CF 126: No Immunity Boosting Benefit, Coconut Oil Fails, and Screen Time & Autism Today we’re going to talk about Immune boosting via spinal manipulative therapy, we’ll talk about coconut oil and it’s a mirage, and we’ll talk about autism and screen time. It’s a good one today folks!
But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music
OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around.
We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.
I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.
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Do it do it do it.
You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #126
Now if you missed last week’s episode, we talked about current knowledge on making a robust low back pain diagnosis. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to
chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points.
Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper.
On the personal end of things….. We’re still hanging in there. For me personally, I shut down in the beginning for two weeks. Completely shut down. Some stayed open the whole time and never made a lot of changes. So at this point, understandably, they’re ahead as far as getting their patient base back to 100%.
For me, I’m more around 65%-70% of my normal load. While the entrepreneur in me is not real happy with that, the business owner that was needing to take a breath and breathe a little bit is happy about it.
At this point, it is what it is. Literally. There’s only so much we have control over. I am a saver by nature. I started a multi-account system years ago that socks money away for different purposes. I have about 7 or 8 different accounts that I move money to at the end of each week. So, fortunately, I don’t take loans. Other than student loans and house loans, I don’t get into much debt at all.
That only goes so far and I’m not willing to drain it all just to keep employees when I don’t have enough business but, if things continue to go well and we see the numbers coming back to a more normal state and then hopefully stabilize, I don’t believe I’ll have to do anything like drain accounts or let employees go. I love my staff and I’ll fight for them. But I won’t go broke for anyone. Except maybe my kids or my mom.
So far so good. This crap has a time limit. We won’t be stuck with it like this forever. Maybe longer than we want but not forever. One foot in front of the other, one day at a time. We’ll get there.
Item #1 Let’s start out easy today. This one is called “Association of Early-life social and digital media experiences with the development of autism spectrum disorder-like symptoms” by Karen Heffler, et. al. (Heffler K 2020) and published in JAMA on April 20, 2020 and that’s a hot one folks.
Why They Did It They wanted to answer the question, “Are screen media exposure and social and demographic factors associated with the risk for autism spectrum disorder on a modified checklist for autism in toddlers at 2 years of age?
How They Did It- Data for this cohort study were derived from the National Children’s Study,
- A total of 2152 children were enrolled at birth from October 1, 2010, to October 31, 2012.
- Data were analyzed from December 1, 2017, to December 3, 2019.
- Caregivers reported whether the child viewed television and/or videos (yes or no) at 12 months of age, hours of viewing at 18 months of age, time spent by the caregiver reading to the child (number of days per week compared with daily) at 12 months of age, and frequency of playing with the child (daily or less than daily) at 12 months of age
- Prematurity, maternal age at birth, child sex, household income, race/ethnicity, and caregiver English-language status were included in analysis.
Wrap It Up “This cohort study found greater screen exposure and less caregiver-child play early in life to be associated with later ASD-like symptoms. Further research is needed to evaluate experiential factors for potential risk or protective effects in ASD.” Basically, “Less screen exposure and more parent-child play at 12 months of age were associated with fewer ASD–like symptoms at 2 years of age”
Before we get to the next item this week, I did a thing
Being an evidence-informed practitioner can present a set of problems at times. Mostly problems with regard to patient volume because we don’t typically treat patients with long-term recommendations. So we see them come and go depending on if they hurt or not. It can lead to lulls, disappointment, and boredom if there’s not a steady stream of new patients coming through your pearly gates each and every month.
I have taken various courses over the years at Udemy so when I decided to create a course, I immediately thought Udemy would be a good place to start.
While I’m still building the course and adding content every week, it’s live and ready to go for those interested in getting started. I’m putting the link to the course at this point in the show notes. You can go to
chiropracticforward.com, go to Episodes and find this episode and just scroll till you find it.
https://www.udemy.com/course/marketing-evidence-based-chiropractic/?referralCode=36A4D91C66B48300360B Over the last two years or so, I’ve averaged almost 80 new patients every month as a solo practitioner. If you’re interested, I created, basically, my playbook for marketing and my thoughts on each topic or technique. I also have created downloads, checklists, and examples to show what my stuff looks like.
Just go to
udemy.com and do a search on Marketing An Evidence-Based Chiropractic Practice and check it out. It will grow and expand in the coming months and if you get just one patient from the ideas shared in it, it paid for itself. Now imagine if you get a bunch….well then it’s priceless.
udemy.com and the course is called Marketing and Evidence-based Chiropractic Practice.
Item #2 Item #2 is called “Coconut Oil’s Health Halo A Mirae, Clinical Trials Suggest” by Jennifer Abbasi (Abassi J 2020)and published in JAMA on April 8, 2020….hot cakes, smokin’ hotcakes.
