Why do Magnets Heal? - What is the Science behind Magnetic Healing?

First someone else's post from a few years ago:

Astonishing Find - Magnets Lower Blood Viscosity !!!
www.abovetopsecret.com...

That one was interesting and I want to take it further - I want to learn something about a healing modality that goes back to Ancient Egypt when the
Egyptians noticed they felt better when carrying or wearng loadstones [a stone with magnetic properties found naturally].

In the Middle Ages Franz Mesmer [1734-1815] a physician/scientist and the originator of hypnotism [originally called Mesmerism] brought Magnetic
healing to the people of his day:

.....Returning to the theories of his student days, Mesmer effected a cure by, as he saw it, using a magnet to disrupt the gravitational tides adversely affecting his patient. He successfully induced in Fraulein Oesterline the sensation of a fluid draining rapidly from her body, taking her illness with it. Her recovery after that was complete and virtually instantaneous.

www.historyofhypnosis.org...

Today there are many books on, and much research on using magnets for healing everything from Arthritis to Cancer - and anecdotal, if not scientific
evidence thet magnets do indeed heal.

As to why you don't see much of this in mainstream news and science, one reason is obvious - there is no big money in using magnets for healing.
In fact if magnets healed half as well as some would have you believe, they would cost medicine and big pharma trillions of dollars - could you
imagine the profit loss if it could be proven that cancer could be cured by using a strong magnetic field And yet a famous doctor showed that
cancer cells would not grow in a strong magnetic field - And there are people who claim they were healed of cancer with magnets.

The other reason you don't hear too much about it is in the supposed scientific tests on them using real people, say to see if arthritis symptoms are
relieved with magnetic therapy - some people claim relief - others no effect. Personally I know of people who have used them for arthritis, and have
relieved both pain and symptoms with no side effects.

So here is the question - Do magnets really work or is it just what they call the 'placebo effect' [thinking something is going to work makes many patients feel better] ? And if they do work, why do they work - What is the science behind Magnetic Healing

I've read about quite a few theories, Everything from they increase circulation, to the magnetic field of the Earth is getting weaker and magnets supplement the lost magnetic energy.

I uses magnets for all sorts of things, sometimes they work, but not always.

What do you know about magnets for healing I've been studying this subject for years and am still looking to learn more.

Not sure if magnets can physically alter the blood composition of a person.

However, consuming iron in the form of spinach, lettuce, raisins etc does physically raise the iron content within a persons blood hemoglobin.

From experience, simply eating lettuce and raisins in salads can raise the iron content from anemic levels (under 30) to adequate levels (50) within 2 weeks.

From Mercola.com:

The Healing Power of Magnets

"Magnets have been used for their healing properties since ancient times, and now a new study has found that they can reduce swelling when applied immediately after an inflammatory injury. In their initial study, researchers from the University of Virginia set out to investigate the effect of magnetic therapy on microcirculation, which is blood flow through tiny blood vessels. They placed magnets of 70 milliTesla (mT) field strength, which is about 10 times the strength of the common refrigerator magnet, near rats’ blood vessels and found that they dilated constricted blood vessels, and constricted vessels that were dilated. The results suggested that the magnetic filed could relax blood vessels and increase blood flow. In the more recent study, the researchers used magnets on rats’ paws that had been treated with inflammatory agents to simulate tissue injury. The magnets significantly reduced swelling in the rats’ paws by up to 50 percent when applied immediately after the injury. Dilation of blood vessels is a major cause of swelling, and it’s thought that the magnets worked by limiting blood flow. Muscle bruising and joint sprains are the most common injuries worldwide, and since injuries that don’t swell heal faster, the magnet therapy could have widespread applications. The researchers envisioned using magnets in place of ice packs and compression to treat injuries in high school, college, and professional sports teams, as well as among retirement communities.........."

See whole article here:
articles.mercola.com...

