not kidding here, but could this shed new light onthose homeopaths/acupuncturists who put magnets on their wrists, etc. to increase blood flow?
I went into it with as open a mind as I could muster, and was told the following:
- The magnets are arranged so that there's a positive magnetic field in the middle surrounded by a ring of negative magnetic field
- Blood cells are clumped and this arrangement of magnetic fields pulls apart the clumps, making the blood cells more efficient
- The magnetic field also ionizes your blood, giving the cells a positive charge so they can hold more oxygen (!)
- They don't claim that it's a medical device because pharmacies won't let them (so as to get more money from doctors prescribing medicine)
- The sales girl's pet cat is way more friendly since starting to use one of their magnet things
I checked their website which yielded further such gems as:
- Magnotherapy has been used for centuries by humans and animals to aid healing
- It is reported that Cleopatra wore a small magnet on her forehead to preserve her beauty and youthfulness!
- Our magnets use a strong, multi-directional force of magnetism called ‘Central Reverse Polarity®’ also referred to as ‘CRP®’, to mimic the expensive professional equipment used by physiotherapists. Molecules that exit a CRP® field are more efficient than those produced by standard magnets.
- The use of a Central Reverse Polarity magnetic field therefore has a three-fold effect on the body’s energy levels (talking at a molecular level);
-- It activates the release of energy
-- It boosts the volume of stored energy
-- It acts as a catalyst by providing energy to increase the rate of chemical reactions.
tl;dr no.
Spoiler: Don't try to fight bacterial infections with lasers.
There is also clear, well-documented evidence that homeopathic magnets have no effect beyond a placebo.
> That is, in let’s say a drug testing experiment, you give some people the drug and they recover. That doesn’t tell you much until you give some other people a placebo drug you know doesn’t work – but which they themselves believe in – and see how many of them recover. That number tells you how many people will recover whether the drug works or not. Unless people on your real drug do significantly better than people on the placebo drug, you haven’t found anything.
> On the meta-level, you’re studying some phenomenon and you get some positive findings. That doesn’t tell you much until you take some other researchers who are studying a phenomenon you know doesn’t exist – but which they themselves believe in – and see how many of them get positive findings. That number tells you how many studies will discover positive results whether the phenomenon is real or not. Unless studies of the real phenomenon do significantly better than studies of the placebo phenomenon, you haven’t found anything.
> Trying to set up placebo science would be a logistical nightmare. You’d have to find a phenomenon that definitely doesn’t exist, somehow convince a whole community of scientists across the world that it does, and fund them to study it for a couple of decades without them figuring it out.
> Luckily we have a natural experiment in terms of parapsychology – the study of psychic phenomena – which most reasonable people believe don’t exist, but which a community of practicing scientists believes in and publishes papers on all the time.
And now for the cliffhanger: so how does real science fare against its control group? (The answer is in the article.)
But we both seem to agree that people should read the article.