Flux Health Forum

Can PEMF be used for "chronic illness" - not specific diseases or organs

General Health and Self-Hacking
#1

I have a prelimnary question that Im trying to answer going through some of your videos as well that I never really understood about PEMF. And I know with all the BS marketing out there (i was referred to you by Dr Beck) that im trying to understand.

I plan to use the device for various injuries and also DOMS, sports recovery etc, but aside from that which seems more intuitive, you do see a lot of talk about PEMF about electron potential, oxygen potential, energy potential etc etc, now how does this work if someone (or some animal) is dealing with chronic illness which is not necessarily specified to one area, does the PEMF technology effect the entire body or does it only effect the area you are treating primarily. I would assume its the latter considering we are targeting specific shoulder or lower back or neck etc.

If one is trying to treat “the whole system” with PEMF, is this the correct product for that and if it is, what is the best way to go about that? To use the large “mat” coil that you guys sell and use that for periods of time across basically the entire body?

Let me know. I am really wanting to think of PEMF as another adjunct if there is any truth to the oxygen, energy etc potential of the cells, then another thing that will help with this process within the entire system as I have had success so far adding other modalities which are not working on one system like taking a “thyroid supplement” but more so modalities and/or supplements which extend to large systems more up stream.

As stated much of the PEMF marketing makes it seem like PEMF can be used for “up stream” like electron potential, oxygen etc that i mentioned before.

Thanks!

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#2

Brief answers:

Paragraph #1 - Great!

Paragraph #2 - Short answer: Lots of fraudulent claims of scientific knowledge are swirling around out there, but virtually no one has seriously elucidated the biophysical mechanisms of action of PEMF. I estimate that there are at least two Nobel Prizes waiting for anyone who can deliver solid, reproducible answers to your many questions packed into this paragraph.

Paragraph #3 - Baseline: No one has ever built a real “whole body” PEMF system for commercial/consumer use. This is because of the basic physics of magnetism that I have described in several places around this forum. So this reduces to whether you believe my assessment, or whether you believe the marketing claims of “whole body” PEMF marketers. Seriously, I have been wrong in the past many times, so you need to make this decision for yourself.
If you believe the marketing claims, you will almost certainly gain a more-than-placebo benefit from their “whole body” PEMF systems because PEMF is generally quite biologically effective, and the body is an interconnected system, so a benefit in one area is very likely to benefit other areas of the body.
If, on the other hand, you see merit my my assertion that there is no such thing as a “whole body” commercial PEMF system, then, basically, the same logic as above applies: by effective use of focal PEMF (such as our ICES-PEMF systems) you will get both local as well as system-wide benefits.
The primary difference IMO is that I make every effort to be forthcoming about the scientific truth and the limits of our knowledge.

Paragraph #4 - In my opinion, PEMF is one of the most effective adjuncts to anything else you are doing: stem cell, chiropractic, nutritional, light, etc…

Paragraph #5 - Marketers with zero scientific knowledge are using science words. They might be right, or maybe not, no one has convincingly proven the fundamental mechanisms they claim.

NOTE: It takes about 5 to 10 seconds to weave a pseudo-scientific fib. It takes about a decade or two and millions of dollars (and a whole career) to establish basic fundamental biological fact.

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#3

Hi bob - quick follow up question. When I say “whole body PEMF” I mean basically if you have a PEMF mat, or table at a clinic that is treating essentially your entire body, that is more so what I mean by “whole body PEMF”.

Meaning, is a device that is much larger that is getting the magnetic fields to huge portions or entire body going to have a larger “systemic effect” than lets say the A9 with 2 small coils that seems to me to be primarily used for smaller specific things.

I appreciate the reply

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#4

Maybe.

No one has actually tested this. I’d like to give you a solid “yes” or “no”, but the noise in the information space of PEMF easily exceeds 95%. We all want to know these answers. We have wanted to know them for decades. Research is hard, expensive, and years-long time consuming. And I do not know of any real scientists who are dedicated to elucidating what is happening with PEMF aside from myself. So, real answers will take a very long time.

