The Science Behind How Movement Changes Nerve Signaling to Every Tissue, Cell and Organ; Even your DNA

Hi, I’m Dr. Matt Hammett and in this article, we’re going to journey together and continue my saga about movement and how it changes nerve signaling to every tissue, cell, and organ. But did you know, your movement in your body is a traffic signal that changes your gene expression and even cellular biochemistry? Yup, I guarantee your doctor doesn’t even know this.

You’ll get a deeper look at the science behind stiffness and sedentary lifestyles or sitting disease jobs and how it causes loss of bone mass, how changes of force and compression on cells and tissues either turn on the healing and regenerative capabilities or decay. This isn’t theoretical conjecture, or some rat study and then call it human study; like most of western science. No. I’m getting into an emerging new field in science called mechanobiology with a twist. Yes, it uses animal science but also human, it tends to be a bit more rational than drug research science.

Look, you're getting my chiropractic perspective, which has not been bought by a biased rat scientist protecting his or her interest, or bought by a pharmaceutical company funding my opinion. Nope. I know I sound harsh. But unless you have been living under a rock lately in this post-Covid world, you know we live in a bought corporate and over-medicated world, truth and unbiased opinion are hard to find. But the chiropractic profession remains unhinged by that system, this is why chiropractors remain sensible and practical in this new over-medicalized world. 

The truth lies in humanity. How science, in this case, movement is essential to every function of human life. And it all begins when abnormal changes to the function and nutrition to the little cushion between your vertebrae, if it starts to shrink, it turns out, it’s not just what that it does to the nerves like I was taught in chiropractic school, that’s not fully correct. Thanks to an emerging field called mechanobiology, Mayo Clinic’s NEAT research, and NASA gravity studies, we know I cascade into a catastrophic effect and our entire biological programming down to our DNA. I’ll explain. And yes. I’m gonna cover the groundbreaking strategies that can reverse and prevent DDD, you heard that right, we’re doing it right here in my office. So, come with me on this journey.

I’m gonna break out what most doctors, even chiropractors don’t know, the science of mechanobiology and how it relates to chiropractic care. It has nothing to do with chiropractic yet at the same time everything to do with chiropractic. We’re gonna explore this emerging science, discuss the novel ways including the use of nanotechnology, and what we’re discovering that chiropractors can use to impact their patients now! 

So, my fellow chiropractors, welcome along. For those who heard my story on my podcast awaken the giant within. You know when I began creating these videos and connecting the dots between differing sciences. After chatting with boy genius Jack Andranka and his novel pancreatic cancer sensor at age 16, to receiving a generous offer by a leading scientist to coauthor research for a novel pain biosensor, to focusing on the main problem with science; it isn’t human, and you can’t swap one species out for another and call it human. 

Marine biologists don’t study sharks and formulate drugs for a dolphin. Vets don’t study the diet of cats and give it to dogs. Swapping out one species doesn’t work, because of a well-documented basic science phenomenon called species differentiation. 

One cell type or protein, or one biomolecule reacts and behaves vastly differently depending on what species it came from. It’s driving scientist WILD. 

In fact, just yesterday, I’m proud to say, I have two PhDs, a husband and a wife. The husband studies lung pathology with rats, I didn’t understand what his wife does because she is in a totally different field, I couldn’t pronounce it. 

They heard my podcast about rat science and animal science and absolutely loved it. May I add, I won’t share names. 

I will say about the husband and wife scientist seeing me now, he was quite troubled, as all scientist are when they heard my podcast about rats and animal research as I gave examples actually tracing through actual biochemical pathways, how science proved they differ, and why that paradigm is outdated and needs a new genius to redefine and update theories and methodology, and we are all met with a fact; a geek term called species differentiation. 

They know it’s true and it drives them NUTS. But listen. I honor them for their work. I’m thankful for their work. It still is so important because we can’t barbarically do human research the same way they can a rat. 

Yes. I most adamantly agree. Here is the problem. Should we continue the same methodology, defend the same old paradigm, after terabytes of data prove, you can’t swap out one animal for another and call it human, the paradigm just won’t work and it never will work. 

Animal scientists will always be needed and important because they provide the first portal for research. But swapping out an animal for a human and creating drugs is outright dangerous. Again, I don’t have the answer.

But If we don’t engage in this uncomfortable conversation and discuss true unbiased facts around this, how will the next boy genius like Jack Andranka, discover a new paradigm and a new methodology?

