Most people link the term disease with an invasion of something into our bodies that needs to be fought off. In some people's mind the word disease is synonymous with death. Yet most disease states usually represent a dysfunction in the body's regulatory systems, a process that needs to be fixed not fought.



I think the term 'disease' should be relegated to the malfunctions in the body due to an external source. These external sources are things like smallpox virus; human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tetanus and hepatitis C virus (HCV) to just name a few.

I prefer to think of most prevalent 'disease' states as 'dysfunctional' states. These malfunctions can be things that merely need proper nutrition, spinal movement or hydration to fix. Now lets looks at some 'disease' conditions that should be considered 'dysfunctions'. Scurvy, coronary artery disease better known as heart disease, and even some cancers occur because of our body's inability to produce a specific collagen or to regulate malignant cells. Most everyone knows of a person who has survived these dysfunctional states (cancer, heart disease, etc). When we think of a dysfunction it should be thought of something that has come and then will go away once the proper correction is identified and corrected.

So we already know that environmental overload is one of the 2 things that can cause dysfunctions to occur. One result of environmental overload is neurogenic inflammation.

Neurogenic inflammation is when afferent neurons release inflammatory substances into surrounding tissues. These inflammatory substances are usually substance P and calcitonin gene-related peptide or CGRP for short, which is the most potent endogenous vasodilator currently known, and CGRP has receptors throughout the whole body.

So what causes neurogenic inflammation? 3 causes of neurogenic inflammation have been identified. With lack of motion within all of the spinal articulations being one, mental anguish being another and detrimental dietary habits as the third.

As you know we have spinal nerves that exit the spinal cord, which innervate organs or sometimes groups of organs. These nerves send information from the central nervous system to the organ and also carry information from the organ to the central nervous system. That is where spinal articulations can cause a problem. For example the nerve that transverses past the 5th thoracic vertebrae innervates the stomach.

If a subluxation which is can be defined as

"A joint that is slightly misaligned resulting in improper articulation causing improper nerve flow"

Occurs at the 5th thoracic vertebra a release of inflammatory substances will occur resulting in symptoms in the surrounding tissues and or the organ innervated by this nerve. This means you can have stiffness and pain in your mid back or you may only have stomach dysfunctions like heartburn or nausea.

Since these nerves travel to and from the target organ, it has also been noted that dysfunctions in the spine can occur from organ dysfunction. This is called a visceral somatic reaction. Chiropractic physicians are trained to remove these subluxations.

Negative thought patters can be the root cause of neurogenic inflammation. We all have experienced fearful thought patterns that created or induced a somatic or visceral response. If these negative thought patterns are fed they will increase your environmental toxicity and lead to further dysfunction.