The ideas and practices of Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th-century Australian healer, had spread to the United States and, by the 1840s, held the country in thrall. Mesmer proposed that everything in the universe, including the human body, was governed by a 'magnetic fluid' that could become imbalanced, causing illness.
- Karen Abbott

"Today, magnetic therapy has been officially accepted as a medical procedure in Germany, Japan, Russia and 45 countries for the treatment of arthritis, back pain, bursitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, sinus headaches, and many inflammatory, orthopedic and neurological problems." Julian Whitaker, MD, author of The Pain Relief Breakthrough.

Champion golfer Jim Colbert relies on magnets to keep playing without back pain and discomfort, as well as increase energy. He damaged a disc in his lower back when he was 15, and played in constant pain until he discovered magnets. "I would not think of playing without magnets. I play with a bioceramic belt under my shirt and travel with the magnet sleeping pads," says Colbert.

“Magnetic energy has a beneficial effect on blood circulation, lymph flow, hormone production, nerves and muscles.” Dr. Ulrich Warnke, M.D. Magnets to Overcome Pain. The New Healing Method

“The application of a magnetic field has the virtues of simplicity, freedom from danger and low cost. It offers the lay man or woman a suitable form of self treatment for the minor ills of everyday life.” Dr. Evelyne Holzapfel

Magnetic Therapy “The magnetic field will in due time develop into a powerful new analytic and therapeutic tool of medicine.” Dr. Madeleine F. Barnothy Biological Effects of Magnetic Fields

“I can’t say anything officially yet, but let’s face it: this treatment (magnetic therapy) is a Godsend. It’s good for almost anything.” Dr. Kenneth S. Mclean, MD Bioenergy Newsletter, Feb. 1986

“Besides being easy, efficient and inexpensive, magnet therapy holds, furthermore, a total guarantee of safety.” Dr. Louis Donnet, M.D. Magnets for Your Health

Quote source:
jpkreations.info...

They don't heal. Its a load of bollocks. Even the guy sells those popular power bracelets admitted they do nothing.

Magnetic pads have good healing power according my experience, but another question is, how much it will help eventually as then some other problem comes up, if we take one disease away too easily. We suppose to learn from our problems, here what the yogis say,
______beforeitsnews/health/2016/05/magic-cure-may-cause-magic-reaction-2634219.html

I have used to cure my arm which was in very bad condition with magnetic pad (Keshe, I don't know if there is something else too in that) also my back leg etc problems, so that I could write my book hours and hours sitting on computer without any pain, but then other problems started to come up. As the yogis say you can't avoid karmic reactions by miracle cures. Anyhow the magnetic method is not at least that bad as psychic healing seems like.

What comes to mesmerism, I think that is one example of psychic healing - without magnet or with.

a reply to: AlienView

Magnets heal because they are attracted to you.

A few years ago I bought a box of Neodymium magnetic balls that are about 3/16" in diameter. I would put them into different shapes and set them on my desk. I was bored one day and I picked them up and started running them around my fingers. Just squeezing the group and letting them flow around my hands. I have a mild case of arthritis in my hands that starts to get painful after using a keyboard and trackball for several hours. Playing with the magnets alleviated the pain. The next time I saw my doctor for a check-up I took the magnets with me, showed him what I was doing and asked if it could do any harm. He told me that unless I pinched the skin between the magnets or left them where they could cut off circulation they would do no harm. He asked why I was asking and I told them about how they relieved the pain in my hands. He took them and did the same thing that I was doing and admitted that they made his hands feel better.

Do I believe that the pain relief is caused by the magnetic fields, I don't know. I tend to lean more towards playing with the magnetic balls is basically a stretching exercise with the pressure of the balls pulling towards each other more of a massage. All I do know is that it does help.

originally posted by: AlienView
What do you know about magnets for healing

I've been studying this subject for years and am still looking to learn more.

I read this article a few months back...

www.biomagnetismushealth.com...

...and have since been trying to find more on this...

