In the last two centuries Western medicine has become the application of one science, namely biochemistry. Its basic tenet has been that life is chemical. Thus, it has seemed logical to assume that, whatever the ills of our chemical bodies, they could be cured best by the right chemical antidote. The philosophical outcome of chemical medicine's success has been belief in The Technological Fix. Drugs have become the treatment for all ailments. Although we are learning that the more chemicals we put into our body the more we disturb the chemistry of our bodies, the medical community stays on the same merry-go-round. In addition, techniques that do not fit such chemical concepts, even if they seem to work, have been abandoned or condemned.

More importantly, life processes that are inexplicable according to biochemistry have been either ignored or misinterpreted. As a result, medical science has abandoned the central rule of all science which is revision in light of new data. In many ways medical science has been frozen in time by looking for more and more chemical solutions for problems that are not chemical in origin. As a consequence, the discoveries that have kept physics so vital have not occurred in medicine.

The search for a cancer cure illustrates this tunnel vision. The battle against cancer in 1974 was being waged with $270 million. Today the budget has grown to over $6 billion and, using more and more complex and toxic chemical weapons, we are not winning the war. After so many years and millions of dollars spent for negligible results, it is still assumed that the cure for cancer will be a chemical. On every level, this approach is becoming more and more disastrous.

Conventional medicine has always put the emphasis on crises intervention, and that is where it is most successful. We are the best in the world when battling disease with surgery and drugs. With acute illness, high tech medicine outperforms any alternatives as far as speed of effectiveness.

However, illness in this country has shifted from being predominantly acute to chronic. Degenerative diseases, heart attacks, arteriosclerosis, cancer, stroke, arthritis, hypertension, ulcers, and others, have replaced infectious diseases as our primary health problem.

The newly organized Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institute of Health is spearheading the exploration of a wide range of alternative approaches. Many of these efforts are aimed at chronic diseases for which conventional allopathic medicine and biochemical solutions have been least effective. Even insurance companies are beginning to reimburse some alternative modalities, because they help them where they hurt...in their pocketbooks.

Dr. James Gordon, a clinical professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Community and Family Medicine at Georgetown Medical School, Director of the Center for Mind-Body Studies in Washington, D.C. and Chairman of the Advisory Council to the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine, stated in an editorial published in the Washington Post that The surgical and pharmacological remedies that modern biomedicine has developed are potent and effective in emergencies, but for most chronic illnesses they are little more than palliative. And all too often, both surgical and pharmacological treatments are used inappropriately, produce significant and deleterious side effects and are overpriced.

Dr. Gordon and many of his colleagues believe that techniques that are fundamental to the healing systems of other cultures should be fully integrated into our own., Alternative approaches, nourished on our own soil yet scorned by the medical establishment, should once again be considered as members of the family of official medicine.

Quantum Physics Redefines Humans

Western medicine's Newtonian view that sees the body as a chemical soup, operating as a complex biological machine down to the cellular level, is incomplete. The body would be a puddle of chemical soup were it not for an energy and information source that organizes our atoms and molecules into our human form.

Most profound changes in the conception of reality came from Einstein's Unified Field Theory where all matter is organized energy, and field reality is one of the characteristics of the universe. Quantum physics has shown us that the distinction between matter and energy is lost at the subatomic level. Whether the energy is constelled as a cup, a tree, or a human being, it has a field associated with it. The denser the substance, the less energetic and more rigid the field becomes. We know that all living things have dynamic fields.

Two-time Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling, received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for his discovery of the magnetic properties of hemoglobin in the blood. He found that iron, in addition to its function as the carrier of oxygen, plays an important role in cell metabolism. Since iron and as many as five electrolytic salts in our blood circulate biomagnetically, Magnetic Therapy can beneficially influence the naturally occurring magnetic currents in our bodies.

The growing emphasis on therapeutic use of electromagnetic energy to hasten the healing of bones, to alleviate pain and improve enzyme and vascular activities, attests to the electrical nature of cells. There is increased evidence that electrical field changes at the cellular level occur before structural physiological changes. When constructive changes occur on the cellular level the structural regeneration on the tissue level follows.

