Q-Ray bracelets

[NRGie]

So whats the deal behind these?

[dj_rice]

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2007/11/14/buying_belief/



Click on that link and watch the video

[liquidboi69]

A bunch of BS that's what. A judge in the US determined they were bullshit, and ordered a refund of all profits (23 mill) to 100,000 buyers.

100% placebo.

[RickDaTuner]

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l163/RickyDuarte/Picture2.png

[msommers]

Placebo or not, if it genuinely makes people feel better, what's the harm?

[TurboD]

there was a product being marketed at the body building contest I attended almost a year ago and it had this product that apparently gives you crazy balance, I'll try to find a site...


http://www.balanceband.com/test/

Shows just how superstitious and irrational people can be.

The reason you know there is a market for this is because of the fact that the crucifix of jesus is probably the best selling jewelery ever....
People like to live in a delusion...

[liquidboi69]

Originally posted by msommers
Placebo or not, if it genuinely makes people feel better, what's the harm?
Cause it creates/sustains a market where instead of retailers trying to discover ways to actually improve one's health, they are trying to discover ways to rip you off.

You can argue it provides mental health, but if everyone was busy making BS things to rip you off, then no real health creations would be made.

[msommers]

http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000109mag-talbot7.html

A long but interesting read nonetheless.

[acmilano]

here is my experience, its not with the q-ray but something similar.. (and yes people will say its placebo but screw it)

i have a bracelet that is made entirely of magnets. not really the same as the q-ray but none the less is supposed to "heal" body pain and balance your body and what not.

true story: i had pretty bad pain by my shoulder (around the pit area) from working out. after 2 months of not working out because of the pain, it was still there. Not any better and not any worse. a couple weeks later i got this "magnetic bracelet" as a gift. these things are ~5 bucks so its nothing special. anyway, long story short i put it on before i went to bed that night thinking that it was the biggest load of crap i had ever heard of. i didn't expect a single thing from this bracelet and pretty much wore it for shits and giggles.

the next day i completely forgot i had it on. i went through the day not paying any attention to it. finally later on i was stretching and realized something felt different. the pain (and lots of people think this is bs but like i said, screw it) was ~80% gone. i still thought the bracelet was bs but wore it regardless. after 1 week of wearing this thing the pain was 99% gone. the muscle still felt a bit tender but none the less recovered quite well. i've been wearing this thing for the past 3 months and the pain is 100% gone. i'd like to think its prevented a lot of other muscle pains from occurring too.

anyway for those who think its placebo.. it could be. but then again maybe not. for me, i really don't care. the pain is gone regardless of if its in my head or if something actually happened.

anyway just my 2cents.

[sputnik]

http://auctionboutique.com/usersdirs/14976//Dumbo/dumbo_feather.jpg

[Mar]

You guys would be very surprised and shouldn't comment until you've actually tried it.

My dad and I think the same way, if it doesn't make any logical sense and have any sort of scientific reasoning behind it, it's got to be a scam. I also have a science degree for what it's worth.

So he got one of these plated with gold for Christmas from his mom a few years ago and refused to wear it because they're stupid and don't work. But he had to put it on for at least a day to let her think he likes it......that was 3 years ago, he hasn't taken it off since. He said he was absolutely amazed at how good of a night's sleep he got with it, it's ridiculous.

So if you haven't tried it, don't say it doesn't work. I'm not proving it does but I'm proving you don't know if you haven't tried.

[mazdavirgin]

Originally posted by Mar
I also have a science degree for what it's worth.


:facepalm: If you have a science degree you should likely slap yourself for having missed the whole point of your degree. Last I checked the scientific method isn't based on "This really works it made me feel better!". No typically you need empirical evidence...


Originally posted by Mar
So if you haven't tried it, don't say it doesn't work. I'm not proving it does but I'm proving you don't know if you haven't tried.

Sugar pills work great too! Maybe you should read about the placebo effect and why it is so important for drug research to perform double blind tests.

PS: Snake oil like this is NOT harmless it causes people to not seek medical treatment when they need it and instead to believe in these magic cures. This is no different than someone who has pneumonia refusing to take antibiotics/antivirals and instead decides their cleansing regimen or whatever other quackery will cure them. Then they die from a easily cured illness all because they refuse to believe in science.

