05:09):
and make a lot of people angry, and we're not
trying to do that. So we're going to try and
present this as objectively as possible and understands that this
is not going to be as black and white as
it sounds like it's going to be for the most
of the discussion, like we are going to bring some
sort of we're going to try and bring some nuance.

(05:29):
We're really trying to do this as accurately as we can,
and understanding that that does mean that there are people
who believe in the thing that we're about to talk about,
and they otherwise embrace other like very evidence based sort
of practices, and it's just this one thing that they
sort of got on board with and they don't. It's

(05:49):
and maybe exists in sort of a blind spot for them,
which I know is language we're not really supposed to.
That's not as sensitive, and I apologize, but it's it's
something where they sort of maybe don't have a critic
the lens toward it. Sure, and so what we want
to do is unpack this as objectively as we can.
We are coming from a biased perspective that will become
obvious very quickly. But that's my CoA before we jump

(06:11):
into this, I guess.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, Yeah, the goal of the show is always to
be intellectually curious and intellectually honest and be skeptical.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yes, primary goal.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
That is the goal of the episode. Yes, sometimes we
get off on tangents, but we always try to come
back to we want to answer questions and like have
objective answers to questions. That's what we're trying to do. Yeah,
and so that's that's how that's why we're here.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yes, So the way I would like to start this
is we're going to start by describing some things that
may be sound a little crazy, sounded crazy to us,
and then after we've described it, we'll tell you exactly
what it is. If you haven't figured it out by
that point, and then we will I think it'll help
set the stage for like where we're going with this,
If that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Sure, sure, absolutely. So imagine that we told you that
there is one singular cause for all diseases that humans suffer.
It is physical. It's in the body, and with some
carefully placed pressure, we can cure any ailment whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
There's more, yeah, of course, or not done. Part of
the belief that is foundational to this idea is that
the body can heal itself of any ailment again with
the right pressure.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Sure, And we will also tell you that rigorous scientific
research has yielded almost no benefit from this pressure for
any medical condition, and that medical doctors tend to recommend
against it, and that practitioners of this particular practice actively
campaign against known effective medicines.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Okay, so understanding so far that we're talking about a
thing that has no evidence for its effectiveness. And another
important thing to understand is that many people have died
from this practice. Sure, so it won't help you and
it might kill you.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Right, So in s a reas a practice that believes
that all diseases have the same cause and functionally the
same treatment that the body can heal itsself of any
problem that is at odds with current medicine in science
and current evidence, and that research does not support its efficacy,
and that you might dive if you do it. So
are you sold on this procedure? Are you going to
jump in and dive in and try to seek this cure?

(08:16):
If you will?

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, if it was laid out for you in that manner,
are you thinking, I'm curious? Sign me up for that.
I would be surprised if you were. We're talking about
chiropractic interventions, and just in case you haven't heard of
this or are maybe unfamiliar with it, or you've maybe
seen it around but you really don't know what it is,
Chiropractic interventions are an alternative medicine that primarily employs techniques

(08:41):
to manipulate your spine in an attempt to treat a
wide range of possible medical conditions. As we said, pretty
much all of them. So the idea is that whatever
ails you, we can do something to your spine and
that'll fix you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, yeah, Now it is probably clear from the tone
so far coming from right, you know what our bias
is here. So let's put it this way. We are
committed to relaying to you only what has been described
by others, including peer reviewed publications. We are not trying
to attack anyone personally. We know that there is a
wide spectrum of people to practice in the space, and
also there's probably some chiropractors that say, you know what,

(09:19):
you're better off going to this doctor and stuff like that.
There's probably like a blend and stuff like this. So
we're going to be as fair as we can, and
that's going to be critically important as we go through this,
and we're going to welcome criticisms. We're going to welcome
communication as part of this, but we're going to present
the information that is available to us current best evidence
in relation to this particular topic.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Now where we're at right now, I want to give
sort of a this is a lateral topic shift, if
you will, but it's just it's going to be important
for in just a moment. So I just want to
jump into this quick side note because this will be
important here in a minute. I'm going to talk quickly
about faith healing, and you can kind of insert anything
in the spectrum of that sure snake oil. So faith ailing,

(10:04):
which is complete and under bullsh doesn't work at all.
The way that it might work is it might claim
to have cured a disease or illness or injury or
something by employing a strategy. The way that they do
this is the person said to have been cured didn't
actually have that disease or illness, or at least not
as badly as was claimed by the quote unquote healer.

(10:27):
Just to know that. That's the thing that they'll do
is though, like, in order for us to sound like
we've solved this problem, we're going to invent that the
problem existed in the first place, because then when we
show you that we've solved it, it looks convincing because
that problem's no longer there, although it actually wasn't there
to begin with, or at least not really there, Like
it was kind of maybe a little bit there, right right.
That's a strategy that they use in those spaces. Okay,

(10:48):
just want to make sure that's out there before we
move on.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Yeah, yeah, I mean a problem that does exist though
that keeps coming up or ads.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Ugh, Okay, we're back. We want to jump in to
this discussion by unpacking a little bit the history of
chiropractic medicine. We kind of want to know where it
came from. And this part's actually shorter than you might think. Sure, okay,

(11:17):
so chiropractors have claimed some of them, many many of them,
I don't know, in places where you look, that the
methods involved in chiropractic care date back thousands of years.
It's actually very common. Again sort of a side note,
but it's fairly common in alternative medicine and other pseudoscientific
medicines to claim something of this nature, that their strategies

(11:38):
are ancient wisdom. In fact, this very claim was front
and center on a chiropractic website we found in preparation
for this discussion, Like this ancient wisdom it goes back
thousands of years sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Sure, so it's unclear what they're referring to, though. Chiropractic
medicine actually has fairly well documented start date of September eighteenth,
eighteen ninety five, one hundred and thirty years ago, almost
to the day that we're recording this. Yeah, one week off,
just one week off, like we could have We could
have pushed this back one week and we would have
been surprised. Here we are right celebrating. Now some psych