Ancient Views of Bio-Energy

Information from ancient Indian literature describes whirling vortices of subtle energies which they called chakras, which is the word for wheels in Sanskrit. The chakras are then connected to 72,000 fine threads of fluid energy channels. In China and Japan, healing focuses on energy flow. They feel energy. They see other people's energy. They believe that the health of the body is a result of proper energy flow as well as blood flow.

In general, Eastern medicine recognizes something beyond nerves in our bodies. In fact, it has mapped out an entire energy system consisting of so-called energy channels or meridians, thought to be established early in our development. Structurally, they are comparable to magnetic fields. These energy channels circulate life energy throughout the human body. They are believed to balance the flow of energy. In the case of illness, the intersection of these circulatory channels are thought to become irritated wherein the flow of energy breaks down.

The differences in focus between the two medical systems explains why acupuncture is traditional in China, where it has been practiced successfully for more than 2,000 years, and is considered an alternative or, at best, a complement to other forms of treatment in America.

The Energy Paradigm

The older concept that everything progresses toward decay does not hold with field beliefs. From a field reality, the world grows and changes, it evolves. Prigogine, the Nobel biochemist, showed that when energy was introduce into a system, whether it was motion or vibrations, that substance refined and changed. It did not decay.

The healthy body is a flowing, interactive electrodynamic energy field. Motion is more natural to life than non-motion, things that keep flowing are inherently good. What interferes with flow will have detrimental effects. Energy field medicine is based upon treating illness with the introduction of new energy.

Recently, we have been able to measure human fields separate from mass and describe them as energy patterns, wave s shapes, wave trains, and wave packages or quanta. Physics has found that by periodically introducing energy into chaotic systems they could be pulled back toward order. It follows that because of the resilient nature of the human field energy manipulation techniques such as hands-on healing, subtle energy devices, and body therapies introducing subtle energy into the system will be more effective in preserving health than those geared to chemical or mechanical intervention.

There is an old saying that seeing is believing. It should be changed to believing is seeing. Those researchers and physicians, who believe that the bio-chemical solution is incomplete, are discovering new answers from doctors trained in Eastern medicine, particularly energy field therapy. What they are finding is an increasing evidence that the origin of many major diseases begins as field disturbances. Numerous studies are suggesting that many of the problems associated with degenerative diseases, certain types of memory loss or conditions such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are the result of energy field deficiencies. And, the good news is that extensive testing has shown that Magnetic Field Deficiencies may be like vitamin deficiencies, which means that once the vitamin or magnetic influence is restored, the body functions normally.

The New Science of Healing

Today, all over the world, more and more scientists and physicians are working with magnet therapy. Doctors in both Europe and the United States are obtaining astounding results using electromagnetic fields to treat damage ranging from ulcers to severe burns. Research studies show that magnetic fields predictably accelerate the healing time of soft tissue injuries as well as bones and joints. In Russia, doctors regularly use magnets to speed up healing after surgery, to improve circulation and to strengthen mending bones. Some researchers have used super magnets and electrical therapies on lung and breast cancers. An increasing number of dentists are using magnets to relieve the pain of TMJ and jaw dislocations, as well as headaches and gum disease. In Germany, unsightly keloid scar tissue has been shown to virtually disappear with the application of magnetic foils.

Balancing Our Energy Flow

Therapeutic magnets work on the same principles as acupuncture but without the needles. They fit perfectly into the Eastern concept of Energy Medicine. In the Orient they feel energy. It's normal. They see other people's energy. They believe that the health of the body is a result of proper energy flow as well as proper blood flow. By contrast, our Western medical model is a biochemical model. We look at people as biochemical machines. And if there is something wrong, we use some chemicals to fix it. Therefore, while acupuncture is traditional in China, where it has been practiced successfully for more than 2,000 years, it is considered an alternative or, at best, a complementary form of healing in America.

