http://informahealthcare.com/ebm ISSN: 1536-8378 (print), 1536-8386 (electronic) Electromagn Biol Med, Early Online: 1–4 ! 2014 Informa Healthcare USA, Inc. DOI: 10.3109/15368378.2014.906450
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The effect of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy on food sensitivity Jean A. Monro1 and Basant K. Puri2 Breakspear Medical Group, Hertfordshire, UK and 2Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, UK
Electromagn Biol Med Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/30/15 For personal use only.
1
Abstract
Keywords
Owing to the involvement of the immune system in the etiology of food sensitivity, and because pulsed electromagnetic field therapy is associated with beneficial immunologic changes, it was hypothesized that pulsed electromagnetic fields may have a beneficial effect on food sensitivity. A small pilot study was carried out in patients suffering from food sensitivity, with the antigen leukocyte antibody test being employed to index the degree of food sensitivity in terms of the number of foods to which each patient reacted. It was found that a 1-week course of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, consisting of one hour’s treatment per day, resulted in a reduction in the mean number of reactive foods of 10.75 (p50.05). On the basis of these results, a larger study is warranted.
Environmental medicine, food sensitivity, hypersensitivity, pulsed electromagnetic field therapy
Introduction During the 1970s, it was demonstrated that pulsing magnetic fields produced by air-gap, rectangular coils, used to induce dynamic, orthogonal, voltage fields in bone and soft tissue could augment repair of canine osteotomies (Bassett et al., 1974). Since then, the clinical utility of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy has been demonstrated in a variety of clinical conditions such as persistent rotator cuff tendinitis (Binder et al., 1984), chronic lateral humeral epicondylitis (Devereaux et al., 1985), rheumatoid arthritis (Ganguly et al., 1998), the reduction of pain and swelling following plastic surgery (Kinney, 2005), chronic neck pain (Forestier et al., 2007), the improvement of pain and fatigue in fibromylagia (Sutbeyaz et al., 2009), osteoarthritis (Vavken et al., 2009), and discogenic lumbar radiculopathy (Omar et al., 2012). Food sensitivities, and indeed also food allergies, can be mediated by immunologic mechanisms, possibly including IgE-based hypersensitivity, immune complex reactions, and cell-mediated immunity (Herman and Drost, 2004; Kochuyt, 2006; Little, 2002); food sensitivities are individualistic adverse reactions to foods that may also involve nonimmunologic mechanisms and which include metabolic food disorders, such as lactose intolerance, and idiosyncratic reactions, such as sulfite-induced asthma (Taylor and Hefle, 2002). The antigen leukocyte antibody test allows the in vitro determination of food sensitivities by measuring changes in leukocyte volume in response to antigen stimulation (Pasula, 1993). It is specifically used to determine food sensitivities, as opposed to food allergies (Potter et al., 1992). It is based on cellular reactivity; changes in electrical resistance Address correspondence to Prof. Basant K. Puri, Imaging Directorate, Block A, Level 1, Hammersmith Hospital, Du Cane Road, London W12 0HS, England, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]
History Received 11 November 2013 Revised 17 February 2014 Accepted 9 March 2014 Published online 8 April 2014
produced by cells suspended in an electrolyte medium containing a given putative allergen are compared with the electrical resistance changes when there is no allergen in the medium. A presentation at the 45th Annual Congress of the American College of Allergy and Immunology by Fell (Oxford Allergy Centre, London), Brostoff (Department of Immunology, University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, London) and Pasula (AMTL, Miami, FL) (abstract in the Annals of Allergy) reported that this test ‘‘reproducibly measures volumetric shifts in the white blood cells upon incubation with antigens’’ and that the correlation between its results and double-blind challenge in food sensitivity was 83.4%. Furthermore, on the basis of a study of 20 patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, Fell et al. have reported that the antigen leukocyte antibody test ‘‘predicts foods which would produce a problem on food challenge and also a group of foods with no reactivity which would form the basis of an elimination diet’’ (Fell et al., 1991). Thus, this test is a valid, if not standard, test for food sensitivity. Antigen leukocyte antibody test results have been used in the treatment of respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms, arthritis, skin disorders, and central nervous system symptoms by identifying which foods should be eliminated in the diet; in a study of 72 patients, the best results were observed in arthritis, urticaria, bronchitis, gastroenteritis (improvement of between 70 and 83% in treated patients) (Mylek, 1995). Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy appears to cause beneficial immunologic changes when administered in other disorders known to be mediated by immunologic mechanisms. For example, in a rat model of rheumatoid arthritis (induced by intradermal injection of a suspension of heatkilled Mycobacterium tuberculosis), pulsed electromagnetic field therapy leads to a histologically confirmed reduction in inflammatory cell infiltration, hyperplasia, and hypertrophy
2
J. A. Monro & B. K. Puri
Electromagn Biol Med, Early Online: 1–4
of cells lining synovial membranes (Kumar et al., 2005). In terms of how long beneficial effects may last, while the authors are not aware of any long-term systematic studies of this issue, there is evidence from a human study of the effects of pulsed electromagnetic fields in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee and cervical spine which included a 1-month post-treatment follow-up assessment, that the duration of beneficial action may be at least 1 month posttreatment (Trock et al., 1994). We therefore hypothesized that pulsed electromagnetic field therapy would ameliorate food sensitivities in man. Here, we present findings from data collected for clinical purposes.
