Drs. Kay Judge and Maxine Barish-Wreden McClatchy Newspapers | Posted: Saturday, June 14, 2008 10:00 pm
Magnets have been used since ancient times for healing purposes. In our modern era of medicine, magnets have been studied by scientists to diagnose and heal disease. One of these applications is well-known to us - the MRI, also known as a magnetic resonance image, produces detailed images of the human body that have revolutionized diagnostics in medicine.
Magnets also are being studied as potential treatments for a number of medical conditions. And no, we're not talking about your common kitchen refrigerator magnet here.
These magnets are sophisticated devices that use an electric coil to generate a magnetic field. This magnetic field is then passed over the head, scalp or other parts of the body where it interacts with electrical activity on the surface of the body.
Magnets have been studied in the treatment of many illnesses, but only a handful of these show promise at this point. Here are a few that we think do:
• One of the first medical applications of these large magnets was to help heal bone fractures that failed to heal on their own. Magnetic stimulation has been shown to help heal fractured bones in the wrist, leg and feet, though it is still unclear if this produces better results than bone grafting.
• Magnets are also being studied in brain disorders, including depression, Parkinson's disease and tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, is the term used to describe the therapeutic use of magnets developed by neuroscientists in the 1980s to help heal various conditions in the brain. One interesting study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry in December 2007 looked at the impact of TMS on depression in more than 300 patients with major depression who had not responded to standard treatments. Patients were given either active or sham treatments for four to six weeks. Those who received the active TMS had a significant reduction in their depression scores. It is not clear how long this benefit lasts once treatment is completed.