A report in the March 2, 2007 issue of the Journal of Human Hypertension says that a single, specific chiropractic adjustment in people suffering from high blood pressure caused a significant reduction in pressure that continued for as long as eight weeks.
The study involved 50 people who were identified as having a misalignment of the Atlas (the first vertebra in the neck) and had been diagnosed with high blood pressure.
Half of the patients received a very specific chiropractic adjustment that addressed their particular vertebral misalignment, also known as a subluxation. The other half received a placebo or fake adjustment. During the 8-week study, the participants received no high blood pressure medication whatsoever.
Those patients who received the adjustments say an average drop of 14mm Hg in the systolic pressure (the top number) and an average 8mm Hg drop in the diastolic pressure (the bottom number). Very encouraging was the fact that the improvements continued into the eighth week when the study ended.
In a related article on the WebMD website, study leader George Bakris, MD says “This (adjustment) procedure has the effect of not one, but two blood-pressure medications given in combination.”
“And it seems to be adverse-event free,” he said. “We saw no side effects and no problems.” According to Bakris, a number of important questions were raised by this study, including: “a) How does misalignment of [the Atlas] affect hypertension? and b) If there is a cause and effect relationship between [Atlas] misalignment and hypertension, is mal-position of [Atlas] an additional risk factor for the development of hypertension?”
Bakris admits the results were surprising. “When the statistician brought me the data, I actually didn’t believe it. It was way too good to be true. The statistician said, ‘I don’t even believe it.’ But we checked for everything, and there it was.” Not surprisingly, Bakris is planning a larger study.