What can you make of the lack of reviews on magnetic mattress pads? They are flim-flam? Conspiracy to keep a good thing quiet? Lack of sales or evidence to support or deny their benefits? Either way, you may be out of luck -- beyond just trying it yourself -- in finding magnetic mattress pad reviews online or in print.
Scouring the Web, you won't find many reviews on magnetic mattress pads. The best sources of reviews -- ePinions.com, ConsumerSearch.com, Consumer Reports, and Amazon.com -- show no reviews on magnetic mattress pads at all. Other places that host customer reviews, such as Nextag, are also silent on the subject. It's hard to believe that no one has an opinion on magnetic mattress pads.
The fact is, reviews on magnetic mattress pads are scarce because not very many of these devices are sold. Their alleged health benefits are unproven, and the products are quite expensive. The National Institutes of Health classify static magnets -- as opposed to electromagnets -- as an alternative health therapy whose efficacy has not been scientifically established.
Most reviews on magnetic mattress pads you will find online are so-called testimonials from customers of magnetic therapy product vendors, found on the vendors' websites. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the authors are real.
What is the evidence for magnetic therapy using static magnets -- the permanently magnetized lumps of metal sewn into magnet mattress pads? Magnetic therapy websites like to point to some studies in which 70-90 percent of arthritis sufferers reported some improvement in their pain after using static magnetic therapy. But pain perception is extremely subjective, and the studies did not control for the placebo effect. In other words, just knowing that "something" was being done for their pain may have led the subjects to perceive less pain, even though nothing effective was done.
Another study at Baylor University's School of Medicine did control for placebo effect. It tested the effects of magnets and fake magnets on knee pain. A magnet or a placebo was placed on a subject's skin for 45 minutes. The subject was then asked to rate how much pain they experienced when a sensitive "trigger point" was touched. Twenty-nine patients exposed to magnets reported lowered pain, compared to twenty-one of the placebo group.
Unfortunately, this study contained numerous flaws that cast its results in doubt. For example, the researchers did not measure the pressure used to press upon the painful trigger point. The authors of the study themselves characterized it as a "pilot study" intended to show whether a more rigorous and expensive study was justified.
You won't find any of that information in reviews on magnetic mattress pads.
It would not be very hard to write reviews on magnetic mattress pad. Suppose you bought a magnetic mattress pad. You sleep on it and your pain goes away. There's your review! If magnetic mattress pads worked, you would expect grateful customers to write lots of reviews on magnetic mattress pads.
On the other hand, if you spent a couple of hundred dollars on a magnetic mattress pad and it didn't work, you might be embarrassed to tell the whole world what a fool you were. So that could explain the dearth of reviews on magnetic mattress pads from dissatisfied customers.
The fact that there are virtually no reviews on magnetic mattress pads on the web should warn you that something's wrong in this product category.
The fact is, reviews on magnetic mattress pads are scarce because not very many of these devices are sold. Their alleged health benefits are unproven, and the products are quite expensive. The National Institutes of Health classify static magnets -- as opposed to electromagnets -- as an alternative health therapy whose efficacy has not been scientifically established.
Most reviews on magnetic mattress pads you will find online are so-called testimonials from customers of magnetic therapy product vendors, found on the vendors' websites. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the authors are real.
What is the evidence for magnetic therapy using static magnets -- the permanently magnetized lumps of metal sewn into magnet mattress pads? Magnetic therapy websites like to point to some studies in which 70-90 percent of arthritis sufferers reported some improvement in their pain after using static magnetic therapy. But pain perception is extremely subjective, and the studies did not control for the placebo effect. In other words, just knowing that "something" was being done for their pain may have led the subjects to perceive less pain, even though nothing effective was done.
Another study at Baylor University's School of Medicine did control for placebo effect. It tested the effects of magnets and fake magnets on knee pain. A magnet or a placebo was placed on a subject's skin for 45 minutes. The subject was then asked to rate how much pain they experienced when a sensitive "trigger point" was touched. Twenty-nine patients exposed to magnets reported lowered pain, compared to twenty-one of the placebo group.
Unfortunately, this study contained numerous flaws that cast its results in doubt. For example, the researchers did not measure the pressure used to press upon the painful trigger point. The authors of the study themselves characterized it as a "pilot study" intended to show whether a more rigorous and expensive study was justified.
You won't find any of that information in reviews on magnetic mattress pads.
It would not be very hard to write reviews on magnetic mattress pad. Suppose you bought a magnetic mattress pad. You sleep on it and your pain goes away. There's your review! If magnetic mattress pads worked, you would expect grateful customers to write lots of reviews on magnetic mattress pads.
On the other hand, if you spent a couple of hundred dollars on a magnetic mattress pad and it didn't work, you might be embarrassed to tell the whole world what a fool you were. So that could explain the dearth of reviews on magnetic mattress pads from dissatisfied customers.
The fact that there are virtually no reviews on magnetic mattress pads on the web should warn you that something's wrong in this product category.
