Using Me!

Magnetic Therapy, the Evidence

In preparation for my pursuit of the claims made by the purveyors of magnetic bracelets I decided to Google “Clinical Trial Magnet Therapy” in an attempt to find some proper trials and evidence. Conversely if you Google “Magnetic Healing” you’ll find thousands of hits for sales of the devices, their claims and no evidence.

My top 10 hits were:

1. BMJ Article on trials in 2006.

I don’t have access to this full article but based on other articles that refer to it, the findings were negative and the trial was rigorous.

2. A website trying to sell books on Magnet Therapy

The front page refers to three trials that produced positive results but there are no references to any papers so I cannot check for double-blinding etc.

3. The American Cancer Society

Although there are anecdotal reports of healing with magnetic therapy, available scientific evidence does not support these claims. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers magnets harmless and of no use for medical purposes.

Enough said!

4. A Wikipedia Article

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.

The above quote just from the introduction links to two books and one article alone.

5. Anesthesia and Analgesia

A very good summary on how hard it is to disprove something that has so many claimed benefits. Fortunately trials have been run in some specific areas and if one claim is shown to be false it casts the others in a very poor light. Not only that but when it comes to advertising you have to be able to show evidence for your claims not a lack of evidence to the contrary.

6. Strangely is the same as hit number 5.

7. The ‘evidence’ from a company selling Magnetic Therapy products

There is a vast amount of text on this site and I have read through a good chunk of it. By following a few links one can get some excerpts of research papers which have been published. Some of these excerpts show that the trials were improperly conducted. One on Asthma in children shows that there was no sham group to compare with for example. Another that stood out for me shows such extraordinary results that I wish I had a subscription to the Journal that published it to see if there were any follow-ups or rebuttals.

RESULTS: Wounds in the magnet group healed in an average of 15.3 days, significantly faster than those in either the sham group (20.9 days, P = .006) or control group (20.3 days, P < .0001). There was no statistically significant difference between the sham and control groups (P = .45).

CONCLUSIONS: An externally applied, low-power, static magnetic field increases the rate of secondary healing. Review of the literature reveals conflicting evidence regarding the use of magnetic energy to aid the healing of bone, tendon, and skin. Level I studies are lacking and difficult to execute but are needed to define conclusively the role of magnets in clinical practice.

Eplasty: Journal of Burns and Wounds. 2008 July. 25;8:e40. PMID: 18725953

The claim is that a magnet caused the rats’ wounds to heal 25% quicker. That’s an astonishing claim and one that ought to be researched further if there has been no flaws found in the trial. But putting myself in the place of a researcher on the trial I can think of a dozen problems that might be found, e.g.

• I made the wounds on the control group a little deeper
• I treated the control group a little more roughly when measuring their progress
• I fed and watered the magnet group with more/better food

etc. etc.

8. A site with links to trials with positive outcomes

There are more than twenty trials listed here but not a single one of them is one of those that reported nothing more than a placebo effect. Since those studies exist and since nowhere on this site, as far as I can find, do they mention any doubts about the efficacy of the treatment, there is an obvious bias here. I didn’t take the time to read all of the studies but to take the first one mentioned:

At 4 hours, VAS pain scores (+/- SE) on a 5-item scale (0-500, 500 worst) decreased 79 +/- 18 mm in the active group and 10 +/- 21 mm in the placebo group (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in any primary or secondary measure of efficacy between the treatment groups at 6 weeks. Despite widespread testing for magnetic properties, at study end, 69% of the active group and 77% of the placebo group (P > 0.2) believed that they had been assigned to the active treatment group. CONCLUSION: Despite our small sample size, magnets showed statistically significant efficacy compared to placebo after 4 hours under rigorously controlled conditions.

I don’t see how they can possibly have that conclusion! After a session the patients showed better pain reduction with magnets than with sham treatment. Fair enough but has there been any attempt to blind the medical staff giving the treatment from whether it is real or sham? Studies have shown that this is hugely important to the outcome. It is not mentioned.

The final outcome after six weeks of treatment shows no difference in efficacy. That alone shows that the treatment was no more than placebo. After the trial is over the subtleties of patient response to the professional will have decayed and the actual efficacy becomes more apparent to the patient.

Given that the above disagree with each other, I have to conclude that the response to a session must be down to some factor during the session, that possibly being the professional’s knowledge of which treatment is being administered.

9. Alternative Medicine at About.com

Reference is made to 5 papers and the site must be given some credit for appearing balanced. However it does end up being rather confused because of it. It starts by saying there is little evidence but then states.

Even though claims that magnetic therapy can treat diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis are unfounded, there is some evidence that it may help relieve pain related to these chronic conditions

It claims that Arthritic and Pelvic pain studies are positive. On the other hand it states that a fybromalgia study failed to account for the better quality of beds patients were resting in and that

in studies on the use of magnetic therapy for relief of chronic low back pain and wrist pain related to carpal tunnel syndrome, researchers found magnets no more effective than placebo treatments

Again, credit to them for at giving both positive and negative findings.

10. The National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

There is actually the best source of information in the top 10 links. It gives a good overview of what the treatment has been used for, historically and contemporarily, what magnets are, how they are used, what the speculation is over what they might do, and what the trials show.

Preliminary scientific studies of magnets for pain have produced mixed results. Overall, there is no convincing scientific evidence to support claims that magnets can relieve pain of any type. Some studies, including a recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinical trial for back pain, suggest the possibility of a small benefit from using magnets for pain. However, the majority of rigorous studies have found no effect on pain.

Notice they say preliminary and notice that they go on to say:

More research on magnets for pain is needed before reaching any firm conclusion.

More rigorous research is needed before reaching any firm conclusions about the effectiveness of magnets for pain.

They have been very professional in their approach to the topic but I do think those two statements indicate they really really want to believe it’ll work. I’d disagree and say that the best run studies have shown there is no benefit above placebo and that they constitute a large enough body of evidence to put the subject to rest. Either way it’s a good page on the subject.

Summary

So far I have not found any good quality trials with positive results. I haven’t even found any trials yet that cover most of the claims of the Trion:Z bracelets – reduced stress, better concentration, more powerful golf swings etc! The Cochrane Organization doesn’t have any meta-analyses on any Magnet-related subject.