[TimeAttack]

+1 @ mazdavirgin

If it really did heal muscles and joints, obviously it would be tested and consequently used by doctors to aid patience.

@ science degree boy:

If this heals muscle and joint tissue, everything science has learned about the way the body heals is false.

I have so much more to say on the subject but I'll leave it at that for now.

[Mar]

Originally posted by mazdavirgin
:facepalm: If you have a science degree you should likely slap yourself for having missed the whole point of your degree. Last I checked the scientific method isn't based on "This really works it made me feel better!". No typically you need empirical evidence...
You missed the entire point by restating exactly what I said. I don't believe things that don't have factual evidence and follow the laws of science as previously proven. This statement was to foster a bond between the writer and the reader and induce abstract thought processes.


Originally posted by mazdavirgin
Sugar pills work great too! Maybe you should read about the placebo effect and why it is so important for drug research to perform double blind tests.
Again, you missed the entire point. The only point of my post, as I stated, is not to try and convince you it works. It's to point out that you can't say if it does/doesn't without trying it because for some other very skeptical people that wouldn't normally fall for a placebo, it did have some effect.

[TimeAttack]

I would argue that having a false belief that your muscle and joint damage is healed could lead to serious or further damage to that muscle/joint.

I guess it's ok if you don't mind living in delusion land, less and less people these days enjoy the luxury of reality.
Being from a science based background it's odd that you buy into it, even if it does have some sort of placebo effect.

[Recca168]

Originally posted by Mar
You missed the entire point by restating exactly what I said. I don't believe things that don't have factual evidence and follow the laws of science as previously proven. This statement was to foster a bond between the writer and the reader and induce abstract thought processes.

Again, you missed the entire point. The only point of my post, as I stated, is not to try and convince you it works. It's to point out that you can't say if it does/doesn't without trying it because for some other very skeptical people that wouldn't normally fall for a placebo, it did have some effect.

:facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:
Just burn your science degree right now. If there was even a shred of scientific evidence supporting it then it could warrent some expermentation but with q-ray its just "Wear it, it'll improve your life." No mention of why or how.

I heard rat poison helps you sleep too. Don't knock it till you try it right?

:facepalm:

[sputnik]

Perhaps the Q-Ray is very successful healing the ailments that hypochondriacs get.

[Crymson]

well we know where the nerves are, we know that pain is transmitted via synapses, ions, and neurotransmitters, which likely contains some kind of electrical charge.

It would seem to make sense that an applied magnetic field to a neurotransmitter that was a dipole, you could slow the flow of said neurotransmitter or ion or interfere with its transmission and the firing of the nerve.

I guess it' doesn't seem so far fetched if you had powerful, focussed magnets at the right spot on your body that you could interupt the flow of magnetically sensitive molecules.

[TKRIS]

There is no question as to whether or not this type of woo does anything.
It doesn't.
There are plenty of good double blinded, repeatable tests that show they have no effect.
If you want to argue whether or not "thinking" they are doing something can do something, then that's another matter.

The placebo effect doesn't testify to the efficacy of the placebo, but to the effect.

Here is what is known.
These bracelets are not founded on any scientific basis or mechanism.
When tested, these bracelets perform no better than a control.
Anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. It is hearsay. Additionally, you (and I) are a horribly unreliable, biased observer.

This shit is incredibly easy to test.
And it's been tested. Boy has it been tested. And the results are astoundingly clear:
If the magnets/ionization/whatever in the bracelet did anything, replacing them with weights would remove the perceived effect. It doesn't.
Any perceived effect is completely independent of the tested product.
If I give the magnet bracelets to 'x' amount of people, and the plain metal bracelets to another 'x' amount of people, the amount of people who claim that it hed an effect will be about the same. The magnets/ionization/whatever have no impact on whether or not the test subjects perceive an effect. Thus, the magnets/ionization/whatever have no real effect.
Additionally, the explanations for the proposed mechanism (magnets effecting iron in the blood, chi, shakras, whatever) are absolutely laughable from a scientific standpoint.

Furthermore: In the case of things like Qray:
Not only is these overwhelming evidence that wearing an ionized bracelet will have absolutely no quantifiable effect, but these fucking things aren't actually even ionized. I saw a program where they took one in to have it tested, and it wasn't ionized or anything like that. It's a piece of metal. Full stop.

