Magnet therapy

This article is about static magnetic fields in alternative medicine. For medical uses of electromagnetism, see Electromagnetic therapy (disambiguation).

Energy therapy
Energy (esotericism) Polarity therapy Reiki Therapeutic touch Acupuncture
NCCAM classifications
Alternative Medical Systems Mind-Body Intervention Biologically Based Therapy Manipulative Methods Energy Therapy
See also
Alternative medicine

Magnet therapy, magnetic therapy, or magnotherapy is an alternative medicine practice involving the use of static magnetic fields. Practitioners claim that subjecting certain parts of the body to magnetostatic fields produced by permanent magnets has beneficial health effects. Magnet therapy is considered pseudoscientific due to both physical and biological implausibility, as well as a lack of any established effect on health or healing. Although hemoglobin, the blood protein that carries oxygen, is weakly diamagnetic and is repulsed by magnetic fields, the magnets used in magnetic therapy are many orders of magnitude too weak to have any measurable effect on blood flow.

Description

File:MagnetiteRing.jpg

Magnetite ring.

Magnet therapy is the application of the magnetic field of electromagnetic devices or permanent static magnets to the body for purported health benefits. These benefits may be specific, as in the case of wound healing, or more general, as for increased energy and vitality. In the latter case, malaise is sometimes described as "Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome". Some practitioners assign different effects based on the orientation of the magnet; under the laws of physics, magnetic poles are symmetric. Products include magnetic bracelets and jewelry; magnetic straps for wrists, ankles, knees, and the back; shoe insoles; mattresses; magnetic blankets (blankets with magnets woven into the material); magnetic creams; magnetic supplements; and water that has been "magnetized". Application is usually performed by the patient.

Safety and efficacy

These devices are generally considered safe in themselves, though there can be significant financial and opportunity costs to magnet therapy, especially when treatment or diagnosis are avoided or delayed.

Perhaps the most common suggested mechanism is that magnets might improve blood flow in underlying tissues. The field surrounding magnet therapy devices is far too weak and falls off with distance far too quickly to appreciably affect hemoglobin, other blood components, muscle tissue, bones, blood vessels, or organs. A 1991 study on humans of static field strengths up to 1 T found no effect on local blood flow. Tissue oxygenation is similarly unaffected. Some practitioners claim that the magnets can restore the body's theorized "electromagnetic energy balance", but no such balance is medically recognized. Even in the magnetic fields used in magnetic resonance imaging, which are many times stronger, none of the claimed effects are observed.

Several studies have been conducted in recent years to investigate what, if any, role static magnetic fields may play in health and healing. Unbiased studies of magnetic therapy are problematic, since magnetisation can be easily detected, for instance, by the attraction forces on ferrous (iron-containing) objects; because of this, effective blinding of studies (where neither patients nor assessors know who is receiving treatment versus placebo) is difficult. Incomplete or insufficient blinding tends to exaggerate treatment effects, particularly where any such effects are small. Health claims such as longevity and cancer treatment are implausible and unsupported by any research. More mundane health claims, most commonly pain relief, also lack any credible proposed mechanism, and clinical research is not promising.

Effects of magnet therapy on pain relief beyond non-specific placebo response have not been adequately demonstrated. A 2008 systematic review of magnet therapy for all indications found no evidence of an effect for pain relief, with the possible exception of osteoarthritis. It reported that small sample sizes, inadequate randomization, and difficulty with allocation concealment all tend to bias studies positively and limit the strength of any conclusions. In 2009 the results of a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled crossover trial on the use of magnetic wrist straps (a leather strap with a magnetic insert) for osteoarthritis were published, addressing a gap in the earlier systematic review. This trial showed that magnetic wrist straps are ineffective in the management of pain, stiffness and physical function in osteoarthritis. The authors concluded that "[r]eported benefits are most likely attributable to non-specific placebo effects".

Reception

The worldwide magnet therapy industry totals sales of over a billion dollars per year, including $300 million dollars per year in the United States alone.

A 2002 U.S. National Science Foundation report on public attitudes and understanding of science noted that magnet therapy is "not at all scientific." A number of vendors make unsupported claims about magnet therapy by using pseudoscientific and new-age language. Such claims are unsupported by the results of scientific and clinical studies.

Legal regulations

Marketing of any therapy as effective treatment for any condition is heavily restricted by law in many jurisdictions unless all such claims are scientifically validated. In the United States, for example, U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations prohibit marketing any magnet therapy product using medical claims, as such claims are unfounded.

See also

• Bioelectromagnetics
• Electrical devices in alternative medicine
• Franz Mesmer
• Magnetic water treatment
• Pseudoscience
• Quackery
• Rife machine
• Hologram therapy

External links

• Magnetic Therapy: Can magnets alleviate pain? by Cecil Adams — The Straight Dope
• Magnetic Therapy: Plausible Attraction? by James D. Livingston — Skeptical Inquirer
• Magnet therapy in the Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll
• Magnet therapy — editorial in the British Medical Journal
• Magnet Therapy: A Skeptical View by Stephen Barrett — Quackwatchde:Magnetfeldtherapie

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