Magnet Therapy: What's the Attraction?

Abstract

Credibility for advanced practice will be established across disciplines as nurses demonstrate their ability to critically evaluate practices. Alternative therapies are accepted and used by many patients today. While magnet therapy is popular, the scientific evidence to support its use is limited, at best. Advanced practice nurses have more effective treatment modalities in their repertoire and are advised to avoid practices for which efficacy is unsupported.

Static magnets: what are they and what do they do?

“…These mechanisms may alter the firing rate of neurons, change the rate of enzyme-mediated reactions, affect calcium channels, or increase local blood circulation 12,13 . However, the supporting evidence for any of these effects is not strong 4 and the issue of effect mechanism remains vexatious. Information regarding possible mechanisms of effect would assist in defining the specific conditions for which static magnetic field therapy may have benefit, optimize its application and thus promote improved research.…”

“…Ratterman et al 4 carried out a review of scientific peerreviewed publications regarding magnetic therapy and found that while magnetic therapy was gaining popularity, the scientific evidence to support its efficacy in pain management was lacking. A more recent systematic review by Pittler, Brown and Ernst 22 concluded that the available evidence does not support the use of static magnets for pain relief.…”

“…To put field strength into perspective, the fields of Magnetic Resonance Imaging devices are in the order of 1.5 to 3 T, while the earth's field is less than 0.05 milliTesla (mT). Therapeutic magnetic devices used for pain relief typically generate magnetic fields of 11-500 mT 4 . It can be useful to remember that the field strength is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance from the surface of the magnet.…”

Static magnetic field therapy: methodological challenges to conducting clinical trials

“…In several small clinical studies, researchers report SMF therapeutic benefit for conditions such as: diabetic peripheral neuropathy (Weintraub et al 2003), dysmenorrhea (Eccles 2005a, b), postoperative wound healing (Man et al 1999), knee osteoarthritis (Holcomb et al 1991;Hinman et al 2002;Harlow et al 2004;Wolsko et al 2004), and chronic pain syndromes including post-polio pain syndrome (Vallbona et al 1997), fibromyalgia (Colbert et al 1999;Alfano et al 2001), frozen shoulder (Kanai et al 2004;Kanai and Taniguchi 2006), pelvic pain (Brown et al 2002), and low back pain (Holcomb et al 1991;Kanai et al 1998). Four systematic literature reviews that assessed the overall effectiveness of SMF for pain relief came to contradictory conclusions (Wasiak 2001;Ratterman et al 2002;Eccles 2005a, b;Pittler et al 2007). Wasiak, basing his analysis on a single randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Collacott et al (2000) in which a possibly inadequate SMF dose was used, found ''no evidence for the effectiveness of therapeutic magnets in relieving pain''.…”

“…Wasiak, basing his analysis on a single randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Collacott et al (2000) in which a possibly inadequate SMF dose was used, found ''no evidence for the effectiveness of therapeutic magnets in relieving pain''. Ratterman's group reviewed seven RCTs and concluded that the scientific evidence to support the popular use of magnet therapy was lacking (Ratterman et al 2002). Eccles, on the other hand, in a 2005 review of 21 RCTs, stated that the weight of the evidence suggests that SMFs are able to induce analgesia.…”