(12:10):
Hippocrates as saying, quote, look well to the spine as
the cause of disease end quote. And so that might
be maybe what they're referring to.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
But yeah, yeah, I do think like there were people
operating in what would be regarded now as a medical
space back then who did think about and talk about
and understand the spine to be very important. Yeah, and
so that is kind of maybe what they're alluding to
is that, like we've known this, the spine is important.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
To me, Like one of my favorite things is like,
and maybe this is because I grew up with Bill
and Ted, but I'd like to think of like old
philosophers getting together and getting really stone and being like, guys, listen,
wait a second, Like what if what if every idea
that could ever exist already exists and we just pull
it from the ether man, Like I could see that
happening and just being really like that would be a

(12:58):
really fun discussion. Also probably not the fun person at
the party today, but like maybe back then it was fun.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, it is to me sort of like claiming that
neurology has a tradition that's thousands of years old, because
they also understood that the brain was like important, sure,
Like if you do damage to it, the bad things happen.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, well maybe good things depending on what position or
what side of the swinging blade you're on in that case.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
But yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Okay, so there is a somewhat apocryphal story. The people
involved are not apocryphal. The story itself is apocryphal. Yeah,
But the founder of chiropractic medicine who established this on
September eighteenth, eighteen ninety five. His name is Daniel D. Palmer,
sometimes written as D. D. Palmer. He claimed to cure

(13:45):
a man of deafness by employing a specific manipulation of
his spine. That was his claim on this date. The
man in question Harvey Lillard. He had a daughter, though,
who instead recounted a different verse of that story. Somewhat Yeah,
speaking of Palmer real quick. In the town that I
live in, there's a Palmer Chiropractic School Wilds.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's right down the road
and across the street from a funeral home.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
I can almost guarantee you that there. It's a school.
You said it's a school, Yeah, yeah, I can almost
guarantee you they're employing his exact like legacy here.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
So in Harvey Lillard's Daughter's telling, her father told a
joke that Palmer heard. Upon hearing the punchline, Palmer slapped
Lord affectionately on the back, and Lollard reported that he
briefly felt as if after the pat on the back,
he was hearing slightly better. Both Lollard and his daughter
claimed that he was only mildly deaf to begin with.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yes, maybe related to the faith healing thing I mentioned
before this, So whatever happened Palmer, who by the way,
was a magnet therapist at this time, it is what
it sounds like, They put magnets on your body to
heal it. Hmm, yes, it's bullshit, it doesn't work. That
was what he was doing. Sure, so he shouts here
and chiropractic medicine was born, so he saw he's doing

(15:04):
his magnet therapy. That's sort of like his primary job.
And he appears to have discovered this way to cure
deafness than anything else by applying pressure to this guy's spine.
So then he's like, I'm going to incorporate this into
the very real magnet medicine that I'm doing, and that's

(15:25):
what happened.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
You know, if you think about this from like a
like a business standpoint, it's probably cheaper to be a
chiropractor than it is to be a magnet therapist because
you don't have the overhead of having the purchase magnets.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Fair, although it's possible they can like reuse them over
and over again.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, I guess it's fair.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
And it's also like, I don't know how many people
I would guess very few people were checking that they
were actually a magnetic to begin with, Like it could
have just been like, sure, these like rocks carved into
diss horseshoes, Yeah, painted like magnets. Yeah, yeah, exactly, painted
it like red and then the tips are white.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
He's like, okay, So back to the history of this.
So Palmer did not actually have a medical license, and
in nineteen oh six he was jailed for practicing medicine
without a license and other chiropractice at the same time.
To avoid for the prosecution for doing illegal, fraudulent, dangerous things,
Palmer considered establishing chiropractic medicine as a religion, which makes

(16:22):
a lot of sense. It's not you can't it's not punishable.
At that point in time.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, and also like that's where he's coming from with
this thing that's supposedly medicine. It's like, well I just
call it religion, yeah exactly, rather than go through the
steps of like establish this as a medicine, Like, it's
a lot easier for me. Like I've got to pretend
that this is a thing anyway, So it may as
well pretend that is the thing in the eyes of God. Sure,
so anyway, and under the banner of God or under

(16:48):
the banner of Him is a really good way to say. Yeah,
such a good title. Anyway. So, as we mentioned, so
this is Palmer's whole thing here. He's doing this chiropractic
adjustment thing he is calling himself or he's doing medical practice,
calling a medical practice, and so he gets arrested for this,
and he's like, well, maybe I'll just make this religion.

(17:08):
As we mentioned, Palmer believed that the human body contained
this life force or an innate intelligence, and what that
means is this is also called vitalism. This means that
he believes that the body can heal itself of any
ailment by virtue of the central nervous system, but only
if the vertebrae are aligned correctly, which he can tell

(17:31):
by the way. Sure, and we mean everything everything. I
am guessing that this included curing all bacterial and viral
infections and diseases. I'm assuming that this must mean he
believes that he could heal amputations and cavities with these manipulations.
So that's bold.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah. Yeah, So his.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
First patient he claimed to have cured his deafness through
spinal manipulations. I would love to understand the mechanic by
which something like that could work. The second patient he
claimed to have cured his heart disease by these manipulations. Also, again,
I would love to understand how that could possibly be.
But that was the history of him and this.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, And I think it's important to like to like
maybe temper our sarcasm a little bit with understanding that
every field has someone somewhere that is like kind of
a scapegoat for their field that does this thing that's
like kind of wacky at the time of the thing,
Like you know, like we could like because I'm sure
that people are gonna come to us and be like, well,
what about Freud. Yeah, of course Freud did cocaine about Boners.

