The Natural Connection

A scientific truism is that the more experts don’t understand about a topic, the more they tend to write about it. I knew I was heading out to muddy water when I began to research the scientific data on the role of magnet therapy in healing and found “about 30,900” web pages listed on my Internet browser’s search engine. 

To put this in perspective, compared to Silly Putty, which even children comprehend and merits only 17,800 pages, and Bill Clinton, whom nearly no one understands, but who gets over 1,130,000 web pages, magnet therapy falls somewhere in the middle.

Legend has it that magnets were “discovered” around 1000 BC, when a shepherd in Asia Minor named Magnes found himself drawn to the earth by the tacks in his saddle. He unearthed a magnetic oxide of iron, or “lodestone” that had the curious property of being able to attract iron to itself. Physicians of China, India, and Egypt used natural lodestones for centuries for healing illness. By the 1740’s it was possible to create “artificial lodestones” by magnetizing ordinary pieces of iron, and magnet therapy became popular in Europe as well. 

Over the next 250 years, magnets were used by a wide assortment of healers. The 16^th century physician and alchemist, Paracelsus, used magnets to treat epilepsy, diarrhea, and hemorrhage. Franz Mesmer, an Austrian doctor sometimes called the “father of hypnotism”, opened a popular magnetic healing salon in Paris in 1740, where he prescribed magnets to treat the untoward effects of the body’s innate “animal magnetism”. By the late 1800s, the Sears catalogue advertised magnetic boot inserts, magnetic caps, and magnetic corsets, some containing as many as 700 magnets. It was asserted that “magnetism properly applied will cure every curable disease, no matter what the cause!” 

While mail-order corsets may have nearly slipped into oblivion, magnet therapy has not. Thousands of patients swear by the ability of magnets to relieve pain, enhance energy, or protect them from illness. Magnet products are now widely available in the form of magnet insoles, mattresses, car-seat covers, and small magnets to be placed on various parts of the body. Although the sales of magnets for health benefits comprise a 5 billion dollar international industry, medical experts have been uncertain whether their appeal is based on fact, or more like a corset, based on illusion. 

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the NIH considers bioelectromagnetics to be an emerging science that studies how living organisms interact with electromagnetic fields. Two centers supported by NCCAM are currently studying the effects of magnet therapy. One study from the University of Virginia published in 1999 in the Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehab, concerning the ability of magnet mattress pads to reduce the pain of fibromyalgia, showed a modest improvement in patients using the magnetic mattress pads. Another, examining the role of magnets in preventing strokes, is currently under way at the Kessler Rehabilitation Center in West Orange, N.J. 

While magnetized mattress pads could possibly provide pain relief to some patients, they should be avoided in patients with pacemakers and implanted defibrillators. It has been shown that the magnets laced into the mattress pads can temporarily disable these cardiac devices if the patient lies with the magnet close to the chest. Small magnets applied to areas other than the chest do not seem to pose a danger, however. 

Other studies have shown magnets effective at reducing pain in post-polio patients and diabetics. A 1997 peer reviewed study by Dr. Carlos Vallbona at Houston's Baylor College of Medicine found a 75 percent success rate in a study of 50 post-polio syndrome patients who applied low-intensity magnets to areas where they felt arthritis and muscle pain. Despite the dramatic success of the magnetic therapy, Dr. Vallbona admits that he does not know how magnets cause relief of pain. 

In yet another study published in 1999 in the American Journal of Pain Management, New York neurologist Michael Weintraub reported that 24 patients found magnetic footpad insoles worn for 16 weeks partially relieved chronic foot pain caused by diabetic neuropathy. A larger study enrolling 400 patients is planned. 

Despite these encouraging reports, an equal number exist in the medical literature that appear to show no apparent benefit to magnet therapy at all. The authors often admit that they may need to use stronger magnets, or apply them for greater time periods. I hope that sometime before I have to finish reading the next 30,823 web pages on magnet therapy, someone will settle the debate. 

For more information on magnet therapy, write to The Natural Connection, c/o Pauline Bellecci MD, PO Box 777, Waycross, GA 31502 or contact us on our web site www.swampdocs.com 

©2000-2003 Pauline M. Bellecci, MD