Quoting Ark - Can magnetic therapy really cure diseases?
From some years ago the magnetized cup, magnetized water, to today's magnetic therapy pillow, magnetic therapy instrument, coupled with the "cured by the magnetic therapy equipment patients," the present statement, our lives around the full of "magnetic therapy" health care products. But is magnetic therapy really so magical?
Ark
Domestic articles promoting magnetic therapy usually say that it has a long history in China, and has been used in Chinese medicine since ancient times. Shennong Ben Cao Jing", "Compendium of Materia Medica" and other Chinese medicine books do have records of magnet therapy, but that is basically the magnet as a drug, mashed up orally, said to be able to "calm the liver and submerge the sun, tranquilize the spirit of shock, deafness, tinnitus, palpitations, lumbar paralysis, impotence, uterine not Collection, prolapse and many other diseases, and now say the magnetic therapy is not the same thing. Now very few people will go to eat magnets, because they know they do not have the Monkey King "hunger for iron pills, thirst for copper juice" ability, the magnet pounded and then crushed is also unable to be absorbed by the human body. Only one of the magnet remedies contained in the Compendium of Materia Medica is similar to today's magnetic therapy: putting a small magnet into the ear is said to cure deafness. Now, even the most fervent advocates of magnetic therapy dare not say that it has such a miraculous effect.
Magnetic therapy is actually a "Western medicine" therapy
Now the popular magnetic therapy from the West came in, is considered "Western medicine", but belongs to the Western alternative medicine, is recognized by the international mainstream scientific community as pseudo-science. The history of magnetic therapy can be traced back to the medieval Swiss doctor and alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1543) speculation, he thought, since the magnet can attract iron, so maybe it can be sucked out of the disease from the human body.
By the 18th century, magnetic therapy was popularized by the Austrian physician Maxime. He put a magnet on a girl suffering from mental illness, and then used a magnet bar in the patient before and after swinging, actually cured the girl's disease. He put forward a "animal magnetism" theory, that many diseases are due to animal magnetic disorders, if you can guide the magnetic force, you can cure the disease. At first he used magnets to guide, but later realized that he could use his "animal magnetism" to make almost anything (wood, paper, water, etc.) take on magnetic properties to guide. He cured many people with this method - known as the "Maximilian technique" - which was much sought after and aroused hostility. 1784, while Maximilian was practicing in Paris, King Louis XVI of France ordered the establishment of a commission of inquiry, consisting of Franklin, Lavoisier, and others. Franklin, Lavoisier and others to investigate this. Through a series of experiments, they found that the efficacy of the "Maximilian Technique" came entirely from the patient's imagination and strong desire. Now it seems, "Maximilian" is actually a kind of hypnosis, is the use of psychological suggestion to cure the disease, and magnetic force has nothing to do.
At the end of the 19th century, the application of electricity allowed people to see the power of electromagnetism, magnetic therapy has gained a new life, in the United States and other countries began to promote magnetic therapy products, and gradually be promoted to the world. Since then, magnetic therapy products have become more and more fancy, claiming more and more exaggerated efficacy, and the market is getting bigger and bigger. Now the annual sales of magnetic therapy products around the world exceeded 1 billion dollars, in addition to magnetic therapy instruments, magnetic therapy beds, magnetic therapy blankets and other equipment, there are also used to apply in various parts of the body of clothing, hats, shoes, pants, cushions, pillows, necklaces, bracelets, and other portable apparel, which is the most popular magnetic therapy insoles. Magnetic therapy is believed to be able to treat almost all common diseases, such as hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, insomnia, cancer, etc., it is said that the effect of treatment of joint pain is particularly good; and have a balanced endocrine system, improve immune function, anti-aging, eliminate fatigue, enhance the memory of health care efficacy, "is the ideal of human health of the treasure! ". Most people are convinced of this. According to a survey by the American Natural Science Foundation, among Americans who have heard of magnetic therapy, 14% think it's very scientific, another 54% think it's somewhat scientific, and only 25% insist that it's not scientific.
Unveiling the "mechanism" of magnetic therapy
The so-called magnetic therapy is an attempt to apply magnetic fields to treat disease. Magnetic fields are either constant or varying. According to Faraday's Law of Electromagnetic Induction, the changing magnetic field will produce an electric field, the electric field will have an effect on the nerve cells, muscle cells, etc. This effect is good and bad, if the magnetic field strength is too large, it is likely to have an adverse effect on health. However, magnetic therapy products on the market, basically rely on ferromagnetic sheets or electromagnets energized with direct current to generate magnetic fields, are constant magnetic field (or static magnetic field), they do not produce electric fields, the impact on the body if any, is entirely dependent on the role of the magnetic field itself. So is it possible for a constant magnetic field to have an effect on body tissues?
