Using Electricity to Heal

ganjadude writes to tell us that while the idea of using electricity to heal wounds was first reported 150 years ago by Emil Du Bois-Reymond, modern scientists may have found a way to practically apply this idea. From the article: "The researchers grew layers of mouse cells and larger tissues, such as corneas, in the lab. After 'wounding' these tissues, they applied varying electric fields to them, and found they could accelerate or completely halt the healing process depending on the orientation and strength of the field."

Comments

1.21 gigawatts

[lecithin]

After 'wounding' these tissues, they applied varying electric fields to them, and found they could accelerate or
completely halt the healing process depending on the orientation and strength of the field.

"Hey Marty, lets start out with 1.21 gigawatts right about... Here."

"Interesting. It looks like that stopped the healing process."

"Hello... McFly?"

I'm shocked!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shocked, I tell you!

Power Insurance

[Doc Ruby]

Once doctors are using guided electric fields to assist healing, how will corporations which spill uncontrolled electric fields among people deny that their fields affect human tissue? Or will they just claim credit for the healing "they've already been offering free for generations", and start tacking a medical charge on our bills?

How to get laid by New Age chicks

[bermabloeme]

This creates electric field patterns all over the body.

A lot of the "New Age" folks say they can see a person's aura. A lot of these "New Age" folks are really hot girls! So, this is what you do: you grab this article and tell them that you believe, now. Let her just start talking about this stuff. Then, complain about some ailment that requires her "healing" touch. Lastly, ask to try it on her.

Let things progress: touching , kissing, clothes off, etc...

Enjoy!

Re:How to get laid by New Age chicks

[SteveFoerster]

A lot of the "New Age" folks say they can see a person's aura. A lot of these "New Age" folks are really hot girls! So, this is what you do: you grab this article and tell them that you believe, now. Let her just start talking about this stuff. Then, complain about some ailment that requires her "healing" touch. Lastly, ask to try it on her. Let things progress: touching , kissing, clothes off, etc... Enjoy!

Only on /. would this get modded "Informative" rather than "Funny".

The problem

[Reality Master 101]

The only problem with this is that now we need to put surgeries on the top floor of hospitals. Then there's the problem of having to wait for a lightning storm. Let's not even get into the extra staff you need to turn the big wheel and lift the operating table through the roof.

I suppose we'll also see extra insurance needed for the wear and tear on the surgeon's voicebox when he yells, "Liiiiiife! Liiiiiiife DO YOU HEAR ME!? GIVE MY CREATION ........... LIIIIIIIIIIFE!!"

Old news

[mnmn]

Forget about 150 years, down in Texas they use electric chairs to fix up some really sick people.
And psychiatric wards have been using it to fix up people who were sick in the head in the early half of the century.

Even the police and mean old ladies use it to fix other people and pets. Them doctors are a little behind.

forget that

[npietraniec]

This guy discovered immortality with magnets.

http://www.alexchiu.com/

Damn, they even interviewed him on slashdot.

http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/0 6/07/1421238&mode=nocomment

not really suprising.. if..

[josepha48]

.. you have been to a physical therapist. My physical therapist used electricity on my shoulder to help it heal up some. I think she said it was supposed to stimulate something.. actually it just tingled and felt weird, but now I no longer have shoulder problems....

Awesome

[BilZ0r]

That's actually quite an awesome paper. It seems that when a wound is made, it makes a low resistance shunt across skin, which normally has a voltage difference across it. This stimulates wound healing activity. The current peaks at 10 microA cm-2 and persisted at 4-8 microA cm-2, with all the current vector pointing towards the wound center. This paper shows not only that that effect is easily demonstrated in vitro, but what are the molecular mediators of it, see the original article here.

Have we learned nothing ...

[Culture]

... from history? If you read about Dr. Frankenstein, you will find that this medling in the unknown will lead to nothing but misery. I hope Bush veto's any work in this area.

Coming soon to an inbox near you...

[Null Nihils]

While I am fascinated by genuine scientific research into such effects, and interested by the insights into cellular and genetic mechanics described in the article, I shiver to think of how news like this might reverberate across the large communities of pseudo-science loons and snake-oil salesmen that lurk in the dark corners of the Internet.

