[xbeanx3000]

I think you can analize things too much and end up believing in research  that tells only one side of the facts. I've used BioFlo wrist bands before, and I can tell you that it does help with dull pains and speeds up healing around the body, all from a tiny BioFlo wrist band. I'm someone with an open mind, I didn't 'wish' for it to do anything when using the magnet, it just worked. In some people (like my mother for instance) it can make them feel dizzy. If it's powerful enough to do all this, why isn't there any research that has shown it?

One last thing. They're probably many brands that ARE rubbish.

[Ylide]

There's no accounting for the healing power of placebo.  Magnets, glyconutrients, ginseng, whatever the trend de jour is will have a fantastic placebo effect which is often more powerful than any prescription.  

Here's a fun article on the self-healing power of the mind:

http://www.newstarget.com/001125.html

Your body has physiological mechanisms to repair almost any injury or illness.  You just need to trick yourself into doing it.  





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[Magic Fingers]

I have been suffering with Plantar Fascitis (inflammation of the Plantar surface of the feet) for 3 months now with no relief. I purchased the Sobakawa magnetic insoles on ebay for $4.00 . When ever I put on those slippers with the insoles, my feet seemed to feel better. When I wore them for a few hours or a whole day my feet were much improved with no pain and my feet felt great. I decided to be agressive and wear the insoles for long periods of time and my plantar fascitis dissappeared. You may poo poo magnetic therapy all you wish. THe magnets worked wonders on my feet. I am not someone who can be helped or cured by some placebo. I work in the medical field and am very critical of any "Magical Cures" or "Magical Thinking". Use your own experience to decide.

Daveed

[Andrew K Fletcher]

OK I have read most of the ignorant rants and attacks on magnet therapy.
As this is a scientific forum, how about conducting a simple experiment with magnets and a bottle of water?

Place a bottle of water, on top of a strong magnet with the north pole closest to the bottle, leave in contact with the magnet/s for 24 hours then pour yourself a nice glass full of water and drink it. Record what happens in the hours that follow and report back to this forum.

A Friend sufers from abdominal pain due to a common medical condition known as uterine fibroids. If she places magnets next to the pain, the pain completely subsides within an hour or two. If she does not use the magnets the pain continues to become more progressive.

Furthermore, there are some very obvious changes in the shape of the fibroids. The magnets appear to make the fibroids contract into a hard ball shape, and a visible reduction in size becomes obvious.

She is hoping that the magnetic field will reduce the microcirculation in the tumours in the long term. But is quite content with the effectiveness of the magnets as an extremely effective pain killer.

One possible benefit of small magnets on the fluids inside our body is the inevitable altered polarity of the fluids. This is used to great effect to improve the performance.

Anyone used a magnet to enhance the fuel consumption and performance of a car engine?


  With a magnetic field we can increase the internal energy of the fuel, to cause specific changes at a molecular level. Increasing the internal energy to obtain more easier combustion. The molecules fly apart easier, join with oxygen easier and ignite easier. 'Ionization' implies that the fuel acquires a 'charge' and molecules of like charge repel each other, this makes fuel dispersal more efficient. Then if you charge the air to the opposite polarity, then the fuel and oxygen combine far quicker than 'normal'.  We can obtain about:
            80% -90% Reduction in Hydrocarbon emissions.
            60% -80% Reduction in Carbon Monoxide emissions.
            20% Reduction in Nitrogen Oxides.
            10% - 40% in Consume Reduction.
            8% - 60% in Increase Mileage.
http://www.tinet.org/~sje/mag_fuel.htm

My own experience with this technology is the use of one of these devices on a friends Vauxhall//Bedford CF van with a notoriously problematic opel petrol engine. This van was used to do continental house removals, often driven in excess of 2k miles continuous down to southern France and Spain and back.

On removal of the cylinder head at 280,000 miles we were astonished to find that there was absolutely no bore wear on this engine! It did however get through 3 gear boxes and a rear axle during its somewhat harduous lifestyle.

But back to the proposed experiment with a bottle of magnetised water.

Advise: Make sure you are not going to drive following imbibing the water.

Andrew



Death is natures way of telling us to slow down.

[gsmollin]

All of these claims, and rants, contain a fatal flaw. The patient knew about the treatment. Even in double-blind studies, the placebo effect shows up, and the cure rate of the control group must be subtracted from cure rate of the treated group to give the effectiveness of the medication. We cannot assess the effectiveness of any therapy by ourselves. Whether it's copper bracelets, magnets, or aspirin, some people will improve, some will get worse, and some will have no effect. Only by careful monitoring of the whole group can the effectiveness of the medication be found.

[chris]

That's absolutely right. In medicine, patients do better just by being entered in a trial, regardless of whether you give them anything or not !

Chris

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx

[xenoak47]

Some of the science behind Magnetic Therapy:
newbielink:http://www.garynull.com/Documents/magnets.htm [nonactive]

Its been used on animals for years. You can't trick a horse into thinking its bones are healing faster.

It will take years and years of research and studies before magnetic therapy is accepted by the medical community even if it does really work. I guess the only way you can be certain is to try it out yourself...

[Andrew K Fletcher]

The problem with waiting for a double blind trial on any alternative treatement to take place is the financial burdon it would impose on any individual or small group.

These studies are designed to prohibit anything that does not give a high financial return. The drug cartel's have cornered the globe in research and patents relating to drugs, as you well know!

There is now a massive move to remove many freely available food based alternatives off the shelves for good. There will be little to no attempt to provided these vitamins with the required investements to get them past the stringent drug orientated controls imposed by an industry that earns more than oil!

Why would they? So unless you have the insight to find out for yourselves whether a product or therapy offers a viable treatment, who the hell is going to conduct the studies to then be in a position to say take this magnet once every three hours and place it on the effected area in order to relieve pain?? When they can sell another $billion's worth of prescription drugs???

