How Pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) promote longevity and reduce the rate of aging
Author: Dr. William Pawluk
At the cellular level, aging is a process of declining capacity for the repair of cell injury. With aging there is cumulative, unrepaired natural or unnatural cell injury. Cell injury results when cells can no longer adapt to stress have unrecoverable exposure to damaging agents suffer from intrinsic abnormalities, whether genetic or nutrient-based.
Cell injury can progress from milder reversible states through more severe irreversible conditions leading to tissue and or organ failure of varying degrees, Promoting longevity requires intervention of the underlying causal conditions of cell injury where possible and facilitating cell recovery and repair at the earliest stages of cell injury. Aging can be slowed or reversed by ongoing health maintenance, whole nutritional food, clean air and water, sunshine and the proactive use of low intensity, low frequency PEMF's.
PEMF's improve the rate of aging by reducing and/or reversing various degrees of cell injury. PEMF's are known to pass uninhibited through the body, while inducing charge in cells and tissues, consequently affecting biochemical and physiologic processes in the direction of reducing cell injury, and therefore aging. PEMFs improve biochemical activity at the cellular level and allow Macro and Micro nutrients and other life extending chemistry in the body to migrate more freely to be more functionally useful. With approximately 70 trillion cells in an adult body, cell injury is common and repair is ongoing.
Cell injury results when cells are:
- stressed so that they are no longer able to adapt
- when cells are exposed to damaging agents or
- suffer from intrinsic abnormalities
The normal cell has a narrow range of function and structure. It handles physiologic demands, maintains a balanced state called homeostasis. Adaptations are reversible functional and structural responses to more severe physiologic stresses . With adaptation, new but altered steady states still happen, allowing the cell to survive and continue to function.
Cell Injury results when:
- the limits of adaptive responses of cells are exceeded or
- if cells are exposed to injurious agents or stress
- are deprived of essential nutrients, or
- become compromised by mutations that affect essential cellular constituents
For instance, in response to increased hemodynamic loads, the heart muscle becomes enlarged, a form of adaptation, and can even undergo injury. If the blood supply to the myocardium is compromised or inadequate, the muscle first suffers reversible injury, manifested by certain cell changes. If this is not reversed, the cells suffer irreversible injury and die.
All disease starts with micro-molecular or structural alterations in individual cells. Injury to sufficient numbers of cells and to the matrix between cells ultimately leads to tissue and organ injury. The cumulative burden of these unrecovered cells and cell functions, leads to aging. The end results of genetic, biochemical, or structural changes in cells and tissues are functional abnormalities, which lead to clinical manifestations (symptoms and signs) and then may become disease. Cell injury progresses through a reversible stage and may end in cell death.
The hallmarks of reversible injury are
- reduced oxidative phosphorylation with depletion of ATP
- cellular swelling caused by changes in ion concentrations and water influx
- mitochondria and cell skeleton alterations
- DNA damage
With continuing damage, the injury
- becomes irreversible
- the cell cannot recover and
- it dies, either through necrosis or apoptosis
The major causes of cell injury are:
- Oxygen Deprivation
- Physical Agents
- Chemical Agents and Drugs
- Infectious Agents
- Immunologic Reactions
- Genetic Derangements
- Nutritional Imbalance
Physical agents causing cell injury include
- mechanical trauma
- extremes of temperature (burns and deep cold)
- sudden changes in atmospheric pressure
- radiation and electric shock
Mechanical trauma, which we most commonly associate with injury, including sprains, dislocations, muscle tears, fractures, etc., are a fraction of the causes of aging. Cell injury progresses through various stages, during any of which repair may be possible if adequately facilitated, either naturally or by the application of various treatments. All stresses and noxious influences exert their effects first at the molecular or biochemical level. There is a time lag between the stress and the physical changes of cell injury or death. Persistent or excessive injury, causes cells to pass a nebulous "point of no return" into irreversible injury and cell death.
Let me say it again, cellular or tissue swelling is the first manifestation of almost all forms of injury to cells.
