Useless Research & Insulin or Inflammation

The Chiropractic Forward Podcast: Evidence-based Chiropractic Advocacy

CF 172: Useless Research & Insulin or Inflammation Today we’re going to talk about how I treat my staff, we’ll talk about insulin vs. inflammation, and we’ll talk about some trash research that came out in JAMA recently that you may wind up being confronted with at some point so listen up. 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. If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do.

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You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #172 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about going the way of the non-pharma world. If we could just get the the medical world to take a look at it. We also talked about insurance coverage trends and how they’re not very favorable to chiropractors. As you probably already feel. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.

On the personal end of things…..

On the personal end of things, we’re still interviewing nurse practitioners and still getting our ducks in a row. We have the attorney that is setting up the medical entity meeting with our CPAs out in St. Louis to make sure it is set up in the most tax-advantageous as well as the most ideal legal way. Any time you have your CPA and your attorney working together, you’re probably in a good place me thinks. I have a meeting with the medical director this week to go over what services he’s going to be OK with us offering. When appropriate, we’ll be looking at things like intra-joint injections, trigger point injections, low-level scripts but no narcotics. Basically, anything we offer here will be very low risk. Not only because it inherently lowers our risk to adverse events, which makes me sleep better every night, but it also helps to keep a happy medical director. If it all works right, this is almost mailbox money for the medical director while providing an awesome gig for a nurse practitioner that is at least halfway motivated to build their practice.

Think about it, nurses and nurse pracs are used to 12-hour shifts. They’ve missed important holidays and important events in their personal life due to having to work. Here, there are no weekends, there are not holidays spent working, vacation time, it’s all good in the hood at my place. Plus, they get to learn as much about orthopedics as they want to learn and a whole bunch they maybe don’t want to learn but is required to learn in order to work here. That’s the deal though right?

Gotta pick the right NP because it all hinges on that one decision. Pick the wrong one and you’re out of business until you can get another hired. Doesn’t sound like a big deal until you factor in the 3 months it takes to get a new one credentialed. Speaking of, I have to get re-credentialed under the new medical entity. That’s because of Stark and anti-kickback laws. This isn’t something to go into lightly. It’s like I said last week or two weeks ago here on the podcast, the wheels on this thing turn slowly and I’m OK with that. That way I don’t get out over my skis and lose control. So, that’s where we’re at on that.

Currently, I’m taking the opportunity to type this out on a Sunday afternoon. We are up at the office throwing a staff member her baby shower. No, I’m not a baby shower kind of dude as you may have guessed. I’m a Bud Light and guitars kind of guy. But, my wife decided we’re throwing our staff member a baby shower so here I am at the office recording this while the chicks and the hens are out there clucking and cackling. And I don’t mean that in a misogynist way. I mean it in a funny, playful kind of way so take it that way.

It brought up a thought; do you treat your staff members like workers? Or do you treat them more like family? Right or wrong, as a result of my nature and my heart, we treat ours like family when appropriate. I’ve had staff ask me advice on deep dark stuff they were struggling with. I’ve had staff whose family was going to prison, the whole town knew, they were ashamed, and they just need some love, a little extra consideration, and a few big hugs. That one still gets me a little emotional when I think about it. I’m going to give you a few more examples here but before I do, I don’t want you to misunderstand anything here. I’ve learned over the years that you cannot buy loyalty from your staff. They’re either with you every step of the way, or they are not. And that’s OK. Everyone is coming from different places, experiences, and motivations. Not a thing wrong with that. But don’t do things for the wrong reasons. Don’t think you’re going to do a bunch of things for staff thinking it’ll ensure they stay with you forever. That’s just not reality and it’s a good way to allow yourself to get hurt on some level. If you’re going to treat staff like family, you do it for all of the right reasons. Love, appreciation for them and their character, admiration for a job well done, team building, and things like that. Getting back to it, I’ve sold a car to a staffer that was coming out of a bad relationship and had no transportation. I sold it to them for about $4,000 less than I could have gotten for it and let them pay it out $50 a paycheck and zero interest. I’ve created a new, extra job for a staffer that was about to lose their house. It cost me an extra $1500/month for the following 2-3 years but that’s the way I am.

I’ve sponsored kids sports for staffers more times than I can even start to recall. In the end, money will come and go. It can be lost and it can be made. But it’s the relationships that stay with us.

Were we put on the planet just to make money and take care of our families?

Or were we put on this planet to make ALL of our immediate relationships prosper and make the world, or at least our part of it, a better place? You probably know where I come down on all that. It may sound a little hippy-dippy there, which I’m not at all, but I do see it that way. Money is nice and I see it as a challenge. A challenge to make it and see how much I can make ethically and morally. It’s fun to make money! But money really isn’t my main motivation any more.

