PEMF for Bone Healing Fractures, Osteoporosis & Brittle Bone:
Our Analysis Review of 88 PubMed Research Studies

Over the past 30 years, Pulsed Electromagnetic Field, more popularly known by its acronym PEMF, has been used clinically in treating bone disorders.

PEMF provides a safe, quick, and more importantly, non-invasive alternative treatment as compared to conventional methods.

This page goes beyond summaries. We reviewed 88 PEMF studies specifically tagged for bone healing and built original charts showing how results differ by frequency, intensity, and waveform.

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See our PEMF for Bones Macro Analysis

Macro Analysis of 88 Studies on PEMF for Bone Healing

PEMF Studies for Bones Database Explorer

Explore the 88 studies in the analysis yourself

Top PEMF Mat picks | Macro Analysis of 88 Studies on PEMF for Bone Healing | Explore the 88 studies in the analysis yourself

On this page

Mechanism – How PEMF Helps Bones

Bone repair moves through three natural phases—inflammation → bone production → remodeling. The phases are described well on the foot health facts website. 

PEMF appears to help primarily with improving osteoblast (bone builders) function, however in doing so it can help at each stage along the 3 phased bone repair cycle.

Inflammation phase:

Quoting,

  • “osteoblasts if adequately stimulated produce increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines” (study link)

Increasing the level of localized inflammation where it is needed around osteoblasts

Bone production phase:

Quoting,

  • “PEMFs stimulate cell proliferation, induce osteoblastogenesis and differentiation of osteoblasts” (study link)

In other words, making more osteoblasts needed for bone production

Remodeling phase:

Quoting,

  • “lower frequency (16 Hz) could enhance bone formation, while the higher frequency (26 Hz) could enhance bone remodeling” … “repetitive exposure to 26 Hz ELF-PEMF increased Trap5B activity in Osteoclasts” (study link)

Osteoclasts being the bone demolition crew so to speak, necessary for remodeling and rebuilding damaged bone along with the osteoblast building team.

PEMF for Fracture Healing

Selected Studies

Plain-Language Summary

These studies indicate that PEMF can accelerate healing in nonunion and delayed union fractures. Longer daily use (e.g., ≥9 hours) is associated with faster healing, and early application of PEMF improves union rates compared to sham treatment.

Takeaway Box

  • Speeds up union — dependent on usage duration
  • Increases union success rate — 77% vs. 48% in one study

PEMF for Osteoporosis & Bone Density

Selected Studies

Plain-Language Summary

These findings suggest PEMF can enhance bone strength and architecture, encourage activity of bone‑forming cells (osteoblasts), and suppress bone‑breaking cells (osteoclasts)—all mechanisms that counteract osteoporosis.

Takeaway Box

  • Preserves bone mass & architecture
  • Promotes osteoblast activity (bone building)
  • Reduces osteoclast differentiation (bone breakdown)

Benefits Summarized (Quick Reference)

Here’s a short list of benefits found in some research studies:

  • Anti-inflammatory — “PEMF exposure significantly increase the anti-inflammatory effect of A2A or A3ARs suggesting their potential therapeutic use in the therapy of inflammatory bone and joint disorders” (Study link)
  • Promotes bone ECM deposition — “All together these results suggest that the main effect of cell exposure to PEMF is a greater efficiency in promoting bone extra-cellular matrix deposition by osteoblasts…” (Study link)
  • Enhances bone formation & remodeling — “Osteogenic differentiation was further improved by both ELF-PEMFs investigated. … Considering this result, a treatment with gradually increasing frequency might be of interest, as the lower frequency (16 Hz) could enhance bone formation, while the higher frequency (26 Hz) could enhance bone remodeling ” (Study link)
  • Stimulates mineralization rate — “PEMF treatment induced early-onset and statistically significant transient stimulation (~4-fold) of the mineralization rate when PEMF was applied Daily…” (Study link)

Our PEMF for Bone Healing Macro Study (88 Studies Analyzed)

We compiled and analyzed 88 PubMed studies tagged for bone healing.

Here’s what the big-picture data shows.

Overall Results

Probably the most interesting chart from the analysis – just a straight up look at: of these 88 studies about PEMF for bone healing, how many found positive versus neutral etc type results.

The result is pretty clear that the vast majority found at least some kind of positive result in their research.

This being said I will remind that none of these studies found that PEMF could cure any kind of condition, including osteoporosis, just that they found some kind of benefit to bones through PEMF therapy.

Key Point: Almost 80% of bone healing studies reported positive outcomes, with only a handful showing neutral or negative effects.