In 1780 the researcher, Abate Bartholon, published the effects of magnetic fields of a magnet on the fluids that produced the existence of life and growth of plants and animals.

I can't find anything about "Abate Bartholon", not even his nationality, so I am not sure where to look (admittedly I haven't as yet got hard-down to looking, but Google has been particularly unyielding). My interest ties in with Louis Pasteur's work on magnetism and fermentation (also mentioned in the above article), not so much on the healing basis, although balancing/directing oxidation is potentially a common denominator.

Don't suppose, given your shared interest in the topic that you might have any pointers that may help? I kind of feel that "Abate" is a title or designation rather than a first name. Have you heard of the work?

This is interesting

a reply to: AlienView

Let me say first off I'm not a fan of Mercola.
However I am a fan of using a heavier magnetic field for health benefits. Can't say I know how it works, just that for me it does. I've not found that using magnets works, but have found that going places that have an increased magnetic field helps me. Little off the wall, I know.


Don't even get me started on my first MRI!
It was amazing!! I felt better from that than I did the antibiotics.
Go figure?

a reply to: Caver78

Yes, that is interesting - One of the reasons that have been given when the issue of the safety of using magnets comes up is
that if magnets were not safe how could you explain that MRIs which generate very high magnetic fields are safe - safer
than Cat Scans which have been implicated in an increased risk of cancer. I asked for a MRI instead of a cat scan as part of general health check-up and they would not OK it - probably they cost more - And if I really want to be cynical about modern medicine, why use a safe imaging technique - after all cancer is a multi-trillion dollar industry.

Many years ago a doctot William H. Philpott, MD had observed that cancer cells can not grow in a strong magnetic field; Others say mamy bacteria and infections can also be blocked by north pole magnetic fields.

Magnet Therapy : An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide

William H. Philpott, M.D., Dwight K. Kalita, Ph.D., and Burton Goldberg teamed up to write Magnet Therapy, a comprehensive guide to using magnets in the prevention and cure of disease. The authors explain that "electromagnetic energy is an integral part of the human body. It can help produce illness and help bring healing, depending on its type and strength." We are surrounded by electromagnetism--nearly everything produces magnetic fields, including the human body. Magnets have two poles--north, or positive; and south, or negative. Generally, negative magnetic fields are used in healing. Positive can be used only in special instances and under medical supervision. The authors clearly explain the sources of magnetism and how it works in the body. They then describe, in general, how negative electromagnetic fields are used to stimulate the body's ability to heal. The bulk of the book is devoted to listing of 35 health conditions, complete with a description of causes and detailed instructions on using magnet therapy to prevent and heal each condition. Health problems discussed include addictions, heart disease, diabetes, children's ailments, and reproductive organ diseases. "While magnet therapy may just now be gaining more widespread use and popularity in the United States and elsewhere, the use of magnetic energy for healing dates back thousands of years." Magnet Therapy provides all the information readers need to begin using this ancient technique to improve and maintain their health.

Source of quote:
www.amazon.com...

originally posted by: AlienView
Astonishing Find - Magnets Lower Blood Viscosity !!!

No, they do not, that test only worked with blood in a tube for two hours. Please post the studies that were done with blood within human vessels.

As to why you don't see much of this in mainstream news and science, one reason is obvious - there is no big money in using magnets for healing.

You have to bear in mind that the US is just one country in the world, there are almost 60 countries with social health paid by governments who would love to spend less money and there are always promoting cheaper cures. Magnets are ignored by science because they don't work.

Many years ago a doctot William H. Philpott, MD had observed that cancer cells can not grow in a strong magnetic field

Cancer cells in a petri dish, which is completely different from cancer cells inside a person. Besides that, how can you trust a man who is selling 'Dr. Philpott Designed and Approved Polar Power Super Bed Grid' at $3000 each? So he's not into this for the money? Link to his shopping site.

