Have you ever heard of PEMF therapy and the profound health benefits it provides? Many of my patients have asked my take on it – I’ve always told them it’s 100% worth it and an excellent health investment. Wellness IQ now offers PEMF therapy in the clinic. So I was compelled to share the impact this technology could have on your health.
For those who have yet to hear of PEMF or if you are unfamiliar with its incredible potential, This article provides everything you need to know about what it can do and how it works. As far as the therapy goes, it’s as simple as laying on a PEMF mat for 20-25 minutes while the technology works its magic.
PEMF stands for pulsed electromagnetic field. Interestingly, regarding health, PEMF pertains more to physics than biology, but that doesn’t make it any less essential to your health than biological factors like exercise, nutrition, and stress. If fact, PEMF is a vital element of life and health. Without it, we would not survive.
The good news for us is that the earth and atmosphere produce PEMFs that keep our health systems balanced; problems arise when we disconnect ourselves from them by spending most of our days indoors and wearing rubber-soled shoes, as is the case for all of us in our modern society. Just like you can use nutritional supplements to offset the deficiencies in our food supply, we can use PEMF therapy to supplement the gaps caused by our modern lives.
This may sound a little woo-woo, esoteric. But don’t worry; it’s 100% grounded in physical science, which you can verify via the information and citations provided throughout the article. To preface, NASA has been one of the leaders in PEMF study for years, as one of the biggest challenges to space travel was tremendous tissue and bone wasting in astronauts. This wasting resulted from long-term disconnection from the earth’s natural PEMFs; thus, modern space suits now have these frequency devices built-in.
PEMF Therapy Improves Cellular Function
There are several overall health benefits of PEMF therapy. When we zoom out, we can see improvements to several systems and health processes within the body. While PEMF can stimulate all of the large-scale benefits listed below, The changes that happen on a cellular and molecular level are what drive these functions.
The primary way PEMF can induce such incredible improvements to health is in its ability to “recharger” your cells. It does this by beneficially changing the cellular trans-membrane potential. This results in several downstream benefits, such as balanced pH, better nutrient delivery, enhanced waste removal, and increased energy production, to name a few.
Did you know that your entire body is electric? You might remember from anatomy class that for your nerves to fire impulses, there has to be a change in the membrane potential (or voltage) of your cells; otherwise, nervous system communication from the brain to the body cannot happen (1, 2). The only way an electrical charge from the nervous system could stimulate tissues to perform an action would be if those tissues also responded to electrical stimulation. As it turns out, that’s exactly how we work.
Why You Should Be Using PEMF
Bryant Myers points out In his book on PEMF that there are eight primary health benefits it has to offer:
- Increased bone strength and density
- Pain relief and endogenous endorphin release
- Optimized energy levels and vitality
- Enhanced circulation and vascular health
- Reductions in stress and anxiety
- Improved sleep architecture and reduced insomnia
- Better immune function
- Improved nerve and tissue regeneration
PEMF Increases Bone Strength and Density
Most of us know that mechanical pressure in the form of exercise improves bone mineral density (BMD), specifically when it’s done in the form of resistance training or impact movements like jumping/gymnastics (3). When we dive into the mechanisms underlying the strengthening response, we find that it’s stimulated by an electric current created within the bones. This current is produced by the pressure via the piezoelectric effect (4).
PEMF can be regarded as bypassing the mechanical force stimulation and skipping right to the electrical current that stimulates the growth of new bone cells (5). That’s not to say you can use PEMF to skip exercise; you still need it for countless other reasons, where PEMF becomes an integral supplemental therapy for individuals with osteoporosis and/or bone fractures.
Studies have shown that PEMF can reduce bone fractures’ healing rate and time (7) and increase bone mineral density caused by prescription medications and aging (7, 8). PEMF therapy is FDA-cleared for healing fractures and often does so in half the time.
PEMF For Pain Relief and Endorphin Release
PEMF is a potent pain relief modality due to its microscopic cellular impacts. Studies have shown it to be effective for pain related to fibromyalgia, musculoskeletal pain, inflammation (9), rheumatoid arthritis (10), nerve impingement (11), osteoarthritis (12), and much much more.
One way PEMF stimulates pain relief is via the release of endogenous endorphins (13), which are opioid-like peptides released by our bodies. Another method by which PEMF relieves pains is via its stimulation of mitochondrial function and cellular energy production (14, 15). Healthy mitochondrial function is the underlying factor that allows the body to begin healing. So while PEMF helps the body regulate and reduce the sensation of pain, it is cleaning up and healing the root cause of it at the same time.
How PEMF Optimizes Energy Levels and Vitality
We learned about mitochondria in biology class. We hear a lot about them today and how many disease states can be traced back to mitochondrial dysfunction. We know that mitochondria are the “powerhouse of the cells.” You may remember that ATP is the energy currency our bodies need to perform all of their life-sustaining functions.
We yield the most ATP when our body “burns” fat as fuel, creating 38 molecules of ATP via the electron transport chain (ETC). Essentially, our mitochondria must pass electrons down the ETC to produce energy. They travel through several different stations that depend on certain nutrients to pass the electrons off to the next station. Many things can disrupt this microscopic baton relay, including inflammation, toxins, medications, heavy metals, poor diet, and nutritional deficiencies.