Electromagn Biol Med Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/30/15 For personal use only.
Methods Ethical approval to use anonymized clinical data from the Breakspear Clinic for research purposes was obtained from the AONMREC, London, UK. Five patients attended an environmental medical clinic. This is a day-patient unit specializing in the treatment of environmental illness. This type of illness is becoming increasingly common as the rising incidences of asthma, hayfever, and food intolerance attest. The patients undertook the antigen leukocyte antibody test. There were 100 foods in the food panel of items to which each patient could react. Each patient then underwent one hour’s treatment with a pulsed electromagnetic field, which involved application of the MiniMag (UltiCARe LT-98) apparatus while in the sitting position for 1 h, using a sweep from 3.3 to 40.7 Hz and back down to 3.3 Hz, with a total sweep-time (3.3 to 40.7 to 3.3 Hz) of 2 s. The antigen leukocyte antibody test was then repeated. The test was not administered prior to each of the subsequent sessions during the week of daily treatment. It should be noted that the patients were asked not to change their diets over the course of the week of therapy; thus, they acted as their own controls. Finally, the antigen leukocyte antibody test was repeated at the end of the course of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy; that is, a total of three tests were administered to each patient. Statistical analysis, using the chi-squared test, was carried out using the statistical program R (R Core Team, 2012).
Results The results, in terms of the number of reactive foods on each occasion, are shown in Table 1. Table 2 lists the types of food to which each patient was sensitive at each of the three times of testing. Unfortunately, patient number 4 developed a viral
Table 1. Age, sex, and antigen leukocyte antibody test results of each patient at baseline, after 1 hour of treatment, and following 1 week of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. Number of reactive foods
Patient Patient Patient Patient Patient
1 2 3 4 5
Age (y)
Sex
63 76 59 61 35
Female Female Male Male Female
At After 1 h of After 1 week of baseline treatment treatment 25 29 22 11 19
22 21 14 12 10
11 7 9 16 21
Table 2. Foods to which each patient was sensitive at baseline, after 1 hour of treatment, and following 1 week of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. At baseline Patient 1 Severe intolerance White potato Strong intolerance Almond Parsnip Peach Runner bean Tea Mild intolerance Apple Cashew Hazel nut Lemon Mackerel Malt Millet Mushroom Oat Olive Orange Parsley Sunflower Sweet potato Tomato Tuna Turnip Walnut Wheat Patient 2 Severe intolerance Strawberry Strong intolerance Leek Mushroom Orange Prawn Rice Sugar beet Sunflower Mild intolerance Almond Basil Brewer’s yeast Cashew Duck Goat’s cheese, Goat’s milk Kiwi Lamb Lemon Lentil bean Mackerel Malt Olive Plaice Salmon Sardine Spinach Tea Tuna White potato Patient 3 Severe intolerance Strong intolerance Coriander Kiwi Mild intolerance Avocado Bay leaf Brewer’s yeast Cashew
After 1 h of treatment
After 1 week of treatment
Apple Asparagus
Pineapple Runner bean White potato
Chickpea Chicken Cod Coriander Corn Goat’s Cheese Honeydew Melon Kiwi Lamb Lemon Malt Olive Orange Parsley Parsnip Peach Plum Tea Tomato White potato
Asparagus Bay leaf Carrot Chicken Green pea Kiwi Lamb Peanut
Brewer’s yeast Malt
Almond Kiwi
Almond Apple Aubergine Bay leaf Broccoli Cashew Duck Goat’s cheese Hazelnut Honeydew melon Kidney bean Lamb Mushroom Oat Prawn Runner bean Strawberry Sunflower Tuna
Avocado Coriander Lamb Malt Parsnip
Goat’s milk Kiwi Asparagus Brewer’s yeast Broccoli Cashew
Kiwi Almond Bay leaf Cashew Coriander (continued )
Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy & food sensitivity
DOI: 10.3109/15368378.2014.906450
Table 2. Continued
Electromagn Biol Med Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/30/15 For personal use only.