This one is an article so let’s just get to the highlights. She starts by saying that clinical trials don’t support the public’s positive perception of coconut oil. She points to a study that was published in Circulation that found coconut oil actually increases low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (which is the bad kind of cholesterol) and offers no benefit for weight, blood glucose, or inflammation markers.
She says coconut oil has been marketed as a miracle for about a decade and a 2016 New York Times survey showed 72% of Americans consider it a health product. This while on 37% of nutritionists felt it was beneficial when compared to other oils.
What they’ve learned more recently include:
- Compared to nontropical vegetable oils, coconut oil significantly increased total cholesterol.
- Coconut oil did not significantly affect triglycerides or markers of glycemia, inflammation, and body fat compared with others
- Researchers calculated that coconut oil use could translate to a 6% increase risk of major vascular events and a 5.4% increase in teh risk of coronary heart disease mortality.
There’s much more to the article so I encourage you to find it and read it if you’re interested in coconut oil but in summary: Coconut oil should not be viewed as a healthy oil for cardiovascular disease risk reduction and limiting coconut oil consumption because of its high saturated fat content is warranted and it offers no proven health benefits compared to other cooking oils and seems detrimental on important blood lipids. As such, the prudent approach would be to avoid it in comparison to other cooking oils”
Item #3 Alright here’s we arrive at the main event. This brand new article coming out on May 4, 2020….there’s a serious amount of sizzle on this sucker and not just because it’s brand new but also because a large number of chiropractors are going to call shenanigans on it. The topic of chiropractors helping boost immune function through spinal manipulative therapy has been such a hot topic on social media since this pandemic started that I won’t get on and read a general chiropractic group and it’s posts. I won’t do it. My eyes start rolling out of my damn head so why intentionally punish myself? Honestly.
This article is called “A united statement of the global chiropractic research community against the pseudoscientific claim that chiropractic care boosts immunity” and is authored by the biggest of the big chiropractic researchers that include Pierre Cote, Andre Bussieres, JD Cassidy….hello stroke research…Jan Hartvigsen, Greg Kawchuk, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde, Silvano Mior, Michael Schneider and more than 140 signatories.
It was published in Chiropractic and Manual Therapies just a week or so ago as I mentioned.
Background – As I said this pandemic has made chiropractors lose their minds. Including myself, if I’m being honest. Not about the immune system. But about safety and keeping myself and my people and patients safe.
Anyway, they say that during this time, the ICA posted reports claiming that chiropractic care can impact the immune system. These claims aren’t in line with the WHO and the World Federation of Chiropractic.
The researchers reviewed the two reports posted by the ICA on their website on March 20th and the 28th. They explored the method used to develop the claim that SMT can boost the immune system and they discuss the scientific merit of the claim. They go on to explain why the claim lacks scientific credibility and is dangerous to the public.
Get this; over 150 researchers from 11 countries reviewed and endorsed this article and response.
Some of the more notable quotes include:
Advancing extraordinary claims without providing extraordinary evidence should raise significant concerns about the scientific validity of the ICA’s position. In their reports, the ICA claims that individuals who received chiropractic care during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic were 51 to 91 times less likely to die than those who were treated by medical doctors.
These effect sizes are too large to be trustworthy and are a red flag of pseudoscience because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Using data from a 100-year-old non-published, non-randomized controlled trial to suggest that chiropractic adjustments reduce mortality from the flu is scientifically and socially irresponsible.
We consider that proclaiming the benefits of chiropractic adjustment/spinal manipulation on immunity during a pandemic is plainly irresponsible and demonstrates a lack of understanding of science, the coronavirus pandemic, and public health risks.
By only citing basic science experiments, the ICA appears to have overlooked the WHO guidance on implementation research, which clearly states that basic science experiments do not provide relevant justification for the implementation of a health intervention
We call on the ICA to explain why it does not adhere to internationally accepted standards of research implementation but instead rely on unconnected basic science studies when linking chiropractic care to immune system function.
Pseudoscience has the potential to mislead and misinform at any time; even more so in the midst of a pandemic when the public is vulnerable. The current coronavirus pandemic demands that we act responsibly by adopting sound public health practices as recommended
Their conclusion is that, in the ICA reports, they provided no valid clinical scientific evidence that chiropractic care can impact the immune system. Not only that but they call on political and regulatory forces to hold accountable those making the claims.
Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, believe it, count on it.
Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week.
Key Takeaways Store Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at
chiropracticforward.com.
The Message I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.
When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.
It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient.
And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!
Key Point: At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….
That’s Chiropractic!
Contact Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes.
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Connect We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward.
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About the Author & Host Dr. Jeff Williams – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger
Bibliography Abassi J (2020). “Coconut Oil’s Health Halo a Mirage, Clinical Trials Suggest.” JAMA
323(16): 1540-1541.
Heffler K, S. D., Subedi K, (2020). “Association of Early-Life Social and Digital Media Experiences With Development of Autism Spectrum Disorder-Like Symptoms.” JAMA Pediatr.