By the way, I never coauthored the research for a pain biosensor with that leading Harvard Ph.D., after she agreed with me...it would have worked on a rat because it’s all based on rat physiology. But it won’t work on a Guinea pig, or a rabbit, or even a mouse. Get this, we have wild rats, rats out in the wild. It won’t work on a wild rat, it’s different than a lab-bred rat. Our research isn’t even based on a real rat, they are bred by scientists for labs, they are called lab bred rats. You need to consider that a different species. A wild rat, a rat found outside in the forest. It won’t work on an actual wild rat, the lab results differ when they compared the two. So, think of lab bred rat as a different animal than rats in the wild, because it is. They don’t even argue that fact!

So, how on Earth, can we determine what will happen with a human, when we apply these methodologies.

She paused...“That’s the problem. We have no idea. It’s very complicated.” In other words, we were close to a pain biosensor for a lab-bred rat only! 

Not interested. I stuck with my day job...chiropractic. That’s where I belong.

If your a scientist and your only fallback to the obvious problem, it ain’t even human. And your fallback is, “yes, but we can’t do human research.” That isn’t the point. The entire paradigm is exposed. Your methodology is corrupt. Your theories are wrong. As a clinical scientist, you're supposed to notice the results and when it won’t work go back to the drawing board, change your hypothesis and your theories, and yes the outdated and incorrect implementation of the gold standard, the scientific method. It will never work!

It’s not just about the dangerous side effects of drugs that are at stake here. It’s not just the nearly 1 million people in the USA alone harmed by the proper use and prescription of drugs, that no one wants to admit or discuss.  

You're impending on the next generation of scientists, who might discover something better, a better methodology. Listen, our current scientific paradigm, the scientific method was first thought up in the 1920s before the discovery of DNA. It’s time for a change! You can’t keep walking headfirst into a wall thinking at some point you’ll breakthrough. It’s a concrete wall! Your skull will never crack that concrete, but that concrete wall might do YOU in if you continue the insanity. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. 

Please listen, I’m just a guy watching you hit your head over and over yelling, “that ain’t dry wall....it’s concrete. It’s 20 tons of concrete! 

And no I don’t know what new methodology is better. I don’t offer any suggestions on updating the scientific methods, that’s not in my scope. I’m just shouting, that’s a 20-ton concrete wall and eventually your gonna crack your skull. I don’t need a Ph.D. to see that. In fact, if I had a Ph.D., I might not be able to see that. A Ph.D. major in minor detail, when you do that, you lose the big picture.

If more people and scientists hear me shouting that. Hopefully, some genius will hear and have better methods and a new paradigm may be discovered. If used appropriately, that genius may lie within the growing field of nanotechnology, it may be safely used on human beings for research with little to no harm. I do believe, to an extent, that’s around the corner.

Okay, enough of that, moving on...

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 fact, one study out of USC Santa Barbara found that even 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!

Check out why...now!

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.

It turns out, Through these various mechanotransduced pathways, the mechanical forces of the three‐dimensional environments in which cells exist contribute to the regulation of even the most fundamental of cellular processes. Meaning. We need to rewrite our basic science textbooks to include the most fundamental thing lacking in medical school. And that’s movement. Not just exercise, but all-day tiny movement.

Even when mechanotransduction‐related processes within cells are functioning normally, disturbances in the physical inputs they receive from their extracellular environments, especially from, and I’m quoting from a major mechanobiology study, damaged joints, degenerative or stiff joints, especially your spine, can subsequently cascade to produce pathological results in a whole host of disease and premature death. 

Boy... this mechanobiologists sounds much like a chiropractor.

Stiffness in your spine is usually caused by injury or lack of movement. It mimics what happens to astronauts in space.  The loss of bone mass experienced by astronauts living for extended periods in reduced gravity is one interesting example of such a disturbance and its effects. The minimal amount of gravitational force exerted on the astronauts (relative to the gravitational force on the earth's surface), causes disruptions to normal mechanotransductive processes in bone tissues that lead to diminished tissue production and reduced bone mass. 

A far more common but not unrelated example is the atrophying of muscle tissue that occurs in patients who become bedridden or otherwise immobilized for extended periods of time. And of course in all the devastating effects of sitting disease and what it does to the body‘s biological processes. Sitting for just seven hours a day increases your chance of risk of death by 40%.

How do we know this? Listen up, unlike most evidence-based sciences, which is rat and animals, not human. Mechanobiologist have novel ways to look at humans safely. They do use animals, but they seem more sensible as they try to study human safely using novel techniques to validate their opinion. Unlike nearly everyone else, who does a rat study and then rationalizes it calling it human. So, the rat study was good, so drink that and take this in your body. Makes no sense.

Well, I’m not alone in this thinking, turns out mechanobiologists have developed new novel ways to detect the changes of force and compression on cells and tissues and how it all interacts safely with humans. 

But I wanted to talk about what they discovered about these changes of force and stress and between tension stress and compressive stress on the intravertebral disc and how it relates both to chiropractic care and all-day movement.  