Example, you ask: " is a device that is much larger that is getting the magnetic fields to huge portions or entire body going to have a larger “systemic effect” than lets say the A9 with 2 small coils that seems to me to be primarily used for smaller specific things?"

Great question, very relevant, and I’d like to know the answer too. But let me point out the assumptions baked into your question that make it impossible to answer. Here is an example: “… a device that is much larger that is getting the magnetic fields to huge portions or entire body…” That assumes that you believe that what the PEMF marketers are telling you is true, namely that they are getting a magnetic field to a huge portion of the body. But are they?

As I said earlier: anyone can just say this in a few seconds. But can they prove it?

To my knowledge, they can not prove they are getting huge (volume) fields, which is why I put their term “whole body” in quotes. So they don’t even bother trying to measure or prove it. They just say it.

So, questions based on the assumption of any amount of truthfulness or factuality of disinformation from PEMF marketers becomes essentially an unanswerable question.

Throughout this forum I keep pointing out that claims of this kind are generally unnecessary, because broadly, for reasons that no one understands, PEMF works pretty well. You don’t need to lie about it, but PEMF marketers are willing to fib to gain market share. Simple as that. And their disinformation is so garbled and so fundamental that you basically can’t even base a question on it.

The only real way to answer your question is for you to decide who you believe the most (I have my flaws, so be cautious), try their products, and see whether or not they work for you. Or get an opinion from someone you know and trust.

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#5

So, let me give you the basis for my opinion on “whole body” PEMF systems. I think the best place to start is with verifiable facts:

1 - Most people do not understand that the physics of magnetism is very different from the physics of light. Some people understand that light is propagated from a point source (ideal, but not realistic) as an “inverse square law”: if you measure the light intensity from two points where one point is twice as far away as the first point, then the light at the second point will be 1/4 the intensity of the light intensity at the closer point. That in English is “one over two squared times the initial intensity”.

That is the physics of light, it is essentially ultra simple and in a way “linear”.

If that confuses you, then keep in mind that magnetism is much much more complex than light. Magnetism does not radiate anywhere near like a “point source” radiator. It does not drop off at all by a simple “inverse square” law like light does. Magnetism drops off more like an inverse cube or inverse 4th power, so magnetism measured at the same two points as the light beam above would be only 1/8th to 1/16th the total intensity as the closer point.

RESULTING SCIENCE FACT: To fill as much volume of space with magnetism as you would with light takes many many times more energy.

An example of this is an MRI machine. With a massive magnet larger than a small swimming pool, cooled by liquid helium, and sucking down an average electrical power of 20 to 50 kilowatts, enough to power 2 to 5 average American homes, these machines generate huge magnetic fields right inside the coil, but the magnetic field drops off to almost undetectable levels within just a few feet. A mid-level MRI machine costs about $1M USD, not counting the costs to maintain and operate it. And even with all this, in no sense is an MRI machine a “whole body” magnet.

So, why should we think that there is any truth to the claims of PEMF marketers that their convenient pad is a “whole body” PEMF machine?

2 - If you cut one of these supposed “whole body” PEMF pads open, they typically reveal a copper coil with only about a 6 inch diameter effective area, placed into a pad of much greater size.

3 - I could verify this with email correspondence, but I will just tell you that basically none of the “whole body” PEMF systems actually have known, well-controlled output pulses. I know this because over the years many different PEMF manufacturers have asked me for help to measure and determine what their systems are actually doing. They are happy to make whatever claims will sell their products, but when tested, their claims are generally over-stated by a factor of 10x to 100x. This is widely known among PEMF marketers, but not widely discussed. Either you will believe me, or not, as you wish.

