A special chiropractic adjustment, known as the Atlas Adjustment, is showing promise as a therapy for lowering high blood pressure.  An initial  placebo-controlled study of fifty patients with early stage high blood pressure was begun by George Bakris, MD after a colleague told him that he had been sending  patients (some of whom had hypertension)  to a chiropractor for un-related treatments, and after seeing the chiropractor, their blood pressure had normalized.

The adjustment is applied to the Atlas vertebra (the C-1 vertebra) located at the very top of the spinal column.  It is thought that injury or mis-alignment of the Atlas vertebra may affect blood flow through the arteries that pass through the vertebra at the base of the skull.

25 patients in the study received the proper treatment while the other half received a placebo adjustment (that did not affect the C-1 vertebra).  Those who received the proper treatment averaged a 14 point drop in their systolic and 8 point drop in their diastolic blood pressure.  None of the participants received medication during the eight week study.  

Because of the encouraging results of this initial study, Dr. Bakris, director of the University of Chicago Hypertension Center is conducting a much bigger clinical trial.