The effects of grounding on inflammation
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
After some digging I have found papers of higher scientific veracity pointing to grounding being useful in reducing inflammation and potentially improving sleep quality. I remember seeing a meta-review come out in 2018-2020 which concluded that there is a warm-level of evidence pointing to a health-promoting effect of grounding on the human body. Some of the papers that met the inclusion criteria I think were assessed to have low quality of evidence, though.
I don't have a strong enough background in science to know who's right here, but I do have sleep problems so I try to do everything I can to improve it. So I do ground my bed and the space near my keyboard so that I spend a decent amount of the day grounded; and I also consider it to be a completely effortless proposition with possibly a positive contribution to my health. Or, in the worst-case scenario, there's no benefit and I wasted maybe $10 on the copper wiring that I used to DIY it together. If I were a betting man my guess is that I will eventually throw this setup away when the science ends up being properly debunked; but I'm open to potentially investing more when the evidence becomes stronger.
Note: it might take away the positive effects of the therapy, as there is now an antenna to ground that takes away the "antenna effect" of the body.
Grounding is one of those pseudoscience topics that never seems to die because someone, somewhere will produce another study claiming dramatic positive results and the true believers will conveniently ignore any studies that don’t confirm their beliefs. Real researchers won’t touch these topics because they don’t want to be associated with such pseudoscience, so much of the published research comes from quack medicine practitioners.
How would one do this, assuming the patient isn't a sphere with uniform resistance and an evenly distributed charge density?
You wouldn’t use a clamp for something like this. You would use a sense resistor.
You wouldn’t clamp something on, you would use a sense resistor.
1. 10fA resolution, over 400 billion times more sensitive: https://smt.at/en/products/electrometer-nv-meter/picoamperem...
2. > 1 million times more sensitive, with GΩ sense resistor: https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/7018-06774/data-sheets...
I’ll try to estimate the most current we could expect. Some googling throws up that a human body has ~30pF of capacitance, and that static electricity can be up to 20kV in very dry conditions. That’s 600 nanocoulombs of charge. If we guess that you’re building that up once once every minute (what a terrible existence, getting a big shock 60 times an hour!), then the grounding strap would be carrying ~10nA continuously.
https://cysticfibrosisnewstoday.com/cystic-fibrosis-diagnosi....
Plus if there was significant charge in your body, or structure you would feel it.
Here is an experiment, your tongue is sensitive to less than a volt, touch you tongue to a water pipe, or your fridge or washing machine. Feel any sparks or tingles?
If the answer is no then you were already very close to ground potential.
If you are prone to accumulating static electricity then a pointy foil hat will help bleed it off more quickly (that's a joke, but it's not).
All of these actions we take as part of our lifestyle have a profound effect on our physiology on the macro level; but we're not likely to notice any single factor's contribution in isolation.
If you want to test this go shuffle across carpet in your socks for a hot minute and then touch the faucet.
It is assumed that body has a balance of negative and positive charges, but not necessarily, because the purpose of "grounding" in any practical sense is to equalise the charge between two objects so there is no potential difference so the will be no current flow.
All sorts of BS arguments then start emerging, "but what about if the outside of your body is +ve and inside is -ve ?", Well where does the energy for that come from? Or do you have a little charge daemon in there splitting out charges and pushing them to the exterior?
I've heard them all and they are all BS from people that understand little to nothing about charge and electricity.
Would love to be proven wrong by someone that did, because that would mean I would learn something, maybe something very interesting, but still waiting.
I think that's the essence of what this pseudo-scientific nonsense is trying to assert, which is false.
I agree, but it's important to fight pseudoscience with actual facts.
First one was related to ignition sources for explosive atmospheres, I have recognised certification for classification and design of equipment for explosive atmospheres and depending on the gas/liquid sometimes such things need to be considered.
Secondly, my ex wife got a fibromyalgia diagnosis, along with a thyroid problem and this made her skin very dry and she had a lot of static problems (problems were sparks when she reached out to touch metallic objects, basically). The dry skin limited the normal rate of bleed off that occurs of static. If you know someone always getting static shocks when others don't, have them get their thyroid checked.
There is a whole raft of issues associated, like atmospheric electricity etc.
But, one thing to consider is any body charge someone does have is a result of the triboelectric effect, which is charge seperation, no charge is created, it's just shuffled around and concentrations of +ve or -ve charges accumulate in one place, but the tendancy is always to try and even out, like water finding level.
If you want to really see a report of static so extreme it acted as an invisible wall, or force field, read the following link, but no associated reports of harm were ever made.
