The Purpose Of Magnets In Slimming Belts

Like corsets, slimming belts offer an instantaneous appearance of weight loss by cinching in your waist. Manufacturers claim that slimming belts also "melt away" fat in your waist area. Some brands of slimming belts include magnets sewn into the belt that are supposed to ease pain and stimulate circulation, further aiding weight loss. As of 2010, no scientific proof has emerged to support claims about the healing or weight-loss enhancement properties of magnets.

Claims

Manufacturers claim a wide variety of benefits for slimming belts, according to the website Slimming. Support, comforting massage effects, assistance with toning, and better digestion and circulation are among the claims attached to slimming belts. It is unclear how cinching the waist improves digestion or circulation, however, since squeezing or binding a body part tends to inhibit circulation and movement as, for example, when you bind a sprained ankle to prevent swelling.

History of Magnets

The use of magnets in healing practices goes back to the ancient world, according to Sarah Brewer, an M.D., registered nutritionist and author of the "Natural Health Guru" series of books. Cleopatra purportedly wore a magnet on her forehead as part of her beauty regimen, Brewer notes in "Healing with Magnetic Therapy." Building on the theory that a universal life force or "animal magnetism" permeates all living things, European physicians in the 16th to 18th centuries suggested that magnets could positively affect health. Therapy using static magnets is popular in Japan today.

Theory

Modern magnetic healing theories point to the fact that human beings, like all living things, generate their own electromagnetic field. The earth's electromagnetic field also influences all physical bodies on a constant basis, says Brewer. Reasoning that we need this electromagnetic field for optimal health, advocates of magnet therapy state that by placing magnets on strategic areas of the body, you can affect the flow of your own electromagnetic field and create the conditions necessary for healing.

Facts

There is no evidence that static magnets have any medical benefit, according to Simon Singh, a leading scientist and documentary filmmaker, and Edzard Ernst, the UK's first complementary medicine professor, in an April 2008 article for the Mail Online.

While magnets probably won't help you lose weight, they can do serious damage to your bank account. Magnetic devices are big business, with annual sales of more than a billion dollars worldwide, according to a 2006 article for the "British Medical Journal" by Leonard Finegold, professor of physics at Drexel University, and Bruce L. Flamm, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center.

Medical Underpinnings

The claims attached to static magnets piggyback on legitimate medical research into the effects of pulsed electromagnetic therapy on healing. Since 1979, researchers have used pulsed electromagnetic fields generated by specially designed medical equipment to speed bone fracture healing. In a 2009 study into the effects of pulsed magnetic therapy on osteoarthritis of the knee, published in the "Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine," Gerald Gremion and colleagues at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudiose in Lausanne, Switzerland, found that pulsed signal therapy improved the pain levels and physical function of their patients significantly. The study concluded that pulsed electromagnetic therapy was almost as effective as physiotherapy, although it remained the more expensive option.