I have been using pemf for BPH however my PSA test remain elevated and a recent MRI has revealed a lesion which my doctor recommended a biopsy. This will be my second one. My concern is could the pemf be making cancer cells thrive as it would help normal cells should I discontinue PEMF. I appreciate any feed back.
Thanks
Dwayne
Very reasonably, people might think:
PEMF makes normal cells thrive, therefore:
1- it should also make cancer cells thrive, and
2- it should make bacteria thrive, and
3- it should make viruses thrive, and
4- it should make fungi thrive.
Very reasonably, people think that if you make something grow, it makes everything grow. But this is a fundamental misconception about the mechanism of action of PEMF.
First, I do not find any indication in the scientific literature that PEMF accelerates the growth of cancer cells or pathogens. I just re-reviewed about 1,900 scientific papers this month, and I saw no indication of this being a problem with any form of PEMF with any form of cancer or pathogen. If there were any indication that PEMF accelerated the growth of cancer, I can assure you, it would result in very good federal funding for research, tens of thousands of publications, and an immediate federal ban on PEMF technology. But, there seems to be no indication that PEMF causes any problems of this kind.
The fact that PEMFdoes not seem to cause or accelerate cancer seems odd and counter-intuitive, but this does seem to be the case if you carefully look at the scientific literature. In fact, the relationship between all forms of electromagnetism and cancer remains unclear, but certainly, for the low frequency PEMF devices (most operate below a few hundred Hz), there do not seem to be any nasty side effects, so far as I can tell.
Why would this be? Well, I think the fundamental misconception about PEMF is that it forces cells to do something. Scientifically, I think this is entirely wrong. So far as I can tell, though the fundamental mechanisms of PEMF remain unclear, it seems to facilitate some function of normal cells, but it does not force them to do anything.
This being the case, PEMF would not be expected to cause pathological behavior in cells. And this is what we observe scientifically when you look at it that way, and we observe this thousands of times.
Does that prove PEMF is safe? No, nothing is absolutely safe. Someone, somewhere, somehow will find a way to hurt themselves with a PEMF system. But based on a general understanding of electromagnetism and biology, the basic rules of thumb are:
1- Lower intensities are safer than higher intensities.
2- Lower frequencies are safer than higher frequencies.
Nonetheless, if you or your doctor have concerns, I would definitely consider discontinuing the use of PEMF. Just because it has never been reported in the past (so far as I know) does not mean that it will not happen in the future.
I hope your biopsy comes back negative.
I wouldnât discontinue pemf myself, but I would find a natural health practitioner experienced in successfully helping conditions like yours. Someone like Dr. Zach Bush could probably help. You might need to make one trip to their office and then only remote follow ups after that.
Man Iâm sorry to hear about your misfortune. This Dr. Iâve been following for a while seems to have some good answers for cancer. Apparently he has a 93% success rate in helping people overcome cancer & has been practicing for over 40 years. His protocols will not be anything that you find in our western medicine system. His name is Dr. Leonard Coldwell. Here is a short youtube video about cancer: https://youtu.be/t-3TqF05nbo
Thank you for the quick response Bob! I am encouraged by your explanation I do feel that PEMF helps facilitate normal cell activity. My hope is that cancer cells are inherently abnormal and they are just continue to perform abnormally regardless of environmental conditions. And that improved function of surrounding normal cells can overwhelm or limit the abnormal ones.
Thank you for the suggestion! I am attracted to the natural solutions to health problems and am researching diet and exercise solutions to my issues.
Thank you for the suggestion! I am attracted to natural solutions to health problems. I am currently researching diet and exercise solutions to my issues. I am also looking for a local Doc that is open minded to natural non-pharmaceutical health care.
Thank you for your response! I will check it out.
Thanks for this explanation-
i used to wonder if PEMF made all living cells thrive, but after reading your findings and logical observations, i would agree with your current assessment.
generally speaking, cells do seem to be unencumbered by factors that impede repair when exposed to PEMF. i now wonder if there is a mechanism that repels pathogens that typically burden the cells preventing them from operating normally in cell repair and normally interacting with other healthy cells.
science was never my forte, but does the magnetic pulse help repel anything in the same way a negative ion would repel another negative ion?
when reading other texts about how binders like bentonite or charcoal work to remove factors that burden the immune system and cell health, they often talk about how their negatively charged ions attract positive ions that are common among âbad bacteria,â heavy metals, pesticides, etc. whether this is pseudoscience i would not know⊠but all articles that support binding powders that i have found seem to describe in laymanâs terms this mechanism of action. 
