If It Sounds Too Good to Be True...

Yes, that is snow around my feet and in the photo above. Indeed, it sounded too good to be true when we were knocking on the door of 80 degrees last week. Presumably we have another brief warm-up coming soon. But for now this is testing my mettle for grounding purposes.

Searching for "sunrise"....Image not found.

You know what else sounds too good to be true? Magnets! Well, maybe. Today I was reading about magnetism and our need for exposure to a steady magnetic field, such as that of Earth's. I am totally on board with this idea, given that generation of electricity involves spinning magnets around coiled wire, or vice versa, and that we essentially run on electricity. In our modern world, there are a couple of potential issues. One is that the earth's magnetic field is decreasing in strength. So, if we really need it, we may not have it for long. This is probably a natural decline, happening on the order of hundreds to thousands of years, so hopefully we'll acclimate. The other potential issue is the increasing bombardment from non-native electromagnetic fields, such as cellular signals, Wi-fi, microwaves. They create interfering magnetic fields that essentially cancel out the exposure we want. This is kind of preventable, but we might have to give up all our beloved electronic devices in the process.

So we need exposure to magnetic fields, but magnetic fields are reducing our exposure. The proposed solution? A magnetic field! This is where I initially got skeptical, as the author goes all in endorsing a device to do this. There are 2 versions. One is a magnetic sleep pad meant for home use, available to the general public. The other is a more powerful device meant for commercial use in a clinical setting for therapeutic sessions. The author cites two cases where the inventor produced dramatic bone healing with the stronger device. The latter is no longer available due to FDA regulation. So, being a firm believer that there are no free lunches in Nature, my first thought was: if this thing is so miraculous, how did it not get continued approval for clinical testing to get some real data rather than anecdote? It must not be real. But then my inner skeptic thought: Well, could there be a reason that it wouldn't get approved? The really nefarious explanation would be that it would put most of the field of orthopedics out of business, along with some other specialties, so there would be a huge financial incentive to suppress it. But I don't think that would be enough, because it simply would become a prescribed treatment to be administered by a physician, so no real loss there and probably a big money maker. But what if acknowledging the effectiveness of of this device uncovered the dangers of others? The earth's magnetic field is around 0.5 gauss. The aforementioned sleep pad generates 5-20 gauss, and the machine generates 3000-6000 gauss. Now, that was apparently enough to be deemed a concern for patient safety, but the magnets of a MRI machine range from 5000-30,000 gauss! If 6000 gauss produces dramatic physiologic changes in the body, beneficial or otherwise, maybe we need to circle back and really look at what effect a brief exposure to 30,000 gauss or persistent exposure to 4g, 5g, Wi-fi, and all the other microwaves is doing to us. Now that would be some big bucks, rolling back MRI usage and especially all our fancy wireless communications. But as long as people aren't directly dropping like flies, we can keep on going.

Now, where I prefer to fall back to is my other favorite motto, "everything in moderation." It is important to avoid the "if some is good, more is better" trap. The super powered device is probably simply too good to be true, and maybe even the sleeping pad. I am certainly open to hearing compelling information to change my mind, but as of now I do not known enough to recommend this to anyone in general, and absolutely this is where you should talk to your doctor before sleeping on a magnetic pad or strapping magnets to your body. If you or someone you love has a pacemaker, a nearby powerful magnet would cause trouble, for example. But certainly a good place to start would be reducing your exposure to non-native EMF as best you can. Keep the cell phone off your body and shut down your wifi router at night if possible. And who could argue with the benefit of a trip to the Gulf of Mexico? The magnetic field is a little stronger there presumably due to an asteroid strike that left the earth's crust a little thinner. Now if only I can figure out a way to make the travel expenses HSA eligible!

For reference, the book I am reading is The Mitochondriac Manifesto, by R. D. Lee. It is very informative and I highly recommend it. But please remember this blog is for entertainment purposes only, and please talk to your doctor before reading this or any other book, or experimenting with magnets.