At baseline Egg yolk Garlic Hard cheese Hazelnut Lamb Malt Oat Peanut Prawn Rye Sugar beet Sunflower Tea Tuna Turnip Wheat Patient 4 Severe intolerance Strong intolerance Courgette Kiwi Mild intolerance
Coriander Leek Malt Oregano Plum Prawn Sunflower Tea White potato
Patient 5 Severe intolerance Strong intolerance Coriander Kiwi Malt Oat
Mild intolerance
Almond Apple Black pepper Brewer’s yeast Carrot Courgette Lamb Mustard Oregano Pineapple Plum Runner bean Sunflower Tea White potato
After 1 h of treatment
After 1 week of treatment
Garlic Goat’s cheese Hard cheese Honeydew melon Lettuce Pear Plum Prawn
Goat’s milk Lemon Malt Tea
Malt
Aubergine Kiwi Raspberry Apple Baker’s yeast Bay leaf Cashew Coriander Courgette Green pea Lamb Lemon Spinach Sunflower Sweet potato Tuna
Almond Bay leaf Cashew Coriander Lamb Millet Runner bean Soybean Sunflower Tea Wheat
Malt
Almond Cashew Chicken Courgette Kiwi Oat Prawn Runner bean Soybean
3
a mean reduction in the antigen leukocyte antibody test score of 8.40 (standard error 3.64); 2 ¼ 21.162, df ¼ 8, p ¼ 0.0067. Re-analysis of the results, omitting patient number 4, showed that the 1-week course of therapy was associated with a mean reduction in the antigen leukocyte antibody test score of 10.75 (standard error 3.59); 2 ¼ 15.847, df ¼ 6, p ¼ 0.0146.
Discussion and conclusion
Mustard Chilli pepper Lentil bean Malt Peanut Pear Wheat Banana Egg white Honeydew melon Lettuce Mackerel Mushroom Onion Oregano Plum Pork Soybean Spinach Sunflower White potato
infection between his first 1-h post-treatment antigen leukocyte antibody test and his final assessment at the end of the course of therapy. Allergies were deemed ‘‘better’’ or ‘‘worse’’ according to the change (reduction or increase, respectively) in the number of positive foods. Analysis of the results for all the patients showed that the 1-week course of therapy was associated with
Given that the fourth patient developed a viral infection before the end of his 1-week course of therapy, it was considered inappropriate to include that patient’s results in the analysis, as it was felt that such as infection could, as it were, ‘‘overload’’ the immune system and temporarily heighten sensitivities. In spite of the fact that omission of the fourth case led to an even smaller number of individuals in this pilot study, it was found that a 1-week course of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy was associated with a significant reduction in food sensitivity. (Not omitting this patient’s results was associated with an even more statistically significant finding.) To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of the beneficial effects of such therapy on food sensitivity. Food sensitivities to oral challenge have been reported to be stable over time, including in double-blind investigations (Bock et al., 1978; May, 1976; May and Bock, 1978). Thus, the present results are unlikely to have been the result of variability in hypersensitivities over the course of only 1 week. Long-term repeat testing after the 1-week course of therapy was not carried out. The patients were attending an environmental medicine clinic; unfortunately, the expense of the tests precluded a greater number of patients taking part. Without long-term follow-up data, it seems reasonable to assume that a 1-week therapy session will not ‘‘cure’’ the subjects’ food sensitivities; there is no evidence from the manufacturer or from published studies of any harm associated with repeated 1-week sessions. Clearly, a larger study, with long-term follow-up, is warranted. It would be good if such a study were to incorporate a sham exposure group, in order to act as a partial control. It is also important to note that the antigen leukocyte antibody test is not a standard test for food hypersensitivity. Therefore, in future more comprehensive studies other procedures should be applied.
