| Bottom line, do they work? That is a question we are asked every day by people from all walks of life. Will wearing a magnetic bracelet help? We at Southwest Distributing, Inc can not and will not tell you with certainty it will or will not work in your case. We have no scientific reports to follow up on any claims they do or do not. One question we love to ask is "How can something used in Asia, China in particular for over 2000 years, not have some basis in fact?" You will find information below we have gleaned from the web and other sources we feel might be of some interest. Be sure to read the Baylor report. |
How Biomagnetism WorksBiomagnetism works in the human body through the circulatory system, the nervous system and the endocrine system. magnetism is continuously penetrating every known particle, right down to the atom. Its ordering effect on living systems arise from the fact that magnetism is a blueprint of life itself. All known energies have as a base this electromagnetic field. The latest research indicates that magnetism has a very significant biological effect on human beings. Dr. H.L. Bansel points out that magnetism increases the electrical conductivity of the blood. A weak current runs through it and the quantity of ions are increased. The newly ionized blood circulating throughout the body can significantly contribute to the efficiency of the blood flow as well as having a stabilizing effect on both high and low blood pressure. Blood contains ferrous hemoglobin (iron) that functions as a carrier of oxygen and carbon dioxide. As the blood circulates in the lungs, fully magnetized ferrous hemoglobin is able to transport more oxygen to cell tissue as well as taking more carbon dioxide waste from cells back to the lungs for removal. This means more energy and less fatigue as tissue cells and internal organs stay substantially healthier. Biomagnetism works to regulate and normalize hormone secretion in the glands. It is currently believed that the increased electrical current produced forms like a net around the glands and secretory ducts. An extra concentration of oxygen stimulates production while the electrical net regulates optimum secretion. As a result, conditions caused by a lack of hormone secretion or a hormone imbalance are affected through normalizing the hormone functions within the body. Hormones play a very important role in rejuvenation and in general energy levels while proper circulation ensures that the hormone level is evenly distributed to all parts of the body. When magnetic flux passes through tissue, a secondary current is created around the flux lines in the tissue cells. This ionizes the protoplasm and rejuvenates the tissues by activating cell metabolism. The function of the cell becomes strengthened as the cell metabolism responds to the bioelectric currents initiated by the magnetic flux. This current induces muscle spasms to reduce and the activated cell metabolism lowers inflammation in the tissue. The increase of cellular metabolism aids in the regeneration as well as in new cell growth. The negative pole energies of magnetism interferes with the nerve cells ability to send pain impulses to the brain cells ability to be registered. Blood cells have potassium in their center which has a positive bioelectric charge. The nerve cell differs in an opposite way. During a pain response the outside switches to potassium with a positive bioelectric charge. through attraction, the negative pole charge of a magnet creates a bleed off of the potassium's positive bioelectric charge as the natural flow of current is toward the negative pole. As the use of biomagnetics in clinics around the world continues to increase, healers are seeing firsthand how natural magnetism promotes health and provides energy by eliminating disorder in the various biological systems. This is done by stimulating blood circulation and building new cells to rejuvenate the tissues of the body. The biomagnetic effect on iron and oxygen in the body allows the hemoglobin active movement, thereby activating circulation in a remarkable way. Ineffective and weakened blood cells ar appropriately strengthened and more fresh vital blood is pumped into the system. With the respiratory exchange improved and cellular metabolism activated to increase vitality, prevention and cure of disease become a natural conclusion. VOICES OF THE EXPERTSDr. Ulrich Warnke, M.D. -----Magnets To Overcome Pain. The New Healing MethodMagnetic energy has a beneficial effect on blood circulation, lymph flow, hormone production, nerves and muscles. Dr. Evelyne Holzapfel-----Magnetic Therapy Dr. Madeline F. Barnothy----Biological Effects Of The Magnetic Fields