(18:36):
I get it. Like the point is is that off
of boners. Even he did rails off of boners, like
that's what that's what he was doing. So but I mean,
I don't know if he really did that, but it's
one of those things where you can look back at
a practice compared to modern takes on it and go, yeah,
that wasn't quite correct. Here's where we are now. So
what we're gonna do is we're going to talk about
understanding the practice of chiropractical today and what it acts

(19:00):
really means, because I am sure that it is a
little bit different and I say a little bit a
little bit different than its original history, right, yes, and
no to be charitable, to be terrible, since you asked,
and will kind of unpack that, right, So let's talk
about the practice itself. So even chiropractors today believe and
will tell you that they are doing what is considered

(19:20):
alternative medicine. Whether it is a pseudoscience is a more
technical question, but it is by definition an alternative medicine.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
And as a quick joke, and I've probably told this
on the podcast, so I apologize to everybody, but I'll
tell it again in case you forgot or just you know,
for fun, refresher. So it's a riddle. I guess what
do you call alternative medicine that works?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
I would say medicine? Yep, yep, I love that joke.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, when it works, it gets adopted into the mainstream. Yeah,
that has happened. Like there are traditions that have come
from or evolved out of, like some of these things
that they call ancient practices that were like actually affected
and those have evolved continued to develop into modern mainstream medicine.
They look pretty similar. So yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, Okay, anyway,
alternative medicine is interventions that are not condoned, by, supported by,

(20:12):
or recommended by mainstream medical fields and professionals. That's what
alternative medicine means. And again they embrace and understand that
this is a thing, like everywhere you look, even those
who are are very bought into what they're doing. They say, like,
we are an alternative medicine. Sometimes they say complementary and
alternative medicine. Sometimes they say supplemental medicine, that sort of thing. Sure,
but that is what they what alternative medicine is. They're

(20:34):
they're not in league with a traditional medicine. And there
is like for those of us who see objective evidence
as suspect and unconvincing and find a lack of evidence
and unproven claims by people who want to sell them
snake oil very convincing. Being shunned by the scientific community
is actually likely perceived by them to be a good
thing somehow. Sure, So you know they're like evidence, I

(20:58):
don't believe it, lack of evidence that I believe, right,
And so when anything that is has the evidence, they're like, no,
don't want to believe that, So then they believe this
other thing. So saying that it's not condoned as supported
by medicine is not that might be a selling point
for some people. Is just where I'm going with that. Yeah,
but I just wanted to get that definition out there
for understanding what is an alternative medicine.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, it's like skepticism without skill, right, Like you're questioning
the answer without knowing how to dig deeper. Like to me,
I hear this a lot where somebody will be like, nah,
like I don't know why you would trust big pharm
Like you know, big pharmacy, big pharma, you know, stuff
like that. It's like okay, fair, Like there are alter eoromotives,
and it is worth unpacking that. But also like there's
life saving medicine in this space that like we need

(21:42):
to know, and like there's other mechanisms here by which
we you know, this system operates. It's not just that
medicine bad, you know.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
So it's one of those things where it's like if
people I love the people like get the first half
of this, which is like question the answer, but they
don't know how to find the actual answer.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, it ends up turning into because they'll call it skepticism,
but it's more like we're choosing not to believe available evidence,
which is not really what skepticism is. It's like it's
dogmatic belief in a thing that has counter to established things, right,
And so yeah, they I think skeptics have tried to
invite the use of denier as an alternative to skeptic

(22:21):
in space is where they're denying evidence and believing whole
hog and a thing that is like unfounded and untested
and unproven. Sure, I think I would continue to espouse
that tradition of like let's call them deniers because they're
believing in something. If that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so, I think it's important here to
look at the chiropractic work in general, right, So, like,
what is vitally important to understand about chiropractical work is
the underlying philosophy that guides quote unquote traditional chiropractors. Palmer's
argument was the vitalism argument, life force, innate intelligence hypothesis
type of thing. And this is the idea that our

(22:56):
bodies are completely capable of healing themselves as long as
the central nervous system as functioning optimally, which can only
happen if the spine is aligned correctly and aligned being
in quotes. If you don't believe this, and you shouldn't,
then you don't believe in traditional chiropractic medicine. That's just
what it is. Your spine has to be aligned for
your central nervous system to work, like to work the
way it's opposed to.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
The ads have to be aligned to play at the
correct times of the episode.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Ah, it's always the ads.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
All right, it's quick adjustment and we're back. So yeah,
like that, If you don't believe that, like if just
by popping your back you can cure anything, then you
don't believe in traditional chiropractic medicine.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Period. The reason that it's important to understand this philosophy
is that this does come with other important implications this
idea the body can heal itself, so very commonly, very
commonly chiropractors are anti vaccine in a lot of spaces,
and it's because this. The idea of vaccines is antithetical
to the philosophy that the body can heal itself, because
in the vaccine you have to administer some kind of

(24:05):
medicine to help prevent the onset of disease. And practice
this also can look like an outright rejection of nearly
all scientifically validated medical treatments, because again, if the underlying
philosophy is that all you need is to do things
to the spine, then all other medicine is seen as

(24:26):
unnecessary and dangerous, and therefore anything vaccines, other medications, other
medical interventions, surgery even are seen again as unnecessary and dangerous,
even though again those will be the things that save
your life and popping your back will not. When you're
like bleeding out through a hole in your chest, Sure
you don't want someone who's just like, well, I can

(24:46):
fix that for you a little pop your l four, right,
and so anyway, that's just a thing to make sure
we're understanding on the same page with So.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Anyway, the primary method by which chiropractors work is by
manipulating your spine anywhere from your pelvis to the base
of your skull. Manipulation in this case refers to techniques
to push or pull the body such that the vertebrae
are pushed beyond their normal range of motion, an attempt
to quote realign the vertebrae. Now, the original term for this,
frequently employed by founder Daniel Palmer, is vertebral subluxation sublaxation.

(25:15):
And this is a technical term. This is actually a
technical term, although it is not used in its technical
sense by many chiropractors.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
And also there's just no evidence that spines are actually
realigned or that they were misaligned to begin with. Yeah,
so there's also that piece which is kind of like
an interesting thing to unpack.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah, misaligned spine would I think were a real thing.
Would mean your back is fully broken and you are
not moving. Yep, you are basically paralyzed. That I think again,
understanding if it's large enough to be detectable that they're misaligned,
you are not moving, You're basically paralyzed. If it's so

(25:53):
small that this quote unquote misalignment that you might be
suffering is not causing that kind of problem where you're
like paralyne and can't move that it's also unlikely to
be detectable very easily through any diagnostic method, Like very
very very small offset means very very small correction should
it be needed. So yes, there's not an evidence that

(26:15):
it was ever unaligned. There's not any evidence that it
is realigned after the case. This as a thing to understand,
so yes, this just trying to make sure we're understanding
like how chiropractors work. They're going to push your pull
in the body in such a way that they're moving
your spine around. This might result in a popping sound.
They're really pushing those vertebrae beyond their typical range of motion.
These manipulations often involve a sudden, intense force somewhere on

