What If There Was an Epidemic and Nobody Came? Defining chiropractic’s true role in public health C Chief clinical officer for Healthscore, and a leading authority on well-ness, Dr. Rallis is committed to pas-sionately “saving lives...ahead of time!” Dr. Rallis focuses his energy on expanding the use of primary prevention as a principal means of global health care reform and believes that Healthscore licensed chiropractors can play an integral role in this process. Healthscore is presently being used by insur-ers, corporations and chiropractors across Canada. A 1999 graduate of Parker College of Chiropractic, Dr. Rallis is continuing his medical education at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. anadian health care is in crisis mode, and we know it. The epidemic of chronic lifestyle diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and chronic pain is well documented. The repercussions and projected challenges to Canada’s Medicare, insurance and public health networks have been well publicized. There’s no shortage of awareness of the simple fact that in terms of health care, we’re in trouble. The elephant in the room in our profession, however, is that chiropractors haven’t shown up to help improve the situation. With its arsenal of pharmaceutical drugs and an antiquated infectious disease model, mainstream medicine is ill equipped to stem the tide of chronic lifestyle diseases. Theorists and health care policy makers are searching for best practices in terms of chronic disease management, yet the solution to this crisis has also been well documented – prevention. At the centre of this epidemic lies poor lifestyle – inadequate diet and exercise habits, smoking and abusive alcohol consumption, exposure to environmental risks and chronic stress. They’re all preventable. Moreover, therapeutic lifestyle modification is now emerg-ing as not only the best preventive measure against chronic diseases of lifestyle but also as the first line therapy for the treatment of these diseases. In terms of chronic diseases, the time to save a life is clearly . . . ahead of time! So why aren’t we doing it? Therapeutic lifestyle modification is the wellness paradigm chiropractors always hoped it would be – it is integrative, vitalistic and preventive. Ironi-cally, instead of leading the charge in this emerging model of healthcare, chiropractic is almost nowhere to be found. DIABETES – A CHIROPRACTIC NO-SHOW Consider the diabetes epidemic which is acknowledged by many as one of the most important health problems of this new century. Last summer, the American College of Endocrinology released, for the first time, clear guidelines on the treatment of early diabetes, pre-diabetes (impaired fasting glucose or impaired glucose tolerance), and metabolic syndrome.1 The basis of treatment in this landmark publication was therapeutic lifestyle (diet and exercise) and pre-vention! Chiropractors should have been rejoicing at the thought that their clinical wellness practices could now be acknowledged as integral in the co-management and prevention of this epidemic. Is this what occurred? 18 • CANADIAN CHIROPRACTOR | JULY/AUGUST 2010 www.canadianchiropractor.ca Steve Rallis, BSc, DC, ND (cand) feature
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