Chiropratique et AVC

Depuis plusieurs années, un groupe bien organisé tente de discréditer la chiropratique en utilisant la peur comme moyen de propagande.

Ainsi, on tente de faire croire que les manipulation des vertèbres cervicales sont très riquées et pourraient causer un AVC.

Une nouvelle recherche scientifique parue récemment dans la prestigieuse revue "Spine" d&émontre qu'il n'est pas plus risqué de consulter un chiropraticien qu'un médecin en ce qui concerne la probabilité d'avoir un AVC.

Chiropractors don't raise stroke risk, study says

A research report published in Spine journal confirms what chiropractors have said for years: chiropractic care does NOT cause an increased risk of strokes due to arterial dissection.

"We didn't see any increased association between chiropractic care and usual family physician care, and the stroke," said researcher Frank Silver, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and director of the University Health Network stroke program. "The association occurs because patients tend to seek care when they're having neck pain or headache, and sometimes they go to a chiropractor, sometimes they go to a physician. But we didn't see an increased likelihood of them having this type of stroke after seeing a chiropractor."

During the past several years, chiropractic has come under intense attack by anti-chiropractic organizations, including several that claim to represent chiropractic "victims."  Despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary – including a 2001 study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that the risk of suffering a stroke due to chiropractic adjustments was less than one in nearly 6 million -- critics have kept up their attacks and tried to persuade the public that chiropractic adjustments were dangerous.

For this latest project, a Canadian research team studied nine years of patient data and found that, of the 818 cases involving this kind of stroke, patients were just as likely to have visited their family medical doctor as they did a chiropractor. There was no increased risk from having received chiropractic care.

Dr. Silver admitted that he and his team were specifically looking for an increased association between chiropractic care and stroke but found none. According to the report's conclusion, "The increased risks of VBA stroke associated with chiropractic and PCP visits is likely due to patients with headache and neck pain from VBA dissection seeking care before their stroke. We found no evidence of excess risk of VBA stroke associated chiropractic care compared to primary care."

Risk of Vertebrobasilar Stroke and Chiropractic Care: Results of a Population-Based Case-Control and Case-Crossover Study. Spine. 33(4S) Neck Pain Task Force Supplement:S176-S183, February 15, 2008. Abstract