Magnet Therapy Gets Boost

By Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience Bad Medicine Columnist

posted: 08 January 2008 06:28 am ET

Magnetic therapy, long derailed as pseudoscience, has just gotten a boost from a biomedical study showing how magnets can reduce swelling.

The study will likely impress manufacturers of magnetic devices, many of whom never dreamed these things could actually work and have been selling them merely to cash in on this $5-billion-a-year industry. But skeptics will have a tough time brushing this one off.

In a tightly controlled study—a rarity in the world of alternative medicine—Thomas Skalak of the University of Virginia found that static magnets reduced swelling by up to 50 percent in the tiny hind paws of rats. Skalak published his results in the November issue of the American Journal of Physiology.

Push and pull

Therapeutic magnets have a demonstrated ability to pull wads of cash from your wallet. Some magnetic back braces sell for upwards of $100. The benefits associated with magnets range, according to proponents, from curing cancer to chasing away your mother-in-law, but mostly magnets are used to treat pain from muscle aches and arthritis.

Called static because they emit a steady force, similar to a refrigerator magnet, therapeutic magnets are very popular among athletes. Former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino claims that magnets healed his fractured ankle later in his career. It's not clear, however, which losing season he was referring to.

Yet little scientific evidence exists demonstrating that static magnets heal, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which funds studies of questionable therapies to see if there's anything behind the often outrageous claims.

First strong study READ MORE.....CLICK HERE

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:01 PM | Permalink