Dr. Kenneth S. McLean----MD Bioenergy Newsletter, Feb.. 1986 Dr. Louise Donnet, MD----Magnets For Your Health Magnetic therapy in Japan and elsewhere Europe and Asia has become a kind of folk medicine, a reliable form of medical self-care. Dr. Ralph U. Sierra----Power in A Magnet To Heal We now stand on the verge of a great new age in a magnetic science and its applications- a tool that has been provided by mother nature herself. Neville S. Bengali----Magnetic Therapy: Therapy And Practice The astounding results obtained through magnet therapy gives it a place of considerable importance in the field of therapeutics. Dr. J.B. Baron, M.D.----Medical Convention At The Baylor College Of Medicine, Texas This is a revolution in the therapy for muscle injuries, joint pain and posture problems. We have treated 4000 patients with whiplash injuries by means of the magnets and cured 80 percent. Dr. George A. Rolfs, D.C.----Energy Therapy This is the most exciting thing I have seen since we discovered chiropractic for the first time. All chiropractors should know about magnet therapy. Dr. A.K. Baffacharya, M.D.----Healing By Magnets Every family should have a couple of magnets and know how to apply them in minor ailments and infections. Dr. William H. Philpott, M.D. It is hoped that the use of magnetic energy can be kept non-prescriptive for easy availability for home and self-use. Strong evidence gained from research suggests that magnetic therapy may : * Relieve Pain * Increase blood circulation and release of oxygen from free radicals |
The Chinese used a traditional therapy called Acupuncture which was believed to strengthen the wei chi against 'external pathogens' - outside influences such a s cold and damp which can influence the bodies immune function when defenses are low and can cause ill health. Today, research shows that acupuncture enhances the immune function by
stimulating blood cell production and shows complex changes in the parameters
of the immune system. Magnetic Therapy itself is based upon the use of
magnets on and around the acupuncture points of your body. Applying Magnetic
Therapy helps to build new cells to rejuvenate the tissues of the body.
Magnetic Therapy is not a fad. It has thousands of years worth of history
for therapeutic use. Loa Fair: Magneto therapist Researcher writes An interesting fact in history is how the Arabic system of medicine worked. It was a conglomerate of diverse thought and experience. This created an avenue to deal with health problems from many avenues and did not restrict medical practice to one train of thought. It gave the possibilities to open the mind and incorporate all known knowledge to help people maintain their health. This gave room for advancement of medical knowledge and better care to those needing it. Research into Magneto therapy revealed sources dating back to books written during the 1800's. Doctors recorded their work using magnets to cure and get rid of disease. One trail of how magnets came to be a medical devise is presented here. The system of magnetic healing is as old as time, and yet as new as the newest space age technology. Scientific research is still in its infancy regarding magnets as medical devises. Research is being carried out in various countries around the world on the effect of magnetism of bacteria, flies, mice, rabbits, as well as plants and tissue cultures ,to learn what may become in the medical realm. "Bio magnetism" is a term used in research of magnetism on the human body. Magneto therapy comes into this category. Bio magnetism and Magneto therapy is the use of magnetic force to aid in helping the body recuperate and possibly heal itself of crippling ailments. The benefits one derives from using this technology can be warmth to hurting joints, giving them more flexibility; giving more energy to persons, and making others feel better. When looking at the results of magnets , they are truly as effective as any pain blockers when used properly. There are magnetic products on the market to aid in relieving stress. In the process they help relieve pain in some instances. The reason pain is eliminated are the results of the magnetic force stimulating nerves to create a blood flow to swollen and injured areas. When blood gets to an area we do not have the swollen and painful situation. When blood is restricted we have swelling and pain. It is a normal reaction of our bodies letting us know of stress and injury. In theory and principle a magnetic force can stimulate nerves, thus creating an environment for the body to recuperate from stress. It is not new technology. It is used in many countries around the world and has been used for many centuries. It has not been proven scientifically how magnet energy works on the human. It is a phenomenon that is being studied more closely by scientists and doctors alike. In India it is said the builders of the pyramids were well acquainted with magnetic forces and used it in the preservation of mummies from natural decay. It is said Cleopatra used a small magnet on her forehead to preserve her beauty. The magnet was not made an object of scientific investigation until the beginning of the sixteenth century. P. A. Paracelsus(1493-1541) a Swiss alchemist and physician, pioneered work on the magnet. He brought its healing powers to light. He traveled to Africa, Asia, and Europe making discoveries and learning different facets of medicine. He observed, "that which constitutes a magnet is an attraction force which is beyond our understanding, but, which, nevertheless, causes an attraction of iron and other things. Magnetic treatment was useful in all inflammations, influxes, and ulcerations, in diseases of the uterus and bowels, in internal as well as external diseases." His opinion was that any diseased part of the body, when exposed to a magnetic force, will be cured better and more speedily than by any medicine. Dr. William Gilbert of Colchester, England (1540-1603) was the first Englishman to make a study of electricity and magnetism. He believed the world was one large magnet. He discovered that substances such as paper and cloth do not effect the