Longevity Briefs: Using Magnetic Fields To Mimic The Benefits Of Exercise

Longevity briefs provides a short summary of novel research in biology, medicine, or biotechnology that caught the attention of our researchers in Oxford, due to its potential to improve our health, wellbeing, and longevity.

The problem:

Modern medicine relies overwhelmingly on chemicals to treat disease, and for good reason. Besides gene therapy, which is still in its infancy, chemicals provide the most versatile tools to bring about a specific desired biological effect. However, there is an increasing interest in using physical stimuli like temperature, light, and even electric or magnetic fields to treat disease.

The mitochondria are the “powerhouses” of our cells, responsible for extracting energy from nutrients like glucose (sugar). They are essential components of complex cells, and impaired mitochondrial function is a key player in many age related diseases, including type II diabetes. Endurance exercise, which activates mitochondria-rich muscle fibres, can help reverse this dysfunction and improve blood sugar control, but some elderly people find it difficult to exercise due to frailty. In this study, researchers experiment with Pulsed Electromagnetic Field therapy (PEMF), based on the principal that magnetic fields can stimulate mitochondrial activity in a similar way to exercise – an application that researchers term magnetic mitohormesis (MM). ‘Mito’ refers to the mitochondria, while ‘hormesis’ refers to placing a biological system under a limited amount of stress in order to induce a beneficial compensatory response.

The discovery:

Researchers recruited 40 adults with suboptimally-controlled type II diabetes mellitus, meaning their glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c, a marker of blood sugar over time) levels were between 7.0% and 10.0%. For context, most organisations recommend a target of under 7%. Participants, with an average (mean) age of 59.4 years, underwent 12 weekly sessions of MM treatment over three months. These sessions involved 10 minutes of low-dose PEMF to one leg, with subsequent sessions targeting alternate legs.

The study found that MM treatment was well-tolerated, with no significant adverse effects. Overall there were no significant changes in either HbA1c, fasting glucose or resistance to the blood sugar lowering hormone insulin between the beginning and end of the study. However, researchers did find that when they looked specifically at patients with central obesity (defined by a waist-to-hip ratio of 1.0 or greater), this group did experience a statistically significant reduction in their HbA1c levels, dropping from an average of 7.5% to 7.1%. Nearly 9 in 10 patients in the subgroup showed an improvement in HbA1c, compared to only around a third of patients without central obesity.

The implications:

This study had no control group of diabetics receiving a placebo treatment, and so should be considered exploratory in nature. The participants were asked not to change anything about their diet, physical activity levels or medication during the study, in an attempt to ensure that any observed changes were due to the treatment. However, besides the fact that the participants might not have followed these instructions, it is possible that they were already undertaking activities prior to the start of the study that would have lowered their HbA1c over time. Researchers did not (or were not able to) consider whether HbA1c was on a downward trend before the study began. Participants with central obesity might have been more likely to be undertaking activities (for the purpose of weight loss) that would also have lowered their HbA1c. Finally, it should be noted that the paper declared a conflict of interest: one of the authors is a co-founder of the company whose PEMF device was used, and also a co-inventor of said device.

Due to the limitations of the evidence, it’s impossible to draw any real conclusions about the effectiveness of MM at this stage, but it’s worthy of further exploration in properly structured clinical trials. Since mitochondrial dysfunction plays a role in many diseases and in ageing in general, many people could potentially benefit from such a non-invasive and quick treatment. With this research being in its infancy, there is plenty of room to experiment with the magnetic field dose, intensity, duration and so on to see whether greater effects can be achieved.