How Chiropractic Can Help With The Flu

The medical community is in unanimous agreement that the secret to fighting the flu is a healthy immune system. Unfortunately you can’t buy a healthy immune system and you can’t pop a pill and get a healthy immune system. A healthy immune system comes about as a result of having a fully functioning nervous system & body. Supporting the immune system is important to wellness. The most effective method is a comprehensive approach that involves exercise, stress management, diet, nutritional supplementation, plant-based medicines, and chiropractic care.

The flu season begins in November and is at its height between December and March. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 out of every 5 Americans will get the flu this year. The flu is another name for influenza. Considered contagious, it is a viral infection of the respiratory passages, which often causes fever, severe aching and/or intestinal infection. The flu is often mistaken for symptoms of the common cold. Colds are usually due to bacterial infection that overwhelms the body, often resulting in fatigue, coughing, sneezing, mucous build-up and drainage, fever and sometimes body aches. Are you prepared for the flu season?

Chiropractic care may be your answer to a clean bill of health this season. Chiropractic has been shown in hundreds of research articles to improve the function of the body?s immune system. If your immune system is working at 100%, especially because you get the benefits of chiropractic care, versus people who don?t use chiropractic, you have greater ability to be healthy and not suffer from as many colds and/or flu as the general population does. Chiropractic can give your immune system a boost with a spinal adjustment. Chiropractic care can help raise your natural resistance to disease by removing a serious interference to your proper body function: Vertebral subluxations. Remember, an elevated temperature (fever) is one of your body?s defense mechanisms, helping you to destroy infection. Lowering a mild to moderate fever reduces this defense against this illness condition. Likewise, other symptoms of colds and flu are the body?s attempts to clear itself of bacterial and viral influences that attack the body. Here are some facts and a recent study about chiropractic and the flu: A study shown in the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research in 1997 showed chiropractic care to be effective in treating the flu. Over 2,800 individuals received regular chiropractic care and the result was an average 15% decrease in the incidence of colds and the flu.

According to the World Chiropractic Alliance, spinal adjustments can help your immune system function better. An adjustment by a Doctor of Chiropractic corrects what are called vertebral subluxations, which can cause interference of the nervous system. When an adjustment is performed, it releases pressure on the nerves and allows more efficient interaction between your body’s nervous system and immune system. When your immune system is healthy it is better prepared to prevent or combat the flu.

Regular chiropractic care is beneficial to the body. Preventing the flu is just one of the many positive side effects of regular chiropractic maintenance. Do you really need a flu shot? Or could great flu-fighting benefits accrue from taking a healthier and more natural approach to fighting the flu? And of course eating right, exercising, and having a healthy body are all-important issues in combating the flu as well. The mind, emotion, and stress have a huge impact on immune function. Stress depresses the activity of white blood cells, the soldiers of the immune system that directly combat infection. Stress stimulates the sympathetic nervous system that is responsible for the fight or flight response. When the sympathetic nervous system is active, the immune system is not as stimulated and deep sleep is disrupted. The immune system appears to work at its best when we are happy. If you want a happy immune system, then you need to laugh often and view life from an optimistic point of view.