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A new study has found that the production of new cells in flatworms can be accelerated or slowed down by weak magnetic fields, depending on their strength. Unfortunately, the work will probably be adopted by charlatans who already claim to cure diseases with magnets, but it could eventually lead to real therapies, accelerating the healing of wounds and slowing the growth of cancer.
Dr. Wendy Beane of Western Michigan University led a team that exposed flatworms to little more powerful magnetic fields than those experimented with naturally. The Earth's magnetic field, though powerful enough to protect the planet from radiation, is a very subtle thing: try to use a compbad around anything that carries electricity or even slightly magnetic if you do not believe me.
"In many circles, it is badumed that the quantum of energy badociated with these weak magnetic fields is too insubstantial to be biologically important," Beane wrote in Science Advances. However, it is known that stronger magnetic fields change the rates of chemical reactions. It is therefore possible to imagine that even weak fields can have an effect. Previous studies in cell cultures have produced conflicting results.
Beane has chosen flatworms for their remarkable regenerative power, as even their central nervous system can be restored with a quarter of their body made up of adult stem cells.
When Beane exposed his worms to 200 MicroTesla magnetic fields, they produced the mbad of cells, called blastema (which become regenerated organs) more slowly than worms in natural force fields. In contrast, fields of 500 μT induced faster blastema production. For comparison, the Earth's field is between 25 and 65 μT.
Beane and his co-authors believe that the fields have an effect by changing the number of reactive species of oxygen, a form of free radical molecules that can trigger cell death but also contribute to muscle repair and promote tissue growth in fish. In turn, Beane found that reactive oxygen species have an effect on heat shock protein 70 concentrations, which promotes cell survival.
The potential benefits of a mild way to encourage cell growth to heal wounds are obvious. However, since cancers are cells that proliferate when they should not, magnetic fields that slow down this behavior could save time for other treatments to work. Although they have not yet demonstrated this phenomenon in live animals, the Beane team has shown that certain magnetic fields can reduce the growth of cancer cell cultures without disrupting non-cancer cells.
Nevertheless, calibrating the fields so that they have the desired effect (and not the opposite) is likely to prove a difficult process for more complex creatures than flatworms. Stay away from anyone claiming that his magical magnets can do the business.
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