The catch-22 here is that your body depends on the ETC for energy to clear out disruptors like toxins, drugs, and inflammation, while at the same time, these are the inhibiting factors. PEMF can stimulate and enhance the delivery of electrons down the ETC to jumpstart energy production (14, 15). By producing more ATP energy, cells can more efficiently clear out objects that inhibit the ETC flow, bringing us to the next benefit of PEMF therapy.
PEMF Enhances Blood and Lymph Circulation Improving Vascular Health
When our cells begin to produce more ATP energy, they will inevitably need extra nutrients delivered to them to drive the processes forward; they also need to clear out the things that have “gunked them up” and impaired ETC flow. This is where blood and lymph come in.
Your lymphatic system filters various waste products out of the blood, which will, in turn, be excreted through sweat. Heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, nickel, bismuth, manganese, aluminum, cobalt, chromium, and uranium preferentially follow this excretion pathway rather than urine (16). Additionally, many environmental toxins like BPA, DEHP, and MEHP phthalates are excreted via sweat and the lymph pathway (17, 18).
PEMF increases cellular permeability (19), which essentially is how toxins exit the cell and make their way to the lymph to be excreted. At the same time, this also makes it easier for nutrients to enter the cell. Our cells rely on microvascular circulation and healthy blood flow to achieve this task.
To deliver oxygen and nutrients to cells, our red blood cells must pass through tiny blood vessels called capillaries in a single-file line. A fascinating reaction can happen in red blood cells called the Rouleau effect (20). This is essentially the same thing that happens to laundry in a dryer without a dryer sheet – it becomes “static,” and clothes stick together. This happens because there are too few electrons, so the materials stick together in an attempt to share their electrons with one another.
When this happens in blood cells, they clump together in a similar manner. This makes it harder for them to access the capillaries and carry and deliver nutrients, making our blood more viscous (thick). When blood is viscous, the heart has to work harder to pump it through the body; thus, blood pressure is higher. PEMF is analogous to a dryer sheet that helps prevent static electricity (21, 22, 23). It restores the polarity of blood cells by giving them a net positive charge. And just as two positively charged ends of a magnet repel each other, so do positively charged blood cells.
Another benefit of increasing cellular membrane permeability is that it allows other beneficial signaling molecules like hormones and neurotransmitters to be released throughout the body and tissues.
PEMF Induces Relaxation, Reducing Stress and Anxiety
Your brain is the hub of your nervous system; therefore, its actions are run via electricity. There are multiple states of brain wave activity, as shown by EEG technology. These wave states align and correlate with different states of awareness, wakefulness, and time of day.
- Delta wave states are associated with dreamless, non-REM, deep sleep, and light sleep.
- Theta wave states are associated with REM sleep (dreaming), mediation, proprioception (internal focus), intuition, prayer, and unconscious, trancelike states.
- Alpha wave states are associated with relaxation, intensely focused learning (flow state), and that state of consciousness we’re in just before falling asleep and after waking.
- Beta wave states are associated with thinking, concentration, alter, and aroused states and can lead to anxiety when imbalanced.
Each of these states stimulates the production of the appropriate hormones and neurotransmitters for that particular time of day. It’s not uncommon for these states to become imbalanced, as is seen in people with anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorders. PEMF has been shown to restore balance to brain wave activity (24). This subsequently results in optimized hormone and neurotransmitter output, improved mood, and increased overall well-being.
The iMRS2000 that we use at Wellness IQ has a built-in biorhythmic clock that puts out the specific hertz frequencies associated with particular times of the day. Thus, no matter when you come in for a session, the PEMF frequencies also balance your brain wave activity among its many other functions.
PEMF Improves Sleep and Insomnia
Balanced brain wave activity is directly related to sleep and its quality. Even those who do not suffer from sleep issues report better sleep quality with PEMF therapy in areas such as waking less frequently to urinate (25). This results from improved sleep architecture that PEMF stimulates, which is directly correlated to the brain wave activity listed above. This is another way of viewing circadian rhythm balance (26).
PEMF was also shown to be very effective in improving insomnia caused by a myriad of issues (26).
PEMF Enhances Immune Function
All of the benefits listed above simultaneously compound to beneficially affect all systems of the body, including the immune system. Many studies have looked at the benefits of PEMF on the immune system, and the impacts are numerous. It’s well known that PEMF can reduce inflammation, and other studies have shown beneficial immune modulation in autoimmune disease and general immune function (27).
PEMF Improves Nerve and Tissue Regeneration
An inflammation response in the body is actually a good thing. It’s part of the healing and repairing response of tissues. Inflammation becomes an issue when prolonged or in response to the wrong things. This is likely to happen when we are inadequately nourished (not enough vitamins, minerals, protein/too many processed carbs and fats), stressed, or have impaired detoxification.
PEMF therapy has been shown to bypass these biochemical prerequisites to modulate the immune response in a healthy way to induce faster healing and recovery (28). This has been demonstrated across the board in cartilage repair (29), wound healing (30), nerve repair (31), and many more. This is especially important for nerve tissue as it was once believed that nerve tissue was irreparable once injured, damaged, or lost.
PEMF offers immense benefits to health that can be achieved in as little as 20 minutes a few times per week. Whether your goal is to support overall health and well-being or you have a specific health concern you’d like to address, PEMF should be part of the solution. In my opinion, it’s the closest thing to “the magic bullet” that we’ll find when it comes to health.
