From what I've heard, chiropractism isn't truly research-based the way proper medicine should be.
I'm no expert on chiropractics, but I'd be stunned if that was true. Just about all common medical practices in the Western world are backed by modern models of research... now whether one agrees with the conclusions of that research is a whole other story of its own.
Research, even in well accepted medical practices isn't lacking in controversy. You might be surprised to learn that in much of the history of physical therapy and exercise science research that people have had sharp disagreements in how to do stretching exercises effectively.
If for nothing else, chiropractors have a lot in common with physical therapists who favor manual therapies. The stereotype is that physical therapists will always give you exercises and the chiropractor will always crack your joints. That's not necessarily true. Some of the more recent graduates from chiropractor schools are much more enlightened to the benefits of using exercise as part of their treatment regimens and there has long been an arm of physical therapy practice that believes in joint manupulation.
Under the care of your average physio, if you hurt your back in the 70's, you were likely to get one set of exercises, and if you hurt it in the 80's, you may have gotten a completely contradictory set of exercises and then a combination of them in the 90's and 00's. Even more perplexing, in some more recent research, there are suggestions that every form of back therapy from stretching to spinal surgery has questionable results.
