Intended for healthcare professionals

This Week In The Bmj

Magnetic bracelets may relieve hip and knee pain

BMJ 2004; 329 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7480.0-b (Published 16 December 2004) Cite this as: BMJ 2004;329:0-b

Wearing a magnetic bracelet could reduce the pain arising from osteoarthritis of the hip and knee. After randomising 194 people aged 45-80 to wearing a standard strength static bipolar magnetic bracelet, a weak magnetic bracelet, or a non-magnetic (dummy) bracelet for 12 weeks, Harlow and colleagues (p 1450) found that mean pain scores were reduced significantly more in those in the standard magnet group than in the dummy group. Although a few participants allocated to the dummy group did notice the lack of magnetic force, further analysis showed that unblinding did not affect the results.