(26:38):
the body, frequently the back, but sometimes they'll pull the head,
twist the neck, they'll pull the legs, or simply apply
pressure directly to parts of the spine. You can see
videos of this where they'll when they do a neck adjustment.
If you will, they like have a towel around someone's
chin and head kind of tied loosely so it's not
strangling them, and they'll do like a really fast jerk

(26:58):
that will pull the spine. We'll get into some of
that here in a moment, but there are various ways
that they do that, But that's essentially how they do
their stuff.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, Another part of their practice is they will frequently
employ X rays is part of their routine, and use
this to justify their interventions and to monitor the effectiveness
of their interventions. Now, what's interesting about this is that
radiology is in and of itself an entire specialized field
of medicine with trained professionals whose only job is to
administer and read the results of scanning technology. They are
widely accepted by science based medicine as crucial for assessment

(27:30):
and treatment of injuries. They go into many years of
school and training and certification. So that's the thing about
X rays that you should know. It's an evidence based,
widely accepted science. Most of us cannot accurately understand how
to read X rays without specific training, So keep that
in mind as we're starting to look at interpretation and stuff.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, just like the thing you should know. Yeah, radiology
the study of like scanning technology. Like people, this is
like a whole field CT scans, PET scans, X rays.
But like that's a thing that that's all they do
those professionals do. Yeah, they are very competent. They are
very well trained and highly trained. And because it requires
the kind of training that they receive, like they are
employed in various medical positions where that's all they do

(28:12):
is they just go do scans and they interpret those
scans and relay that to the doctor. Sure, So that's
just a thing to know about how that technology works.
Although there are some tools, like physical tools that are
employed by chiropractors, a significant amount of their work is
done directly using their hands on your body. And that's
kind of the gist of it. That's really just understanding.
I think chiropractic more broadly is just that's the lay

(28:36):
of it. They're trying to push and pull on your spine.
Sometimes they'll use tools. The frequently use X rays. Yeah, yeah,
and there you might hear popping sounds in the session,
but that's what they do. They're in a message.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Spine and these are often called adjustments, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, they call it adjustments exactly right.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
With that being said, so you get an idea kind
of where we're at. We're going to go into some
of my favorite stuff to do, which is mythbusted.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, this is got to catch you title for the section.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, this section is going to be titled the Myths
and busting the MythBusters attempting to bust those myths but
failing to do so. It sounds like a like a
mid two thousands like metalcore band song title, like when
they all had really long song titles R and it
was like, you know, the song was like fifteen seconds,
like curlup and Die would do that. Yeah, they have

(29:23):
really long song titles for a song that was like,
you know, it took longer to say the title than
it was the song.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah, exactly, I love it.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
So chiropractors are understandably pretty defensive about the criticism that
is so frequently lobbed them. And I can understand that
being in a field where like you love it, you
believe in it, you're passionate about it. If you if
you hear criticisms like sometimes it's really easy to take
that personally. And so what they do is a lot
of times chiropractors will try to get ahead of it.
What they'll do is they'll try to dispel myths about chiropractors.

(29:52):
So we are going to counter their myths and kind
of talk about what's being said and what this looks like.
So I think we can go ahead with myth number one.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah. Well, well, and the way I'm going to present this,
I'm going to have a myth, the chiropractic counter argument
to that myth, and then our rebuttal to their counter argument,
if you will, sure, sure, Okay, So the myth one,
So I found this on a website. I found this
a couple of different websites. I synthesize them down into
one list. I think there's five on here. But one

(30:19):
of the myths that they say that they were trying
to bust is that chiropractors are just fancy, highly paid
back crackers. All they do is pop your back. Is
essentially the argument that they saying as a myth that
they need to bust, and they instead say, well, they
actually do a whole lot of things that are beyond
just work on the spine, and they list kind of
what those things are. So that's their counter arguments to that.

(30:42):
Myth right. Our rebuttal to this is, first, almost no
one is making this claim. Maybe no one is making
this claim that chiropractors all they do is manipulate your back.
This is a straw man argument. So you are setting
up an argument nobody's making and then knocking it down.
That's what a straw man is. Sure, but the things
that they do that they actually do besides pop your
back does not really make them sound better. So they

(31:05):
do low electricity stimulation, ultrasound, cold laser therapy, and they
prescribe homeopathic remedies, they do soft tissue therapy. They do
they claim to do surgery and nutrition and exercise counseling. Yikes,
Well they also do my taxes right on second thought,

(31:25):
please don't do my taxes. And they don't actually do surgeries,
although they may sever an artery. More on that later.
But yes, so that's my rebuttal is, first of all,
no one is really making that claim. Second, of all
the things that you say that you are doing in
addition to popping backs is sounds sketchy and dangerous in
some cases or just silly.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Sure. So myth too, is that chiropractors don't need a
degree that's what they're saying. And the counter argument that
they make is that they get a bachelor's degree and
a degree in chiropractic medicine from a chiropractic training school
and they might do an internship. And now our rebuttal
is this, getting a degree in something does not mean
that that thing is necessarily valid. There are lots of

(32:06):
programs that are not accredited, programs that are not scientifically
valid programs, and there's lots of different things like that, right,
So getting a degree in the geography of the Leprechawn
homeland from Leprechawn University does not make Leprechauns real. Also,
that's not very much schooling for something that is touted
as a medical intervention. We're talking certificate programs that are
maybe shorter versus like medical school, which is more than

(32:30):
a decade of training. So, you know, it's it's kind
of a when we start kind of talking about this,
and like when people talk about degrees, it is important
and understand where the degree comes from, whether it's a
validated field, and whether or not that school is accredited
in like important accreditation structures.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yes, and this is sort of a side note, but
also considering the regulating sort of overseeing bodies that exist
once you do get out into a professional space, which also, well,
they don't exist in this field at least, but they
would in normal medical fields. So there's that, sure, all right.
Myth two point five is insert and ad here. All right,

(33:13):
we're coming back.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
And it wasn't a myth, it was a fact. It
was confirmed. Ads do appear. They do when we say them.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
All right, So myth one all chiropractors do is pop backs.
That's not real. Myth two. Chiropractors don't need a degree, sure,
but the degree you're getting is from people who just
say the chiropractors are a thing. Myth three chiropractic adjustments
are dangerous. That's the myth that they're claiming to counter
against them. Their counter argument is that a few people
may experience some soreness after adjustments, and there might be