Acupuncture and Magnetic Field Therapy

Acupuncturists use hair-thin needles, gentle finger pressure (acupressure) or in a modern variant, electrodes to stimulate designated points along the body through which healthful qi (pronounced chee) energy is said to flow. Acupuncture has proven effective in relieving arthritis and chronic pain. Without acupuncture, chemical pain killers, that are bad for the liver, are commonly used to treat these problems.

Magnetic Therapy uses magnets instead of needles. These flexible, rubberized, permanently charged magnet pads, cut into a variety of shapes, can be attached to an injury site or an acupuncture site with athletic tape. Magnet therapy, much like acupuncture, reestablishes order in the energy system and allows healing to occur.

Fighting the Aging Process

Every doctor practicing medicine knows the human body was designed to heal itself. Under ideal conditions, each cell is bathed in fluid from which it receives its nutrients and into which it releases its waste products. For any cell to be completely healthy it must constantly be fed nutrients and its waste products must be taken away quickly so it does not become bathed in its own waste. To accomplish this, it is extremely important that the blood and lymph circulation be unobstructed and that the nervous system be free of interference.

Recent studies on aging have concluded that aging is not a natural process. It is due, instead, to our mental attitude and a series of malfunctions in our bodies which have been allowed to progress without correction, and eventually result in the destruction of cells and organs. The growing consensus among researchers is that the best way to treat aging is to prevent it in the first place.

However, in the course of living, many minor problems will inevitably occur. Obstructions and circulatory problems are very common. Some capillaries are only the diameter of a single blood cell, so our blood must travel in single file. Tension, causing vascular constriction or early arteriosclerosis, can easily produce a 10% decrease in the inside diameter of a capillary which completely stops the flow of blood to the cells.

Out-of-place joints along the spinal column cause interference to nerve function which in turn causes inadequate stimulation and constriction of the blood vessels. Decreased blood supply follows, setting the stage for cell degeneration and the appearance of pain and other symptoms.

Symptoms of pain and disease surface when conditions cause the capillary pores to dilate allowing the escape of quantities of blood proteins in the area of the cells. This eroding of proteins attracts fluid (inflammation), causing pain, depriving some cells of proper oxygen and nutrients, resulting in malfunctioning cells. If not carried away and disposed of by the lymphatic system, these cells begin to destroy healthy cells.

Alternatively, the combination of increased oxygenation and blood flow is very effective in eliminating these conditions and the accompanying pain. Since most disease is either a function of toxicity or deficiency, improved circulation benefits most aspects of our overall health.

Consequently, many different illnesses can be successfully treated with magnet therapy because every illness is a bioenergetic breakdown of the organism. It is a sign that the cells have been deprived of energy and their defense mechanisms have been weakened. It is the task of magnet therapy to remove the blockages that get in the way of normal functioning and restore the body's natural balance.

Accelerating the Body's Natural Healing of Injuries

Our bodies respond in several ways to traumatic injury. The vessels that carry blood from the heart constrict. The supply of blood in the capillaries increases. Next, scavenger cells flock to the area, removing bacteria. While this repair process is going on, the traumatized area immobilizes itself, and painful spasms usually result. What we need then is more subtle than pain relief medication, we need a resumption of normal blood flow to promote rapid and complete tissue repair.

Soft Tissue Injuries: Conventional treatment recommends Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation, or R.I.C.E. for short, followed by stimulation therapy such as infrared light, anti-inflammatory drugs, trigger-point injections, microwave diathermy, ultrasound or electrical stimulation which are used to increase blood flow to an area. However, while all of these treatments eventually restore some degree of blood flow, they all require a considerable amount of time to be effective.

But now, the healing time for many sports injuries can be shortened with the use of magnets. A recent study conducted at M.I.T. showed that biomagnetic products increase blood flow. This allows the body's own healing processes to be accelerated, as increased concentrations of oxygen and other vital nutrients are brought to the cells.

Thus, biomagnets enable anyone who uses them to target a specific body area with great precision and to start stimulating the healing process almost immediately. As a consequence, studies have shown that both hard and soft tissue injuries heal in only a fraction of the time required by other treatments.