force of attraction between magnet and iron. Father Hall, an Austrian Professor of Astronomy, in the eighteenth century took the cue from Paracelsus and treated nervous men and women with magnets. Magnetic treatment by Hall was closely watched by Dr. Messer (1734-1815) who pioneered Hypnotism. He applied magnetic treatment to his patients and succeeded in curing a number of serious and complex ailments. The work of Hall and Mesmer was witnessed by Dr. Samuel Hanneman (1775-1843), the Father of Homeopathy. He is the first to use magnet therapy for treatments of disease. He prepared three medicines by exposing milk and water to the magnetic force, using north and south pole magnets. Through the use of magnetic water and application of magnets (north and south poles), Dr. Hanneman found that he could treat 1243 symptoms in aiding recovery of diseases. Although the discoveries of Paracelsus, Mesmer, and hanneman in magnets as a therapeutic tool was recognized, it continues to be used by physicians convinced of its healing powers. Michael Farraday (1791-1867) laid the foundation for Biomagnetics and magneto-chemistry and established all matter is magnetic in one way or other. Louis Pasteur in 1862 discovered the earths magnetic field exercised
a positive effect on the growth of plants. Dr. E. K. Maclean of New York,
New Your,USA, has succeeded in relieving pain of every kind by the use
of magnets. He has successfully treated advanced cases of cancer with
an electromagnetic activator. There is research going on to prove how
magnetism works throughout the world. Many more people could be mentioned
here. This is a birds eye view of the pioneers of Magneto therapy. Whether
you agree with this form of treatment or not, it is here to stay. Books
on Magneto therapy can be found in specialty book stores dealing with
"alternative medicine" and "natural medicine". B.
Jain publishers from India has excellent books on the subject. You may
find other avenues through research centers dealing with magnets also.
The Indian Institute of Magneto therapy, New Delhi, India has a correspondence
course that aids in the use and effectiveness of magnets as a health aid.
Magneto therapy is a valid health aid for treating ailments and as a preventive
to poor health. Although it is not widespread, it is, in this authors
opinion, a great tool to maintaining and helping in the health field.
Give me the next page! The body's energy is thought to flow through channels known as Energy Meridians. These can be compared with the currents that exist in a magnetic field. The meridians can be accessed through classic acupuncture points (acupoints) on the skin surface, and form the basis of ancient therapies such as acupuncture and acupressure. IN GOOD HEALTH, energy flows through the meridians in a balanced way. Ill health is thought o be associated with imbalances or blockages in energy flow through the body. Many illnesses affect the bio energetic functions of cells. When energy flow becomes abnormal, acupoints on the surrounding skin become tender and painful to touch. These are known as tsubos. In acupuncture, these points are stimulated with fine needles to generate electrical impulses and restore energy balance. In magnetic therapy, the acupoints are stimulated by tiny pulses of electromagnetic energy. Three different bio electromagnetic fields can be applied to your acupressure points using magnets which helps balance your energy meridians. These fields are: Magnetic - with the South pole facing away from the skin Micro-electric - due to copper and zinc forming a battery bridged by moisture from the skin Electric current - due to the magnetic field acting on the copper microspheres. The electric and magnetic fields produced by our magnets affect the flow of electromagnetic energy in parts of the body. In particular, it frees imbalances and build-ups of electromagnetic energy - often associated with tissue damage and inflammation that irritates nerves to cause pain and muscles to cause spasms. Magnetic therapy can act on nerve and muscle cells to relieve pain, relax tense muscles, improve the circulation and boost immunity. How does it work? No-one knows exactly how bio electromagnetic therapy works, but there are several interesting theories. Restoring electro-magnetic balance:- Each cell acts as an electro-magnetic unit producing its own magnetic field. During health, cells vibrate with their own characteristic electromagnetic frequency. During disease, a cell's electromagnetic vibration changes. This effect is used to diagnose heart problems for example. During health, a heart trace (electrocardiogram or ECG) will show a particular pattern. If cells lack oxygen due to reduced blood flow in coronary heart disease, characteristic changes occur in the ECG that help to diagnose the problem. In the most simple terms, bio electromagnetic therapy helps to restore health by helping cells regain their natural electromagnetic frequency. |
