Magnets proven to heal broken bones

And this one isn't even considered alternative medicine (as magnetic bracelets and the like are)! Magnets can be used by doctors to repair fractures that won't set properly. Interesting. Veeeery Interesting.

I couldn't find the article mentioning it, but I did find it cited within another site (I saw it with my sight). If any of you intrepid readers want to track it down, here's the skinny:

Bassett CA, Mitchell SN, Gaston SR. Pulsing electromagnetic field treatment in ununited fractures and failed arthrodeses. Journal of the American Medical Association. 1982;247(5):623-628.

Source.

Yahoo! Health (!) has an article!

Sorry about the extraneous explosions of exclamation points upon entry to this post. And the needless and most definitely unwarranted use of alliteration. What was I saying?

Yahoo Health has a great article about the benefits of pain fighting magnets. It goes into a studied regarding the use of a placebo, and how the magnets provided significantly higher reduction in injury. I won't steal the articles thunder, but most certainly check it out!

The article also mentions several studies that I am not familiar with regarding the effects of magnets. I will look into these for the benefit of you, faithful reader.

As promised...

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Ok, I found one of the articles about how there is actual proof that magnets do good stuff for your body. A fellow by the name of Thomas C. Skalak Ph.D. conducted some experiments for the University of Virginia's Biomedical Engineering program on the effects of magnets on rats. Basically, he found that magnetic fields can cause a huge reduction in the swelling of an injury.

The following is a dramatic reading of the American Journal of Physiology. Ahem.

External application of static magnetic fields, utilized specifically for the treatment of inflammatory conditions such as soft tissue injuries, has recently become popular as a complementary and/or alternative therapy with minimal investigation into efficacy or mechanism. Localized inflammation was induced via injection of inflammatory agents -carrageenan (CA) or histamine into rat hindpaws, alone or in conjunction with pharmacologic agents, resulting in a spatially and temporally defined inflammatory reaction. Application of a 10mT or 70mT, but not a 400mT SMF for 15 or 30 minutes immediately following histamine-induced edema resulted in a significant, 20-50% reduction in edema formation. Additionally, a 2 hour, 70mT field application to CA-induced edema also resulted in significant (33-37%) edema reduction.

Translation: Pain bad, magnets good. Narf.