There have been several studies on the healing effect of magnets, without positive results so far. I can post the links to those studies if you wish. They only have a placebo effect and they are making some people really rich, Dr Philpott for example.

originally posted by: Rapha
Not sure if magnets can physically alter the blood composition of a person.

They don't, it's physiologically impossible. The iron in haemoglobin is not ferromagnetic, or people would explode when they have an MRI scan.

However, consuming iron in the form of spinach, lettuce, raisins etc does physically raise the iron content within a persons blood hemoglobin.

We only have 4 atoms of iron per haemoglobin, and the non ferromagnetic type.

Can Magnetic Therapy Relieve Pain?

Why All The Excitement? Is it all about money and a placebo effect or is the cynical, skeptical scientific community missing something? I have spoken to numerous patients and people I have met who stand by the benefits of magnetic therapy.

The problem is that we have many clinical and anecdotal claims of a therapeutic benefit with little science to back them up. To date, everyone points to a few studies demonstrating a positive effect. One study was in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in November 1997 by Dr. Carlos Vallbona of the Baylor University School of Medicine. Dr. Vallbona was skeptical of the effectiveness of magnets until he strapped one on his own painful knee with dramatic relief.
Vallbona studied 50 post-polio patients with painful arthritic joints. He randomly gave active or inactive magnets to the patients to strap onto their painful trigger points for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, 76 percent of the “active” magnet patients reported pain relief while only 19 percent of the “inactive” group reported less pain. He has no explanation for this phenomenon, but appropriately encourages further double-blinded research.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health published an excellent current review on “Magnets for Pain.“ After reviewing all of the scientific literature, including double-blinded studies, they conclude that the “majority of rigorous trials, however, have found no effect on pain.”They do point out that there are many variables still to be studied such as the strength of the magnet, frequency of use, type of magnet and length of time it is used.
See whole article here:
www.huffingtonpost.com...

Personal experience has shown: 1. Most ot the 'so-called' medical magnets sold are too weak to have any effect.
2. They are not like taking a medicine where you can expect an effect in say 45 minutes - Magnetic fields can take
anywhere from hours to days to have a therapeutic effect. 3. Again, from personal testimonials they seem to work on some
people and have no effect on others - same could be said about many medicines. 4. The placebo effect is hard to measure
but clinical trial have shown that many people feel better when given 'sugar pills' when they are told they are taking a
medicine that will heal them

And finally, and on the plus side, very few side effects have been reported with magnetic therapy.

a reply to: [post=20755631]AlienView[/pos

Interesting thread as I have a few magnets laying around, and have done a few experiments, I don't think its the magnetic field that does much, I think its the electrical field that has all the oomph. In the cells of the Salamanders, when they regenerate a limb, the stump becomes negatively charged. Which means an excess cloud of electrons hover around it, and regenerate the limb, in humans this doesn't happen. I know that some bones that wont knit are placed in an electrical field and they then knit together without much trouble.
Faraday claimed that the voltaic pile had healing qualities, and it was all the rage at one time. I observed the "pixie ointment" was composed of Zinc which acts as the neg. side in a pile ,which was claimed to regenerate a severed finger. That might be a possibility, as an electron cloud might hold around with the stump fluid acting like an electrolyte.

originally posted by: AlienView
First someone else's post from a few years ago:

Astonishing Find - Magnets Lower Blood Viscosity !!!

Well, that wasn't really 'healing'. And it took 3T at the artery lumen, so it's not the sort of effect you can get with a refrigerator magnet. Oddly, there doesn't seem to have been any follow-up at all by anyone, but I haven't done a really good search, TBH. That's interesting, because generally that means either no-one's interested or the experiment was considered flawed.

I want to learn something about a healing modality that goes back to Ancient Egypt when the
Egyptians noticed they felt better when carrying or wearng loadstones [a stone with magnetic properties found naturally].

Not being that familiar with Egyptology (the real sort), I'm not sure they DID notice this. Are there non-ct site cites that would describe this belief?

