Chiropractic Nutrition

Nutrition Forum, May, 1999 by Samuel Homola

spine and acupuncture points and prescribes supplement products and homeopathic remedies.

* NUTRI-SPEC testing is performed by measuring the patient's breathing rate, blood pressure, body temperature, pulse, breath-holding ability, blood pressure, pupil size, tongue thickness or coating, several characteristics of the patient's saliva and urine, abdominal reflexes, and certain other reflexes. NUTRISPEC's scoring system is then used to determine whether the patient is in or out of "water/electrolyte balance," "anaerobic/ dysaerobic balance," "acid/alkaline balance," and "sympathetic/parasympathetic balance" and whether the patient has "sex hormone insufficiency," "myocardial insufficiency," "pineal stress," "thymus stress," or another fanciful condition. The findings are then used to recommend dietary changes and supplements that are purchasable from the company marketing the system.

`Cookbook' Approaches

Many supplement manufacturers offer nutritional products intended for the treatment of disease. The majority of these products do not work and are not legal to market for this purpose. In addition, many are marketed for conditions that chiropractors are not trained to diagnose or treat. Instead of making therapeutic claims openly, the manufacturers market through distributors who make the claims for them by sponsoring seminars at which speakers describe how to use the products. Some distributors give out manuals listing which products to use for which diseases.

Some manufacturers sell "glandular" products containing small amounts of freeze-dried animal tissue claimed to strengthen or rejuvenate the corresponding parts of the user's body. Such claims make about as much sense as the primitive notion that eating the heart of a lion will make you courageous.

"Glandular" products are not legally permitted to contain hormones. Like plant-based oral enzyme products, their main ingredients are proteins that are broken down during digestion and exert no significant effect on body function.

Questionable Food Allergies

Some chiropractors use various test procedures that supposedly determine "hidden allergies" responsible for a broad range of diseases or symptoms. The most notorious of these was cytotoxic testing, which was performed by observing what happens to the patient's white blood cells after they are placed onto slides containing dried foods.

Cytotoxic testing was banned by the FDA, but other tests are used for the same purpose. The most notable of these are ELISA/ACT and ALCAT testing. Some chiropractors diagnose "food allergies" with a computerized galvanometer that merely reflects skin moistness and how hard the operator presses a probe against the patient's skin.

Actual and Potential Harm

Most of the practices described above are used to varying degrees by offbeat medical doctors, dentists, naturopaths, acupuncturists, and various other practitioners who consider themselves qualified to do "nutrition counseling." However, the number of chiropractors using them appears to be much higher than that of any other practitioner type.