Earthing: Legit Concept or Pseudoscience BS?

So are foot baths for detoxifying the body bunk also? I've had several people recommend them, but never have tried it. It does seem odd to me to be able to pull toxins out through you skin.
Bunk. There are several resources that I could point to about this but here's one from Dr. Andrew Weil. He's an integrative medicine practitioner and generally open to unusual and alternative medicine ideas. He says don't waste your money.
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA400147

Peace,
Karen
 
Good point Longboard. I just read Ahcuah's blog post and the comments. I can see why some or apparently most barefoot runners want to distance themselves from the concept.

So are foot baths for detoxifying the body bunk also? I've had several people recommend them, but never have tried it. It does seem odd to me to be able to pull toxins out through you skin.

So much research and self education to do, so little time.


Um, basically, any product that says that it is supposed to remove "toxins" is horsesh!t. There's no coherent class of substances that make up "toxins". Yes, there are toxic substances in our environment. Yes, we ingest and and inhale them. But for most of us in most cases, the normal defenses in our body (our liver, our kidneys, the mucociliary escalator, coughing, peeing and pooing) can get rid of them. If you've been poisoned by a SPECIFIC toxin, like, for example, lead, you need medical treatment that will SPECIFICALLY help your body rid itself of lead. Other "toxins" don't have the same chemistry and won't be removed from your body with that treatment. But even with poisonings, most of the treatments are supportive anyway. Your team tries to help your organs function while your body clears the "toxin" on its own. You cannot eat or use some magic product that is going to suck "toxins" out of your body.

This is a good, accessible piece about the lack of benefits and possible dangers of colon cleanses:
http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/01/colon-cleansing-not-so-cleansing-after-all/

And, just for the record, I have no idea how those products that help you pass a drug test for marijuana work. Having watched a housemate use them back in college, though, I suspect the products are basically electrolytes that allow the user to drink massive amounts of water (and dilute the drug), while still maintaining yellow, salty urine.
 
Are you guys talking about salt baths?
 
So you guys are talking about salt baths? o_O
 
Jason, that only works if you're a card carrying member of the Church of Scientology. Want me to scan you a card?
 
Yeah I think it's a bunch of hooey, mainly because I've been barefooting as much as possible for nearly a year, and yet I still got a couple of colds and allergy flare-ups in the past few months.
 
Attributing perceived health to anything can be dangerous. A year ago, I used to get sick all the time. I did a lot of barefoot running. Since then, I've been running in minimalist shoes almost exclusively and have not had a single cold. Was it the shoes?

Not at all. A year ago I spent five days a week with 150 teenagers in an enclosed space, then went home to one kid in kindergarten and two others in daycare. I lived in a petri dish. I ran barefoot because all I had were tame trails and roads for training. Since that time, I spend most days outside and rarely come in close contact with anyone aside from my family, and they also rarely come in contact with anyone. I wear shoes because all my runs are faster paced and run through rough mountains.

The shoe issue is inconsequential, but that's the problem with illusory correlations.
 
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Well now that you all have dumped on the good vibes I get from grounding (earthing), at least I still have my healing magnets which purify the drinking water and increase the gas milage on my VW.
What next, tell me my dowsing rod doesn't work? The fortune teller warned me about this.:D


 
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I'm still trying to disabuse my tropical-born wife of the cold feet theory of disease.

don't get me started on my wife's theories related to weather and disease and accompanying mollycoddling of the kids
 
A BRS member with a PhD in physics had this to say regarding Earthing on his blog:

http://ahcuah.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/eye-on-ions/

Yeah, and now it is starting to attract the true believers to comment there. There is really nothing you can say to dissuade them.

I looked at their published papers (in "alternative" journals) a while ago. They were not persuasive, to say the least. I really ought to go back again and give a careful critique of them, but I'm too busy hitting my head with a hammer right now. I want to do something that will make me feel better, not worse. ;)
 
Good point Longboard. I just read Ahcuah's blog post and the comments. I can see why some or apparently most barefoot runners want to distance themselves from the concept.

So are foot baths for detoxifying the body bunk also? I've had several people recommend them, but never have tried it. It does seem odd to me to be able to pull toxins out through you skin.

So much research and self education to do, so little time.

OK, I'm going to have to write a blog post on that sometime, too.

Here's the short version of what's going on: the electrodes they put in the water have iron in them. Basically, you are doing reverse electroplating, so the iron is being electrolicized right into the water. The water turns gunky regardless of whether your feet are in the water or not. It is fraud. Outright fraud.
 
Um, how could you design a test for the hypothesis?
Maybe if you measured some folks' auras and then had some walk around BF, some walk with one shoe on, and some with both shoes on and measure their auras again, you should find varying levels of earthing energy distributed across the test population. Would that do it?
 
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Earthing is based on the idea that you can collect free electrons from the earth by walking barefoot (among other activities), which can then be utilized as an antioxidant to neutralize free radicals, ergo improve health.

What are your thoughts? I'm going to publish a post about the idea tomorrow and wanted to get some feedback beforehand. For those that know me, you can probably guess how I handle the topic. :)
This is totally legit. I mean, look at how much longer of a lifespan our shoeless ancestors had than us... oh wait...

What about the electrons you lose while walking bf?
 
Um, how could you design a test for the hypothesis?
Maybe if you measured some folks' auras and then had some walk around BF, some walk with one shoe on, and some with both shoes on and measure their auras again, you should find varying levels of earthing energy distributed across the test population. Would that do it?

Only if there were some way of detecting and measuring "auras" and "earthing energy". But there isn't.

Because they don't exist.
 

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