The Attraction of Magnet Therapy

The pull of magnets as a pain relief therapy continues to grow despite most scientific studies showing they have little if any real value.

Nevertheless, people are spending millions on all things magnetic. Shoppers can buy magnetic jewelry, shoe inserts, mattress pads, and even magnet-conditioned water. There are magnet wraps for thumbs, wrists, knees, thighs, ankles, elbows, shoulders, shins, back, and head, some complete with endorsements from professional golfers. There are even magnet products for dogs and horses.

"If you can afford to spend the money and think magnets make you feel better, that's fine," says James Livingstone, a physicist at Boston's Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of The Natural Magic of Magnets. "I'm very skeptical. I can't convince myself to say it is totally impossible, but my own feeling is that 90-99% of it is nonsense."

Nonsense or not, the results of a magnet therapy study aren't likely to dampen the attraction. Conducted by the physical medicine and rehabilitation department at the University of Virginia Health System, the six-month study was designed to look at how static magnetic fields worked in treating fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition of unclear origin.

While overall the results were inconclusive, the study did find that participants using one brand of magnetic sleeping pad had a statistically significant lower pain rating than those using a second brand of pad or those using a demagnetized sham pad.

"We did find some interesting differences in the active pad group that tended to score better than the sham group," says Alan Alfano, MD, a UV medicine and rehabilitation physician and a member of the study team. "That was kind of interesting and, to be honest, a surprise to me because I didn't think we would see anything like that. We think that warrants more study."

The study used two popular commercial magnetic sleeping pads, as well as a sham pad manufactured to look like the other two. Researchers installed the pads and instructed participants not to test the pad to see if it was magnetized.

Alfano says the team was aware that a participant could easily figure out which pads were really magnetized -- by holding a paper clip near the pad, for instance -- something that could compromise the scientific validity of the study.

"I thought people might check to see if their magnet was active, but I don't think they did," he says. "It seems to me that they were very honest."

Prior to beginning the study, participants were interviewed, had their medical history taken, and underwent an examination for tender points on their bodies. Examinations were repeated three months and six months later. There was no statistical difference in most of the measures.

Most -- but not all.