They have actually developed many ways to detect this and measure this, let me cover some of those, as I believe it will help you understand why you need to move all day long with a well-mobile functioning spine, and why a chiropractor is necessary for the family.

For example, the unique functional and physical characteristics of IVDs, which link the vertebral bodies constitute the main joints of the spine, they indicate that mechanotransduction plays a particularly prominent role in their normal function and, as the discs age, their dysfunction. 

The purpose of the discs is to transmit physical forces, namely, physical forces resulting from muscle movement and the weight of the body, to the spinal column, with the discs providing the tension, flexion, and bending capacity that give the spine its flexibility 29. In effect, each disc functions much like a small shock absorber in a car, taking in the physical forces delivered to the spine and protecting the bony vertebrae above and below it by keeping them separate. Of course, the main purpose of the disc is to keep the whole opening where the major nerves exit, which then supplies every tissue, cell, and organ in the body. 

So, the disc in the spine is more than just spacers, as they compress and change in stress from daily movement, those forces from movement propagate nerve signals to the brain and from the brain to the body for the functioning of tissues, cells, and organs of your body; like that of a windmill or a power generator.

So, you’re healthy spinal joints which are supposed to have a normal range of motion act like a power generator to your central nervous system. Faulty spinal mechanics and or DDD have massive consequences beyond arthritic pain, it’s not just a bad back, it has negative consequences on how well your brain works, your cells function, protein synthesis, right down to gene expression in your DNA. Let me explain.

Your central nervous system which is your brain, spinal cord, and the 33 pairs of nerve roots exiting out between the IVD is the master controller to every system in your body, and its largely controlled by mechanotransductive forces through the normal motion of your spine, meaning the proper movement, spinal alignment, posture and frequency of spinal movement and it’s related structures is vital to the pathogensis of numerous diseases and it’s ability to heal and regenerate. This is no longer a theoretical conjecture. It’s all worked out in science. 

We don’t want stiff spinal joints, and we want our backbones moving around 8-10 miles a day, the way our genetic constitution was written, like our ancestors who moved that way for a millennium.

That’s what you need to take from this video. But I like to geek out on that science, time to prove what I said earlier. It’s all worked out in science.... so here we go...

Structurally speaking, IVDs consist of two main parts: the annulus fibrosus and the nucleus pulposus. The annular fibrous is a thick outer ring consisting of several layers of fibrocartilage, over 60 layers; feels like plexiglass, it surrounds the nucleus pulposus which forms an inner core and has a softer, more gelatinous texture. A relatively minor but nonetheless distinct third part of IVDs are the cartilage endplates on the top and bottom of each disc that provides an interface between the given disc and the vertebrae above and below it, effectively sandwiching both the inner nucleus pulposus region and outer annular fibrosus ring.

The primary proteoglycan of the disc is aggrecan, which is the main means by which the disc maintains tissue hydration. The nucleus has a much higher concentration of these proteoglycans than the annulus—this means that the nucleus has a much higher degree of hydration, which is itself the basis for the more gel‐like texture of the nucleus. It’s this increased water binding capacity provided by the proteoglycans in the nucleus and expressed through the normal motion of the spine that is critical to the compressive strength of the spine 30. At the same time, the actual amount of loading placed on the spine while you engage in all-day movement likely plays a role in proteoglycan production and activity within the disc, and muscle tissue growth or atrophy, strength, or weakness. 

The relationship between the body and its physical environment is mediated, in large part, by the process of the normal movement of the spine and the resulting nerve signaling stimulation of mechanotransduction.

What this means is the growth and maintenance of IVDs, as well as their healthy function and pathological degeneration, involve a complex interplay between mechanical, electrochemical and biochemical forces, which mechanotransduction from the normal all-day movement of the spine provides the means by which external mechanical forces are translated into biochemical activity and processes within cells, tissues, organs, even your DNA.

In fact, various studies have already shown that mechanical stress affects gene expression and metabolism in IVD cells both in vivo (meaning whole organisms/humans) and in vitro (meaning in glass, microorganisms, cells, biological molecules outside normal biological context impacting basic biological function, healing and/or pathology in virtually every level of disease anywhere in the body. 31-34

And as I said at the beginning of this video, it impacts your baby forming in the womb. Another reason chiropractic and pregnancy go together like peanut butter and jelly.

But this is what’s startling. They discovered that mechanical forces are critical, not only for the nerve to tissue signaling but for all cell types, even protein synthesis in the DNA. Again, it also impacts disc formation during embryogenesis. Recent in utero research concerning the IVD found that notochord cells are required for normal disc formation in humans and are likely pushed into the IVDs during embryogenesis by a mechanical force spurred by the formation of the vertebral bodies (Fig. 4) 35. 

