Degenerative Disc Disease & How Stiffness (Not Pain) in your Spine Leads To Mechanotransductive Diseases!

Degenerative disc disease & how stiffness (not pain) in your spine leads to mechanotransductive diseases especially heart disease, cancer, autoimmune, and diabetes!

-The Science Behind How Stretching, Compression, and Shear Stress Drive Cellular Physiology and Function.

Not enough? It can lead to chronic inflammation/infection and early death.

MOVEMENT SENSORS

We’re gonna look at mechanoreceptors (sensors loaded in your body that detects movement) and how they facilitate the transmission of mechanotransductive forces like that of a windmill which takes the mechanical energy from the movement of wind and transforms them into electricity. In our body this happens from the normal movement of your spine so long it’s aligned properly with good posture, not suffering from a movement dysfunction, and not suffering from unresolved DDD. It not only impacts nerve to brain and body function but even to cellular biochemical actions to the expression of your DNA!

IN THE WOMB 

In fact, one study out of USC Santa Barbara found that even a baby forming in the womb is impacted by these forces. Turns out, doctors recommending bed rest when pregnant, unless for serious reasons, is unsafe and dangerous to your baby because it affects embryogenesis or the formation of your baby in utero!

In cells, mechanotransduction like that of a windmill is the means by which physical forces, such as stretching, compression, and shear stress, are translated into biochemical impulses and signals. These biochemical changes are startling as we never knew this until very recently. They can include adjustments to intracellular concentrations of all kinds of biochemistry like enzymes and elements such as potassium and calcium, for example, as well as the activation of various signaling pathways, each of which may, in turn, result in changes to both cellular and extracellular structures. That’s huge, we never knew this! We’re starting to understand why chiropractic clinical research has numerous case studies from everything from A to Z.

So, how do we know this is true? That it’s truly worked out in science, and not some philosophy or theory.

EXPERIMENTS

1. Using an elastic substrate we can measure pressure changes similar to a rubber band or holding outstretched saran wrap and placing something on it deforming it, well they can determine how pressure changes from tiny movement and mechanical forces to this 3-dimensional network in your cells consisting of extracellular macromolecules and minerals, such as collagen, enzymes, glycoprotein and others that provide structural and biochemical support to surrounding cells, they can measure how sensory neurons or your nerve signaling following movement stimulation like walking, but especially the movement of the spine- actually affects all these chemical changes within the cell.
2. Using nanotechnology we can also measure traction forces which occur naturally to the body when we move from squatting positions to standing, or sitting to standing, or getting out of bed, and just bending over; small traction forces between spinal joints occur and it impacts cellular responses within the IVD and all the surrounding tissues in your joints like ligaments, muscles, and tendons on a cellular level.
3. Using traction force microscopy. We can look at mechanical interactions of fibroblast migration and collagen deposition which promote regeneration of tissue like that of a wound and even regeneration of collagen within the IVD.
4. Using magnetic twisting cytometry to induce sheer loads and forces on the cell which influence the spine morphology on IVD disc loads and healthy stresses during the normal movement of the spine due to proper postural load balance and spinal alignment of the spine. A study in The Spine Journal proved how chiropractic adjustments and postural corrections influence spinal coupling and mechanical loads on spinal tissues and that by correcting spinal alignment, posture and spinal mobility following chiropractic care normalized the postural and shear loads of the spine. And you guys know, that when those motion segments are restored and your posture is improved with chiropractic care, that means your windmills, that power generator, due to these sensors loaded in your spinal joints, act like a windmill transforming these healthy mechanical signals into stronger nerve signaling to the brain and every tissue, cell, organ, down to your biochemistry in your cells to the expression of your DNA.

IVDs are affected by a wide variety of mechanical stimuli including shear stress, hydrostatic pressure, torsion, flexion, and electrokinetic changes. Chiropractic care along with tiny all-day movement of the spine and postural exercise and spinal hygiene exercise impacts a wide variety of these mechanical stimuli.

In fact, a similar study also demonstrated how shear fluid flow and equibiaxial stretching influence the regenerative functions during fibroblast recruitment of fibronectin (another structural element of IVDs), with mechanically perturbed cells exhibiting increased fibronectin fibril formation and fibronectin localization at their peripheries. Meaning in real-time scientists can witness and describe how mechanical forces from normalized and proper movement of our bodies, race in biochemistry similar to how our bodies heal ourselves after a wound, like a cut and regenerate our cells and tissues, even repair broken DNA.

FUTURE

In the future using these new nanotechnologies from mechanobiology, chiropractic research may be able to measure this. But no worries…We know this is true because this is the basic science research, it’s just we chiropractors like to have that directly correlated research that proves 1+2=3; though we already know it does. Understand…In other words, you and I as patients, don’t need to wait for Harvard to come out and say, “finally. Breakthrough research in chiropractic…..”

We already know! Got it! But, yes. It’s nice, that we're getting closer, I can see that happening very soon.

Such studies are of great interest in terms of understanding mechanotransduction in general. However, considering mechanotransduction in IVDs—it's better to focus more closely on two of the most important forces affecting the spine: tensile stress and compression.

SPINE

For example, cyclic tensile strain at a frequency of 1.0 Hz caused annulus fibrosus cells from non-degenerated tissue to decrease the expression of catabolic genes, whereas cyclic tensile strain at a frequency of 0.33 Hz caused the same type of annulus fibrosus cells to increase matrix catabolism. This is another reason we need to move our spine for three minutes every half an hour, to make sure we stimulate the anabolic in our biology and not the catabolic mechanisms.

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