Earlier this summer two members of the Tooting team headed to Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Lectures.Chiropractic assistant Dayna Hopgood and Dr Michael Lezuo flew up to get the latest information on studies and research to deliver to our clients. Here's the review from Dr Michael:The Edinburgh Lectures, now in its 11th year, is a well-known conference for chiropractors and every single time they impress with speakers from all over the world.Two of the talks we heard were from Dr Cathy Wendland-Colby, one of the most renowned chiropractor for pregnant ladies and for babies and Dr John Minardi, who explained the latest facts about how subluxations in your spine affect your immune system and your health.Dr Cathy Wendland-Colby explained that many of us view pregnancy as a form of ‘disease’ as it involves time off work and medications to get through it. She also noted that birth is depicted as being one of the most painful and traumatising experiences there are. She said there are concepts everyone needs to understand. These are:

• Life comes from above down and inside out
• The human body is an adaptive ever changing organism keeping us in existence
• Every system in your body works in harmony with all the other systems in order to keep you the healthiest it can
• The same counts for a new born or an adult.

During Pregnancy there are lots of changes happening in a woman’s body. What chiropractic can do and help is to take away this interference and not only help your body flourish when these changes happen it will also have an affect on the baby, as often the birth are shorter in time and less intense for the mother. Kids should get checked as regularly as anyone else. Because we know if there is pressure on the nervous system is can hinder the way they firstly feed and grow and develop. When are the years where you will encounter most of the traumas? How often did you fall trying to walk, run, ride a bike, learn to play football or any other sport? This is the time when you are so active and your body will have to adapt hugely to all that life throws at you. Giving kids regular checks will show that they will grow up to be a better version of themselves as they will be more focussed and concentrated and will have a much stronger immune system. They grow up to be a healthier and more aware adult.This leads us to the talk on the immune system held by Dr John Minardi...Our immune system consists of a few lines of defence:

• 1st line of defence are the skin and the mucous membranes, which are covered in good enzymes that make it hard for a bacterium or a virus to enter he system.
• In 2nd line we find the white blood cells, which are the guard dogs that are trained to protect you.
• And last in 3rd line there is the antibodies and antigens which are specific soldiers.

All of these are acting in synergy and a study done by Neil in 2012 showed that after an adjustment the antibody count increased drastically, also it decreased the pro-inflammatory agents. Antibodies and all the good cells are passed from the mother to the baby when breast feeding. This is why these two themes are so intertwined.This was just a snippet of the Edinburgh lectures. If you keep on reading the blog I will go into these and other themes that are related to chiropractic in the future.@drmichaelchiro.