In contrast, in a study examining the effects of in vivo mechanical forces on human lumbar discs, scientists used discs from patients with idiopathic adolescent scoliosis as a biological model to determine how tensile stress and compression affect disc health. Their results indicated that such stress can lead to decreased water content and cell density, matrix degeneration and calcification, and site‐specific breaks in discs 36.

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

Using glass pipettes and pressure jets, scientists can now measure the activation of nerve terminals subjected to pressure. Using compression hypo-osmotic stretching we can illicit dorsal root ganglion on sensory neurons and measure them. But these tests failed to fully amount for the structural interaction, like focal adhesions in tissues. So, scientists have developed new methods to address this, something called elastomeric matrices that actually stimulate the actual physiological conditions of living tissues. 

So, let me geek out a moment and go through some of this because guess what...your doctor has never heard this before...get over it. They have enough to know, that’s why he has a doctor of chiropractic!

We actually have ways to measure the following forces on cells and tissues. Sheer loads can be measured. Compressive loads can be measured. And twisting loads can be measured using the following scientific test.

1.   Using an elastic substrate they can determine how mechanical stimulation of the ECM and chemical changes in cytoskeleton structures affect sensory neurons.

2.   Using cobalt nanowires they can apply a nanoscale traction force to cells and measure resulting cellular responses.

3.   Using traction force microscopy. To look at mechanical interactions of fibroblast migration on a substrate.

4.   Magnetic twisting cytometry, which induces sheer loads and forces on the cell.

IVDs are affected by a wide variety of mechanical stimuli including shear stress, hydrostatic pressure, torsion, flexion, and electrokinetic changes 37-39. Chiropractic care along with tiny all-day movement of the spine and exercise impacts a wide variety of these mechanical stimuli.

For example, one study recently introduced a device based on elastomeric substrates that allowed researchers to test the effects of shear fluid flow and uniaxial strip stretching on actin cytoskeleton (a key structural component of IVDs) and they also measured the cell orientation. They found that the cytoskeleton and cells began to align themselves in the direction of the applied force after only 3 hrs of application 40. A similar study also demonstrated how shear fluid flow and equibiaxial stretching influence fibroblast recruitment of fibronectin (another structural element of IVDs), with mechanically perturbed cells exhibiting increased fibronectin fibril formation and fibronectin localization at their peripheries (Fig. 5) 41.

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

Cyclic tensile stress versus compressive stress.

Tensile stress is the form of stress caused by pulling forces (resulting in the lengthening of the stressed material in the direction of the applied force) and is one of the main types of stress that is regularly applied to IVDs and the spine in general.

Cyclic tensile stress refers simply to tensile stress that changes over time in a repetitive fashion. It might explain why repetitive chiropractic care is so helpful and important in changing the structures of the spine.

Compression, on the other hand, consists of inwardly directed (or ‘pushing’) forces that decrease the length of an object in the same direction as the force applied; gravity is one major example of a compressive force applied to the spine.

Like cyclic tensile stress, dynamic compression refers to any compressive force that changes over time in a repetitive fashion (as opposed to static compression).

In the spine, the annulus fibrosus provides the primary resistance to tensile stress and the nucleus pulposus provides most of the resistance to compressive forces 42. In fact, when a compressive force is applied to the nucleus pulposus, the nucleus is deformed, resulting in the application of tensile force to the surrounding annulus fibrosus and endplates. So, even though the two types of forces effectively occur in conjunction, the nucleus pulposus absorbs the compressive force, while the annulus fibrosus dissipates the secondary tensile force. This might explain why nonsurgical decompression actually targets a herniated disc and heals the annular fibers.

The two types of cells also respond differently to the application of cyclic tensile strain. For example, when the cyclic tensile strain was applied in vitro to bovine nucleus pulposus and annulus fibrosus cells, the majority of observable responses—including, for example, inhibition of MMP expression and increased type I collagen transcription—occurred only in the annulus pulposus cells, a fact that likely reflects the different forces encountered by the two different cell phenotypes in vivo 43.

Don’t freak out here, I’m just saying, The positive or negative effects of tensile strain on IVDs are highly dependent on the circumstances and the specific cell types to which they are applied. For example, in a study I noted earlier, they found a variety of negative effects because of tensile stress applied to scoliotic discs, whereas another study by different authors demonstrated that tensile stress applied to fibrochondrocytes isolated from the annulus fibrosus of rats actually has a protective effect under conditions of inflammation 44.

Specifically, they showed that exposing cells to tensile stress at the same time as they were exposed to an inflammatory stimulus moderated the inflammatory response by decreasing cellular expression of the catabolic mediators of inflammation. You see in bodybuilding, that tensile stress on the muscle has an anabolic effect and the resulting stress builds and strengthens the muscle. The same effect happens when you restore normal motion to the spine, the disc also receives anabolic effects and it regenerates.

