Magnetic bracelets 'do help beat pain' By Celia Hall, Medical Editor - Daily Telegraph
(17/12/2004)
People who wear magnetic bracelets to ward off pain may
be right to swear by them, researchers say.
A study of people with diagnosed arthritis and pain in
their hips and knees found that wearing the bracelets reduced the amount
of pain-killers they needed to take, and the stronger the bracelet the
greater the effect.
Prof Edzard Ernst and colleagues from the Peninsular
Medical School, Exeter and Plymouth, say in the British Medical Journal
today that the one-off cost of the bracelets, at £30 to £50, compares
well with the cost of taking painkillers in the long term.
For the study, 194 people with arthritis, recruited
from general practices in Devon, used bracelets for 12 weeks. They were
either standard magnetic bands, of 170-200mTesla - the measurement of
the intensity of the magnetic field - weak bracelets of 21-30mTesla, or
dummy magnetic bracelets.
Those with high-strength bracelets used painkillers on
fewer days in the study period than those wearing weak or dummy
bracelets.
Prof Ernst says larger studies are now needed to test
the safety of magnets compared with that of drugs commonly used to
relieve the pain of osteoarthritis
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