My opinion, since you asked for it:
So far as binding actions of things such as charcoal are concerned, I donât know much about it. But I think the real mechanisms of action and surface chemistry are quite a bit more complex than marketers of these products convey to the consumer.
PEMF: the mechanisms remain unclear, but it is unlikely to be something so simple as ârepulsionâ or âattractionâ of some type of bulk material.
One or two people have told me they find this opinion to be somewhat (or very) offensive, but the reality is that some things are really, actually, truthfully very complex. This is true for many areas of knowledge. Some parts are simple, others complex and difficult to grasp.
It is interesting to me that some people should think that everything should have a simple explanation. If that were the case, then everyone could be a scientist or engineer. Calculus and differential equations would be taught early in grammar school alongside the A-B-Câs. Home Economics and cooking classes would include advanced thermo-fluid dynamics with multi-variate calculus. Such knowledge is, after all, fundamental to understanding how a traditional oven really works. Understanding a microwave oven is far more complex, involving advanced electromagnetic theory and the resonance molecular bonds, just as a starting point.
And this is where many people find it offensive, but I mean this to help people to tell fraudulent marketing from real science: most simple explanations like that are just marketers pandering to the misconception that people are gullible enough to believe that they can grasp very complex technical information and make informed decisions on that basis. It is a kind of disingenuous flattery. Certain specifications of certain products are well understood, standardized by industry to allow clear and direct comparisons, and can be described in relatively simple terms. For example, selecting a microwave oven on the basis of âwattageâ.
This is a clear, simple, and well-standardized term that relates directly to measurable product performance, so it is the basis for a fair comparison. But this is not the case for many types of products and unfortunately PEMF is one of them.
The best advice I can give is:
1- Donât worry about trying to understand the fundamental mechanisms of action of PEMF⊠nobody understands it fully.
2- If you buy a PEMF system, buy it from a reputable source that is known to provide good after-sales service.
3- You can only know whether or not PEMF will work for your specific application if you try it. No one will be able to tell you exactly why.
4- Be very suspicious of anyone who offers you simple answers.
I DO feel like a mental midget when asking your opinion after wondering about a laymanâs term explanation about something health related and the loaded question of âwhat do you think the mechanism of action is?â
iâm not offended by your matter of fact, truthful answers to simplistic questions w/not-so-simplistic answers.
fortunately for you, this DOES make me think twice before asking your opinion on something. When I do ask for mechanism of action, i am asking for the 50k feet view answer. while wikipedia is not the most accurate resource, nor are many of the .org .net etc web articles found⊠there are abstracts from pubmed that do give a generalized answer that probably match to my (and maybe most peopleâs explanation for a study) expectation. One such example is a study on how fenbendazole can be a potential treatment for cancer patients⊠generally summarized here:
Maybe not the ideal pubmed article to use, but it is something thatâs easier to understand⊠nor is it a simple answer either. and yes, i do recall from reading other posts (or watching your youtube) that not all trials have the level of detail nor accuracy.
I will be more careful w/the kinds of questions I ask⊠asking how something works (as i believe youâve suggested in a vid/post/comment) is not the same as if something generally works for xyz.
Thanks for your accuracy⊠one of the reasons for asking a âhowâ question is so that hopefully we can understand enough about a tool/treatment/solution to know when such solution may be applicable to a different situation for a compatible problem down the road.
Well, donât get me wrong: I would absolutely love to have a detailed, accurate, reliable answer to âWhat is the biological mechanism of PEMFâ. And there are indeed scientific papers claiming to elucidate it. But if you look closely, they always have problems, and they do not generally agree with the previous paper that disclosed the secret of how PEMF works.
Most normal intelligent people probably read scientific papers with the faith and expectation that they are âtruthâ and âproofâ. I read them as an experienced scientist, and I can tell you that it is a fact that about 75% to 90% of peer-reviewed scientific papers are not repeatable and have serious methodological problems.
I have been struggling with this for about 23 years now. I have read and studied everything I can, in multiple languages, spanning 5 decades, I have visited laboratories and talked in detail with people all over the world who have studied PEMF (some now deceased), I have conducted many experiments, designed many devices.