The cell response to injurious stimuli depends on the nature of the injury, its duration, and its severity. The consequences of cell injury depend on the type, state, and adaptability of the injured cell, including nutritional and hormonal status, vulnerability of the cell, eg: to hypoxia, degree of toxic exposure. Any injurious stimulus simultaneously triggers multiple interconnected mechanisms that damage cells.
Treatment and prevention approaches should address multiple mechanisms of cell injury.
Poor natural apoptosis ('too little or too much') can also explain aspects of a wide range of diseases.
Increased apoptosis results in excessive premature cell death causing neurodegenerative diseases, ischemic injury, eg: heart attack or stroke; and the premature death of virus-infected cells. So-called natural aging is contributed to by progressive reductions in many hormones, loss of muscle mass, reductions in GI tract neurons, stomach acid production clouding of lenses, etc. With age there are physiologic and structural alterations in almost all organ systems.
Cellular aging is therefore the progressive accumulation over the years of chronic sublethal cell injury that may or may not lead to cell death but does lead to a diminished capacity of the cell to respond to injury.
PEMF can be used to improve body function and reduce the effects of cell injury.
Low-frequency pulsed electromagnetic fields or PEMF's at the right intensities penetrate through the entire body affecting every cell in their path. Either whole body or smaller more intense PMFs affect all the cells in the body.
The classic effects of PMFs touch almost all aspects of cell injury, especially early in the injury process.
They work to:
- reduce edema
- improve circulation
- open cell membrane channels
- increase production of ATP
- stimulate repair mechanisms, and
- enhance apoptosis of chronic inflammatory cells.
Only cells that are out of balance are affected by PEMF energy. There is no other technology that I'm aware of that can with a single modality have both the range and depth of action that clinically directed PMFs can have, with no harm to healthy cells.
Conclusion
Everybody has a least millions of cells in the process of cell injury on a constant, daily basis. Unresolved cell injury, leads to cell death and contributes to and accelerates human aging. PEMFs prevent and reverse cell injury at the earliest stages. PEMF devices support the treatment of many health conditions and is a tool for anti-aging and prolonging a healthier quality of life.
Biological Effects of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF) Therapy
by Keith R. Holden, M.D.
Introduction
Pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy is effective because time-varying or pulsed electromagnetic fields create microcurrents in the body's tissues. These microcurrents elicit specific biological responses depending on field parameters such as amplitude, frequency, and waveform.
The body contains multiple electromagnetic fields with each tissue and organ having a unique electromagnetic signature. Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT) scans and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans take advantage of these unique signatures to create a map of the body's tissues using pulsed electromagnetic fields. While the diagnostic benefits of PEMFs are accepted and widely used, medical practitioners are still realizing the therapeutic benefits of PEMFs.
In 1954, Japanese scientists first reported on the piezoelectric properties of bone. This finding led to further research showing that damaged bone responded therapeutically to electric fields and pulsed electromagnetic fields. Then in 1995, scientists at the University of Kentucky found that each type of soft tissue responds favorably to specific electromagnetic frequencies.1 Since then, peer reviewed clinical research documenting the biological and therapeutic effects of PEMFs has increased dramatically. Despite this research contributing to the development of many types of effective PEMF devices, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared relatively few of these devices for treating specific conditions. However, as clinical evidence continues to mount, and as patients drive the demand for effective but safer medical therapies, this will likely change. Since the FDA cleared the first therapeutic PEMF device over 30 years ago, there have been no postmarketing safety alerts issued for any of these devices. This reflects the overall safety of short sessions of therapeutic PEMFs.
The benefits of PEMF therapy have been documented in multiple peer-reviewed clinical studies for a wide range of medical conditions. Randomized double-blind, placebo controlled clinical trials using PEMF therapy have shown beneficial effects for chronic low back pain, fibromyalgia, cervical osteoarthritis, osteoarthritis of the knee, lateral epicondylitis, recovery from arthroscopic knee surgery, recovery from interbody lumbar fusions, persistent rotator cuff tendinitis, depression, and multiple sclerosis.2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11
PEMF therapy and current FDA status
In 1979, the FDA cleared PEMF therapy in the form of electrical bone growth stimulators for use in treating non-union fractures. Subsequently, the FDA cleared PEMF therapy for failed joint fusion following arthrodesis, failed spinal fusion, and congenital pseudoarthrosis. In 1987, the FDA formally "grandfathered" 510(k) marketing clearance to a high frequency PEMF device for adjunctive therapy in the palliative treatment of postoperative edema and pain in superficial soft tissue. A similar device was given FDA approval in 2008 to deliver what its company calls "targeted microcurrent therapy."
