An edition from Medical Journal. No. 30-31. 2005. Volume 102
Clinical efficacy or placebo as magnetic bracelets reported to relieve pain in osteoarthritis?
By Ingemar Petersson
Scientific studies show that patients of today are more aware and knowledgeable, and less traditional in their thinking than we are in the traditional medical care.
Many people with arthritis use different types of complementary or alternative medical practices in addition to the established medical treatment.
If the benefits outweigh the disadvantages it is often considered as valuable regardless of scientific evidence.
Magnetic fields are today an important tool for medical imaging diagnostics and, in some situations introduced for therapeutic purposes. Why the magnetic field from a bracelet could influence symptoms of knee and hip joint at radiographic osteoarthritis appears safe for many of us in Western health care are unlikely.
An English research team took note of a number of patients believing magnetic bracelets symptoms palliative role and carried out a methodologically very prospective, placebo-controlled, randomized trial (three parallel groups with normal magnetic, weakly magnetic or non-magnetic bracelet).
The study includes 194 patients with X-ray verified osteoarthritis of the hip or knee who were followed for 12 weeks with the WOMAC (patient questionnaire on the osteoarthritis-related pain, stiffness and function). A significantly greater decrease of complaints was noted in the group with normal magnetic bracelet compared with placebo also corrected for the lack of blindning.
By wearing the magnetic bracelets it was concluded that pain in the hip - or knee osteoarthritis believed to reduce, but it is uncertain whether this is due to specific effects or placebo effects.
You can wonder about the clinical relevance, as well as many other aspects. It has happened before in medical history a discovery which is difficult or inexplicable start of a new thinking, but we have also seen many more charlatanbetonade ** methods come and disappear. The future will determine what applies in this case.
Harlow T, et al. Randomized controlled trial of magnetic Bracelet for relieving pain in osteoarthritis of the hip and knee. BMJ. 2004; 329:1450-4>>