The point of my comment was that you probably come from a humid climate, because in dry climates, with plastic everywhere (as you correctly say, charge buildup from triboelectric effects), you do feel it, often. The whole industry behind ESD testing, protection, straps, sensors, and equipment wouldn't exist if charge buildup on humans were rare. As an electrical engineer, you should certainly know about the human body model [1] and have possibly even used an ESD gun to meet the relevant ESD standards (probably MIL-STD-883H for you, ANSI for my line of work).
> any body charge someone does have is a result of the triboelectric effect, which is charge seperation, no charge is created
I don't think this is relevant, since I'm not aware of a power source that creates charges, that a human would be intentionally exposed to. But, that doesn't matter, in this context. Where the +ve is at the time is irrelevant if the accumulation of -ve (or visa versa, I don't know anything about "grounding" stuff) on the body is what is claimed to cause the problems. The separation of that charge appears to be the the problem, with the "grounding" acting as a way to keep the "water level", rather than "eventually level".
"Evidence for a connection between coronavirus disease-19 and exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless communications including 5G"
Which I guess in some sense might also possibly be true, but I gotta say it's a pretty bad opening sign.
The article you cited mentions "evidence". If there was indeed "evidence", we would know it for a fact.
These articles merely try to attract facts-ignoring audience to which they can then spread misinformation that cannot easily be disproved. While these people are busy theorizing about the plausibility of the suggested idea, they are easily manipulated. The reason is that they would only be trusting the misinformation spreaders because only their opinions would be compatible with their understanding of the world.
It is, unfortunately, as simple as that. Create misinformation that cannot possibly be disproved. Spread it out. Watch as people waste years coming with crazy constructions of hypothetical worlds where whatever you claim might potentially be true. Profit off of their stupidity by having huge influence on their opinions. Rinse and repeat.
This is how Putin's propaganda works. And this is also how Trump's lies work.
The Earth has special electrons. Yeah right.
What I would believe is that, in a dry climate, one regularly picks up some static charge that dissipates through tiny discharges (shocks) when touching something sufficiently large at a different potential, e.g. anything grounded. Grounding oneself will change that to a more continuous very very tiny current and one moves around and accumulates charges. Maybe this has an effect?
Nowhere in the article is this stated. Walking barefoot on soil would ground the body, as opposed to being in shoes. That's it. It's not woo woo. Either your body is grounded or it isn't. Any electrician knows this.
The article is stating that your body regularly may be carrying some charge (again talk to anyone who works on computers), and (according to their studies) yes it has an effect on your health.
I read a little bit about grounding, shrugged my shoulders, and spent a week exercising barefoot in the backyard (I had previously done the same exercises with shoes on). No noticeable impact.
Something like burpees should have caused some indentation to the ground!
But anyway, this theory could easily be tested by designing a special mouse cage which is grounded, and looking for differences in inflammation using standard models.
And it seems to me that this, if true, certainly could have an explanation other than electrical grounding.
Nothing else even comes close.
If any of what they claim about "grounding" was true, the doctors would notice it a long time ago and they would be wiring patients to ground potential for decades already.
This article is likely a deliberate attempt to trick and confuse people who are prone to believe almost any misinformation. Such people might believe that Covid vaccines contain chips or that Trump won the 2020 election or that there were no Moon landings or that the Earth is flat or that Putin is actually entitled to attack "nazis" in Ukraine.
Unfortunately, the same people are prone to believe all these lies. And, also unfortunately, they are unlikely to believe any sane information which disproves them.
It is in my opinion a dangerous state. Consider that there is a massive group of people who are completely brainwashed by these misinformation campaigns. They are easily manipulated by those who spread misinformation because in their eyes those people are the only ones who have an opinion that is compatible with their understanding of the world. Even when it is completely nuts, against any logic and against any science.
I'm not sure if this is how medicine works. There are many practices that 'should be obvious' as health promoting but weren't put into place clinically until recently. For example, bright, early morning sunlight for alleviating depression and anxiety; or using infrared light for reducing local inflammation and reducing pain.
We've been able to use electromagnetism to our advantage for hundreds of years, but only within the last decade or so these two use cases which look incredibly obvious in retrospect have become common place. So I don't think doctors are always 'quick to notice'. However, I think most of your latter points are correct.
What I am saying is that medicine is a science and as such uses the scientific method. The people involved in it can develop vaccines, perform neurosurgery, etc. They do not need a bunch of misinformation spreaders to tell them that there is this great "life hack" that everyone has been missing all these years.
If there was e.g. a considerable disproportion in the healing time of the same kind of wounds in patients from hospitals A and B, the doctors and other scientists would look into it, even decades ago. If "grounding" of hospital beds was to be the root cause, they would have noticed it and investigated it.
Yet, no such "discovery" was ever made.