(33:42):
some other mor serious complications, but they're very rare, okay rebuttal.
The side effects are actually so common that they're listed
pretty much anywhere that anyone has anything to say about
what to expect from chiropractors, including their own websites. These
can include headaches, soreness, and other pains for days or
even weeks afterward, so that's a thing. And by serious

(34:03):
complications what they mean is stroke and death. So that's
a lot of risk for something that has few or
no demonstrated benefits. Yes, it can be dangerous, and we
will get into those sort of numbers on this, because
they're actually not wrong. It is the outcomes of this
that are really serious are fairly rare, but they are there,
which is important thing to understand, and we'll get to

(34:24):
the numbers. But yes, again understanding risk versus reward in
this particular case as well.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
I think a charitable look at their counter argument here
is like, this is what scientists do as well. They'll
go they can't make general claims that will say like yes,
this works for everybody or no it doesn't, right, they
have to include like, yeah, there are gonna be some
case examples where it's not going to work out, but
for the most part, it's fine, right, And that's and
you'll hear that kind of like that. It's I don't

(34:52):
want to say they're talking like scientists, but scientists will
do this where somebody will say, like what happened with
COVID right when the vaccines came out and everybody was
talk about vaccin. They were asking doctors like, well, is
a safe and they were like yeah, for the majority
of people every now and again, you're gonna have a
situation that's not great. It's the same thing like you
can't make like you can't over promise, and so they're

(35:12):
kind of like not over promising in their counter argument here,
which is I think fair, But also they're making up
the argument to argue against in this situation. So, okay,
myth four medical doctors don't believe in chiropractic care, and
their argument is some do and it is frequently recommended
as supplementary care. Now, our rebuttal is this some do

(35:34):
is not a good argument. When we're talking about modern medicine.
You probably want better consensus than some of them like it, right,
most don't, and the reputable ones don't. Touting this is
a supplemental admits the lack of importance the role of
chiropractic techniques can play in medical treatments. It's supplemental as extra,
not necessary, not required, and I think that's an important distinction.

(35:56):
I don't want to go to a doctor that is
saying like, yeah, you could do this as like, yeah, help,
like it could it could be a supplement, like no,
I want like the actual treatment.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Yeah yeah, it's like take two of these, but also
do thirty hail meatballs to the flying spaghetti monster and
you will.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, be cure. Yeah yeah, it's you don't need to.
It couldn't hurt, Yeah, but you don't need That's kind
of like the argument that they're making when they say
it's supplemental, but then in some cases it could hurt.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah. Yeah, anyway, that's the thing, like it might it'll
do nothing, but you might feel better. Uh, is sort
of it goes all right. Another myth this is not
one supplied by the chiropractors here. This is one that
I saw as a thing that they just say. Those
say that chiropractic medicine is less expensive than similar forms

(36:44):
of medical care rebuttal when checking into the numbers, chiropractic
medicine usually costs about the same as other more traditional medicines,
particularly because it tends to go long term, because you know,
when you're not getting any better, you keep sharing and
going and going. But it does tend to cost the
same if you look at the overall numbers and like
one individual instance compared to another, you shouldn't like could

(37:05):
find examples and counterexamples of it costing more or less
than other more traditional routes. But if you really just
look at the overall picture there, they're pretty similar.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, So I think that's kind of like
the fun portion of this to kind of go like, yeah,
here's a myths and then you know, it's not really
quite what they're saying and stuff like this. But I
do think it's important, and we think it's important as
scientists and as people who are trying to be skeptical
about this to talk about actual dangers. And so let's
go ahead and unpack that a little bit now first,
because this is a practice that does not fall under

(37:34):
the purview of medicine. It is not regulated, and I
think that is really critical to remember when we talk
about this. It's not regulated the same way that the
medical field is regulated. There are certifications, there are state practices,
state licenses and stuff like that are different, but it's
not regulated to the same degree the same rigor that
medicine is. There are over seventy thousand active chiropractors in

(37:57):
the United States right now, and they don't have a
system of oversight. This has resulted in a substantial amount
of allegations of fraud, sexual abuse and harassment, ethical violations,
and misleading or flat out false marketing.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yeah, and as you said, like there are like certification boards,
but like none of them have a lot of teeth
that can't necessarily stop you from doing the thing that
you're doing. Sure, and in fact, some of them have
sort of a playbook for how to get away with
that sort of thing. So yeah, yeah, just as you said,
it just lacks the level of systematic rigor and oversight.

(38:28):
Because it's not to say that there is absolutely no
oversight whatsoever. They obviously can't do just anything, but they
do have a very serious issue with quality control in
the field and ensuring that people are doing well. First
of all, they don't like evidence based practice to begin with,
so a lot of the boards that would over then
there's kind of a lot of them, but that would
oversee this like may or may not necessarily invite the

(38:50):
kind of scrutiny that would come from requiring evidence based
practices as part of an intervention treatment plan. Right, Okay, Second,
the dangers are very real to underreporting. We actually don't
know the exact numbers. One paper found that there were
twenty six confirmed deaths due to chiropractic interventions between nineteen
seventy five and two thousand and seven. I saw some

(39:11):
indication that this was in Australia only, but I was
having a hard time pitting down the exact numbers on that.
But anyway, it seemed like this was they were just
scouring the literature and this is what they found. Those
are low numbers, like twenty six in over in forty years,
like that sufficient to say that it is rare, but
I would argue highly troubling if you have, for example,

(39:33):
this thing that's like we don't really know that it works,
we're not really sure if there's any benefits at all,
and twenty six people have died.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah, that's concerning the most common cause of death and
patients receiving chiropractic care is when a neck manipulation results
in a severing of a vertebral artery leading to a
stroke in the brain. So these arterial injuries may result
in ischemic stroke, blood clot formation, and paralysis as part
of that injury. So, yeah, that can be a little

(40:03):
bit scary.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, that's a very significant, dangerous thing. This has killed
very young people who have gone to this, like twenty
year old's teenagers by twenty fifteen article that seems suspiciously
defensive of chiropractic medicine even reported about forty cases of
injury including paralysis per one hundred thousand subjects who were
between the ages of sixty six and ninety nine. And

