Skeptic

I'd have to side with Uncle Panda on the Chiropractic issue: Its junk science at best, and most likely just a quack/hoax to get gullible "patients" to cough up money for perceived symptom relief.

The very (shaky) foundation upon which this (undeserved and isolated) "branch" of medicine rests is itself laughable. Daniel D Palmer, back in 1895, created some theory that states that there is an innate life force which flows through all of your organs/tissues/cells via the spinal column. He said that 95% of ailments are the result of mis-aligned vertebrae, because the vertebrae "pinch" nerves. By performing physical manipulations on these vertebrae (vertebral subluxations), one can (supposedly) correct the nerve-pinching culprit and restore "flow" to the affected organ(s), relieving symptoms.

With over 60,000 licensed chiropractors "practicing" in the U.S., I'm sorry to see so much money being thrown at quacks. But aren't palm-reading, fortune-telling, and herbal-medicine shops still in business? Yeah, and that's the category that I toss Chiropractic in as well. The very nebulous nature of their catch-phrases (no two Chiropractors could agree on or tell you the exact pathology of subluxations and their supposed corrections) and reliance on high-frequency-return visits proves their illegitimacy as health-care providers. Food for thought:

There is plenty of room for the passage of spinal nerves and blood vessels through the fat-padded foraminal openings between the vertebrae. It cannot be imagined that slight displacement of a normal vertebra will place pressure on a spinal nerve. This was proven conclusively 25 years ago by experiments performed by Edmund S. Crelin, PhD, a prominent anatomist at Yale University. Using dissected spines with ligaments attached and the spinal nerves exposed, he used a drill press to bend and twist the spine. Using an ohm meter to record any contact between wired spinal nerves and the foraminal openings, he found that vertebrae could not be displaced enough to stretch or impinge a spinal nerve unless the force was great enough to break the spine [1].

Not only that, but time after time, investigators go to multiple Chiropractors and receive different results/treatments each and every time. One time I'm told my left leg is longer, another time vice-versa, and another time I'm told my bladder is going to be distended because my x, y, z nerve is pinched. You get the idea.

Baloney, baloney, baloney. You might get immediate relief, but that whole theory makes me annoyed.

And so, I'm quite a skeptic. Not to say that I refuse to believe in things that are not directly observable, but things like Chiropractic, acupuncture, ghosts, chi-manipulation...how can the masses fall under the opium so easily?