Scoliosis or curvature of the spine has negative effects, too many to discuss here. But after we restore motion through chiropractic care, it decreases cellular expression of the catabolic mediators of inflammation, and using these methodologies, we now have the backing in science as well as the clinical evidence on before and after x-ray evidence following chiropractic care. Again, this is why chiropractic care decreases inflammation naturally and halts or stops the catabolic mediators of inflammation and even stimulating new cartilage cells, especially if you move a restored joint for three minutes every half an hour. I’ll talk later about that.

Another study by one scientist meanwhile, demonstrated further how different cell types and different stimuli can lead to a highly divergent outcome. Specifically, they found that the responses of annulus fibrosus cells to cyclic tensile strain depend both on the frequency of the strain applied and whether or not the annulus fibrosus cells are derived from degenerated or non‐degenerated tissue 45. 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.

You see how much we move, the variation between how intense we move to the varying terrains in our environment have adaptive epigenetic controls to our health and well-being. 

According to a study in Canada, teens between the ages of fifteen and seventeen walk an average of eleven minutes a day; when they need closer to 8-10 miles a day.

If you were part of an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe, your development would have resembled this scenario.

Following an entirely unmedicated birth, you, a hunter-gatherer baby, were breastfed, slept with your parents, and exercised multiple times daily. You reached standing and walking milestones at the time many modern kids begin crawling. Exclusively held, you began “core exercising” with every step your parents took (all outside), your body position shifting minute to minute as you or your holder required, allowing you to explore both the world and an infinite number of body loads via varying positions.

Just before age two, you were play-gathering, with repeated squatting and standing, digging and clambering, for hours a day. When not play-gathering, you played in constantly varying terrain. This all-day movement (and variability to movement) developed the skills, strength, and shape you would eventually need in order to function as an adult, and your gait and walking patterns were much less toddler-like and wobbly because you didn’t wear diapers. Your pelvis and hips took the shape necessary to continue squatting, sitting on the floor, and walking a ton, and were not influenced by kid carriers, car seats, or continuous time in a single position.

Shortly after puberty, probably age fourteen, you were a fully functioning member of a tribe, participating in the same all-day movement patterns as your parents and walking medium (three-mile) to long (ten-mile) distances most days of your life. You walked every day and worked hard harvesting and carrying enough bounty to ensure survival. The frequent, weight-bearing loads of walking maximized your peak bone mass during the most crucial period of young adulthood.

Let’s contrast our ancestors' lifeways, which is supposed to be the same today as how most of us live today.

As an adult, you don’t exercise regularly, or ever, really. Instead, you use your body to get life done. Your total movements, varying joint positions, and rate of energy expenditure for a day’s survival work easily exceed those found in a standard athletic workout. And in addition to moving more, you also relax frequently. You don’t have the stress of driving, constant noise, constant information, and excessive light.

Imagine your body is made out of clay and you reconfigure the shape and function of your clay body into this shape. A shape brought about by nature.

What Does Your Body Shape Say About You?

Anthropologists and medical researchers alike have concluded that the way humans move now is drastically different from how humans have moved over the bulk of the human timeline, which is easy to see once you compare your own physical timeline with that of someone in a traditional hunter-gatherer society. 

Science is very clear. The physical requirements of the human body—the body loads that drive many of the functions we depend on for living—are not well met by the quantity and types of loads created in modern society.

Most cells depend heavily on mechanical stimulation. The loads placed on the body via movement translate into loads on the cells themselves, which creates cellular data, and it is at this level that change—in the form of strengths, densities, and shape—occurs. 

We use the word disease to imply that something has gone awry in our bodies; but as I said before, more often than not, our bodies are simply responding normally to the input they’re given. Movement provides information for the body. Movement is an environmental or epigenetic factor. Our movement environment has been polluted, so to speak, and we’ve got the bodies to match.

Once again, this is why the frequency of visits to a chiropractor is important. Again, healthy movement in the joints is going to decrease matrix catabolism and stimulate regenerative capabilities.  Less motion in the joints is going to increase matrix catabolism.  

Mayo Clinic and NASA research on immobility and sitting disease suggest moving for three minutes every 30 minutes in order to mimic the lifeways of our ancestors who moved 8-10 miles every day and by doing so you are ensuring healing and regeneration; not moving that much you are ensuring degeneration and decay; that is the take away point here.

As for compression, like squatting, kneeling, or sitting on the floor like how our ancestors were who didn’t lay on beds, they laid on the floor, or sit on chairs, they squat or kneeled on the floor, they even ate on the floors. Well, recent advances in mechanobiology found a way to study compression‐induced mechanotransduction that is involved in these daily movements it included the use of some of the elastomeric substrate techniques I noted earlier. For example, one study found that applied compression to cells on various PDMS substrates to determine its effects on cell-substrate interactions and morphological changes and found that compression caused the overall cell structure, including the actin cytoskeleton, to reorient in the direction of the compression applied 46.