Declaration of interest The authors declare no conflicts of interests. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.
References Bassett, C. A., Pawluk, R. J., Pilla, A. A. (1974). Augmentation of bone repair by inductively coupled electromagnetic fields. Science. 184: 575–577. Binder, A., Parr, G., Hazleman, B., Fitton-Jackson, S. (1984). Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy of persistent rotator cuff tendinitis. A double-blind controlled assessment. Lancet. 1:695–698. Bock, S. A., Lee, W.-Y., Remigio, L. K., May, C. D. (1978). Studies of hypersensitivity reactions to foods in infants and children. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 62:327–334. Devereaux, M. D., Hazleman, B. L., Thomas, P. P. (1985). Chronic lateral humeral epicondylitis – A double-blind controlled assessment of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. Clin. Exp. Rheumatol. 3:333–336.
Electromagn Biol Med Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/30/15 For personal use only.
4
J. A. Monro & B. K. Puri
Fell, P. J., Soulsby, S., Brostoff, J. (1991). Cellular responses to food in irritable bowel syndrome: An investigation of the ALCAT test. J. Nutr. Med. 2:143–149. Forestier, R., Francon, A., Saint Arroman, F., et al. (2007). Are SPA therapy and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy effective for chronic neck pain? Randomised clinical trial. Second part: Medicoeconomic approach. Ann. Readapt. Med. Phys. 50: 148–153. Ganguly, K. S., Sarkar, A. K., Datta, A. K., Rakshit, A. (1998). A study of the effects of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy with respect to serological grouping in rheumatoid arthritis. J. Indian Med. Assoc. 96:272–275. Herman, P. M., Drost, L. M. (2004). Evaluating the clinical relevance of food sensitivity tests: A single subject experiment. Altern. Med. Rev. 9:198–207. Kinney, B. M. (2005). Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in plastic surgery. Aesthet. Surg. J. 25:87–91. Kochuyt, A. M. (2006). Sensitivity and specificity of food specific IgE and IgG determinations for the diagnosis of food allergy. Acta Gastroenterol. Belg. 69:43–48. Kumar, V. S., Kumar, D. A., Kalaivani, K., et al. (2005). Optimization of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy for management of arthritis in rats. Bioelectromagnetics. 26:431–439. Little, C. H. (2002). Mediators in food allergy. In: Brostoff J., Challacombe, S. Food Allergy and Intolerance, 2nd ed. London: Saunders. pp. 309–320. May, C. D. (1976). Objective clinical and laboratory studies of immediate hypersensitivity reactions to food in asthmatic children. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 58:500–515. May, C. D., Bock, S. A. (1978). A modern clinical approach to food hypersensitivity. Allergy. 33:166–188.
Electromagn Biol Med, Early Online: 1–4
Mylek, D. (1995). ALCAT Test results in the treatment of respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms, arthritis, skin and central nervous system. Rocz. Akad. Med. Bialymst. 40:625–629. Omar, A. S., Awadalla, M. A., El-Latif, M. A. (2012). Evaluation of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in the management of patients with discogenic lumbar radiculopathy. Int. J. Rheum. Dis. 15: e101–e108. Pasula, M. J. (1993). The ALCAT test: in vitro procedure for determining food sensitivities. Folia Med. Cracov. 34:153–157. Potter, P. C., Mullineux, J., Weinberg, E. G., et al. (1992). The ALCAT test – inappropriate in testing for food allergy in clinical practice. S. Afr. Med. J. 81:384. R Core Team. (2012) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0. Available from: http://www. R-project.org/ (accessed 17 Feb 2014). Sutbeyaz, S. T., Sezer, N., Koseoglu, F., Kibar, S. (2009). Low-frequency pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in fibromyalgia: A randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled clinical study. Clin. J. Pain. 25: 722–728. Taylor, S. L., Hefle, S. L. (2002). Foods as allergens. In: Brostoff, J., Challacombe, S. Food Allergy and Intolerance, 2nd ed. London: Saunders. pp. 403–412. Trock, D. H., Bollet, A. J., Markoll, R. (1994). The effect of pulsed electromagnetic fields in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee and cervical spine: Report of randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trials. J. Rheumatol. 21:1903–1911. Vavken, P., Arrich, F., Schuhfried, O., Dorotka, R. (2009). Effectiveness of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in the management of osteoarthritis of the knee: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J. Rehabil. Med. 41:406–411.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The effect of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy on food sensitivity Jean A. Monro1 and Basant K. Puri2 Breakspear Medical Group, Hertfordshire, UK and 2Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, UK
Electromagn Biol Med Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/30/15 For personal use only.
