Does doing high intensity cardio or strengthening the heart prevent clogged arteries? Or what are the best ways to prevent blockages?

Cardio (making the blood run quickly through the blood vessels) definitely can help reduce the chance of clogging of the pipes (arteriosclerosis {mainly atherosclerosis}). There's also genetic factors, however, like having LDL receptor mutations, that can work against you.

Remember, an annular tear (which often does not show up on MRI) can "refer" pain down the lower extremity. Sometimes, even in the dermatomal distribution. Similar to when someone has a heart attack they get a referred pain down the left arm. And rarely, an annular tear can leak cytokines onto the nerve root and spark inflammation which can cause real radiculopathy without obvious nerve root compression. These things only to be investigated if your pain is disabling. Good luck!

Hello, that's a great question! In the United States, chiropractors are primary healthcare providers and are therefore responsible for being able to catch and diagnose all human diseases, especially the more common ones like myocardial infarction, urolithiasis, cholecystitis, etc. As you know, there are several conditions which can "refer" pain to the spine. If a chiropractor didn't know how to diagnose such internal conditions, they could do harm to the public by treating this referred pain thinking it was a problem with the spine when in reality was a Internal problem. The students are tested heavily on this stuff on the boards.

@@douglasgillarddcprofessoro5285 Who/what holds you responsible for catching all diseases? I’m a US MD, and if I misdiagnosis or fail to act competently we get sued or our licenses taken away. I have had a chiropractor in my state adjust a vasculopathic patient who ended up having a massive embolic MCA stroke during the adjustment. He waited 2 hours before calling 911 because he thought it would get better. Pushed her out of interventional window, and she ended up passing away from malignant MCA. Maybe it was just one guy but he still practices. I would have not be able to practice medicine after that. My point is that it doesn’t make sense to include pathophys, dx, and tx in your curriculum if you guys aren’t going to be held responsible by society to standards that make you responsible providers. Obviously everyone has a right to knowledge, but including all this in your curriculum doesn’t make sense for an appropriate scope of practice. Why not teach you guys essential things to look out for and hammer them home…like recognizing stroke symptoms (posterior circulation sx very important when doing neck adjustments), recognizing exertional vs non-exertional chest pain, and having a solid knowledge of warning signs to refer up. I am OK with my patients seeing a chiropractor if it helps them with MSK back pain (less pain meds is a good thing) and they understand the risks of traumatic injury. I respectfully disagree that you guys are primary care providers because you aren’t held to the same legal or evidence based standards as everyone else.

Are you basing this lectures on the Robbins Pathophys book?