This means it’s demonstrating the complexity and sensitivity of IVD cell responses to varying conditions like immobile spinal joints, DDD, squatting, laying down, sitting, and the impact those forces have not only on our spinal health but our biological health.

As another example, the effects of two factors alone, that is the age of the intervertebral cells and the frequency of the dynamic compression applied, have demonstrated dependence on variations in one another, with more mature cells responding quite differently (in terms of cellular phenotypes, rates of biosynthesis, and the production and maintenance of ECM components) to different compression frequencies than less mature cells 47.

At the same time, these findings and those of related studies suggest that mechanotransduction itself especially from normal spinal motion, may have different pathways of activation depending on conditions as discrete as, say, the specific frequency of the applied tensile or compressive strain, how well, and often you move, how well maintained your spinal health is, and on and on 48.

In any case, as complex as these interactions are, further studies will continue to illuminate their characteristics, providing important insights to improve our understanding of mechanotransduction, disc degeneration, and potential therapies to repair or prevent such degeneration.

The means by which the above mechanical forces cause their most important effects on various cells is mechanotransduction propagated through nerve signaling picked up like a motion detector system loaded in spinal joints through mechanoreceptors and joint proprioceptors loaded in the disc.

Without spine-induced mechanotransduction, a compressive force would, for example, cause the nucleus pulposus of a disc to be physically deformed by a decrease in its height, but a whole host of critical intracellular changes in terms of gene expression, protein synthesis, and even proliferation would not occur. In a sense, the capacity for mechanotransduction is one of the qualities that distinguish living tissues from most inanimate substances.

These mechanoreceptors facilitate the transmission of mechanotransductive forces to cellular biochemical actions. Localized in nerve terminals, they allow tissues to respond directly to touch, vibration and pressure, among other physical stimuli 49. Mechanoreceptors begin the biological response to mechanical stress through the firing of action potentials or nerve signaling.

Various types and concentrations of mechanoreceptors are found in different parts of the body. But they are most populated in the spine, especially the upper cervical spine.

A study of sequential sections of human and bovine spines found that the mechanoreceptors in the annulus fibrosus and longitudinal ligaments consisted primarily of Pacinian corpuscles, Ruffini endings, and, most frequently, Golgi tendon organs.

It is suggested that the Pacini and Ruffini endings are primarily related to posture, while the Golgi tendon organs are related to pain. These are also proprioceptors.  

In this connection, they noted that Golgi tendon organs were found in differing percentages of discs from patients with scoliosis about 15% and lower back pain about 50%.

In a later study using magnetic resonance imaging to conduct a more direct comparison of mechanoreceptors in healthy and degenerated discs, one study found that mechanoreceptors play critical roles in different phases of disc degeneration, with a greater number of mechanoreceptors being found in degenerated discs than in normal discs.  

Often when I perform a chiropractic exam of the spine using motion palpation I can feel the level of stiffness, and usually the greater the stiffness in a joint I usually find greater signs of DDD at that level on X-ray and pain only sometimes show up there. So pain is not the indicator, it’s the stiffness of the spine.

With this in mind, the authors suggest that magnetic resonance provides a highly efficient means of detecting even the early phases of disc degeneration, even as other authors have pointed out that the precise implications of these initial changes remain obscure 52.

One of the primary means by which mechanoreceptors propagate the chain of mechanotransductive effects in cells is by altering intracellular levels of gene expression. The normal segmental motion of your spine is the main mechanism most experts have dropped the ball on. This has direct effects on all the fundamental activities within and between cells, including proliferation, apoptosis, and protein and enzyme synthesis, among others.

Mechanotransduction, as you know by now, is the process by which cells sense and respond to mechanical signals. You also know that, through body loads, mechanical signals are being created 100 percent of the time, both by our movements and by how we are positioned when we’re not moving. Movement (not only exercise, but every gesture, big or small, made by the human body) loads the body’s tissues and the body’s cells. Every cell contains a rigid network called a cytoskeleton, similar in function to our bones. Most recent findings in cellular biomechanics show that the deformation of the cell itself, and the load placed on the cytoskeleton, affect each cell’s behavior, including how the cell regenerates.

Today, there is a large volume of scientific research regarding the effects physical loads have on the ailments and injuries we develop. Still, the greatest allocation of resources (and magazine headlines) focuses on genetic pre-determinism and biochemical markers (like high cholesterol in the case of heart disease). Despite scientific understanding that virtually all cells adapt to accommodate their mechanical environment and that biochemical signals for genetic expression might not even be necessary (it appears the cytoskeleton can directly transmit mechanical signals to the DNA via recently identified “cytofiliments”; our physical experience is repeatedly presented as an event—such as how we have used our bodies since birth.