4 - Most people and clinicians will tell you that their PEMF system (any PEMF system) is very beneficial. Some of them have good clinical data to prove it. I think it is fair to say that most modern commercial PEMF systems really do benefit people quite a lot, especially when nothing else seems to help.

These are basic, verifiable facts plus some of my personal experience. My opinions are mostly based on these. Having looked at these things over the past 3 decades, I conclude that most of the modern PEMF products do give benefits to people, but not for the reasons the marketers claim. But with all of the needless false claims and disinformation in the PEMF marketing space, these things are almost impossible to discuss intelligently.

I think essentially all PEMF effects are localized within the body, then spread systemically as I discuss a few responses back, due to body fluid circulation and cell-signalling effects that spread from region to region in the body.

For example, when you sit on a “whole body” mat, basically you are applying a clinically effective dose of PEMF to your gluteus muscles and lower pelvis. This in turn leads to beneficial effects that can spread throughout the body, but will be most evident in the pelvic region and upper legs.

So, I conclude that basically most modern PEMF systems work, but that they work focally, not system wide, but they will eventually have system wide effects. Therefore the most honest way to describe the effects of PEMF is to describe them this way. This makes focal PEMF products inherently more honest than “whole body” PEMF systems, but not necessarily more biologically effective.

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#6

Really appreciate that reply. Makes a lot of sense to me

I dont know anything about the size of these things but what about talking about these larger more expensive systems that are generally used by clinics or rich individuals. The 20-30-even 100k systems that have huge “controls” idk the size of whats inside of it, and then the coils are also large. Do those potentially actually have the power to do some of what were discussing here.

In contrast to the 3-5k very thin mat meant for at home use like lets say a Bemer

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#7

Those are good questions too, especially since the questions themselves contain less of the assumptions that commercial PEMF machines actually do what they claim to do, which generally they don’t if you take the time to measure how the PEMF machine is actually working.

This is something I actually have a lot of data and experience with, so I can give you a better answer.

So, I know about this because my main contribution to the field of PEMF has been to isolate the specific part of a magnetic pulse that has a useful biological effect. I started this work as a consultant for NASA in 1996, then continued privately since 1999.

The main finding of my research is that about 99.8% of a typical commercial PEMF pulse actually has no beneficial biological effect. Only about 0.2% of the energy of a typical square wave actually has a biological effect.

So, the first thing we can say for certain about typical commercial PEMF machines is that they use about 500 times more power than they need to use to have the desired biological effect. This is extremely inefficient, but it is not “free”. You have to pay for it by using huge copper coils, huge power supplies, huge control interfaces, and massive amounts of electrical current to run the damn things.

The additional down-side is that they pump you with 500 x more excess useless energy than you need to get the best benefits from PEMF. Who knows if this excess energy is neutral or harmful. But people say they can “feel it”, so PEMF marketers use this as a selling point. Saying you can “feel” PEMF is just about as bad as saying that you prefer leaded gasoline for your car because you can “smell” it. In almost every aspect, highly inefficient systems just suck. Blasting yourself with huge amounts of unnecessary electro-magnetic energy is simply not good for you.

But if you make PEMF ultra-efficient, then you can run it on a camcorder battery instead of a 220V 40A line, it can be portable, wearable, and use very small components because the excess heat (= wasted energy) is very small, so the device is inherently safer and will last longer because it is not stressed with having to handle so much excess energy. And for all this, people get about the same biological benefit from small portable PEMF devices as they get from the huge, expensive, inefficient devices.

And here is another ugly secret about large, powerful PEMF systems: On three separate occasions, owners of PEMF companies that make and sell these huge PEMF systems have contacted me to try to buy my company (to reduce their competition). In all three cases they later admitted to me that they prefer to use my small portable devices rather than their mega-huge device, which is free to them. But they always conclude, all things considered, that a small and efficient PEMF system just has more advantages over-all. One guy even told me that his wife (70 years old) would not use their product once she discovered ICES-PEMF, so their $70,000 luggage-set-sized PEMF product collects dust in their closet while they use the portable, low-power, efficient systems that I make. Of course they don’t tell their customers this.