1
Abstract
Keywords
Owing to the involvement of the immune system in the etiology of food sensitivity, and because pulsed electromagnetic field therapy is associated with beneficial immunologic changes, it was hypothesized that pulsed electromagnetic fields may have a beneficial effect on food sensitivity. A small pilot study was carried out in patients suffering from food sensitivity, with the antigen leukocyte antibody test being employed to index the degree of food sensitivity in terms of the number of foods to which each patient reacted. It was found that a 1-week course of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, consisting of one hour’s treatment per day, resulted in a reduction in the mean number of reactive foods of 10.75 (p50.05). On the basis of these results, a larger study is warranted.
Environmental medicine, food sensitivity, hypersensitivity, pulsed electromagnetic field therapy
Introduction During the 1970s, it was demonstrated that pulsing magnetic fields produced by air-gap, rectangular coils, used to induce dynamic, orthogonal, voltage fields in bone and soft tissue could augment repair of canine osteotomies (Bassett et al., 1974). Since then, the clinical utility of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy has been demonstrated in a variety of clinical conditions such as persistent rotator cuff tendinitis (Binder et al., 1984), chronic lateral humeral epicondylitis (Devereaux et al., 1985), rheumatoid arthritis (Ganguly et al., 1998), the reduction of pain and swelling following plastic surgery (Kinney, 2005), chronic neck pain (Forestier et al., 2007), the improvement of pain and fatigue in fibromylagia (Sutbeyaz et al., 2009), osteoarthritis (Vavken et al., 2009), and discogenic lumbar radiculopathy (Omar et al., 2012). Food sensitivities, and indeed also food allergies, can be mediated by immunologic mechanisms, possibly including IgE-based hypersensitivity, immune complex reactions, and cell-mediated immunity (Herman and Drost, 2004; Kochuyt, 2006; Little, 2002); food sensitivities are individualistic adverse reactions to foods that may also involve nonimmunologic mechanisms and which include metabolic food disorders, such as lactose intolerance, and idiosyncratic reactions, such as sulfite-induced asthma (Taylor and Hefle, 2002). The antigen leukocyte antibody test allows the in vitro determination of food sensitivities by measuring changes in leukocyte volume in response to antigen stimulation (Pasula, 1993). It is specifically used to determine food sensitivities, as opposed to food allergies (Potter et al., 1992). It is based on cellular reactivity; changes in electrical resistance Address correspondence to Prof. Basant K. Puri, Imaging Directorate, Block A, Level 1, Hammersmith Hospital, Du Cane Road, London W12 0HS, England, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]
History Received 11 November 2013 Revised 17 February 2014 Accepted 9 March 2014 Published online 8 April 2014
produced by cells suspended in an electrolyte medium containing a given putative allergen are compared with the electrical resistance changes when there is no allergen in the medium. A presentation at the 45th Annual Congress of the American College of Allergy and Immunology by Fell (Oxford Allergy Centre, London), Brostoff (Department of Immunology, University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, London) and Pasula (AMTL, Miami, FL) (abstract in the Annals of Allergy) reported that this test ‘‘reproducibly measures volumetric shifts in the white blood cells upon incubation with antigens’’ and that the correlation between its results and double-blind challenge in food sensitivity was 83.4%. Furthermore, on the basis of a study of 20 patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, Fell et al. have reported that the antigen leukocyte antibody test ‘‘predicts foods which would produce a problem on food challenge and also a group of foods with no reactivity which would form the basis of an elimination diet’’ (Fell et al., 1991). Thus, this test is a valid, if not standard, test for food sensitivity. Antigen leukocyte antibody test results have been used in the treatment of respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms, arthritis, skin disorders, and central nervous system symptoms by identifying which foods should be eliminated in the diet; in a study of 72 patients, the best results were observed in arthritis, urticaria, bronchitis, gastroenteritis (improvement of between 70 and 83% in treated patients) (Mylek, 1995). Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy appears to cause beneficial immunologic changes when administered in other disorders known to be mediated by immunologic mechanisms. For example, in a rat model of rheumatoid arthritis (induced by intradermal injection of a suspension of heatkilled Mycobacterium tuberculosis), pulsed electromagnetic field therapy leads to a histologically confirmed reduction in inflammatory cell infiltration, hyperplasia, and hypertrophy
2
J. A. Monro & B. K. Puri
Electromagn Biol Med, Early Online: 1–4
of cells lining synovial membranes (Kumar et al., 2005). In terms of how long beneficial effects may last, while the authors are not aware of any long-term systematic studies of this issue, there is evidence from a human study of the effects of pulsed electromagnetic fields in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee and cervical spine which included a 1-month post-treatment follow-up assessment, that the duration of beneficial action may be at least 1 month posttreatment (Trock et al., 1994). We therefore hypothesized that pulsed electromagnetic field therapy would ameliorate food sensitivities in man. Here, we present findings from data collected for clinical purposes.
