Question: What do you call a substance that research has demonstrated has a direct association with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety, common mental disorders, adverse sleep, wheezing and all-cause mortality?1
Answer: ultra-processed foods. In addition, research suggests that consuming ultra-processed foods is associated with hypertension, Crohn’s disease, obesity, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease and breast cancer.
Ultra-processed foods include a vast array of products including “carbonated soft drinks; sweet, fatty or salty packaged snacks; candies (confectionery); mass produced packaged breads and buns, cookies (biscuits), pastries, cakes and cake mixes; margarine and other spreads; sweetened breakfast ‘cereals’ and fruit yoghurt and ‘energy’ drinks; pre-prepared meat, cheese, pasta and pizza dishes; poultry and fish ‘nuggets’ and ‘sticks’; sausages, burgers, hot dogs and other reconstituted meat products; powdered and packaged ‘instant’ soups, noodles and desserts; baby formula; and many other types of product.”2
Sadly, ultra-processed foods make up approximately half of the calories your average patient consumes. And while your patients may receive the best chiropractic care, your care may be no match for the damage their diet is doing to their health.
Consider the findings of a recent study involving patients in a specialized pain rehabilitation center. The study found that patients’ “(s)uboptimal eating habits included irregular mealtimes (27.2%), weekly consumption of fast-food (20.3%) and nearly daily consumption of confectionery (33.3%).” Twenty percent of those pain patients expressed a desire to improve their diets.3
The point here is an obvious one. You can make a difference in just a few minutes with each of your patients. Give them a handout with basic nutrition advice. If you don’t recommend nutritional supplements, consider doing so. That will help mitigate some of the consequences of their eating habits. Just a short conversation regarding basis diet do’s and don’ts can make an incredible difference in their physical and mental health; not to mention their life span.
As their health coach, not just their doctor, you can impact chronic illnesses in a major way. This will ultimately increase the effectiveness of your adjustments in relieving pain, as an improved diet will significantly reduce inflammation. And you may be the only one to help correct one of the major challenges keeping them from wellness.
There is a reason why the word doctor is taken from the Latin verb docere – to teach.
References
When I graduated from chiropractic college in 1981 and started practice, I heard it all, and very little was positive. “You are a quack; you do not know what a subluxation is; you couldn’t get into a real health care program, so you chose the one that is slightly above a mail-order degree; you have no proof that chiropractic works; Are you really licensed?”, and so much more.
| Digital Exclusive
A central challenge in creating our identity is that chiropractic is a method of care, not a technique or procedure. This is an important concept for us to promote. Our patients are treated with lifestyle modification, exercise, nutritional supplements, diet and a whole-body approach to accelerate the natural healing process. We are not simply CMT providers.
The results of a global survey released late last year (2023) unveiled some startling findings among medical and nursing students. The “Clinician of the Future: 2023 Education Edition” surveyed 2,212 students, of which 446 were in the United States, from 91 countries.