(40:27):
so for every one hundred thousand subjects there was forty
cases of injury. They were comparing that to more traditional medicine,
and like I said, it seemed like they were suspiciously
very much in favor of supporting chiropractic care. But again
taking together this is there is a lack of evidence
and for forty of every one hundred thousand they were

(40:48):
suffering these kind of ill effects that were the actual
injuries including paralysis. Yeah, and just in that population just
sixty sixty to ninety nine, that's like not most of
their clientele.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Right right right now. Chiropractic interventions can be dangerous if
you have any of the following conditions. So if you
have this, maybe don't go. And I say maybe, like
definitely don't go, just because it increases the risk of
harm or injury as a result. So severe osteoporosis, herniated disks,
active or progressive infections, spinal compressions, inflammatory arthritis, Marfan syndrome

(41:20):
or Eller's dan Lows syndrome, or even a recent spinal surgery.
Those can all produce some high risks.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah, you also probably don't want to go to a
chiropractor if you have a vascular disorder, any recent fractures,
particularly of the spine, if you're taking blood thinning medication,
if you're taking medications that affect bone health, or if
you want to stay alive and uninjured. Just kidding, just
kidding on the last one. And I actually did see

(41:48):
conflicting information about herniated disks. We'll get to that in
a second. But yeah, those are conditions under which it
would not be recommended to see a chiropractor, although depending
on if you come from the Palmer school of thinking
on this, you would definitely recommend chiropractic for those interventions,
because again, their idea is that spine manipulations are everything,
even if your spine is broken.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Sure, sure, sure. Now, of course, with all alternative medicines,
there is a risk that people will shoe effective medicine
to receive treatment solely from alternative medicine. That does happen,
especially in the United States, which means going longer without
effective treatment, and that is actually our like to me,
our larger concern. It's like, yeah, I don't want people injured,
but the last thing I would want is for somebody
to have an actual ailment who could receive life saving treatment,

(42:33):
to go to an alternative treatment situation and then fail
in that treatment, only to have wasted time when they
could have been cured, they could have been treated, they
could have resolved some type of medical issue to begin with.
So that is such a significant concern, especially with all
alternative medicines. It's like there's a better way to do this,
and you're going a route that's going to take you
much longer and not going to work.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah, to cover their butts, they'll do the whole like, oh,
you know this is considered supplemental than the idea being
that you do those other things. But you also come
to us.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
It's the vitamin market. Yes, go look at go listen
to our episode on vitamins, like truly go listen to it,
because like it's this is an example, like this is
the vitamin of medicine.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
And crystals are similar rate. Yeah, all right, so let's
actually go ahead. I do want to sort of be
a little more clear here. There is rigorous scientific research
that has shown that lower back manipulations that chiropractors do
can be effective for people who suffer from chronic back pain.
Some researchers found that chiropractic care can be as effective

(43:33):
for those injuries as more traditional physical therapy. Not more effective,
mind you, I said as effective. Yeah, so that is
an alternative that there actually is science to say that
like this can work in these instances, in this situation
for these people.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Yeah, And I think importantly there is at this point
in time, like we're talking about scientific rigor and evidence.
Right lower back, there is no benefit that we have
gleaned or learned at all from neck manipulations. So don't
let people with your neck. Lower back stuff is likely
pretty safe and can be effective, but do not mess

(44:12):
with your neck.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Yes, exactly. Then it's too much risk, Like.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
One wrong adjustment means that you are you can't breathe anymore,
Like let's.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Maybe not do that, you know, and again, like there's
not really any evidence to say that it does anything.
So like lower back stuff, there is evidence for that,
there's stuff that that can actually help with particularly if
you have back pain. But next stuff, sure, no, stay
away from the neck, stay away from the ads. All right,

(44:44):
we're back, And I think the last section here is actually,
I think where we try to redeem ourselves to our
chiropractic apologist listener or listeners. There is kind of a
big schism in chiropractic medicine. Okay, there are a couple
of different camps of chiropractors out there. There are the

(45:06):
dogmatic followers of Palmer's original snake oil, and these are
sometimes referred to by some as straits, meaning they're they're
on the straight and narrow.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
I just thought it meant that it was more about
their alignment.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
Oh they're like, oh that's so good. I like that
a lot more. What's considered that they're straights because they're spines.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, these spines are fully aligned.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
They're fully aligned. They also are fully bought into the
innate intelligence idea. They also follow and espouse the anti
vaccine rhetoric and homeopathy is very common. They very very
commonly prescribe homeopathy and all that. But there is another
group referred to as mixers, and these are people who
hold on to only a few or even no loyalty

(45:51):
to the ideas of Palmer as they were originally espoused.
So there's those sort of two camps there. The people
who are straight spined the streets, the streets who cling
exactly to the dogmatic traditions that Palmer laid out, and
then those who are like and they sort of are
some of this may be kind of on the right track,

(46:13):
but maybe not so much all of it, or they're
just like, no, none of that's real, but we still
think that there's importance in spine adjustments. So those sort
of the break there.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah, and there seems to be a substantial skis in
between a wellness faction of Palmer loyalists and an evidence
faction of chiropractors who want to do legitimate science and
medicine specifically right. Six of the nine members of the
World Federation of Chiropractics Research Committee resigned when they reported
that they quote no longer feeled as possible to function
as independent academics in our roles on the committee end quote.

(46:44):
So there are members of this community that are actively
seeking evidence, and I think that that's beautiful. I think
we need that to build up something that is that
doesn't have the evidence base to begin with.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah. A similar chiropractic practitioner lamented in a Reddit post
that I found quote, I'm just saddened when people hate
chiropractic and think it's just full of quacks because of
the bad eggs out there. In my opinion, it's damaging
to our image, and we'll simply continue to stunt the
growth of chiropractic until these individuals are rooted out. End quote.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair. I think there
are people that genuinely believe in this work, and I
think that if you want to be an academic and
a scientist in this space, like I think that the
first step is you need more evidence, and that's just
what it comes down to.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
So there are a lot of specifically chiropractors out there
who are interested and committed to joining the ranks of
science based medicine and leaving behind the mysticism of Palmer,
like the mysticisms that modern medicine had to leave behind
to make a similar transition to science based medicine nearly
two centuries ago. I, for one, I think both of
us as the values of our podcast here, we welcome that.