How We Built This Review

Our objective was to evaluate as many PEMF research studies which relate to the healing of bones as we could, and compare the results of these studies along with what PEMF frequency, intensity and waveform they used.

As such we short-listed our database of PEMF studies on this page to include only those studies which, when creating our database, we had tagged with “bone healing,” “fracture,” “osteoporosis,” or “brittle bone.”

Some of the studies included investigated multiple topics and therefore there is some overlap of keywords in the studies we evaluate here, for example with “osteoarthritis” or “inflammation.”

Our analysis will give you both an overview and a closer look at the current state of research available on PEMF and its application in bone healing.

It is however important to note that research continues to be ongoing in the field of PEMF and as of now, despite all the positive results in the research, there is still little consensus around PEMF and whether it is truly effective.

Read more about the PEMF research database we built on our About the PEMF Studies page.

Limitations and Challenges of this Study

Seeing how many PEMF research studies are on the PubMed website was eye-opening. PubMed doesn’t offer any way to sort only by PEMF studies which include frequency & intensity numbers. Oftentimes, keyword tagging of studies is also lacking, making searching for PEMF on certain applications very challenging.

To address this we built our own PEMF research database by hand, recording intensities, frequencies, waveforms, and recording our own tag keywords for every study. Selecting studies to include was also a challenge as some don’t specifically evaluate PEMF for the outcomes we want, some study result outcomes can be rather subjective, while others are looking for different questions altogether.

From an initial pool of 550 studies, we eliminated ~200 that weren’t truly PEMF studies. Of the remaining 335, we then short-listed 88 with tags directly related to bone healing.

Continuing now to look at where the studies on bone healing found results.

Results by Frequency

Here we made a bar chart to represent the number of studies, within various frequency range “baskets”, that found what kind of result (positive, neutral or negative).

 Key Point: Most positive results occurred between 0–50 Hz and 50–100 Hz, with diminishing results at very high frequencies.

As is easy to see above, the vast majority of the studies: A) found positive results, and B) found those results mostly in the lower frequency ranges 0-50Hz, or between 50-100Hz.

It’s a fairly sizable sample of available PEMF research on bone studies, looks like low frequency is where to look for results.

Results by Intensity

Here we looked at, like above, what intensity range “baskets” found what sort of results (positive, neutral, negative).

Key Point: The bulk of positive studies clustered at 0-10 Gauss (adding both 0-1G and 1-10G bands together) and at 10–25 Gauss. Extremely high intensities (500–1000+ G) were rarely tested and more often neutral or negative.

Easy to see that most all positive results in our sample size found results at lower intensities.

And in fact, one could say the heaviest weighting is at the lower, lower intensity ranges – look closely at the range baskets at the top.

The first basket is only from 0 to 1 Gauss, the next from 1 to 10G, and then the range bands get wider.

What I’m pointing out is for example, the top 4 bars, 0-1G to 25-50 G, together comprise a range of 50 Gauss, the same as the 5th band of 50-100 Gauss but they contain almost all the studies.

Tldr: the research from our sample shows that positive results are being found in the “low” intensity ranges mostly 1-25G and up to 50G.

Frequency × Intensity (Log Chart)

This chart shows intensity along the vertical scale, and frequency along the horizontal scale, and then each dot represents a study’s outcome, either positive, neutral or negative at that given intensity/frequency.

It’s a nice way to visualize where research studies are finding their results.

In this case, this is a “log scale” chart, meaning that it isn’t linearly increasing between each line, it’s increasing by 10x each line; you can see that along the axis labeling.

The reason to use a chart like that is when the numbers are so vastly far apart that you simply can’t show them on a chart unless you use an increasing scale.

What this shows us is really that positive results are found over a vastly wide range of PEMF settings.

Key Point: The densest cluster of positive outcomes sits in the low-frequency, low-intensity range however the real take away here is how positive result studies (green dots) are ALL over the place with their frequency and intensity settings.

One can also observe that the majority of dots (study PEMF settings) are clustered in the lower frequency/intensity ranges.

Frequency × Intensity (Excluding Outliers)

This chart is the same as the previous, only not a log scale.

What I did was exclude all the outliers so we’re looking more so just at the lower ranges.

Key Point: When excluding extreme outliers, the trend still indicates low-frequency low-intensity settings appear to consistently produce positive results however the settings for frequency and intensity are still wide ranging.

Not too much difference to witness here, mainly perhaps that big cluster of positive result studies in the low intensity, low frequency range.

By Waveform

I like this chart because it’s a simple representation of what kind of waveforms have been used in the PEMF research studies on bone healing.

In this case it’s very easy to see that the sine wave is the most commonly studied for bone healing (as well as for all other topics in fact, but we can see for bone healing is no different).