So, all of this explains why their powerful and inefficient systems need to be so large. The next question is: do they have enough power to do the job better? In some cases I think maybe, but in most cases, too much is too much. The number one reason why ICES-PEMF does not initially work for some people is that they have the power set too high. About 95% of the time, if they just dial it down a bit it will work much better for them. In almost all cases, ICES-PEMF has plenty of power for almost anyone for almost any application. And when a person needs ultra-high power PEMF (rare, but it occasionally happens), the best answer is to use both: High power PEMF in a clinic two or three times per week for a few minutes, plus ICES-PEMF daily for a few hours.

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#8

Hi Bob, Wondering if you have any information on the effects PEMF may have on the blood (whole body)? That is no matter where you place the coils (to a certain extent), there will be an effect on the blood. eg circulation, viscosity … etc

#9

The information we have would be limited to anecdotal reports. This area of PEMF has not really been studied formally so far as I know. So, people on this forum could relate their experiences and observed effects when trying this.

#10

Hi Bob quick question about the strength of your devices. I promise I am not coming frrom a Stronger is better but just trying to understand the differentials. What is the Guass being emitted from the various micropulse products? They are all relatively similar max strength so what would the max gauss be then? I dont totally understand the measurement of 1700 kG/s and didnt see how to convert that into gauss which is how everything else is being measured. I searched the forum for Gauss and didnt see it mentioned. Someone mentioned 200 but you didnt confirm or deny that in your reply to that person

#11

The number that really really really matters is the rate of change of the magnetic flux, which is 1700 kilo-Gauss per second (1,700,000 Gauss per second). This is the solid number that has real, meaningful, physical, biological effects related to PEMF.

The totally irrelevant number that has zero biological effect is what PEMF marketers sell to people all the time, which for Micro-Pulse devices is about 170 Gauss (1,700,000 G/s x 0.0001 seconds = 170 Gauss). The 0.0001 seconds is the duration of the magnetic pulse: 100 micro-seconds, which is the same as 0.0001 seconds.

The true power of PEMF derives from the Gauss rate (1,700 kG/s), while the peak magnetic field (200 Gauss) just derives from the Gauss rate (really important) and the pulse duration (also important), but the peak Gauss value that everyone frets about is totally biologically and biophysically unimportant.

You can’t just convert one to the other, but they are linked by a simple physical equation.

Peak Gauss = Gauss rate x time

It is directly analogous to the speed and distance of a car:

distance = rate x time

Some numbers matter, but some do not. Here is an example:

Say you want to drive 100 miles. But you want to arrive in 1 hour.

distance = 100 miles
time = 1 hour
so, your speed would need to be 100 miles per hour (which is “miles/hour”)

Some of these numbers matter, some do not. It depends on what you are talking about.

If you want to drive 100 miles, you need enough gas, so the main number to consider is distance (100 miles)

If you need to get to a hospital before someone dies, time is important, so the number that matters is 1 hour.

So…
If you are driving on the freeway, which number is important to a cop?

Do you get a ticket for driving a distance of 100 miles? Nope.

Do you get a ticket for driving for an hour? Nope.

Do you get a ticket for driving 100 mph? Yup! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have the number that matters to a cop!!!

Analogously, biology will respond only to the correct quantity, which in this case is Gauss Rate, which for our Micro-Pulse devices is about 1700 kG/s.

This is because of real physics (the Faraday Equation, or Law of Induction)

If anyone else tells you differently, ask to talk to their staff scientist. I’ll bet they don’t even have one.