| Magnetic Therapy: Plausible Attraction? Long considered only a component of quack medicine, magnetic therapy has received a boost from a recent study at the Baylor College of Medicine. Is it plausible? James D. Livingston Early History The development in eighteenth-century England of carbon-steel permanent magnets more powerful than lodestones brought renewed interest in the possible healing powers of magnets, and among those interested was Maximilian Hell, a professor of astronomy at the University of Vienna. Hell claimed several cures using steel magnets, but he was rapidly eclipsed by a friend who borrowed his magnets to treat a young woman suffering from a severe mental illness. The friend was Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), and Mesmer's success with the "magnets from Hell" led directly to his widespread promotion of his theory of "animal magnetism." Although he first used actual magnets, he later found he could "magnetize" virtually anything -- paper, wood, leather, water -- and produce the same effect on patients. He concluded that the animal magnetism resided in himself, the various materials simply aiding the flow of the "universal fluid" between him and the patients. Mesmer became so successful in Paris that in 1784 King Louis XVI established a Royal Commission to evaluate the claims of animal magnetism, a commission that included Antoine Lavoisier and Benjamin Franklin among its members. They conducted a series of experiments and concluded that all the observed effects could be attributed to the power of suggestion, and that "the practice of magnetization is the art of increasing the imagination by degrees." Thomas Jefferson, arriving in Paris soon after the Commission report, noted in his journal: "Animal magnetism is dead, ridiculed." Ridiculed, perhaps, but not dead. Mesmer himself faded from public view, but "magnetizing" persisted in various forms. Many early magnetizers evolved into students of hypnosis and developed various forms of hypnotherapy. (The trance induced in many of Mesmer's patients is thought to be what is now called a hypnotic trance, and most dictionaries today list mesmerism as a synonym for hypnotism.) One American who became interested in magnetic healing was Daniel David Palmer, who opened Palmer's School of Magnetic Cure in Iowa in the 1890s. His ideas developed into the system of hands-on therapy known as chiropractic. Others focused on hand gestures without actual touch, an approach recently reborn as "therapeutic touch." [See "Catching Up With Eighteenth Century Science in the Evaluation of Therapeutic Touch, " by Thomas S. Ball and Dean D. Alexander, this issue, p. 31] Mary Baker Eddy was "cured" by a magnetizer, but she later became convinced that cures could best be achieved through prayer, and founded Christian Science. Most of these byproducts of mesmerism, like Mesmer himself, ceased to use actual magnets. But the development of electrical technology in the late nineteenth century impressed the general public with the mysterious powers of electric and magnetic fields, and therapeutic magnets had a rebirth, with many "doctors" promoting magnets to relieve pain, enhance sleep, and cure a wide variety of diseases. The most notable of these was Dr. C. J. Thacher, whom Collier's Magazine dubbed "King of the magnetic quacks" (Macklis 1993). His 1886 mail-order catalogue offered a variety of magnetic garments, and a complete costume contained more than 700 magnets, which provided "full and complete protection of all the vital organs of the body." In the twentieth century, materials scientists and engineers have developed stronger and stronger permanent magnets -- alnico magnets in the 1930s, ferrite (ceramic) magnets in the 1950s, and rare-earth magnets in the 1970s and 1980s. The latest rare-earth magnets, neodymium-iron-boron, are more than a hundred times more powerful than the steel magnets available in the last century to Edison, Bell, and C. J. Thacher (Livingston 1996). Both ferrite magnets and the latest "neo" magnets have had a tremendous impact on modern technology, but they have also re stimulated interest in the use of permanent magnets for magnetic therapy. Most magnetic therapy products today, like most refrigerator magnets, contain inexpensive ferrite magnets, but many suppliers offer neodymium "supermagnets" in their top-of-the-line products. Magnetic Therapy Today Some suppliers recommend applying magnetic patches directly to your aches and pains, while others recommend applying small Band-Aid-like patches to acupuncture points. Magnetic belts containing sixteen or more magnets are purported to ease back pain, and similar magnetic wraps are offered for almost any part of the body, including hands, wrists, elbows, knees, ankles, and feet (magnetic insoles are particularly popular). For headaches you can wear magnetic headbands, magnetic earrings, or magnetic necklaces. (One company marketing magnetic necklaces provides simple instructions: the necklace should be put on as soon as the headache appears and removed as soon as it goes away. Since most headaches come and go, following these instructions precisely will clearly produce persuasive evidence of the necklace's efficacy.) Many magnetic necklaces, bracelets, and earrings are formed from silver- and gold-rich magnetic alloys and promoted as both fashionable and therapeutic. One catalog claims magnetic earrings "stimulate nerve endings that are associated with head and neck pain," and magnetic bracelets "act upon the body's energy field" and "correct energy imbalances brought by electro-magnetic contamination or atmospheric changes." Larger items include magnetic seat cushions, magnetic pillows, and magnetic mattress pads, the last claiming to produce an "energizing sleep field." One supplier offers a PCD -- Prostate Comfort Device for older men. If properly placed while