Death is natures way of telling us to slow down.

[rosy]

The magnetlabs link doesn't seem to work.

[rosy]

Ah. Sorry. You just need to take out the comma, which seems to have got itself included in the link.

[daveshorts]

I had a look at the published articles section, and of the articles that I could read (not in .exe format..) and the only one that seemed like sensible research and not just publicity material had this results section

quote:RESULTS
None of the three groups of mice experienced any differences in the measurable size or progression of their implanted tumors. There were no differences between either the “north” or the “south” conditions. Neither one of these had any significant differences in the tumor size or weight compared to the mice in the control group that were not exposed to a magnetic field from a real magnet underneath the cage.

!

[rosy]

quote:
you can begin to learn of the many factual and reproducible experiments conducted there

Mmm. I don't say there *aren't* factual, reproducible results out there... but the (not very positive) results section Dave quotes is indeed the only set of results I managed to find on this site for which there is any information about the methods of the research. The other experiments Mr. Futura refers to are mentioned in the introduction.
If the experiment using weak fields and T-cell-less mice didn't work (in 1993) then I'd be interested to read about the follow-up research using mice with T-cells and/or stronger fields.
The feeling I took away from reading that paper was very much that if that was the most positive paper the website authors could find to post then I wasn't convinced.
If they *could* find more positive material, why weren't they posting it, or at least referencing it in their articles list for people to look up if they're interested?

[rosy]

Something a bit odd is going on here with the board.
My "new posts" view has shown posts from Mr. Futura at least three times since my last post, the latest at 20:30, but I can't actually see any of them.

[Shan]

I understand that there is very little scientific proof that magnetic therapy actually works. I've been trying to find if there were any on the internet. I managed to find articles whereby people condemn the product and the concept behind it and I also found testimonials by satisfied customers. I've also seen a video about a doctor using magnetic therapy on his patients and actually helping them. It also came to my attenion that 2 people I know, one a diabetic and the other with hepatitis B got cured. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?? I'm confused... I was definitely astounded with that fact, but I still do not know what kind of conlusion to make about magnetic therapy.

[Mr. Futura]

If you'd like to read about some magnet therapy studies, go to newbielink:http://www.therionresearch.com [nonactive]. They have many of them on their website. Still, the best source of information is the Albert Roy Davis Research Laboratory ( newbielink:http://www.magnetlabs.com [nonactive]). They've been doing research for nearly 70 years. Davis was the first scientist in the world to discover that magnetism consists of two separate and distinct energies, not one. You must be absolutely certain that you are not being exposed to the South pole energy, whether you're using a static magnet or an electromagnet. South pole energy is very dangerous. If you buy magnets, buy unipolar ceramic magnets. ONLY the North pole of a magnet should be used. The small neodymium magnets are not very effective. They're too small and they don't put out a strong magnetic field.

[starmaker]

quote:Originally posted by Donnah

Anybody know about magnetism and magnetic therapy?  Or how magnetism affects the human body?

hi magnetism is supposed to increase blood flow to the affected/injured part therefore healing it quicker.
i use magnets alot and am beginning to be attracted to them (ha ha) no seriously they do work.
ta ta x[][:p]

[Michael]

quote:Originally posted by Ylide

Yeah, Alice, you're absolutely right.  Your body generally maintains its pH balance on its own just fine.  If it didn't, you'd have bigger issues than just arthritis and fatigue.  pH is maintained by a carbonate/carbonic acid buffer system in your blood.  CO2 from respiration is generated continually, which them partially dissociates to form carbonate and bicarbonate, the other half of the buffer.  None of these substances are paramagnetic.  (i.e. they are not affected by a magnetic field)

They're claiming to catalyze biochemical reactions in the body with a little wrist magnet...I can't believe that it's even legal to make that claim.



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[Michael]

Ylide,
Author Robert R. Barefoot (The Calcium Factor)says on page 100 of his book: "The magnetic field induces the [calcium] bicarbonate bonding to bend and break producing hydroxides, thereby creating a negative, or alkaline pH extracellular fluid." Then on page 105 para. 2, he adds: "The earth's one gauss magnetic field has the effect of causing the pH of the extracellular fluids to "gently rise" similar to the effects of the magnetic beds, as bicarbonates and carbonates are converted to hydroxides and soluble carbon dioxide.  For example, when water at a pH of 7.5 is passed through a 7000 gauss magnetic field, its pH dramatically increases to about 9.2."

My question is two-fold:  Does calcium bicarbonate break into hydroxides and CO2; and if so will a low gauss, nonalternating magnetic field be conducive to proper blood pH?

Thanks,
M. Cameron

quote:Originally posted by Ylide

Yeah, Alice, you're absolutely right.  Your body generally maintains its pH balance on its own just fine.  If it didn't, you'd have bigger issues than just arthritis and fatigue.  pH is maintained by a carbonate/carbonic acid buffer system in your blood.  CO2 from respiration is generated continually, which them partially dissociates to form carbonate and bicarbonate, the other half of the buffer.  None of these substances are paramagnetic.  (i.e. they are not affected by a magnetic field)

They're claiming to catalyze biochemical reactions in the body with a little wrist magnet...I can't believe that it's even legal to make that claim.



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[neilep]

I must admit I find magnetic therapy very attractive......................................sorry !(hee hee)

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[Donnah (OP)]

Watches tend to stop if I wear them regularly.  I've been wearing five small hematite bracelets (naturally magnetic) on my watch wrist and that watch still works several months later.  

Andrew K. Fletcher, if we use north polarity in the northern hemisphere, do we use south polarity in the southern hemisphere?

"Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms." - Audrey Hepburn