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#12

Got it i see what youre saying.
So theres no truth what so ever in more Gauss makes it penetrate deeper? (which that doesnt even mean better) - but ive been trying to listen to some data from people who dont work or sell PEMF but worked in it or researched it (they are involved in the back end, but not one brand they own/recommend etc) and they all do seem to indicate that more power CAN be more benficial. Neither of them say more power is better or needed but both seem to be saying that it can be more beneficial for certain applications etc

One guy was saying does slightly diff things. (not better or worse)
The other guy was saying that if you are trying to target bones or internal organs etc that are deeper into the body that the gauss at the actual organ is much lower, similar to measuring EMF, there’s just a dropoff effect the further it is from the source

One of them recommends your product btw among other products as well

#13

It’s because of the fact that you need to have the correct waveform shape (Gauss RATE) and the fact that the physics of magnetism is much more complex than that of light (see many of my recent posts) that higher Gauss might help if you do everything else correctly. But by itself, high Gauss is absolutely, utterly, categorically irrelevant. Example: You could easily use a mega-magnet with a steady massively huge Gauss output, but it would have zero effects of a properly-shaped pulse. The Gauss could be literally a million times higher, but as a steady magnetic flux field, it simply would not work as well as one millionth of the peak Gauss with a properly-shaped pulse.

Another way to look at this is that when you use a properly-shaped magnetic pulse for the necessary pulse duration (at least 100 micro-seconds), combined with the complex geometry of magnetic fields, the result is a certain peak Gauss value. But higher peak Gauss values DO NOT result in better PEMF function, depth of effect, or anything else unless everything else that is important and relevant about the pulse shape is correct.

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#14

Here is the difficulty with this: Most people really have no intuitive sense for how Magnetism works. Many people have an intuitive sense for how light works because most people see light all day every day. Magnetism is much more complex, much less “linear” than light (magnetic flux lines always twist and curve into closed loops, whereas rays of light basically travel straight outward from their source until they experience interesting optical effects, which you can start to learn about in a second-term college physics course).

This means that the behavior is all in the math, and is basically outside normal human experience because we never had a chance to develop an intuitive sense for it, because we almost never experience magnetism directly in daily life. Sure, for the last 150 years we have been able to sense it indirectly, or when we play with powerful modern magnets, but before that, the direct human experience of magnetism was almost non-existent.

I still maintain that there have only been a handful of people who had an intuitive sense for magnetism; Faraday, Gauss, Tesla, Steinmets, Weber, and a few others. Most probably had to develop this intuition by working with magnetism experimentally for decades. The rest of us struggle with it.

==== I am removing part of this post because it included too much personal information, apologies, but the basic point was that I had to struggle for many years to begin to get a grasp of magnetic flux, and once you have attained something that complex and counter-intuitive, it can be extremely difficult to explain to people when they have not worked and struggled for years with the same concepts.

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#15

I get where youre coming from but from my perspective its more like when you say yourself we dont know how PEMF is working but we know its working.

1 of the gentleman I was listening to wouldnt even give brands. He was also saying that majority of not totally fraudulent PEMF devices do “work” just some work better than others for various reasons.

Then you have the other guy who recommends upwards of like 10 different devices ranging from yours to 20k devices. Both were saying based on studies that more gauss doesn’t act exactly like lower gauss. Obviously were assuming other things are constant. If you put a 5000 gauss machine that has everything else shitty like poor waveform and other things beyond my understanding then yes that isn’t simply better.

But he was indicating the studies indicate that more gauss causes it to go deeper into the body simply from the same mechanism that all electro magnetic frequencies work. Distance matters.

As we know from EMF testing. RF falls off almost 80-90% everytime you double the distance. Electric fields go very far and magnetic fields fall off very rapidly. I think hes simply saying that if you are putting a coil on lets say your stomach wanting to get to your heart, a low powered device the magnetic field is simply not hitting the heart. As an example. He didnt give that example but I am. Or if you are a muscular man and wanting to heal a femur bone fracture that once again that would be different than treating bicep soreness in terms of depth.

I think even they would agree that a low powered well made device > high powered poorly made device. The question is whether there is any truth to the die off of the magnetic field to reaching the cells in bones, organs etc that are less superficial.