(47:49):
We want evidence based practice. We want stuff that works.
We want stuff that's not going to harm people, and
it's going to save people time and actually going to
make people's quality of life better as a result of
effective treatment. Yeah, like we love that. Like So I think,
at the end of the day, like our problem, and
maybe I'm speaking for myself, our problem is not chiropracticed
as a whole. It's the people that refuse to advance

(48:12):
a field that could possibly benefit from additional scientific evidence.
It's the people that hold on to mysticism that are
actively harming people. It's the snake oil salesmen that are
directly harming people and spreading misinformation about a practice that
is not scientific enough as it stands. So that's where
I kind of land. It's like, if you are a

(48:32):
chiropractor and you are science forward, we love you, We
want to embrace that, and we want to provide all
the support we can if you're one of them Palmer's
Williams streets. We don't want nothing. It's just like let
it go. Like we're moving on, we're advancing as a society,
and we can't keep perpetuating alternative medicines in such a
way that we know are harmful.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Yeah, I do think so there might be a contingent
of those out there who are like, you know what,
they're coming from a ridiculous place. We don't want them,
kick them out, like just get rid of it all together.
The actually have not heard anyone say that. I think
that generally with all of us and the skeptical side
of things, and we're not medical doctors, but we're very
much in support of science based medicine sure, like that

(49:13):
whole approach to doing medical practice. I think that we
all would generally agree. Like if the practitioners, like the
scientists out in the chiropractic field, are wanting to bring
scientific rigor to their practice, I think we're like, yeah,
come on over, like we want to have you on
our side with this, please. So I think we just

(49:35):
strongly want to include in this discussion. They're like, there
are it seems like there's a like a growing movement here,
like this seems like there's a lot of chiropractors in
this space who are trying to move in a science
based direction. They're like, we know that what we're doing
helps and they're not wrong, Like there is research to
say that aspects of their interventions can be really effective,

(49:57):
and like they're not all out there preaching anti vaccine.
Just those straits, you know, the palm, the palmer, diehards.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
The straits are always the problem. They're the problem. Man.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
So anyway, like I think, you know, it's great if
if they want to start embracing the sort of the
basic standards of like scientific research and evidence, then like, yeah,
let's do it, Like let's let's see what we can
find here. It sort of almost reminds me when we
talked about like with uh with massage and the point
where like, you guys probably have something here, please do

(50:29):
better research, like stop selling this in the snake oil field,
like you can do You'll be so successful in the
world if you've got like a legitimate treatment here, and
like we've got really good science to support that as evidence.
And I think that you've got the same sort of
thing going on here with chiropractic medicine is like it's
clear there's evidence to support some of the things that

(50:50):
are happening here. Let's expand that, like, let's explore it,
let's advance, let's help it grow, and like I'm all
for that. That's great, But again, like the commitment that
we have to have is let's do this responsibly and
scientifically and keep in mind the riggor and the biases
that we were sort of prone to in spaces where
we want to believe in ourselves and we know that

(51:12):
like in doing so, we can overlook some things, and
so it's really important to have that sort of that
body of people who are doing really good science. And
then they want, you know, the people out here, they
want regulations, they want oversight, they want to have quality
control at a high level so that people can look
at what they're doing and say, like, I feel confident

(51:32):
this is going to help me with the problem that
I have, and like, that's that's what we want. That
for everybody. We want that for the chiropractors, we want
that for the patients. That's that's a great, great place
to be. So that's I think where we want to
leave it. And understanding that, like this whole time we've
been ragging on what they do, and again it really
comes from a criticism of the original mystical vitalism that

(51:54):
started it, which is not where it needs to end up.
Like a lot of medicine started in quackery, snake oil,
and not sense and eventually it worked through those problems,
and it looks like chiropractic medicine is on can be
on that same trajectory. It's just unfortunate, like a huge
contingent of sort of believers are really deliberately holding the
field back. But there is a growing movement of people

(52:16):
who are trying to push it toward a more science
based place to be. I guess, yeah, absolutely, Okay, that
was a long tangent I ended on my soapbox there.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
I think you nailed it. I think you nailed it.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Though it feels good perfect. As I said, like, there's
a lot of research that's been done on this. The
vast majority of the research that you'll see in spaces
that supports chiropractic medicine is in like chiropractical journals, where
they'll accept anything that says chiropractic is good and will
solve all problems. But as I said, I do think
there is a growing push for more science based practices
here and they're really trying to move away from the

(52:48):
mystical thinking that has pervaded so much of this. But yeah,
there is quite a bit of research out there. I
would be very wary of only taking, like you want
to find the journals that are doing good or risk
scientific sort of quality control and oversight, because a lot
of those complimentary and alternative medicine journals, again, anything that
makes them look good, they will publish one. Yeah, absolutely,

(53:11):
because they are already accepting that like what they do
works as like their starting point.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Right.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
So, I think we've said the things we need to say.
Anything else you'd like to add on here, because I
know you know some chiropractice personally. I know a lot
of people who really believe in it, and I think
that for them, that line between sort of magical and
real is so gray and so fuzzy that like they
can't tell what side of things they're on. Yeah, but

(53:36):
I've never I've never gone to a chiropractor. I don't
really know anyone personally who does that. But that's I
don't know what's your what's your experience there.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
I've never been to a chiropractor. I'm sure that that's
probably going to be when when people do write into us,
they're like, you should go, you should try da da
da da. I mean to me, we just expounded on
why we shouldn't. Yeah, but I've got some friends who
are chiropractors, and you know, I think that my experience
has been that one of them was very just kind

(54:05):
of already very like naturalistic, like kind of nature healing
type of feel like she's always kind of been a
hippie and so like it makes sense for her to
end up in that space very intelligent person just and
both of them are very intelligent, Like I don't want
it to sound like they're not at all intelligent, like,
but one of them was kind of already like hippie
granola and kind of in that space, and so it
makes sense. It kind of like vibes, you know, together.