you sit watching television or driving your car, you will no longer have to get out of bed several times a night to relieve yourself! To avoid trouble with the Food and Drug Administration, most suppliers emphasize only "comfort" and usually specifically state "no medical claims are made." Some, however, are far less careful. One company in Kansas markets a book entitled Curing Cancer With Supermagnets. The authors of the book claim to have cured cancer simply by hanging a neodymium "supermagnet" around the patient's neck. The cancer discussed in the advertisement was a breast cancer, but they report that "the supermagnets influence the whole body" and "our method can cure all types of cancer." Many magnetic therapy products have alternating arrays of north and south poles facing the patient. Some have detailed explanations of why a circular pattern of poles is optimal, while others offer poles in checkerboard or triangular patterns. Nikken, the Japan-based firm that has used a multilevel marketing scheme to expand from an annual business in the U. S. of $3 million in 1989 to $150 million today, primarily offers products with alternating poles. One clear difference between such multipolar magnetic devices and unipolar devices (with only one pole facing the patient) is the "reach" of the magnetic field. The field from even unipolar magnets decreases very rapidly with increasing distance from the magnet, but the field from multipolar magnets decreases much more rapidly. If multipolar magnets really have any effects on the human body, they will be limited to depths of penetration of only a few millimeters. (Many refrigerator magnets are multipolar, which limits the thickness of paper they can hold to the refrigerator, but also limits the damage they can do to nearby credit and ATM cards.) Other suppliers offer only unipolar magnets, and some emphasize the importance of having only south-seeking poles facing the body. Contrary to common scientific usage, they call south-seeking poles north poles. Since opposite poles attract, they argue that a pole that seeks south must be a north pole. (Here practitioners of magnetic therapy are perhaps more logical than mainstream science, which calls the south-seeking pole a south pole, requiring that the earth's magnetic pole in Antarctica is, by the standard scientific terminology, a north pole.) Dr. Buryl Payne, in his book The Body Magnetic (1988), argues that south-seeking poles calm tissue but north-seeking poles stimulate tissue, and you should therefore never expose tumors or infections to north-seeking poles. When I suggested to one practitioner that different effects from different poles seemed to violate basic rules of symmetry, he assured me that the rules were reversed in the southern hemisphere. One of the most ardent advocates of magnetic therapy is Dr. William Philpott of Oklahoma, who publishes his own Magnetic Energy Quarterly. He is also on the board of the Bio-Electro-Magnetics Institute of Reno, Nevada, a nonprofit "research and educational organization" and an advisor to the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine. His wife happens to have a business selling "Polar Power Magnets." Dr. Ronald Lawrence of California is President of the North American Academy of Magnetic Therapy and reports that he has successfully used magnets to relieve pain in hundreds of his patients. He is associated with Magnetherapy, a Florida company that markets "Tectonic Magnets." Both Dr. Philpott and Dr. Lawrence favor unipolar magnets. The efficacy of magnetic therapy (or of any other medical treatment, mainstream or alternative) does not depend on our understanding the biological mechanism. Nevertheless most promoters of magnetic therapy recognize the need for offering some plausible explanation. The mechanism most commonly offered for various therapeutic effects of magnets is improved blood circulation, despite a lack of clear evidence for such an effect. Other suggestions include alteration of nerve impulses, increased oxygen content and increased alkalinity of bodily fluids, magnetic forces on moving ions, and decreased deposits on the walls of blood vessels. The broadest explanation was presented by Dr. Kyochi Nakagawa of Japan, who claims that many of our modern ills result from "Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome." The earth's magnetic field is known to have decreased about 6 percent since 1830, and indirect evidence suggests that it may have decreased as much as 30 percent over the last millennium. He argues that magnetic therapy simply provides some of the magnetic field that the earth has lost. Magnetic therapy is also prominent in the treatment of thoroughbred racehorses. An injured racehorse represents potential loss of a substantial investment, providing considerable incentive to try "alternative medicine" to supplement mainstream veterinary treatment. Magnetic pads for a variety of leg problems, magnetic blankets, magnetic hoof pads, etc., all get ringing endorsements from many horse trainers -- and even some veterinarians. One marketer of magnetic products for humans reports that he first became convinced of their effectiveness when he used them on his ailing llama! Enthusiasts argue that the placebo effect could not be effective on horses or other animals, but forget that it may influence the human who is interpreting the effect of magnetic therapy on the animal.
