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Comment by unsupp0rted | Hacker News Reader

I wondered why electricity would help a wound heal in the first place.

> The inflammation associated with these wounds can disrupt the body’s normal electric signals, impeding the migration of new cells that can support the healing process.

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Honestly, that is indistinguishable from the crystal mumbojumbo you get. And it feels like we're at the magic/science interface with electrotherapy.

That said it is somewhat suspect, and the hypothesis is not really falsifiable by the experiment which is why the journal article itself is not claiming to test that. It is really disappointing that IEEE didn't actually link to or name the article directly. Very poor science journalism there.

The article is that they observed this process working, not why it works. Maybe it works because it kills bacteria...?

Nope ion concentration gradients (which also manifest as electrical potentials) serve to guide everything from white blood cells to the precursors of both replacement and scar tissue. You can mimic this signal directly by applying a potential difference.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10849...

Regardless of the low level effect, if there was a measurable difference, wouldn't it be fairly trivial to have a trial where people measure healing time of this vs a normal bandage, to see if the difference is statistically significant?

The first (small) paragraph reads:

> The first electronic bandage the body can absorb can apply electric signals to speed the healing of wounds by 30 percent, a new study finds.

the study[1], since TFA does not link to it

[1]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade4687

I saw a lecture on bio electricity and it blew my mind. I love areas of science that seem like crystal woo that turn out to be legit. Scientific groupthink creates many opportunities…

it’s disappointing to me that there’s never been a real double-blind study into healing crystals. yeah they’re very clearly placebic woo woo, but the fact that no one’s even thoroughly looked at it is a little sad. RIP James Randi

I'm more surprised that auriculotherapy was recognised by the WHO and I still struggle to find rich medical literature on the subject (maybe looking in the wrong places) although I must admit it helped me a lot, placebo or not (sure didn't feel like one... The reactions and changes were, in my case, drastic to say the least - I haven't had a painful migraine in 10 years - though I still get the other symptoms but no pain, thank doc or my gullible brain).

You should look into the book The Body Electric. The ability of electricity to heal (the doctor in the book even reports some instances of finger regrowth in humans) is remarkable.

Good to see Robert O. Becker finally getting some recognition for a lifetime of work.

your cells are sensitive to charge in general - cells attempt to maintain certain voltage differentials across their membranes via ion channels in the cell membrane, can communicate voltage information with each other via gap junctions, etc. That electrical communication does control how cells behave.

If you have 20 minutes to watch this ted talk interview I highly recommend it. My mind was blown. Your DNA determines the hardware, but there's a lot of non chemical communication that goes on between cells that determine how they behave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XheAMrS8Q1c

Once you realize that cells can effectively communicate with each other via voltage, things like whats described about electrical bandages become less surprising.

If you've got a little more time (2 hours) there's a much longer more detailed interview here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0TNfysTazc

This is some next level stuff. Imagine DNA describes what your hardware looks like, but the software your cells run may be bioelectrical in large enough ways to consider that maybe your skin has some level cognition.

That TED talk was great! Hoping to watch the other video tonight, thanks for sharing

I go back and watch that 2 hour talk every couple months.

Reminds me a bit of Michael Levin's work, where they use electrical signals to cause organisms to regrow limbs.

This sounds amazing. What animal?

I suppose it's probably an unrelated effect, but electron beams are often used for sterilizing things like food, medical packaging, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-beam_processing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation#Electron_beam

The “migration of new cells”? I thought new cells would grow in place; do they really migrate from elsewhere?

They come from blood stream, bone marrow, surrounding tissues etc

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