this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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me_irl
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The core idea isn't a scam and it performs as well as traditional medicine.
https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l689
The problem it's unregulated, especially in the US, and chiros can basically do any bullshit they want under the name of chiropractic care and make any claim they want about the health benefits.
"Some conditions benefit from a treatment in line with chiropractics" is wildly different from "the core idea isn't a scam and performs as well as traditional medicine".
That said, plenty of evidence it doesn't. There's plenty of evidence it can do real harm.
But the core idea of it is fucking nuts and I can't do it justice, so please peruse the Wikipedia article on the topic.
If you need physical manipulation of the bones, seek a physical therapist. They're bound to evidence based medicine.
I think you're missing my point and I encourage you to read the study I posted, it's a pretty big and in depth meta analysis of a bunch of studies into SMT, which is what I'm describing as the core idea. Which shows it's just as effective as traditional physio and even has some advantages, it also looks at the risks and find most studies show only a small level of risk.
The problem is chiropractic isnt just SMT, they tack a bunch of addition bullshit onto it that doesn't actually do anything and many of them aren't actually trained properly in SMT. So if you were to just look at those chiropractors that aren't trained properly and do a bunch of extra pseudo science nonsense, yeah you can absolutely produce results that show it doesn't help or it's harmful. But the core concept SMT has strong evidence it's effective.
So instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and just saying all chiropractic is nonsense, we should instead just regulate it more so that all chiropractors are trained properly in SMT and aren't allowed to practice unsafe treatments or pseudoscience.