But even if they did, you'd have to assume there's some aspect of that you could ascribe to the fact that lodestones are different. They attract each other, they point in the same direction if you hang them from a thread etc. A very astute Egyptian might notice that the behavior is 'contagious' to soft iron needles and the like. Since they act oddly, then they'd be interesting. As opposed, say, to some random bit of lake weed.

In the Middle Ages Franz Mesmer [1734-1815] a physician/scientist and the originator of hypnotism [originally called Mesmerism] brought Magnetic
healing to the people of his day:

But Mesmer pretty quickly decided that the magnets were superfluous, and that he got exactly the same results whether he used a real magnet or a piece of metal, or nothing at all except waving his hands about. Since he was sort of emotionally committed to the concept that magnetism of SOME sort was involved, he coined the concept of 'animal magnetism' to explain the decided lack of efficacy for real magnetism. But the entire thing was just hypnosis.

Today there are many books on, and much research on using magnets for healing everything from Arthritis to Cancer - and anecdotal, if not scientific
evidence thet magnets do indeed heal.

Yeah, but a lot of people think crystals do something for healing, too, and that's also bogus.

As to why you don't see much of this in mainstream news and science, one reason is obvious - there is no big money in using magnets for healing.

Another reason is more obvious - they don't work. Don't you think this has been tested a lot?

So here is the question - Do magnets really work or is it just what they call the 'placebo effect'

They're just the thing for motors and loudspeakers. Dandy for generators. Can't do an MRI without them. But you can't wave a bar magnet around and heal cancer due to the magic healing power.

You can use time-varying magnetic fields to induce a current into various things - your brain for one - and the resulting electrical current can cause sort of random changes in behavior. Tossing the dice can sometimes be an improvement.

I've also seen induction used to heat limbs or whatnot the same way - it's how one sort of diathermy machine works - and in the past that was used to overwarm solid tumors. Since solid tumors don't have great circulation internally, that often would kill the center of the tumor. A more recent twist involves getting the tumor cells to selectively uptake some sort of metallic particle that will be heated far more by the magnetic field than the diathermy effect on the other tissue.

But these aren't 'magnetic healing', it's just using induction.

originally posted by: Rapha
However, consuming iron in the form of spinach, lettuce, raisins etc does physically raise the iron content within a persons blood hemoglobin.

While that might be good if you're anemic, hemoglobin isn't magnetic in the conventional sense. You can't attract it with a magnet, for instance.

Not every form of iron is going to go 'clink' and stick to a magnet. That is called ferromagnetism, and it's the sort of behavior you'd get from metallic iron.

Hemoglobin is very slightly diamagnetic when oxygenated, and very slightly paramagnetic when not. So it has a tiny, almost undetectable tendency to move to or away from magnetic fields. This would be the sort of thing you'd have difficulty spotting outside a very good lab setup.

a reply to: anonentity

I don't think its the magnetic field that does much, I think its the electrical field that has all the oomph

Isn't that the same thing? Aren't magnetic fields electrical in nature?

And you reminded me of something - So called Quack Medical devices are collectible - One that I came across used an electrical current to heal bones - It use to be considered a quack medical device until modeern science found it did indeed help to heal bones.

A relative used to be a physical therapist and I once asked him about magnets - He said what they use is 'pulsing magneteic fields' - Not quite the same as fixed pole magnets - But like I said there is not much money ot be made off of fixed magnets so the 'quack watchers' might as well keep quacking.

Again anecdotal: I had chronic pain in my shoulder and had it x-rayed - It showed nothing wrong with my shoulder but
showed, what I already knew, that I had arthritis of the spine and neck. So the magnets which I was using on my shoulder,
without success, I moved to my spine near the neck - Guess what? - The shoulder healed and it was quite bad limiting motion and making it difficult to use my computer mouse and to drive, and by keeping the magnets in the area of the spine/neck [I wear them 24/7] the shoulder pain has not returned.

