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Magnets showed no benefit for acute pain in Tufts Study

While some studies have found magnet therapy to be helpful in chronic pain, such as diabetic peripheral neuropathy of the foot, results of this therapy remain inconclusive because of conflicting or weak results or problems with the studies' methodologies.

However, a group of researchers at Tufts-New England Medical Center now says it has conclusive evidence that, at least for acute, postoperative pain, magnets didn't work any better than a sham device. They presented their findings at the American Society of Anesthesiologits' 2006 meeting in Chicago in October.

"We found that pain intensity levels and morphine requirements were similar in both groups", M. Soledad Cepeda, MD, PhD, one of the researchers, said in a press release. The study also involved Javierana University in Bogota, Colombia.

In face, Cepeda says, the magnet treatment group reported slightly higher pain intensity scores.

The study involved 165 patients age 12 and older who reported moderate to severe pain in the post anesthesia care unit. They were randomly given either a magnetic device or a sham device and were asked to rate their pain every 10 minutes. Patients were given morphine until their pain was at 4 or less on a scale of 0 to 10.