Electromagn Biol Med Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/30/15 For personal use only.
Methods Ethical approval to use anonymized clinical data from the Breakspear Clinic for research purposes was obtained from the AONMREC, London, UK. Five patients attended an environmental medical clinic. This is a day-patient unit specializing in the treatment of environmental illness. This type of illness is becoming increasingly common as the rising incidences of asthma, hayfever, and food intolerance attest. The patients undertook the antigen leukocyte antibody test. There were 100 foods in the food panel of items to which each patient could react. Each patient then underwent one hour’s treatment with a pulsed electromagnetic field, which involved application of the MiniMag (UltiCARe LT-98) apparatus while in the sitting position for 1 h, using a sweep from 3.3 to 40.7 Hz and back down to 3.3 Hz, with a total sweep-time (3.3 to 40.7 to 3.3 Hz) of 2 s. The antigen leukocyte antibody test was then repeated. The test was not administered prior to each of the subsequent sessions during the week of daily treatment. It should be noted that the patients were asked not to change their diets over the course of the week of therapy; thus, they acted as their own controls. Finally, the antigen leukocyte antibody test was repeated at the end of the course of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy; that is, a total of three tests were administered to each patient. Statistical analysis, using the chi-squared test, was carried out using the statistical program R (R Core Team, 2012).
Results The results, in terms of the number of reactive foods on each occasion, are shown in Table 1. Table 2 lists the types of food to which each patient was sensitive at each of the three times of testing. Unfortunately, patient number 4 developed a viral
Table 1. Age, sex, and antigen leukocyte antibody test results of each patient at baseline, after 1 hour of treatment, and following 1 week of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. Number of reactive foods
Patient Patient Patient Patient Patient
1 2 3 4 5
Age (y)
Sex
63 76 59 61 35
Female Female Male Male Female
At After 1 h of After 1 week of baseline treatment treatment 25 29 22 11 19
22 21 14 12 10
11 7 9 16 21
Table 2. Foods to which each patient was sensitive at baseline, after 1 hour of treatment, and following 1 week of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. At baseline Patient 1 Severe intolerance White potato Strong intolerance Almond Parsnip Peach Runner bean Tea Mild intolerance Apple Cashew Hazel nut Lemon Mackerel Malt Millet Mushroom Oat Olive Orange Parsley Sunflower Sweet potato Tomato Tuna Turnip Walnut Wheat Patient 2 Severe intolerance Strawberry Strong intolerance Leek Mushroom Orange Prawn Rice Sugar beet Sunflower Mild intolerance Almond Basil Brewer’s yeast Cashew Duck Goat’s cheese, Goat’s milk Kiwi Lamb Lemon Lentil bean Mackerel Malt Olive Plaice Salmon Sardine Spinach Tea Tuna White potato Patient 3 Severe intolerance Strong intolerance Coriander Kiwi Mild intolerance Avocado Bay leaf Brewer’s yeast Cashew
After 1 h of treatment
After 1 week of treatment
Apple Asparagus
Pineapple Runner bean White potato
Chickpea Chicken Cod Coriander Corn Goat’s Cheese Honeydew Melon Kiwi Lamb Lemon Malt Olive Orange Parsley Parsnip Peach Plum Tea Tomato White potato
Asparagus Bay leaf Carrot Chicken Green pea Kiwi Lamb Peanut
Brewer’s yeast Malt
Almond Kiwi
Almond Apple Aubergine Bay leaf Broccoli Cashew Duck Goat’s cheese Hazelnut Honeydew melon Kidney bean Lamb Mushroom Oat Prawn Runner bean Strawberry Sunflower Tuna
Avocado Coriander Lamb Malt Parsnip
Goat’s milk Kiwi Asparagus Brewer’s yeast Broccoli Cashew
Kiwi Almond Bay leaf Cashew Coriander (continued )
Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy & food sensitivity
DOI: 10.3109/15368378.2014.906450
Table 2. Continued
Electromagn Biol Med Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/30/15 For personal use only.
