Magnetic Therapy For Pain: Does It Work?

Magnetic Therapy for pain, or treatment using magnets, is claimed to be able to relieve arthritis, joint pain, muscle pain, shoulder pain, back ache, neck ache, period pain, stress and various other discomforts and conditions. But is there any evidence for the effectiveness of magnet therapy for pain?

There are some scientific studies indicating that magnetic therapy for pain relief may be of some help and particularly when used for joint pain as in osteoarthritis. The studies are not conclusive and magnetic therapyfor pain is probably the most controversial therapy included on this site. I am including it because so many folk ask about it,

Research Into Magnetic Therapy For Pain

Magnetic Therapy research was reviewed in August 2002 in 'The Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.' Author Rebecca Ratterman summarized the results of seven studies, all of them published in reputable medical journals. She noted that the findings were mixed and that all the studies contained problematic flaws - they were very small, or they weren't truly double-blind (subjects and/or researchers may have known who was in which trial group), and so on. "Ratterman concluded:

"... there is clearly a need for more scientifically sound studies. This critical review of the state of the science of magnet therapy has not demonstrated adequate scientific support to justify its use in clinical practice ... while magnetic therapy is in popular use, the scientific evidence to support its use is limited, at best."

Magnetic Therapy: Plausible Attraction?

From a 1998 article in The Skeptics Society Journal.

Long considered only a component of quack medicine, magnetic therapy has received a boost from a recent study at the Baylor College of Medicine. Is it plausible? by James D. Livingston

A double-blind study at Baylor College of Medicine, published last November in Archives of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (Vallbona 1997), concluded that permanent magnets reduce pain in post-polio patients, and the results were heralded in The New York Times and on Bryant Gumbel's Public Eye.

PBS's Health Week and Time magazine recently reported on the growing use of magnets by champion senior golfers and other professional athletes to relieve joint pain. Magnetic pain relief products are now sold in many golf shops, and ads for them appear in national golf and tennis magazines..."

"Long a significant component of the health industry in Japan and China, magnetic therapy is becoming a more and more visible part of the alternative-medicine boom in the United States and Europe. Is it all just hokum, as many previously assumed, or is magnetic therapy becoming scientifically respectable? ..."

"The broadest explanation (as to why it works) was presented by Dr. Kyochi Nakagawa of Japan, who claims that many of our modern ills result from "Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome." The earth's magnetic field is known to have decreased about 6 percent since 1830, and indirect evidence suggests that it may have decreased as much as 30 percent over the last millennium. He argues that magnetic therapy simply provides some of the magnetic field that the earth has lost..."

The results of the Baylor study, however, raises the possibility that at least in some cases, topical application of permanent magnets may indeed be useful in pain relief, a conclusion that should be regarded as tentative until supported by further studies. Any mechanism for such an effect remains mysterious, but an effect of static magnetic fields on the complex electrochemical processes of the human body is not impossible.

My own guess is that inexpensive refrigerator magnets are as likely to provide help as the more expensive magnets marketed specifically for therapy. (But since human nature leads us to expect more from more expensive items, use of refrigerator magnets will probably decrease the placebo effect!)"

 Comment on Article Above on The Baylor Study

We wrote to Vicky Hyde of the Skeptics Society to ask for her comment on the above and to learn whether there is any further evidence of the healing power of magnets. This is her response:

"The language in that original report was reasonably cautious, citing possibilities, and the tentative nature of the result. The Baylor study certainly was intriguing, but science does teach us that relying on one study alone is a dangerous thing.

... some doubts remain. Both Dr. Vallbona and his colleague, Dr. Carlton Hazlewood, had reported the successful personal use of magnets to relieve their own knee pains prior to the study, raising doubts as to their objectivity.

Conscious or unconscious biases of researchers can have very subtle and unrecognized effects on the results of their studies, and a serious difficulty of conducting any double-blind studies with magnets is the ease of distinguishing active magnets from sham magnets (although the patients were reportedly observed during the therapy period to assure that they were not surreptitiously testing their magnets).

Another difficulty of any studies of pain relief is the highly subjective nature of the data. "

The Bottom Line on Magnetic Therapy For Pain

There is as yet no conclusive scientific basis to conclude that magnetic therapy for pain is useful. On the other hand it certainly will not do you any harm to try magnetic therapy. If buying the magnetic equipment is within your budget give it a try and if it helps please send us an email and we can add your experience to the web site.

Another article on magnetic therapy for pain