The study was conducted by Dr. Carlos Vallbona on fifty post-polio patients at Baylor's Institute for Rehabilitation Research in Houston. Bioflex, Inc., of Corpus Christi provided both the magnets (multipolar, circular pattern) and a set of visually identical sham magnets to serve as controls. To keep the study "double-blind" neither the patients nor the staff were informed as to which devices were active magnets, and which were shams. Before and after the forty-five-minute period of magnet therapy, the patients were asked to grade their pain on a scale from 0 to 10. The twenty nine patients with active magnets reported, on average, a significant reduction of pain (from 9.6 to 4.4), while the twenty-one patients with shams reported a much smaller average reduction (from 9.5 to 8.4). This is a substantial difference, and if the double-blind study was successfully conducted, cannot be explained by a placebo effect. For a hardened skeptic, some doubts remain. Both Dr. Vallbona and his colleague, Dr. Carlton Hazlewood, had reported the successful personal use of magnets to relieve their own knee pains prior to the study, raising doubts as to their objectivity. Conscious or unconscious biases of researchers can have very subtle and unrecognized effects on the results of their studies, and a serious difficulty of conducting any double-blind studies with magnets is the ease of distinguishing active magnets from sham magnets (although the patients were reportedly observed during the therapy period to assure that they were not surreptitiously testing their magnets). Another difficulty of any studies of pain relief is the highly subjective nature of the data. Despite these various reasons for caution, the results of this study have altered the views of many physicians. Dr. William Jarvis, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, had formerly dismissed magnet therapy as "essentially quackery." He now tentatively admits that it may have value for post-polio pain. More studies will be needed before magnetic therapy will be accepted by a majority of the medical community, and some studies are already underway. Last year the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine gave a million-dollar grant to Dr. Ann Gill Taylor of the School of Nursing of the University of Virginia to study the use of magnets to relieve pain. Among other things, she will be testing the effectiveness of magnetic sleep pads in relieving pain in patients suffering from fibromyalgia, a common disease involving joint and muscle pain. While we wait for the results of these and other studies, does what we know about magnetic fields and the human body make it plausible that magnetic therapy for pain might have a physical basis beyond mind/body effects? Magnetic Fields and the Body Viewed simply as inert material, the human body, like its primary constituent, water, is diamagnetic, i.e., weakly repelled by magnetic fields. In response to an applied magnetic field, the electrons in water molecules make slight adjustments in their motions, producing a net magnetic field in the opposing direction about 100,000 times smaller than the applied field. With the removal of the applied field, the electrons return to their original orbits, and the water molecules once again become nonmagnetic. (We perhaps should note that some promoters of magnetic therapy also promote "magnetized water." You can't magnetize water. Although water responds weakly to an applied field, the response disappears as soon as the field is removed.) Although the diamagnetism of water and most living things is very weak, a high-field electromagnet producing 160,000 gauss (16 tesla) at the center of the coil has recently been used to levitate not only water drops but also flowers, grasshoppers, and small frogs (Berry and Geim 1997), the "flying frogs" drawing worldwide media coverage. Since fields of that magnitude are required to balance gravitational forces, the much lower fields of magnetic-therapy devices can only produce diamagnetic forces that are thousands of times smaller than gravity. (The repulsive force will be proportional to the product of the field and the field gradient.) Some dubious literature suggests that magnetic fields attract blood, citing all the iron it contains. However, iron in the blood is very different from metallic iron, which is strongly magnetic because the individual atomic magnets are strongly coupled together by the phenomenon we call ferromagnetism. The remarkable properties of ferromagnetic materials are a result of the cooperative behavior of many, many magnetic atoms acting in unison. The iron in blood consists instead of isolated iron atoms within large hemoglobin molecules, located inside the red