Having your spine popped like bubblewrap might feel favourable but the evidence that spinal manipulation is effective is less satisfactoryFor the past few years Ive had a guilty pleasure. I’ve visited osteopaths and chiropractors. Guilty,because I’m a science writer and know approximately the scientific question marks hanging over both professions. A pleasure, because I’m a science writer and spend much of my time hunched over a laptop – when you’ve got a sinister back, and there are few things more satisfying than having your spine popped like bubble wrap. Then cranial osteopathy happened.
Lying down wearing only my underwear in an osteopath’s front room,I was waiting expectantly for the back-popping to begin. Instead, to my toe-curling horror, and he started lightly fingering my head and telling me he was channelling energy through the plates of my cranium. With his touch,apparently, he’d reset my “internal rhythms” and cure my pain. I didn’t assume my back could catch much stiffer. It turns out I was wrong. With this unsolicited venture into a wacky branch of both osteopathy and chiropractic came a question I should have asked a long time ago: how much of these professions is scientifically legitimate and how much, or as others have asked before me,is bogus?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com