Biomedical Engineering Study Demonstrates the Healing Value of Magnets

Here is an excerpt from a paper published by the UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA USA.

Biomedical Engineering Study Demonstrates the Healing Value of Magnets

“The FDA regulates specific claims of medical efficacy, but in general, static magnetic fields are viewed as safe,” notes Thomas Skalak. Professor Skalak has been carefully studying magnets for a number of years in order to develop real scientific evidence about the effectiveness of magnetic therapy.  He found that static magnets reduced swelling of muscle tissue by up to 50%.

Professor Skalak’s laboratory leads the field in the area of microcirculation research – the study of blood flow through the body’s tiniest blood vessels.  With a five-year, $875,000 grant from the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Skalak and Cassandra Morris, former PhD student in biomedical engineering, set out to investigate the effect of magnetic therapy on microcirculation.

Initially, they sought to examine a major claim made by companies that sell magnets: that magnets increase blood flow. The researchers first found evidence to support this claim through research with laboratory rats.  In their initial study, magnets of 70 milliTesla (mT) field strength—about 10 times the strength of the common refrigerator variety—were placed near the rat’s blood vessels.  Quantitative measurements of blood vessel diameter were taken both before and after exposure to the static magnetic fields—the force created by the magnets.

Morris and Skalak found that the force had a significant effect: the vessels that had been dilated, constricted, and the constricted vessels, dilated, implying that the magnetic field could induce vessel relaxation in tissues with constrained blood supply, ultimately increasing blood flow. Dilation of blood vessels is often a major cause of swelling at sites of trauma to soft tissues such as muscles or ligaments.  The prior results on vessel constriction led Morris and Skalak to look closer at whether magnets, by limiting blood flow in such cases, would also reduce swelling.  Their most recent research, published in the American Journal of Physiology, yielded affirmative results.

Since muscle bruising and joint sprains are the most common injuries worldwide, this discovery has significant implications.   In the words of Professor Skalak, “If an injury doesn’t swell, it will heal faster—and the person will experience less pain and better mobility,”.

This means that magnets could be used in much the same way as ice packs and compression packs are used for everyday sprains, bumps, and bruises, but with more beneficial results.  The ready availability and low cost of this treatment could produce huge gains in worker productivity and quality of life.

Skalak predicts magnets being particularly useful to high school, college, and professional sports teams, as well as school nurses and retirement communities.  He has plans to continue testing the effectiveness of magnets through clinical trials and testing in elite athletes.  A key to the success of magnetic therapy for tissue swelling is careful engineering of the proper field strength at the tissue location, a challenge in which most currently available commercial magnet systems fall short.

“We now hope to implement a series of steps, including private investment partners and eventually a major corporate partner, to realise these very widespread applications that will make a positive difference for human health,” says Professor Skalak.