And I still do not know why it works.
So, sadly, all I can honestly offer from a vantage point of 50,000 feet is a clear panorama of my ignorance. But it is an honest ignorance after a thorough and exhaustive search for the truth, not some kind of watered-down pseudo-scientific fraud. The main thing I have learned is what we really do not know about PEMF. And I would bet my life that no one really knows much more than that, no matter what they say.
i truly appreciate your humility, thoroughness and approach to solving problems and creating quality products.
itâs very admirable and assuring to know the time and effort you put into your tech and exploring solutions to the problems youâre attempting to solve.
thanks for bringing transparency, education, and honesty in a hyped industry filled with questionable products and claims for those products
As a science researcher and writer I agree with Bob. Unfortunately many âscience papersâ are not only unrepeatable, often the conclusions in the paper itself cannot be upheld by the study data presented in the paper. Good news is as time passes we do learn more stuff.
Kind of reviving a senescent thread here but you can always search pub med for interesting information on these types of subjects. People here might help you with understanding some of them if you get confused. For example, check out this one -
Low intensity and frequency pulsed electromagnetic fields selectively impair breast cancer cell viability.
Now this is about breast cancers cells and there is absolutely no guarantee that is has any meaningful relationship to the effects of PEMF on prostate cancer cells and as @krissully says some studies are poorly executed but it is still interesting stuff!
This paper (I am familiar with it) is very interesting and suggestive of the benefits of PEMF for cancer treatment. There have been a few recent scientific reviews, but they mostly come up with the same conclusion, looking at all the available evidence: more research is needed. They have been poking at this for many years, but no one ever seems to run the critical experiment with an appropriately configured PEMF system.
The problem is that academic cancer research is that it is a racket. When speaking in public, cancer researchers will say (and have been saying for decades) that we are âjust around the corner from a big breakthroughâ or even a âcureâ, but then all they do is ask for more $$ and decades of time without much tangible progress.
However, in private, among colleagues and students, they will exclaim that âcancer is an excellent research topic and career because we will never find a cure. We can research it forever.â
You will never find proof of this written down anywhere, but I have actually heard this at least twice from cancer researchers, once recently in a doctoral defense. It infuriates me but this is the truth.
Update⊠after some pins and needles my 12 biopsy cores were all negative for cancer. My Urologist had no real explanation other than chronic inflammation can cause high PSA levels and that we should recheck it in 6 months. I will continue PEMF in hopes that the reduction in inflammation will lower the PSA and break the cycle of high PSA inconclusive, MRI incocnlusive, Biopsy inconclusiveâŠrepeat.
Thanks to everyone for your input!
Dwayne
the more i read about how poorly designed (most?) published studies are, the more frustrating finding âreal health solutions/treatmentsâ seems. if these studies are not repeatable, they donât seem any better than anecdotes from social media or product review sites. perhaps the only difference is that we get to see the data of the poorly designed studies?
i suppose thereâs no real resource/site for repeatable/well designed studies that we can really rely on, is there? is nature.com just as biased/bad as pubmed, but for the natural/alt med side of the fence?
for lack of reliable data, I suppose the best approach would have to find intersecting data / common results from clinical studies/trials + social anecdotes + personal experience (??)
Well, academic research has many, many problems. Especially in the area of cancer research. The problem is repeatability. The vast majority (75-89%) of academic cancer research appears to be non-repeatable (this finding has been repeated though). This is the best work, done by the best researchers, in the best laboratories, at the best universities, published in the best journals. Who knows how repeatable the lower-quality work isâŠ
Anyway, the high stature of the researcher, university, or journal is no guarantee that the research is any good, unfortunately.
The best indication that something is real, is if you see it replicated (does not have to be exact, just similar results), by different people in a different laboratory. More independent replications = more reliable results.
The sad truth is that results repeated by several independent researchers, even of low quality, would be much more likely to be ârealâ than a single mind-blowing study from Harvard, published in Nature-Medicine, financed by Apple and Google, and featured on prime-time TV.
My advice: donât believe any published academic science unless it has been repeated independently, at least once.
Since we are operating in a near vacuum of information, about the only thing we can do is what we are doing: self experiment, and share honest information.