For example, your genes contain information about the ratio of muscle fiber types you have, which affects the potential for your muscles to develop in response to exercise—for instance, whether you’ll ever be able to be a world-class sprinter—but genes do not run the programs for developing your body into an athlete’s. Rather, this development occurs when you create stimulation through your actions. If you (and your genes) lay in bed for fifteen years beginning the day you were born, you would not end up looking the same (in person or on paper) as you would have had you (and your genes) been upright and moving around for fifteen years. This is an extreme example, but all movement and lack of movement create subtle differences in outcome in individuals and their genes.

Accordingly, close examination of gene expressions under varying circumstances can elucidate the means by which mechanotransduction occurs under different circumstances. 

For example, another study used dynamic compression combined with an RGD inhibitory peptide to demonstrate that nucleus pulposus cells from degenerated discs have a different mechanotransduction pathway than cells from healthy discs 54.

More specifically, they showed that this peptide called RGD integrins, was responsible for mechanosensing in the non‐degenerated disc cells, while cells from degenerated discs exhibited a different signaling pathway that excluded them.

For example, a finding regarding the role of integrins in annulus fibrosus cells similar to that which one study reported in nucleus pulposus cells was recently detailed by a different scientist who specifically found that, while RGD integrins do mediate the mechano‐response of non‐degenerated annulus fibrosus cells to cyclic tensile strain, these integrins are excluded from the same mechanotransduction pathway in annulus fibrosus cells from degenerated discs 55.

To sum the two studies up, RGD integrins mediate signaling pathways in both nucleus pulposus and annulus fibrosus cells from healthy discs, but they somehow become excluded from the mechanotransduction pathways in the same types of cells derived from unhealthy discs.

One of the key means by which integrins transmit their effects on transduction is via their connections to the cytoskeleton. One study used magnetic twisting to demonstrate the close continuity between cytoskeleton and integrins, showing that they are firmly attached to eachother.56.

Another study showed how the application of such twisting to integrin receptors results in increased gene expression 57.

In fact, a variety of proteins, including tensin, talin and filamin, among others, have been shown to include binding domains for both cytoskeleton and integrins, providing various means for their direct physical linking 58.

Cytoskeletal elements themselves (e.g. microtubules and the Golgi apparatus) are directly affected by mechanical forces. For example, a different study demonstrated that when hydrostatic pressure on cells becomes too high, these elements can become disorganized, hindering both protein synthesis and transport across the cell membranes 59. So, you want to be careful of too heavy of squats and deadlifts.

At the same time, the cytoskeleton can undergo reorganization in response to hypo‐osmotic conditions 60, a finding that is directly relevant to degeneration in IVDs, precisely because osmotic pressure changes as a result of decreased water content are known to be among the most profound changes that occur in IVDs as individuals go through the process of immobility induced aging like I said, stuck, stiff joints not moving efficiently.

New cutting‐edge research offers additional possibilities for exploring the effects of osmotic pressure on mechanotransduction involving various cell structures, including cytoskeletal elements in IVDs.

This is basically saying that the normal joint movement between segmental vertebrae in the 25 moveable vertebrae in the spine improves the health of the cytoskeleton inside the IVD, strengthening it, causing stronger Protein Anchorage for regeneration and healing, and it increases the mechano transductive nerve signaling pathways to further stimulate disc regeneration.

In fact, the complexity of a mechanotransduction pathway shows a model of how this signaling pathway regulates gene expressions in the nucleus pulposus cells in the context of both disc degeneration and regeneration.

In short, restoring the normal movement of your spine by a trained chiropractor who assesses both the movement, posture, alignment, duration, and frequency of both your tiny all-day movement as well as the frequency of your chiropractic care have huge biological factors including improving cellular function, gene expression and improving your DNA function, more so than simply getting out of pain.  

I talked briefly about a proprioceptive organ called Golgi tendon organs and how they loaded within the IVD. One of the major theories in chiropractic today concerns another proprioceptive organ called muscle spindles, which are loaded in muscle. One such sensor exists within the deeper layer of muscles called paraspinal muscles which contract and relax during the normal segmental motion of all 25 moveable bones in our spine. These sensors relay a circuit to the brain and have huge benefits to our brain health. The leading researcher in chiropractic is Dr. Heidi Haavik. I had the chance to sit down and talk with her after a seminar in Chicago.

Heidi told me that “muscle spindles are tiny little stretch sensors found inside the muscles. They play a very important role in sensorimotor integration (our brain's ability to sense movement and tell muscle what to do) and most likely also play a very important role in the mechanisms of spinal adjustments.”