I personally own several EMF meters and have first hand experience on how rapidly fields can die off so to me it makes sense intuitively what these other gentleman are saying. Not saying its right or wrong. And its not syaing stronger is better.

They are saying you want to reach the area you want to reach with enough gauss, and that gauss isn’t high but if what you are trying to reach is deep within your body then you would want to start at a gauss that after the field becomes weaker over the depth it would then be at the appropriate strength at the organs/bone etc

#16

Well, there is some truth to it if the waveform is correct. But its not exactly right.
One analogy that I use to explain it is this: Think of PEMF like an information signal for cells, but think of a common equivalent in human experience, for example, spoken words:

Do you remember way back in about the 1970’s, when you walked through an airport or any public place with a PA system (Public Announcement)? The sound was always terrible, and it sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher: “Wah wah wah, wah wah…”

So, how did they fix it? They just cranked up the volume.

This mostly resulted in louder noise, more pain to listen to it, but not necessarily better understanding of what was being said.

So, literally, was “more power” making it louder? Well, technically, yes.
But was the problem solved, was it easier to understand? Well, not really.
Can you hear it better? Well, painfully yes I guess.
Can you understand it better? Not really
Was there a side effect of more power on a noisy garbled signal? Yes, several negative side effects, including making normal speech nearly impossible to hear, and potential ear damage if exposed for too long.

So, with noisy signals more is more, but it is also somehow less.

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#17

Ok very intersting discussion with simple understood layman-like responses , that aside, by what kind of Dennis wizardry does the ICES COIL LIFE TESTER function? It obviously is lit(magnetic signal) or or dead. Why does it not sense other manufacturers coils(DC Cure for one example). And why will it not detect other electro magnetic signals? Seems very suspicious in its function. Is it only tuned to Micro Pulse devices? Thanks

#18

@Tsur, in this post @Bob explains how the coil tester is designed and that it can be used to test other manufacturer devices. If it lights up, it means it “detects magnetic pulses of sufficient character to have a positive biological effect.”

#19

Ok TajD, you’re ‘preaching to the choir’ here. But I’m interested in the ‘sufficient character’ details. I realize you are quoting a previous @Bob post that i missed on this device. Is it TMI to explain or would it compromise Bob’s patents on his obviously proprietary elect tech? I am a long time user of the ICES M1 and have become convinced that it has relieved arthritic inflammation from my neck, back, hips & numerous joints with mainly omni settings, plus delta/theta pulses have aided sleep problems. I guess i’m just one of those over-thinkers that questions everything & everybody. I also am interested in finding more about that VIBE frequency device being marketed on facebook. Seems almost impossible to research these things these days with all the censorship going on. Thanks for trying to answer my many questions. Cheers

#20

I can explain it. I spent a couple of decades determining exactly which parameters of low-frequency magnetic pulses will consistently elicit a reliable. beneficial biological response. Then I patented these (4 times) to make sure no scumbag could legally block humanity from access to them without paying a king’s ransom.

Having identified, patented, and designed reasonably-priced products using the science that I paid for myself, I then designed a low-cost/high-reliability accessory so that Micro-Pulse customers could easily detect correct coil alignment and function (or failure) of their ICES-PEMF coils.

These testers were designed as an accessory specific for Micro-Pulse customers. But many people have discovered that the coils can reliably detect the biologically active range of electro-magnetic pulse parameters in general, and this has also allowed them to detect crude, fraudulent, or poorly-tuned PEMF devices.

So, unlike everyone else in the PEMF market, I am not trying to prove that some competitor’s PEMFsystem does not work or anything like that. I am just designing things to be as useful as possible for people who use ICES-PEMF technology. Some people choose to use this accessory beyond the scope of its original design intent.

So, you are correct: I am highly biased. I want people to have reliable, effective PEMF, and I do not want anyone to get ripped off or lied to.

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