Key Point: As is easily seen above, sine waveforms were the most commonly reported and produced positive results across multiple studies, followed by square waveforms.

Now, it’s important to note the fact that many of the 88 studies didn’t note what waveform was used, that’s why it’s only showing 11 total on the chart, a sample size of a sample size if you will.

That being said, typically when a study doesn’t specifically mention what waveform they were using then it’s just the standard sine wave (and on this chart we only included the studies that specifically noted which waveform).

By Year Published

This one is fairly self explanatory, what year were the studies published.

Only real take away is the ever increasing interest in PEMF, also called “energy medicine”, hopefully in the future there will be more and more research to lend further insights into how people may use PEMF as an adjacent therapy to traditional therapies.

 Key Point: Research activity increased sharply after 2010, peaking in 2018–2019, showing growing clinical and scientific interest in PEMF for bone healing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes—across 88 studies, over 90% reported positive results, especially for fracture healing and osteoporosis.

Yes, studies show it improves bone mass, supports osteoblast activity, and inhibits bone breakdown.

The strongest cluster of positive results came from low-frequency (1–50 Hz) and low-intensity (0-10, 10-25 G) PEMF.

Yes—PEMF is FDA-approved for nonunion fractures since 1979 and is widely studied as a bone stimulator.

88 Study
PEMF for Bone Healing Database Explorer

This is the full list of only the 88 studies on the topic of bone healing from our larger 335 study PEMF database, you can use these search tools here to browse through or go page by page. Or check out the full set of search tools on the main 335 study database explorer page.

Instructions: make filter selections and then click search button to refresh results. To refresh list, click clear search.

See full 335 Study Explorer

Check out the full database at the button above which includes all study categories.

Disclaimer: copyright of all PEMF studies in this archive belong to the respective authors & their associates. We simply gathered the best PEMF studies we could and provide a new way to search using frequency, waveform, intensity & more. Further details below.

A Comparative Analysis of the In Vitro Effects of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Treatment on Osteogenic Differentiation of Two Different Mesenchymal Cell Lineages

PMCID

PMC3731679

Categories

bone healing, tissue healing

Published Date

2013

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

Intensities (G)

20

Frequencies (Hz)

75

PMCID

PMC3731679

Categories

bone healing, tissue healing

Published Date

2013

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

Intensities (G)

20

Frequencies (Hz)

75

Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields Improve Bone Microstructure and Strength in Ovariectomized Rats through a Wnt/Lrp5/?-Catenin Signaling-Associated Mechanism

PMCID

PMC3828367

Categories

bone healing, brittle bone

Published Date

2013

Subject

animal

Waveforms

unknown

Intensities (G)

24

Frequencies (Hz)

15

PMCID

PMC3828367

Categories

bone healing, brittle bone

Published Date

2013

Subject

animal

Waveforms

unknown

Intensities (G)

24

Frequencies (Hz)

15

Radiodensitometric Assessment of the Effect of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Stimulation Versus Low Intensity Laser Irradiation on Mandibular Fracture Repair: A Preliminary Clinical Trial

PMCID

PMC4518795

Categories

bone healing, fracture

Published Date

2013

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

Frequencies (Hz)

72

PMCID

PMC4518795

Categories

bone healing, fracture

Published Date

2013

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

Frequencies (Hz)

72

Early application of pulsed electromagnetic field in the treatment of postoperative delayed union of long-bone fractures: a prospective randomized controlled study

PMCID

PMC3556314

Categories

bone healing, fracture

Published Date

2013

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

PMCID

PMC3556314

Categories

bone healing, fracture

Published Date

2013

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

Pulsed electromagnetic fields for the treatment of tibial delayed unions and non-union. A prospective clinical study and review of the literature

PMCID

PMC3441225

Categories

bone healing, fracture

Published Date

2012

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

PMCID

PMC3441225

Categories

bone healing, fracture

Published Date

2012

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

Regulation of osteogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells by controlling electromagnetic field conditions

PMCID

PMC3584658

Categories

bone healing, brittle bone

Published Date

2013

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

Intensities (G)

10

Frequencies (Hz)

7.5, 30, 45

PMCID

PMC3584658

Categories

bone healing, brittle bone

Published Date

2013

Subject

human

Waveforms

unknown

Intensities (G)

10

Frequencies (Hz)

7.5, 30, 45

Disclaimer

Please note that Health Mat Review assumes no copyright over the following research studies, we've simply searched as thoroughly as possible through Pubmed for PEMF studies which provide the most information & provided a new way to search these studies via properties like waveform, frequency, intensity & more. All copyright and IP belongs to the authors & their associates.

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