• High blood pressure (hypertension) was listed as a primary or contributing cause of death for 319,000 Americans in 2005.
• In 2006, there were 44,879 million physician office visits for hypertension.
• High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and kidney disease.
• Almost one fifth (21.3%) of the people with high blood pressure don't know that they have it.
• t is estimated that about 90% of middle–aged adults will develop high blood pressure in the remainder of their lifetime.
• It is estimated that the direct and indirect costs of high blood pressure will be $73.4 billion in the year 2009.

A University of Chicago study, published in the Journal of Human Hypertension (03/02/09), looked at the possibility of a connection between a spinal realignment and a decrease in blood pressure.

Hypertension Specialist George Bakris set up a double-blind study (50 patients) to see if in fact this spinal adjustment was affecting high blood pressure.  The results showed that the patients who received the chiropractic adjustments saw their blood pressure drop an average of 17 points -- a dip that usually takes two blood pressure medications to achieve.  They also found the study results to be adverse-event free with no side effects or problems.

Eight weeks after undergoing the procedure, 25 patients with early-stage high blood pressure had significantly lower blood pressure than 25 similar patients who underwent a placebo chiropractic adjustment. Because patients can't feel the technique, they were unable to tell which group they were in.  X-rays showed that the procedure realigned the Atlas vertebra -- the doughnut-like bone at the very top of the spine -- with the spine in the treated patients, but not in the charade-treated patients.

Bakris notes that some researchers have suggested that injury to the Atlas vertebra can affect blood flow in the arteries at the base of the skull and the misaligned Atlas triggers release of signals that make the arteries contract.

While it’s important to control blood pressure, conventional medical treatment relies almost exclusively on drugs. Although these drugs are very effective at lowering blood pressure, their side effects make them risky, and many people taking them experience a drop in their quality of life.
 

Sources:

http://www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/facts.htm
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20070316/chiropractic-cuts-blood-pressure
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=4520614&page=1