For thousands of years human beings have been fascinated by magnets. Each century, we learn a little bit more about how and why they work as healing tools. Today, our scientists are providing us with evidence that supports the experiences of the earliest uses of healing magnets. In the new millenium -- a time of increasing openness to natural remedies and energy medicine -- magnetic therapy is rapidly gaining popularity as a treatment for many modern day maladies like tendonitis, fibromyalgia and arthritis.
Why? First of all it works. Anecdotal healing reports abound. A pain relief success rate in the 80 percent range is a common finding among both clinicians and researchers. It is safe. And magnets are inexpensive and easy to use on your own.
Today, the use of magnets for healing is an excepted medical therapy in Japan, China, Korea, Switzerland, Germany, and many Eastern European countries. Over the last few decades, researchers have reported on the beneficial effects of magnet therapy for both chronic and acute conditions. Currently, static magnets are used most frequently for the relief of pain from such conditions as arthritis, rheumatism, tendinitis and bursitis, headaches, muscle strains and sprains and carpal tunnel syndrome. Static magnets have also been found to be helpful in accelerating the healing of injuries and wounds. Researchers have reported, for example, that the application of magnets speeds postsurgery recovery time.
Q: I heard a report on the radio about the effectiveness of magnetic bracelets for arthritis pain. My 89-year-old dad suffers terribly and has been taking Celebrex. We're concerned about reports linking Celebrex to heart attacks md strokes. Heart disease runs in our family, so I want to find the bracelets for him.
What journal published the study? What are the specifics about the type of magnetic bracelet? Ill be grateful for any information you can send me.
A: The study was published in the British Medical Journal (Dec. 16, 2004). Patients were randomly assigned to wear a standard-strength magnetic bracelet (neodymium), a weak magnetic bracelet or a bracelet with nonmagnetic steel washers.
We are sending you our new Guide to Alternatives for Arthritis, with a variety of home remedies, anti-inflammatory herbs and other nondrug approaches, Anyone who would like a copy, please send $3 in check or money order with a long (No. 10), stamped (60 cents), self-addressed envelope to: Graedons' People's Pharmacy, No. AA-2, Box 52027, Durham, NC 27717-2027.
Acupuncture is another option. An article in the Annals of Internal Medicine (Dec. 21. 2004) demonstrates that it too can significantly ease arthritis of the knee.
Using magnets as pain therapy for alternative health purposes and other forms of homeopathy goes back to ancient China. How does magnetic therapy work, if it indeed does? To put it as simply as possible, when negative magnetic energy is applied to a pain-ridden area, it stimulates the body to increase the flow of blood and oxygen to the area, which thereby relieves the pain. Magnets for pain relief and other alternative health purposes is not approved by the United States Federal Food and Drug Administration, but neither have they been banned. Former Houston Oilers quarterback, and football star, Dan Pastorini and his former coach, Bum Phillips, have been using magnets for pain relief for quite some time now. Professional golfer, Jim Colbert, strapped magnets onto his back, put magnetized insoles in his shoes. And what happened? With a final round 67, in a Florida senior tour event, he came from eight shots off the lead to finish one of the winning score. Colbert has been wearing magnets ever since, and he has won over $5 million, 11 tournaments and consecutive Senior PGA Tour player-of-the-year awards. (1995-96).
Magnet therapy is widely used on the senior circuit, but it is also being used by juniors, and by players on the PGA, in addition to the Ladies Professional Golf Association tours. John Huston, who set a PGA tour scoring record while winning this year's Hawaiian Open (28 under par), travels with a mattress cover loaded with 265 magnets. Donna Andrews used magnets to alleviate a back problem that was seriously curtailing her career. Another LPGA star, Michelle McGann, a diabetic with circulation problems in her feet, claims she has been helped considerably through the use of magnetic therapy. No one claims magnets cure, only that they reduce, if not entirely eliminate pain, as well as increasing the energy level. For that reason, proponents say they should be worn all the time. After all, one cannot overdose on magnetic energy, according to Dr. Alvin Bakst, the onetime chief of heart surgery at New York City's Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital, who is now in the magnetic therapy business in Palm Springs. That is because man in the past 50,000 years has become acclimated to magnetism through day to day living on earth, which is a huge magnetic ball, "Bakst said, Fifteen years ago, when it was suggested you could use a magnetic field to diagnose illness within the body, the notion was pooh-poohed. It became MRI," Bakst said, referring to the magnetic resonance imaging exams, now the most effective diagnostic tool in medicine. Magnets should not be used by people with a pacemaker, or surgically implanted metal pins or screws, he added. They are also not recommended for pregnant women.
Magnets are man-made, with either a ceramic or neodymium housing. The latter are considered the best. In any casing, the magnetic energy can be controlled as to its positive and negative charge, and the amount of each, which is called a Gauss rating. The higher the Gauss, the stronger the magnet. Negative energy is considered the most effective for pain relief, and if one is using a bipolar magnet, (positive on one side, negative on the other), the negative side should be touching the body. They come in many forms, the most popular being wrist link bracelets. Also available are insoles, chair pads, leg, knee, shoulder, elbow and back wraps.