Advocates of magnetic therapy claim that it improves blood circulation because blood contains iron, which is attracted to magnets. It seems logical that magnets would attract iron. But the iron in the blood is not ferrous metal. Ferrous metals have strong magnetic properties because the iron atoms in them can interact with each other and align themselves in parallel in the same direction. The phenomenon of "ferromagnetism" is the result of the cooperation of many iron atoms. In blood, however, each iron atom is wrapped in hemoglobin, and although each iron atom is magnetic, they are separated from each other, and their magnetic properties are very weak. In contrast, other components of blood (such as water) are antimagnetic. Together, the two make blood so weakly antimagnetic that not only will it not be attracted to the magnetic field, it will be repelled. However, the magnetic field produced by magnetic therapy is not strong enough to have an effect on blood. Its strength is even difficult to penetrate the skin (it is undetectable beyond a few millimeters), and even less likely to have an effect on the internal organs.
In fact, it is easy for consumers to verify for themselves whether magnetic therapy can promote blood circulation. If the magnet really attracts blood, then the blood in the skin will flow towards it, and we will see redness where the skin is in contact with the magnet. In practice, of course, this phenomenon is not seen. Experiments have shown that even a constant magnetic field with a strength of up to 1 Tesla (a dozen or tens of times that of the magnetic therapy products on the market) has no effect on the circulation of blood in the human body. To take a step back, even if there is a certain component of the blood that can be subjected to the magnetic field, it is not the same as saying that this will be beneficial to the blood circulation, to the body.
So in theory, we can't provide a scientific basis for magnetic therapy. If magnetic therapy really has a health care, therapeutic effect, it is through an unknown mysterious mechanism to play a role. So does magnetic therapy really work? The market for magnetic therapy products is so large that there are obviously many patients who feel that it does work. Some patients will even describe how they have benefited from magnetic therapy. However, this is of no value to modern medicine because the individual cases are not convincing as far as efficacy is concerned. Just because a patient gets better after using a magnetic therapy product does not mean that the magnetic therapy actually works. It may be self-healing, many diseases can be healed without medication (e.g., frozen shoulder); it may be the result of psychological suggestion, magnetic therapy is aimed at chronic diseases, the condition of the disease by the psychological condition of the person has a great influence; or it may even be a misdiagnosis, the patient was not sick.
"Efficacy" stems from the psychological effect
To determine the efficacy of a drug or therapy, it is necessary to do a large number of clinical trials, statistics can be determined. Randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical trials are the most reliable method of determining efficacy: patients are randomly divided into two groups, one using magnetic therapy and the other using sham magnetic therapy, but neither the patient nor the doctor knows which group a particular patient has been assigned to (this "double-blind" state is the only way to exclude both the role of psychological cues on the patient, and also the role of the doctor in assessing efficacy). This "double-blind" status can not only exclude the role of psychological suggestion on the patient, but also exclude the subjective bias of the doctor in assessing the efficacy of the treatment), the grouping of the situation by a third party, and then lift the "blind" after the end of the trial, comparing the efficacy of the magnetic therapy group and the control group, and if the efficacy of the magnetic therapy group was significantly higher than that of the control group, it can only be determined that the magnetic therapy does work.
In recent years, there have been a number of randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical trials of the effects of magnetic therapy, mainly to verify whether magnetic therapy has an analgesic effect. Most of the clinical trials found that magnetic therapy was ineffective, while some individual trials found that the analgesic effect of magnetic therapy was significantly higher than that of the control group. However, it is very difficult to conduct a double-blind trial of magnetic therapy because, depending on whether the therapeutic equipment used can adsorb metal objects or not, it is easy for patients and doctors to find out whether the magnetic therapy products used are real or fake, which in turn affects the patient's psychological state and the doctor's assessment, and the analgesic effect is particularly affected by the psychological state. Therefore, those who believe that magnetic therapy has an analgesic effect of the test, it is also difficult to say that that is not the result of psychological effects.
In short, there is no conclusive evidence that magnetic therapy is effective for any disease, so the FDA has not approved any magnetic therapy products for medical use, and manufacturers are prohibited from publicizing magnetic therapy products for medical and healthcare purposes. Some magnetic therapy manufacturers have been fined and prosecuted as a result.
There are also people in the market who promote the so-called "magnetized water" processed by the magnetic field. Water has antimagnetic, under the action of the magnetic field, water molecules reverse magnetization, and magnets are not mutually attractive, but mutually exclusive. But once the magnetic field disappears, these effects also disappear immediately, the magnetic field will not remain in the water, the nature of water molecules will not change. Therefore, "magnetized water" and the nature of ordinary water will not have any difference. Claiming that "magnetized water" has special medical, health care functions, is a naked scam.