“Every time your muscle is used or is “stretched” in any way, the muscle spindles tell your brain about it immediately. Basically, the muscle spindles are your brain’s “eyes” within your muscles,” she said. It’s the tiny deeper layer of muscles called the parspinal muscles that only a specific chiropractic adjustment is able to stretch and target the brain's sensory system especially the prefrontal cortex.

Heidi, along with her cutting-edge brain mapping technologies, spends most of her days studying the effects of chiropractic adjustments on muscle spindle activity.

When chiropractors adjust the spine, by giving a small thrust into stiff areas of the spine, it stretches the paraspinal muscles. One group of scientists found that muscle spindles in the paraspinal muscles in cats responded to forces applied to the vertebrae that are similar to the forces delivered during spinal adjustments. Another group of scientists has shown that spinal adjustive thrusts can evoke short-lasting electromyographic (EMG) responses in paraspinal muscles. Electromyography (EMG) measures muscle response or electrical activity in response to a nerve's stimulation of the muscle. These studies demonstrate that chiropractic adjustments are sensed by the muscle spindles inside the paraspinal muscles, which will then feed this information up to the brain.

An animal model was developed for studying what the different parts of the nervous system would do when you immobilize vertebrae out of their natural alignment and function. They found that this small displacement is signaled to the brain and central nervous system from nerves arising from a different deep muscle that runs between adjacent vertebrae called intervertebral muscles. In particular, both the speed of vertebral movement and the relative position of the vertebral displacement appeared to be encoded by nerve activity from intervertebral muscles. So, now we know at least two groups of deep layers of muscle between adjacent spinal segments carry proprioceptive input into the brain and switch on the 6th sense. Heidi says “this supports the idea that the deep muscles close to the spine are sensors for the brain that tell the brain what is happening in the spine”. Heidi believes that vertebral subluxation is likely to alter the input to the brain from the lack of normal spinal motion between adjacent joints in the deep paraspinal muscles. “This may lead to ongoing maladaptive plastic changes in the brain”, she says. 

How exactly?

What goes on in the microscopic spaces between our specialized cells called neurons that transmit nerve impulses is exceedingly complicated. In biochemical terms, it involves various chemical reactions that register and record experiences in neural pathways. In biomechanical terms, every time we perform a movement task, especially movement of the spine, a set of neurons in our brains is activated. The brain receives that first spark from the movement of our body especially the movement of the spine via the activation of two sensors (proprioceptors) body position sensors and (mechanoreceptors) body load sensors that charge these neurons to join through the exchange of synaptic neurotransmitters. This joining permits a nerve cell to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron and turn on many types of neurotransmitters which release chemicals that nerve cells use to send signals to other cells.

As the experience (especially the chiropractic adjustments) is repeated, the synaptic links between the neurons grow stronger and more plentiful. The strength of these links is achieved through both physiological adaptations, such as the release of higher concentrations of neurotransmitters, and anatomical ones, such as the generation of new neurons or the growth of new synaptic terminals on existing axons and dendrites. These are the long and short threadlike parts of a nerve cell along which impulses conduct from the cell body to other cells. Synaptic links can also weaken in response to experiences, again as a result of physiological and anatomical alterations such as poor posture, alignment, and immobility caused by a sedentary lifestyle. 

What we learn as we live is embedded and recorded in ever-changing cellular connections inside our brains. The chains of linked neurons form from these physical inputs and mental experiences our minds’ true vital paths actually grow and adapt. 

Today, scientists sum up the essential dynamic of neuroplasticity with a saying is known as Hebb’s rule: ‘neurons that fire together wire together.’” A sedentary lifestyle alters this response in reverse, the brain actually shrinks. For the first time in our history as a species, the brain is actually shrinking. None of this is a theoretical construct or a philosophical ideology. All of this is worked out in science! Please understand something in science with what we consider evidence. The human anatomy and physiological textbooks in America are from northern American people (only 4 -6 % of people on the globe). 

The textbooks used in science like Guyton’s textbook on medical physiology or the biochemistry books are very misleading regarding actual evidence. They should be corrected to read rat medical physiology and rat biochemistry; most of what we think we know about humanity that we call evidence-based does not come from humanity! It is an anamorphic lens that bends reality! Not to mention we simply don’t live in a vacuum. The rats they use are not even found in nature that way; they are lab bread for specific experiments. This is 17th-century rat science and still very much the predominant system in science today!

Chiropractic care is superb and science is finally learning how by restoring joint function like a motion system stimulate mechanotransductive pathways that help regulate your brain function, to proper cellular, tissue, and organ function; right down to the nano scaling of your genetic expression in your DNA. 

Get to a chiropractor who understands how to implement the new biology, and you will never be the same again!