Is your neck causing your High Blood Pressure?!
Recently a study published titled “Atlantoaxial misalignment causes High Blood Pressure in rats: a novel hypertension model,” was published by acupuncturists in China. These acupuncturists do Chinese Medicine which includes ways to lower high blood pressure via manual manipulation to the upper cervical spine. What they have found over the years is that patients with neck pain and stiffness often have high blood pressure and when they manipulate the upper cervical spine, they notice normalization of high blood pressure. So naturally they wanted to study the relationship and find a description for why that’s happening. We also see this same result in our practice where a patient comes in with hypertension and after years of diet and exercise modification or medication, they still have high blood pressure. After 8 weeks of upper cervical chiropractic care their blood pressure will stabilize. This doesn’t happen with every patient and it isn’t always a 100% fix. But we believe that if it helps, every one that is struggling with high blood pressure should be checked for upper cervical misalignment. If you are struggling to balance hypertension give your local Upper Cervical Chiropractic office a call today.
In the study they took rats, which have similar anatomy and physiology to humans in the upper cervical spine, and measured their blood pressure before intervention and again after. Before the intervention, the rats had normal systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Then they inserted a 6mm staple in the upper neck to misalign the bones and found post intervention an immediate shift toward hypertension. They waited a few days and took the staples out and low and behold their blood pressure came back down. Now what they found was that it's not necessarily a bone on an artery that causes the problem by kinking off the blood flow to the brain. They did that study with rabbits, pulling on the artery into the brain and found that there wasn’t a significant change. What they found in this study was that changing the position of the bones in the upper neck caused the Superior Cervical Ganglia (SCG) to over fire into the brain causing Norepinephrine (NE) to increase and Acetylcholine (Ach) to decrease in the blood stream. This neurobiochemical interaction is what caused the rats to have increased blood pressure! This is very important to remember because STRUCTURE dictates FUNCTION. If we know that misaligning the upper cervical bones can cause problems in blood pressure who knows what other poor neurobiochemical pathways are being turned on and what pathways might be turned off!?
If you or someone you know is struggling to manage blood pressure through conventional means of diet, exercise, and medication, Upper Cervical Chiropractic care may be an effective tool for getting things under control. Call us today to find out more. 603-380-9184
