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Comment by psychphysic | Hacker News Reader

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...?

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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...

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).

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

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.

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