Dynamic Chiropractic Clinic - Nanaimo

Fundamentally, I named the clinic Dynamic for a very good reason. In 2008, I saw how truly dynamic the disc is in a 2010 research paper I led and published in The Spine Journal. We have an opportunity to influence disc heights, which helps treat a multitude of low back pain diagnoses. If you have benefited from such a strategy, please consider writing a review to get the word out. https://g.page/r/CfUv8eg9JI-rEAE/review Thank you!

Increasing Disc Height: A Central Theme in My Approach to Spine Care

One central mechanical principle I consider in my chiropractic practice is intervertebral disc height.

Disc height does not exist in isolation. Changes in disc height influence the geometry of the motion segment, including facet joint relationships, intervertebral foraminal dimensions, and spinal canal dynamics.

This gives me a useful treatment target even when I cannot identify the precise source of a patient's symptoms with certainty.

Whether my working diagnosis involves discogenic pain, facet-mediated pain, or radicular symptoms, I often consider whether manual treatment directed toward temporarily increasing disc height and reducing compressive loading may be appropriate.

But treatment doesn't end when the patient leaves the clinic.

I pair manual care with home strategies designed to encourage spinal unloading and maintain the mechanical gains we are trying to achieve. The objective is to give patients something they can actively participate in, rather than making their improvement depend entirely on clinic treatment.

Over many years of clinical practice, this approach has repeatedly produced outcomes that have reinforced its value in how I manage appropriate patients.

I don't need to claim that every painful spine has one identifiable structural pain generator. Instead, I can ask a more practical mechanical question:

Can we create a more favourable environment for the motion segment by improving disc height, opening the foramina, influencing facet relationships, and reducing mechanical loading—and then see how the patient responds?

For me, that is where anatomy, biomechanics, clinical reasoning, and patient response come together.

Could too much "sugar coating" in the brain contribute to Alzheimer's disease?

A newly published study in Nature Metabolism suggests it might.

Researchers found that Alzheimer's disease was associated with increased production of complex sugar molecules that attach to proteins throughout the brain—a process known as hyperglycosylation. Think of it as proteins becoming excessively "sugar-coated."

In animal models, reducing this sugar-coating process improved memory performance. In contrast, increasing it through glucosamine supplementation worsened memory deficits. The researchers also reported that people with Alzheimer's disease who used glucosamine supplements appeared to experience faster disease progression and poorer survival outcomes.

This is early research, and it does not mean that eating sugar causes Alzheimer's disease. However, it highlights an emerging idea: the way our bodies process and use sugar may play an important role in brain health and neurodegenerative disease.

As research continues, we are learning that metabolism, inflammation, and brain function may be more closely connected than previously thought.

Reference (see link in comments): Hawkinson TR, Liu Z, Ribas RA, et al. Hyperglycosylation is a metabolic driver of Alzheimer's disease. Nature Metabolism. 2026.

Clinical headquarters. Love the space where you work! Create it.

A submission story to the Lancet. The rejection and the curiosity. Does REM sleep atonia contribute to disc hydraulic recovery in mammals? Link to the blog in the comments.

those who live to 100 years old.

The long-lived immune system of centenarians - Nature Reviews Immunology What is unique about the immune system of people who live to extreme old age? Here the authors describe that centenarians may achieve such longevity through several mechanisms, including limiting the pathological effects of inflammageing and immunosenescence, preservation of immune surveillance, sus...

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