Usually when I write my annual trends article, I look at the American College of Sports Medicine's annual poll results and relate that to our profession. This year, I didn't wait for the report to come out. (However, I did wait for the presidential election announcement before finishing my list.).Even without COVID-19, trends offer much to consider to help DCs make important business decisions for future growth and development.
Trending: The Value of Your Voice
I'm not asking you to throw out anything you are already doing. The most important message I can tell you is to have a voice that can be heard. Strengthen your public relations. Use social media, podcasts, lectures, blogs, etc. – the public wants guidance from us as natural health practitioners. Join the ACA and your state association to strengthen our voice. And don't forget about the chiropractic vendors. I have never seen a more willing-to-help and well-educated group. Use loyal vendors for your practice needs.
Trending: Biohacks for Optimal Health
| Trend: "a general development or change in a situation or in the way that people are behaving" (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/) Fad: "a fashion that is taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period" (http://dictionary.reference.com/) |
People will continue to want optimal health. Be stronger in teaching people how to take control of their own body. We used to call it holistic health or preventative health. Today, the trend is called biohacking. The prescription for optimal health is pretty simple. All the trends tie into helping patients optimize these basic biohacks:
- Personalized diet / nutritional status (omega-3s, vitamin D, B vitamins, etc.)
- Exercise and movement
- Sleep (diagnose sleep apnea)
- Grounding
- Hydration (minerals)
- Oral health
- Gut status (stool testing, microbiome, heal leaky gut), liver and digestion
- Sunlight / vitamins D and K
- Oxygen (breathwork)
- Hormone status (thyroid, adrenal, sex hormones, insulin and lipids)
- Immune / inflammation status (allergens, inflammation markers, infections)
- Detoxification (metals, mycotoxins, excrete toxins)
- Energy / mitochondria (organic acids, etc.)
- Genetics (MTHFR, Apo E, GSH genes)
- Neurocognitive function (brain repair and healing)
- Stress reduction (meditation, etc.)
Editor's Note: Dr. Tucker omitted some of his "cool" bio-hacks, such as those discussed in "The Beauty of Biohacking" (June 2020), due to space limitations.
Trending: Healthy Eating, Healthy Weight
At minimum, get good at helping patients improve mitochondrial support and function, and encouraging a balanced physical activity program (minimum 150 minutes per week). Also know enough to discuss the top 3-4 trending diets – Keto, Paleo, Mediterranean and vegetarian; as well as intermittent fasting.
The weight-loss and supplement growth market is already exploding and poised to grow more. Three years ago, I hired a full-time weight-loss coach in my office, and even with COVID-19 quarantines, we helped more patients than previous months.
Trending: Health Technology
Hand-in-hand with eat well, move well and sleep well is the wearable technology app market. This will continue to grow. Top players are DailyBurn, FatSecret, Fitbit and Fitness Buddy. People gain self-control with lifestyle monitoring, diet monitoring, weight management, exercise monitoring, sleep monitoring, etc.
I've talked about virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) technology in the past – people want multi-sensory experiences that sit at the intersection of health, science, engineering and creative arts. VR headsets like Oculus will redefine digital gaming, entertainment and learning; but from a health perspective, many of you will use it for balance training, heart health, breathwork, brain health, and physical therapy. Imagine a patient with PTSD who can "walk through" a difficult memory.
Trending: Healthy Aging
COVID-19 may have taken our eyes off the ball – neurodegenerative diseases, i.e., dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD), can't help but be a trend. One in three seniors dies with AD or another dementia, and 5.8 million Americans are living with AD. It kills more people than breast and prostate cancer combined. By 2050, it could cost $1.1 trillion a year. MDs are not ready for this trend. Young doctors, take notice, because the old ones will not remember a thing.
Trending: Nootrophics
I believe it is socially and morally acceptable to take these. With the Biden win, cannabis legalization and use will open up further. If you want to optimize the body to help it do more than it could with proper nutrition alone, it helps to take the right supplements, and that may include hemp, THC and other "smart" natural meds.
Again, people need your help. Be able to discuss high-impact supplements so patients function at their very best and live a long time doing it. That is the ultimate trend.
Trending: Success in 2021
The theme for 2021 is simple: helping more people take charge of their own health. Learn how to help them create physiologic resiliency – the ability of an organism to cope with a challenge and return to normal baseline function following the perturbation.
Now reread the above list and take action. Improve your own mood; find your optimal diet; improve your mental clarity; improve your energy levels; optimize physical movement performance; lose weight if you have to; improve your overall health and look better. Doing so will set the stage for you to help your patients in 2021 and beyond. But don't stop doing everything you currently do as long as it's been working.
I've enjoyed evaluating products, services, equipment, gym apparatus, hardware, software, tools, and exercise devices that may appear in our offices or things we recommend to our patients. My hope is that the sickness billing industrial complex that wants us to code for disease, disability and death, and charge for services to manage that type of care, is replaced with greater chiropractic assess, payment to DCs from influential companies that also support us to help cure chronic generative disease and slow down aging. I wish you a happy, healthy, safe new year.
Click here for more information about Jeffrey Tucker, DC, DACRB.