I’m a huge stats person and track stuff like crazy. I balance my own bank statement every month. But I don’t count pennies anymore. I just don’t. I’m more into people, smiles, and all the good feels. Making people’s lives better when possible. Alright, enough mushy stuff.

Item #1 This first one today is called “Temporal Associations Among Body Mass Index, Fasting Insulin, and Systemic Inflammation: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” by Wiebe et. al. [1] and was published in JAMA on March 12, 2021 and that so hot it’s got my glasses all steamy. I can’t see a thing.

Why They Did It The authors wanted to answer the question of “What are the temporal associations among higher body mass index (BMI) and chronic inflammation and/or hyperinsulinemia?” They say that Obesity is associated with a number of noncommunicable chronic diseases and is supposedly a cause of premature death. They wanted to summarize evidence on the temporality of the association between higher body mass index (BMI) and chronic inflammation and hyperinsulinemia.

How They Did It

• MEDLINE (1946 to August 20, 2019) and Embase (from 1974 to August 19, 2019) were searched
• The data analysis was conducted between January 2020 and October 2020.
• Longitudinal studies and randomized clinical trials that measured fasting insulin level and/or an inflammation marker and BMI with at least 3 commensurate time points were selected.
• Of 1865 records, 60 eligible studies with 112 cohorts of 5603 participants were identified

Wrap It Up

The finding of temporal sequencing (in which changes in fasting insulin level precede changes in weight) is not consistent with the assertion that obesity causes non-communicable chronic diseases and premature death by increasing levels of fasting insulin. Meaning that that adverse consequences currently attributed to obesity could be attributed to hyperinsulinemia (or another proximate factor). Which is interesting in my book. I thought you all might like it.

CHIROUP ADVERTISEMENT

Item #2 And our last item today is called “Effect of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment vs Sham Treatment on Activity Limitations in Patients With Nonspecific Subacute and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial” by Nguyen et. al. [2] and published in JAMA Internal Medicine on March 15, 2021 which is indeed too hot to manipulate by one’s hand.

Why They Did It They say that Osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) is frequently offered to people with nonspecific low back pain (LBP) but never compared with sham OMT for reducing LBP-specific activity limitations. Knowing this, they wanted to compare the efficacy of standard OMT vs sham OMT for reducing LBP-specific activity limitations at 3 months in persons with nonspecific subacute or chronic LBP.

How They Did It

• This prospective, parallel-group, single-blind, single-center, sham-controlled randomized clinical trial recruited participants with nonspecific subacute or chronic LBP in France starting February 17, 2014, with follow-up completed on October 23, 2017.
• Participants were randomly allocated to interventions
• Six sessions (1 every 2 weeks) of standard OMT or sham OMT delivered by nonphysician, nonphysiotherapist osteopathic practitioners.
• The primary end point was reduction in LBP-specific activity limitations at 3 months as measured by the self-administered Quebec Back Pain Disability Index.
• Secondary outcomes were mean reduction in LBP-specific activity limitations; mean changes in pain and health-related quality of life; number and duration of sick leaves, as well as number of LBP episodes at 12 months;
• and consumption of analgesics and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs at 3 and 12 months.
• Adverse events were self-reported at 3, 6, and 12 months.

What They Found

Overall, 200 participants were randomly allocated to standard OMT and 200 to sham OMT, with 197 analyzed in each group

Wrap It Up In this randomized clinical trial of patients with nonspecific subacute or chronic LBP, standard OMT had a small effect on LBP-specific activity limitations vs sham OMT. However, the clinical relevance of this effect is questionable. So, look…..this paper and these researches absolutely wasted time, effort, and money in an attempt to make spinal manipulative therapy look bad. Who in the h e double hockey sticks sees new patients once every 2 weeks for only 6 visits?? Especially in a chronic pain sufferer. Trash, garbage.

Or since it was in France…..garbage. It’s dumb, useless, and meaningless and I’m almost offended that this is even a paper. I’m starting ANY brand new case with 3 per week for a week or two minimum. Minimum. Combined with other appropriate ancillaries including exercise, soft tissue stuff, maybe acupuncture, maybe laser, maybe a referral to cognitive-behavioral therapist, maybe biomechanics coaching, and on and on and on.

Papers like this and authors like this should give it up and get out of the game if they’re not going to be able to throw something together that’s better than this heap of trash. Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Keep changing our profession from your little corner of the world. Keep taking care of yourselves and everyone around you. 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.

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 – Fellow of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography

1. Wiebe N, Y.F., Crumley ET, Bello A, Stenvinkel P, Tonelli M,, Temporal Associations Among Body Mass Index, Fasting Insulin, and Systemic Inflammation: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Netw Open, 2021. 4.

2. Nguyen C, B.I., Zegarra-Parodi R,, Effect of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment vs Sham Treatment on Activity Limitations in Patients With Nonspecific Subacute and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Intern Med, 2021.

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