I can't say that I blame them. Why would they bother actually ionizing anything? The non ionized q-ray does exactly the same thing as an ionized Qray. Or an elastic band, for that matter...
The whole process is completely conjured, so why would they do anything other than make the product look how you think it should look?

The only reason you will perceive a Qray/magnet/whatever bracelet to work better than an elastic band is because you want it to.

I can not say that you won't feel any better by wearing one. What I can say is that wearing a $400 rare earth magnet bracelet (or whatever) works exactly the same as wearing a $0.25 piece of scrap metal, if I make it so that you can't tell the difference.

[TimeAttack]

Originally posted by Crymson
well we know where the nerves are, we know that pain is transmitted via synapses, ions, and neurotransmitters, which likely contains some kind of electrical charge.

It would seem to make sense that an applied magnetic field to a neurotransmitter that was a dipole, you could slow the flow of said neurotransmitter or ion or interfere with its transmission and the firing of the nerve.

I guess it' doesn't seem so far fetched if you had powerful, focussed magnets at the right spot on your body that you could interupt the flow of magnetically sensitive molecules.

This is a joke right?

talk like "likely" and "it would seem to make sense" and I guess it doesn't seem so far fetched" is not a reasonable way of thinking.

If it fails in testing, you cannot put it forth as an accurate hypothesis.

You wanna try out a powerful magnet, stick your head in a microwave.

[Mitsu3000gt]

100% scam IMO, and it's fairly well known to be.

However, if you are retarded enough to buy one, and somehow, placebo or not, it helps you, thats good I guess?:dunno:

[TKRIS]

Ask Steve McQueen is using woo to treat medical conditions is a good idea simply because doing so allows you to convince yourself you feel better...

I feel bullshit that masquerades as medicine is incredibly dangerous. I also believe that a lot of the people who push this bullshit know that it's bullshit, and those are the worst kinds of people. The Kevin Trudeau's of this world are a blight on humanity.

[Mar]

Originally posted by TimeAttack
This is a joke right?

talk like "likely" and "it would seem to make sense" and I guess it doesn't seem so far fetched" is not a reasonable way of thinking.
Really? Tell that to Newton.....or Einstein. How do you prove gravity exists? You can't. But what you can do is produce a theory based on phrases such as "likely" and "it would seem to make sense." There's a reason Einstein's theory of relativity is still a theory......because it can't be proven......it's just very likely.

Once again, I'm not trying to convince anyone these bracelets work.

[Crymson]

Well, i don't know what q-ray bracelets do, but there has been analgesic applications of magnetic fields that show some success, as well as double-blind tests that show a strong palcebo effect, and double-blind tests that show results.

Please don't call me an idiot for thinking that something magnetic would respond to something magnetic.

http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/1/2/187.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3722807
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11013115
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15055092

Obviously "pain" is an extremely complex, complicated, and multi-faceted response to stimuli. There may be applications for focussed magnetic fields that help certain chronic pains or diseases, as some of the research out there seems to suggest.

But as with anything, there will be so many fakes, knock-offs and snake oil salsemen that if there is a "real-deal" that actually does something, it'll be washed away by the flood of crap that is simply two chunks of metal or a cheap ass bar magnet.

[TimeAttack]

Originally posted by Mar

Really? Tell that to Newton.....or Einstein. How do you prove gravity exists? You can't. But what you can do is produce a theory based on phrases such as "likely" and "it would seem to make sense." There's a reason Einstein's theory of relativity is still a theory......because it can't be proven......it's just very likely.

Once again, I'm not trying to convince anyone these bracelets work.

The difference between gravity etc is that those theories CAN BE TESTED, and have been tested, and the expected results have reinforced the theory to be correct.
A hypothesis is about making predictions and testing to see if your theory works and stands up to alternate theories.
You cannot prove gravity exists, gravity is a concept to explain how the world works. The theory of gravity is the best theory we have at the moment, it may not be 100% accurate and in the future some other theory may prevail, but it's very unlikely because of the way it works the way one would expect it to work under tests against other current theories.

the "likely" statements are ok when putting together a test to prove your theory, but you cannot just make random "likely" comments and expect them to prove your theory on their own.