Healing with magnets is sometimes a little like acupuncture - You have to know where to put them - have the correct pole
[usually North] facing the body and try to estimate the right strength magnet to use - It is still more of an art than a science.

a reply to: AlienView



The magnetic field of a permanent magnet, is a bit like a coiled up spring, but if its made to pulse mechanically, as in a generator , it attracts or repels electrons in a enamelled copper wire, this produces a North an South field which can be turned on and off, as long as they are wound around something that's ferrous. If something other then a ferrous metal has an electric current going through it, it automatically becomes magnet and attracts a permanent magnet.
Similarly a metal like copper which has more electrons in it than it needs, if touched by another metal, the spare electrons tend to head for the other metal until the electron count in each is the same. But if they are separated by an electrolyte like salt or vinegar, that's dampened in the solution then a wire touching both of them starts up an electric circuit, that keeps going. The copper pushes out electrons usually into the other metal and so on. That' s the principle of the voltaic pile.
When this was tried out, they didn't know what it was, or what to do with it, but Galvani found that severed frogs leg twitched, if touched in the circuit and fresh damaged carcases of animals produced a current probably due to the Lactic acid build up in the wound. So a wound has an increased voltage, which might be a good clue, and cells have a capacitance, which means thay can store electrons,so if you put yourself in a small circuit like that of a voltaic pile,your body will act as a Capcitor and store up electrons,which might do something.Or not as the case may be.

a reply to: AlienView

It is still more of an art than a science.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: AlienView

It is still more of an art than a science.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't?

Here from a company that manufactures their own type of magnets is an interesting article:

Does magnet therapy work to cure ailments sometimes, often, always or never?

"Like many health questions, the answer is…It depends –> on the type of magnetic therapy and the ailment. In terms of Neuromagnetics, which is magnetic therapy that correctly applies a static inhomogeneous field directly over the pain or the nerves that innervate that area, the answer would be often".

There are many critics of magnetic therapy such as this one, and their arguments are valid if they are referring to fridge magnets. But they are throwing out the baby with the bath water; the science has moved on. Newer rare earth magnets such as Neodymium are 50 times more powerful than flexible rubber magnets. Anyone with a gauss meter can test that Q magnet models such as the QF28-6 can penetrate up 50mm, not a few mm as the critics state.

In addition new research shows that static magnetic fields do affect living tissue as shown in these 10 animal and cell studies. In fact one study showed how common bipolar magnets had no effect on the firing of action potentials, whereas quadrapolar magnets were able to almost completely block action potential firing. This fits in with the theory that there exists a “window of effectiveness” for the therapeutic application of static magnetic fields. This is where more research needs to be conducted and is underway to better understand where this window exists. This is no different for pharmaceuticals, where the drug needs to be tested for efficacy within the dose range and then tested for safety. However, the research on pharmaceuticals probably outspends the research on static magnets by about 100,000:1. No wonder such a chasm exists in the science.

See whole article here:
qmagnets.com...


I can not speak for this company and say whether their magnets are any better than the industrial type flat magnets I buy online from companies listed on the internet. PLEASE NOTE though that these type of magnets were not specifically designed for medical use and if used by a person for that purpose it is at their own risk AND because for most purposes it is only the NORTH pole of the magnet that is supposed to be used [considered safer and less likely to cause inflammation] one needs a small compass to establish polarity - DISClaIMER: Use such magnets 'at your own risk' and be careful how you handle them as you can develop a pinch type injury [some are very powerful] if you don't handle them carefully.

AGAIN DISCLAIMER - I use these magnets and have not had any side effects and good results with arthritis pain and stiffness BUT I am NOT recommending that you use them for any purpose.



"Today, magnetic therapy has been officially accepted as a medical procedure in Germany, Japan, Russia and 45 countries for the treatment of arthritis, back pain, bursitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, sinus headaches, and many inflammatory, orthopedic and neurological problems." Julian Whitaker, MD, author of The Pain Relief Breakthrough.