At baseline Egg yolk Garlic Hard cheese Hazelnut Lamb Malt Oat Peanut Prawn Rye Sugar beet Sunflower Tea Tuna Turnip Wheat Patient 4 Severe intolerance Strong intolerance Courgette Kiwi Mild intolerance
Coriander Leek Malt Oregano Plum Prawn Sunflower Tea White potato
Patient 5 Severe intolerance Strong intolerance Coriander Kiwi Malt Oat
Mild intolerance
Almond Apple Black pepper Brewer’s yeast Carrot Courgette Lamb Mustard Oregano Pineapple Plum Runner bean Sunflower Tea White potato
After 1 h of treatment
After 1 week of treatment
Garlic Goat’s cheese Hard cheese Honeydew melon Lettuce Pear Plum Prawn
Goat’s milk Lemon Malt Tea
Malt
Aubergine Kiwi Raspberry Apple Baker’s yeast Bay leaf Cashew Coriander Courgette Green pea Lamb Lemon Spinach Sunflower Sweet potato Tuna
Almond Bay leaf Cashew Coriander Lamb Millet Runner bean Soybean Sunflower Tea Wheat
Malt
Almond Cashew Chicken Courgette Kiwi Oat Prawn Runner bean Soybean
3
a mean reduction in the antigen leukocyte antibody test score of 8.40 (standard error 3.64); 2 ¼ 21.162, df ¼ 8, p ¼ 0.0067. Re-analysis of the results, omitting patient number 4, showed that the 1-week course of therapy was associated with a mean reduction in the antigen leukocyte antibody test score of 10.75 (standard error 3.59); 2 ¼ 15.847, df ¼ 6, p ¼ 0.0146.
Discussion and conclusion
Mustard Chilli pepper Lentil bean Malt Peanut Pear Wheat Banana Egg white Honeydew melon Lettuce Mackerel Mushroom Onion Oregano Plum Pork Soybean Spinach Sunflower White potato
infection between his first 1-h post-treatment antigen leukocyte antibody test and his final assessment at the end of the course of therapy. Allergies were deemed ‘‘better’’ or ‘‘worse’’ according to the change (reduction or increase, respectively) in the number of positive foods. Analysis of the results for all the patients showed that the 1-week course of therapy was associated with
Given that the fourth patient developed a viral infection before the end of his 1-week course of therapy, it was considered inappropriate to include that patient’s results in the analysis, as it was felt that such as infection could, as it were, ‘‘overload’’ the immune system and temporarily heighten sensitivities. In spite of the fact that omission of the fourth case led to an even smaller number of individuals in this pilot study, it was found that a 1-week course of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy was associated with a significant reduction in food sensitivity. (Not omitting this patient’s results was associated with an even more statistically significant finding.) To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of the beneficial effects of such therapy on food sensitivity. Food sensitivities to oral challenge have been reported to be stable over time, including in double-blind investigations (Bock et al., 1978; May, 1976; May and Bock, 1978). Thus, the present results are unlikely to have been the result of variability in hypersensitivities over the course of only 1 week. Long-term repeat testing after the 1-week course of therapy was not carried out. The patients were attending an environmental medicine clinic; unfortunately, the expense of the tests precluded a greater number of patients taking part. Without long-term follow-up data, it seems reasonable to assume that a 1-week therapy session will not ‘‘cure’’ the subjects’ food sensitivities; there is no evidence from the manufacturer or from published studies of any harm associated with repeated 1-week sessions. Clearly, a larger study, with long-term follow-up, is warranted. It would be good if such a study were to incorporate a sham exposure group, in order to act as a partial control. It is also important to note that the antigen leukocyte antibody test is not a standard test for food hypersensitivity. Therefore, in future more comprehensive studies other procedures should be applied.
Declaration of interest The authors declare no conflicts of interests. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.
