PEMF therapy alters the voltage gradient of the cells in the human body using its electro-magnetic field, and in particular has more effect on cells with an unstable voltage gradient.
The voltage gradient of a cell is important to its own function, and to its communication with neighboring cells in the body.
The following is an excerpt from a relevant PEMF therapy study looking at this exact question of How PEMF Therapy Works, find the full article here, An introduction to electromagnetic field therapy and immune function: a brief history and current status.
From the study excerpt above,
- “The mechanism for action of EMF on cells and tissues is based on how cells can both generate EMF endogenously and detect EMF exogenously.”
This statement means that the effect of EMF on cells is based on how cells generate EMFs internally and how they detect EMFs externally.
The excerpt also explains that cells communicate with each other and interact with their environment and do this using several mechanisms depending on the type of cell tissue & the information being communicated.
It also explains a cell may have an unstable voltage gradient for many reasons including but not limited to growth, injury and microbial invasion.
PEMF therapy can help restore a healthy voltage gradient to cells in the body, and to each of the 200 different kinds of cells in the body this balancing will have a different effect.
How does PEMF Therapy work in practice
In practice a PEMF device or mat is comprised of a couple main components:
- the PEMF applicator (usually a mat, or handheld) and this is the part which contains on the magnetic field generating coils
- the PEMF controller, this is the part which generates the electric signal to power the coils (in cheaper low grade PEMF devices these controllers will just pulse a “carrier” signal which is usually the 60 Hz from wall power, where as quality PEMF devices will generate their own clean signal)
The pulsing magnetic field from the PEMF coils then helps align the voltage gradient of the cells and stabilize the cell membrane.
Quoting the same study as above again,
- “Studies have demonstrated that EMF can stabilize the cell membrane by restoring membrane protein activity (Ca2+-ATPase) and maintain intracellular Ca2+levels [101, 102].”
It’s apparent from the research that PEMF is beneficial for a great many conditions – and it seems the reason for this is that it simply helps the cells of the body do what they do best already on their own which is why it isn’t a highly condition dependent therapy.
Examples of the effects of PEMF on different cells
The balancing of a cell’s voltage gradient by PEMF will have different effects on different cell types, two such examples of this balancing are as follows:
- PEMF increased the proliferation rate of neuronal cells by 2.5 to 4.0 times the non-waveform cells
- PEMF has beneficial anti-inflammatory effects by regulating redox balanceof the inflammatory cells indicating promising treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
The results from these examples and the study excerpt above show that PEMF therapy has the same voltage gradient stabilizing effect on all cell types of the body, and it’s the different functions of the cells which cause the benefits to differ.
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You might be interested to know that we compiled a database of 335 PEMF research studies and did a macro-analysis of them to try and answer some questions including Does PEMF Really Work?.
Or check out our PEMF therapy homepage to see more details about the macro-analysis process of the 335 studies as well as what other questions it helped to answer, our PEMF study explorer to actually search and filter through all the studies, or our best PEMF mats page to see the latest and greatest in PEMF mats.
