Don't discount magnet therapy

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7534.180-c

BMJ 2006;332:180 (21 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7534.180-c

Letter

Don't discount magnet therapy

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

Editor—Not all magnetic devices are equally non-efficacious.¹Magnetic fields from bracelets and such may have little effecton human tissue, but it would be wrong to discount all effecton human tissue, even theoretically.

There is a strong research literature using transcranial magneticstimulation (TMS) to induce neuronal firing in the brain andspinal cord.² Small pilot studies have been done using thistechnique in, for example, stroke,³ and Parkinson's disease,⁴as well as many other neurological and psychiatric conditions.A neglect-like syndrome can be transiently induced in healthsubjects,⁵ shedding light on physiological and cognitive processes.While no large clinical trials have been done yet, it is crucialthat not all magnetic therapy should be discounted.

James T H Teo, clinical research fellow

Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, London WC1N BG jteo@ion.ucl.ac.uk

Competing interests: JTHT is a clinical researcher working inneurophysiology.

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