Mending Bones: In the U.S. a recent innovation, developed for treating bone breaks that would not heal, involves wrapping the wound on a leg or arm with a coil that emits a low electric current. The procedure has been highly successful and is acceptable in conventional medical circles. However, electricity cannot penetrate bone and it is further attenuated by the skin. By contrast, magnetic fields penetrate the skin more easily and flow more deeply into the body through skin, fat, nerves and bones to provide greater therapeutic effectiveness.

Outside of the U.S. biomagnetic therapy has been used in this way for decades. In Russia, it has been used as special therapy for top athletes to promote soft tissue healing such as tendons and nerve tissue as well as bone fractures and other injuries. Around the world bio-magnets are used on prize thoroughbred racing horses to aid in healing spinal and leg injuries.

Mother Earth's Magnetism

Scientists have established beyond any doubt that all living cells are electromagnetic in nature. The functioning of the cells and the nervous system of every living being is based on pulsating DC energy. Each individual cell possesses a positive electrical charge at its nucleus and a negative electrical charge on its outer membrane. This polarization allows each cell to function in an orderly and healthy manner.

All living cells are designed to operate optimally against the backdrop of the earth's natural magnetic field which supports the biorhythmic balance of all living things. Prior to the beginning of this century, that was the environment for life on this planet.

However, since the industrial revolution and especially since World War II, nearly every human action has involved an electrical appliance and changes to these naturally occurring electromagnetic fields. As a result, we are currently enveloped by sources of electromagnetism that no life form has ever been exposed to before.

Today, sensitive instruments show that man's mushrooming alternating current (AC) technology is interfering with the earth's magnetic fields. Noted researchers, including the U.S. Surgeon General, warn of the harmful effects of electric smog from television, radio, radar, electric blankets, water bed heaters, household appliances, power lines and other sources.

Magnetic Field Deficiency: The Cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

As cells perform their normal functions, their electromagnetic charge decreases. Under normal conditions, one of the sources of revitalization of these tired cells is the earth's magnetic field. However, within a typical home, the AC radiation is sufficiently prolific to overpower the earth's natural magnetic field by as much as 16 times. In today's modern buildings, the iron and steel alone can deplete the magnetic field by more than one-half.

Many scientists believe that the electropollution we face everyday may interfere with our body's own electromagnetic fields and impair our ability to repair ourselves efficiently, resulting in a host of maladies. In the opinion of these scientists, such maladies can range from headaches and fatigue to tumors, as well as the disruption of both circulatory and digestive systems.

Kyoichi Nakagawa, M.D., Chief of Tokyo's Isuzu Hospital, one of the world's foremost authorities on magnetism and its therapeutic effects on the human body, claims that the continuing degradation of the Earth's magnetic field, by man's electronic environment, is responsible for Magnetic Deficiency Syndrome (MDS). Its symptoms include stiffness of the shoulders, back and neck, low back pain, chest pains, habitual headache and heaviness of the head, dizziness and insomnia, habitual constipation, and general fatigue for seemingly no specific reason. Other doctors have hypothesized that MDS may well be the cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which does not have a definable cause in Western medicine.

Dr. Nakagawa has used magnet therapy on more than 11,000 patients. The primary complaint of these patients was muscle spasm in the shoulder and neck region. For many of the patients pain was already extending to the head, upper neck and down the back. With magnet therapy he was able to free ninety per cent of his patients from pain.

However, the most exciting news is that evidence from these studies and others appears to indicate that Magnetic Field Deficiency is like a vitamin deficiency, which means that once the vitamin or magnetic influence is restored, the body functions normally.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Magnetic Therapy is that individuals can learn to apply a magnetic pad as easily as they once learned how to apply a bandaid to a cut. It is non-invasive, low cost, appears to have few if any problems and, on the up side, delivers numerous benefits not available in pills and potions. In fact, Magnetic field therapy has proven to be so effective that an increasing number of physicians in this country are beginning to use it where conventional treatment has failed.