blood cells. Although each of the iron atoms is magnetic, it is not near other iron atoms, and remains magnetically independent. The net effect of the weak paramagnetism of the isolated iron atoms in hemoglobin is only a slight decrease in the overall diamagnetism of blood. Blood, like water, is weakly repelled by magnetic fields, not attracted. Although most components of the human body and other living things are weakly diamagnetic, many organisms have been shown to contain small amounts of strongly magnetic materials, usually magnetite (Fe3O4). The most extreme case is that of magnetotactic bacteria, originally found in mud collected from the marshes of Cape Cod. Each contains a long chain of magnetite particles that interact strongly enough with the earth's magnetic field to orient the bacteria along the field. Magnetite crystals have also been found in pigeons, honeybees, many mammals, and even in the human brain, but in proportionately much smaller amounts than in the bacteria. It seems very unlikely that there is enough magnetite within the human body to provide a possible mechanism to explain magnetic therapy. However, if magnetite particles were located at strategic places, they could locally amplify the effects of low magnetic fields and, for example, modify ion flow across cell membranes, of the type involved with electrical transmission in nerve cells. More likely mechanisms are those based on magnetic forces on moving charged particles, possibly including ions or charged molecules in flowing blood, moving across cell membranes, moving across synapses between nerve cells, etc., or those based on more subtle effects on biochemical reactions (Frankel and Liburdy 1996). Although no physical mechanisms for magnetic therapy have been established, the possibilities are numerous and complex. Only further clinical tests, carefully controlled to account for placebo effects, can confirm or dispute the results of the Baylor study and prove or disprove the claims of magnetic therapy. Some media reports have not sufficiently distinguished the Baylor form of magnetic therapy, based on modest static fields from permanent magnets, with a more accepted form of "magnetic therapy" based on high pulsed magnetic fields from electromagnets (Malmivuo and Plonsey 1995). Pulsed magnetic fields are very different from static magnetic fields, because, via Maxwell's equations, time-varying magnetic fields induce electric fields. Electric fields have pronounced biological effects, particularly on nerve and muscle cells, as we have known since the days of Galvani and his twitching frogs' legs. Many years ago the FDA approved the use of pulsed magnetic fields in "bone growth stimulators" for the treatment of fractures that were slow to heal, and research on "magnetic stimulation" -- pulsed magnetic fields applied to the brain or other components of the nervous system -- has grown rapidly in recent years. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, in which the patient receives hundreds of magnetic field pulses of 1 tesla or more, each only a millisecond in duration, has shown considerable promise as a means of treating depression. However, these forms of pulsed-field magnetic therapy are based on biological effects of induced electric fields, and are very different from the use of the static fields from permanent magnets. Conclusions The more extreme claims of magnetic therapy, such as curing cancer by hanging supermagnets around your neck, are not only nonsense but also dangerous, since they may divert patients from seeking appropriate treatment from mainstream medicine. Magnetic jewelry and most other magnetic-therapy products probably are harmless beyond a waste of money. Several years ago, a double-blind study found that magnetic necklaces produced no relief of neck or shoulder pain (Hong 1982). The results of the Baylor study, however, raise the possibility that at least in some cases, topical application of permanent magnets may indeed be useful in pain relief, a conclusion that should be regarded as tentative until supported by further studies. Any mechanism for such an effect remains mysterious, but an effect of static magnetic fields on the complex electrochemical processes of the human body is not impossible. My own guess is that inexpensive refrigerator magnets are as likely to provide help as the more expensive magnets marketed specifically for therapy. (But since human nature leads us to expect more from more expensive items, use of refrigerator magnets will probably decrease the placebo effect!) References * Barker, A. T. et al. 1984. Pulsed magnetic field therapy for tibial
non-union. Lancet 994-996. About the Author
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