" Electr1city curez, as seen |n New Scienti5t m4gazine. G3t electr|cal d3vice, cur3s all d1sease including ere
Zap.

Already out there

[bobllama]

There's already a company that's commercializing this - http://www.biofisica.com/. They have some pretty interesting information on their site for anyone interested in more detail. I'm not associated with them in anyway, just happened to see them present at an event once.

Sick of 'science' reporting

[bananaendian]

No doubt this report will be hyped by the new-age weirdos that are always looking for miracles cures or reasons for paranoia. Why do these articles never EVER tell anything meaningful - like for example the strenght and orientation of the field they used with some simple data tables and statistics? Who has access to some weird specialist journal with a 1000USD subscrition to get the raw data? New Scientist no.1 Science Magazine, yeah right! - science isn't about wild speculation and hype - its about rigorous examination and critical thinking. I wouldn't be suprised ones other labs try to reproduce the effect it gets debunked.

Re:Sick of 'science' reporting

[staeiou]

Why do these articles never EVER tell anything meaningful - like for example the strenght and orientation of the field they used with some simple data tables and statistics? Who has access to some weird specialist journal with a 1000USD subscrition to get the raw data?

So you think Nature (the journal TFA said it was published in) is some weird specialist journal with a 1000USD subscription? It is probably the most well known academic journal in existence, at least to the non-academic. And even if you are too poor to buy a subscription, I'm almost positive that every public library subscribes to Nature.

Re:Magnets

[aditi]

... "And since everything is relative, Wearing a magnet on your wrist makes it stationary in comparison to your wrist, thus wearing magnets is pointless. QED. "

Actually, no. While it is true that the magnet is stationary w.r.t your wrist (or whichever part of your body), it is not stationary with respect to the moving ions that make up the electric current within the cells. The presence of the magnetic field will deflect the charges according to a force F = Charge * Field x Velocity. Charges coming in from further away might get deflected away from their original destination, allegedly altering the healing process.

So wearing magnets might not be pointless.

Implementation or Understanding

[buckhead_buddy]

I've heard stories about how the medical profession was so enamored with radioactive tools for healing. Xrays to look inside the body. The way radiation exposure could kill unwanted bacteria. The cool soothing greenish glow of radioactive clocks and other tools. They came up with implementations of using radiation before understanding what it was doing. Today, looking back at the lack of understanding seems crazy; we'd never do something like that again. Would we?

Are we in fact going to do the same thing with electricity here? Are we really understanding why these mice are being cured or are we just satisfied to have a technique that appears to work? I don't mean to be cynical. Curing the impossible seems like a great thing. But will we be reading about how a quick emag arthritis treatment today resulted in the creation of Alzheimer's v2.0 tomorrow?

IMHO, a workable implementation is great, but full understanding would be better.

Re:Implementation or Understanding

[Vellmont]

Are we in fact going to do the same thing with electricity here?

I doubt it. The effects of radiation on the body 100 years ago was very poorly understood. Low voltage electrical currents by comparison are fairly benign. It's not like the use of electricity in the human body is new. Pacemakers have been around forever, there's been some trials of direct electrical stimulation of the brain to create artificial vision, and many parapalegics use direct muscle stimulation to stand up, etc (maybe even walk?).

Also, the medical community itself has grown up. Years of animal testing is required for any kind of new treatment goes to limited human trials.

That's not to say it's all perfect. You can't dismiss the danger that any new treatment is going to have unforseen side effects that don't show up in human trials. But I think comparing this new treatment to the early days of medicine where anything goes and there's poor understanding isn't terribly valid.

Re:I don't think this is new

[budgenator]

Bone (Calcanous) has two differnt types of cells, osteoclasts which "eat bone" and osteoblasts which lay down new bone. The osteoclasts tend to meander, eating the one randomly, but the osteoblasts tend to follow electrical currents in the bone. The calcium salts in the bone give off electrical currents by the piezoelectric effect which causes the bone to grow in the direction that makes it the strongest for the stresses it normaly recieves.