References Bassett, C. A., Pawluk, R. J., Pilla, A. A. (1974). Augmentation of bone repair by inductively coupled electromagnetic fields. Science. 184: 575–577. Binder, A., Parr, G., Hazleman, B., Fitton-Jackson, S. (1984). Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy of persistent rotator cuff tendinitis. A double-blind controlled assessment. Lancet. 1:695–698. Bock, S. A., Lee, W.-Y., Remigio, L. K., May, C. D. (1978). Studies of hypersensitivity reactions to foods in infants and children. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 62:327–334. Devereaux, M. D., Hazleman, B. L., Thomas, P. P. (1985). Chronic lateral humeral epicondylitis – A double-blind controlled assessment of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. Clin. Exp. Rheumatol. 3:333–336.
Electromagn Biol Med Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Selcuk Universitesi on 01/30/15 For personal use only.
4
J. A. Monro & B. K. Puri
Fell, P. J., Soulsby, S., Brostoff, J. (1991). Cellular responses to food in irritable bowel syndrome: An investigation of the ALCAT test. J. Nutr. Med. 2:143–149. Forestier, R., Francon, A., Saint Arroman, F., et al. (2007). Are SPA therapy and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy effective for chronic neck pain? Randomised clinical trial. Second part: Medicoeconomic approach. Ann. Readapt. Med. Phys. 50: 148–153. Ganguly, K. S., Sarkar, A. K., Datta, A. K., Rakshit, A. (1998). A study of the effects of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy with respect to serological grouping in rheumatoid arthritis. J. Indian Med. Assoc. 96:272–275. Herman, P. M., Drost, L. M. (2004). Evaluating the clinical relevance of food sensitivity tests: A single subject experiment. Altern. Med. Rev. 9:198–207. Kinney, B. M. (2005). Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in plastic surgery. Aesthet. Surg. J. 25:87–91. Kochuyt, A. M. (2006). Sensitivity and specificity of food specific IgE and IgG determinations for the diagnosis of food allergy. Acta Gastroenterol. Belg. 69:43–48. Kumar, V. S., Kumar, D. A., Kalaivani, K., et al. (2005). Optimization of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy for management of arthritis in rats. Bioelectromagnetics. 26:431–439. Little, C. H. (2002). Mediators in food allergy. In: Brostoff J., Challacombe, S. Food Allergy and Intolerance, 2nd ed. London: Saunders. pp. 309–320. May, C. D. (1976). Objective clinical and laboratory studies of immediate hypersensitivity reactions to food in asthmatic children. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 58:500–515. May, C. D., Bock, S. A. (1978). A modern clinical approach to food hypersensitivity. Allergy. 33:166–188.
Electromagn Biol Med, Early Online: 1–4
Mylek, D. (1995). ALCAT Test results in the treatment of respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms, arthritis, skin and central nervous system. Rocz. Akad. Med. Bialymst. 40:625–629. Omar, A. S., Awadalla, M. A., El-Latif, M. A. (2012). Evaluation of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in the management of patients with discogenic lumbar radiculopathy. Int. J. Rheum. Dis. 15: e101–e108. Pasula, M. J. (1993). The ALCAT test: in vitro procedure for determining food sensitivities. Folia Med. Cracov. 34:153–157. Potter, P. C., Mullineux, J., Weinberg, E. G., et al. (1992). The ALCAT test – inappropriate in testing for food allergy in clinical practice. S. Afr. Med. J. 81:384. R Core Team. (2012) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0. Available from: http://www. R-project.org/ (accessed 17 Feb 2014). Sutbeyaz, S. T., Sezer, N., Koseoglu, F., Kibar, S. (2009). Low-frequency pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in fibromyalgia: A randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled clinical study. Clin. J. Pain. 25: 722–728. Taylor, S. L., Hefle, S. L. (2002). Foods as allergens. In: Brostoff, J., Challacombe, S. Food Allergy and Intolerance, 2nd ed. London: Saunders. pp. 403–412. Trock, D. H., Bollet, A. J., Markoll, R. (1994). The effect of pulsed electromagnetic fields in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee and cervical spine: Report of randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trials. J. Rheumatol. 21:1903–1911. Vavken, P., Arrich, F., Schuhfried, O., Dorotka, R. (2009). Effectiveness of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in the management of osteoarthritis of the knee: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J. Rehabil. Med. 41:406–411.