Most recently, in October of 2008, the FDA cleared a PEMF device using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder in adult patients who failed to achieve satisfactory improvement from prior antidepressant medication. In a multicenter clinical trial, approximately half of the patients experienced significant improvement in depression symptoms, and approximately a third of the patients experienced complete symptom relief at the end of six weeks.12
The future of PEMF therapy
The future of PEMF therapy is exciting given the findings of early research in a wide variety of health conditions. For example, preliminary data in clinical studies shows rTMS has promise in treating schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease.13,14,15,16,17
In relation to cardiovascular disease, studies show how PEMF therapy may reduce blood glucose levels, blood viscosity, total cholesterol, and triglycerides, while raising high-density lipoprotein (HDL).18,19 These studies will hopefully serve as an impetus for further investigation given that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Another study shows how PEMF therapy may accelerate the healing of damaged brain tissue following acute stroke.20
In light of the emergence of drug resistant bacteria, clinical studies show how PEMF therapy could one day become part of the standard of care in inhibiting Staphylococcus aureus infections and augmenting antibiotic therapy.21,22 Complicating the issue of antibiotic resistance are biofilms, dynamic mucous-like cities in which bacteria live and thrive. Biofilms protect bacteria and assist in bacterial cell-to-cell communication and in the exchange of genetic information. The same bacterium living outside a biofilm is less susceptible to antibiotics when living in a biofilm. Studies indicate PEMF therapy may effectively address this dangerous bacterial diversity.23,24
Studies also suggest that PEMF therapy may one day be used to treat cancer. Findings show PEMF therapy induces apoptosis of cancer cells, inhibits the growth of malignant tumors, modulates the immune system via cytokines as an anti-tumor effect, and may act synergistically with chemotherapy and photodynamic therapy to combat tumor growth.25,26,27,28
PEMF therapy and osteoporosis
The scientific evidence is accumulating regarding how PEMF therapy may one day gain FDA approval for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.29,30 PEMF therapy improves bone mineral density, increase growth of osteoblasts, and positively influence bone remodeling via cytokines, prostaglandins and cell growth factors.31,32,33,34
In the clinical setting, it is important to document objective measures of improvement based on the therapy chosen. Bone density test scores are used to monitor the response to therapy for osteoporosis and osteopenia over the long term. Over the short term, clinicians can use urine deoxypyridinoline (uDPD) levels to monitor response to therapy. Deoxypyridinoline cross links Type 1 collagen found in bone. In conditions where bone turnover is high, deoxypyridinoline spills into the urine in high levels. As bone turnover decreases, uDPD levels drop.
In my preliminary analyses, I find that PEMF therapy lowers uDPD in patients with osteoporosis. In one patient, uDPD decreased by 53% in two months with weekly sessions, and the reduction was sustained with once-monthly sessions. If this finding is reproducible in a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, this would affirm the ability for PEMF therapy to positively impact bone remodeling in osteoporosis.Fig. 1
Conclusion
As Abraham Liboff, Ph.D. has so aptly stated "... it is possible to view the living system as an electromagnetic entity, with the response of the system to a given electric or magnetic signal as an outcome expected on the basis of physical law." PEMF therapy has scientifically documented beneficial effects on multiple biological tissues ranging from bone to brain. The reason for these beneficial effects is because PEMF therapy triggers a cascade of biological processes that supports ailing tissues. Before any chemical or physiologic response is elicited in a biological system, there is always an exchange of energy. The use of specific pulsed electromagnetic frequencies prompts this therapeutic exchange of energy in a safe and cost-effective manner.
BIO
Keith R. Holden, M.D. graduated from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans in 1992 as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, and practices Functional Medicine in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. Dr. Holden has been studying and using pulsed electromagnetic field therapy and microcurrent therapy in his practice since 2008. Dr. Holden is a member of The Institute for Functional Medicine.
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