(54:27):
The second person is like staunchly anti VACKX and staunchly
anti science, and it just blows my mind. And so
like that's one where I'm just kind of like, I
don't even get how we got there. So I've seen
a couple where I'm like, oh, but you know, for
the most part, like I've never been I went to
when I injured my back, I went to physical therapy,
and that was a game changer, game changer, Like that

(54:49):
was like, oh, I love physical therapy.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Yeah, the physical therapy very well established evidence based practices.
I think, Yeah, you can confidently recommend physical therapist and
you will you benefit from that, like they know what
they're doing. Yeah, yeah, I've had the same experience. So
all right, very good. First, I want to say, as
we're transitioning to the end of this episode, the close,
we do have some recommendations to give in case you're

(55:13):
joining us for the first time, and that's not a
thing you knew that we do. We like to recommend
some stuff, so we'll get into that after I get
through some credits, after we get through some more ads.
All right, that was a fun chain of I was
just laying out the chain of events as they were
going to happen, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, of course, yeah, we're giving people the agenda.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
So we did the ads part, so box checked. Step
two is credits. So I would like to say, if
you enjoyed what you heard today and you would like
to support us, we would love your support. One way
that you can do that that does not cost you
any money is you can leave a rating. If you're
feeling particularly generous, you can add to that rating a
review if you like to support us financially. You can
head over to Patreon. There you'll get ad free episode,

(56:00):
behind the scenes content, early episodes, all that sort of thing,
and on our full length episodes, what's come out on Wednesdays.
And then we put out short quick dive episodes on Mondays.
We call them minis our mini Mondays. Those are two things,
but on our full length ones, I'll read the list
of people who have already joined us on Patreon who
help us do the podcast thing, and so with great
admiration and appreciation, here are the list of people who

(56:21):
help make this show possible. Mike m Megan, Mike T, Justin,
Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley, Kiara and Charlie. Thank you
all so much for your continued support.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
You're the best. You're the best ever.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
If you would like to tell us your thoughts on chiropractic,
we are definitely accepting constructive criticism, feedback, additional points that
we missed, and other things. If you want to write
in and tell us about why we're wrong and why
chiropractic medicine will save the world, you can certainly do that.
I won't talk to you or read it or share
it with anybody but knock yourself out. If it makes
you feel good, that is the thing that happens. We

(56:54):
do look forward to hearing from most people. I think
you can email us directly at info at WWDWWD podcast
dot com. You can also reach us on the social
media platforms. Look forward to interacting with you there. Thank
you all for listening. My team of people who help
make this happen, writing and fact checking from Shane and myself.
Thank you for recording with me today.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Shane, Hey, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. And the person
who helps us do all the audio goodness is Justin
who is so good at his job.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Oh he's the best, all.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Right, very good. So that means that we get to
move to recommendations.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Beautiful recommendations. I'm gonna recommend a book called Strange Pictures
by an author named Uketsu. Now this is an interesting
one because first, Uktsu is an anonymous YouTube personality who

(57:51):
nobody knows who this person is, nobody knows their real name,
wears a mask on screen, has never like it's like
they're completely anonymous. Interesting, and this is their debut novel. Now,
this was This was written in Japanese and then translated
to English, so you get a little bit of a
feel for that, and it's really interesting. So the story
is it's these interconnected stories that are related to like

(58:14):
murders and weird crimes and kind of like it's like
a mystery thriller type of thing. But the idea is
that every story is related through drawings and pictures and
the clues that are left in these pictures. So it's
not as straightforward as it it could be, Like it's
it's one of those things where it's like a really
interesting kind of twist and turns. There's some like time

(58:36):
jumps and stuff like that that's kind of cool. But
it's really really good, and it's a really quick and
easy read. I read it in like a day and
a half and it was just a lot of fun
to kind of like work through. If you like Japanese
horror and thrillers and stuff like that. It certainly has
a weird feel to it, like a lot of Japanese
literature does, but it's really it was done really well,

(58:56):
especially for a debut novel. It was a lot of fun,
So it doesn't it doesn't require Yeah, it doesn't work.
It's not like a Murakami or like cobyl Abbe, which
is like really intense and really heavy duty. Like this
is just a lot of fun and easy to get into.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
So got it. There are a surprising number of YouTubers
who are turning into book authors in the world. Yeah,
it's weird, right, it's happening. It is weird for a
couple of reasons. But sure, all right, great, that sounds cool.
I'm very curious to check it out. I I might
have to borrow that for you or something, or just

(59:28):
get myself. I can afford it, all right, cool, I'm
recommending a movie. This is a I think it's broadly
classified in the horror movies, but it's a lot more
in the like thriller suspense. There's really not very much
it's not like a slasher movie. There's very little death
at all, very little gore. There's like some people get

(59:50):
injured and some people do die, but it's not particularly
gory in anyway. There's one that's a little bit gruesome
of a death, but I mean it's just more on
the sort of thriller angle like that's it's more about
like building tension and having to be like, Oh, what's
gonna happen next, and how they do that and that
sort of thing. Sure, anyway, it's a movie called Drop.
This sort of falls into the category of these of
the sort of thriller suspense type movies where somebody is

(01:00:11):
kind of being held hostage in a public space and
they can't tell people why they're doing the things that
they're doing, but they're being forced to do things they
don't want to do and they're trying to navigate their
way out of that. So that's the general idea. So
it's called Drop, and it's currently streaming on Peacock. I
think that is available elsewhere. But that was a movie

(01:00:33):
that came out that was if you're like in the
market for sort of a light ish suspense movie. It's
not one that you are gonna like have nightmares from.
It's just a kind of interesting idea. Yeah, that's fun.
I mean, I guess it depends on what kind of
thing trigger's nightmares for people, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Yeah, I guess it's true.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Yeah, I found this on the lighter end of these
kinds of genre of movies, So yeah, it was it
was good cool.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
I like that. I'm gonna add it to the list.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
See. Well, that's what we have to say about strange
pictures and horror movies and chiropractors. So, as I said,
feel free to let us know what your thoughts on
those things. We look forward to hearing from people. Thank
you so much for listening, thinking about team people, I
said all that stuff already, so I think that we
can wrap this one up. Is there anything you'd like
to add before we go ahead and sayah, goodbyes.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Not the moment, Nope, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Thank you everyone. This is Abraham and this is Shane.
We're out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
See ya.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
You've been listening to Why We Do what we do.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we
hope you have an awesome day.