Get out your baloney detection kit. On Gwyneth Paltrow’s rather bizarrely and hilariously named website, Goop, she links to a product from the company Body Vibes. The product, in the company’s own words, is a smart sticker “programmed to deliver natural bio-frequencies to optimize brain and body functions, restore missing cell communication, and accelerate the body’s natural ability to heal itself.” On physical therapy social media circles, there have been posts and advertisements about a similar product, named amino neurofrequency therapy or amino biofrequency therapy. The purveyors of these stickers make similarly boundless claims; these will help for any given problem or therapeutic goal you might be interested in addressing. If you explore a bit further, frequency patch therapy has all the tropes of a classic pseudoscientific treatment. I discussed a few of these in a previous post, and like craniosacral therapy, frequency patch therapy checks off all of the boxes of my unofficial “Warrants Skepticism” list.
- They provide a vague, scientific-sounding explanation of what the treatment actually does. They suggest that all of the body’s functions are controlled by “frequencies,” and that these frequencies are really what needs fixing for any disease or condition. By utilizing these patches, you can correct the frequencies and solve any problem. Describing it this way has a few advantages; it sounds plausible for the average person without any medical training, but it is ambiguous enough to not be nailed down as to exactly how it works. For those being treated with real medical approaches that have not had success, “altered frequencies” throughout the body are a (made-up) problem that can be addressed. It represents the possibility of something that was missed, and provides a (dubious) explanation of what went wrong.
- Because its explanation is so vague, it can be connected to any problem a person has. There is literally no condition that they can’t help for. They “work” for acute or chronic musculoskeletal pain of all types, neurological conditions, cardiovascular conditions, and even psychological conditions. You can also find testimonials and anecdotal accounts of frequency patches being able to help with conditions that are extremely disabling, associated with a significant amount of medical uncertainty, or being very emotionally challenging to manage, including strokes, spinal cord injuries, immune disorders, depression, lyme disease, fibromyalgia, and migraines among others. By marketing this therapy towards conditions that are difficult to manage, they can fill a void that real medicine has not been able to fill just yet. They provide a facade of certainty in a world full of uncertainty and open their market to literally everyone.
- There is a distinct lack of research. A complete research review is not hard to do, because there is none to find. I was unable to find any research studies of any type that looked at these products. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and extraordinary claims about medical products require robust, placebo-controlled clinical trials that are peer-reviewed and available for analysis. The purveyors of these treatments only have patient testimonials and anecdotal evidence in support of all the benefits they claim. A YouTube search will have way more results than one on PubMed; try it! A healthcare practitioner does not have the right to be as confident as these people are without the science to back it up. The science often does have to play catch-up with clinical practice, but the goal should be to have some unbiased support for it, and there is no indication this is on its way. Even when I personally inquired about any clinical trials under way or any studies they published by one particular group, it was only suggested that the research would be a “waste.”
- There is a course near you! At every instance possible, including all over their websites, on their social media posts, and on personal emails, there are links and information about where to sign up for a course. There are courses all over the world, and the courses certainly are not cheap.
New treatments and therapies of this nature need to be regarded with strong skepticism. I would be just as happy as anyone to have a new treatment technique to work with, especially for those extremely challenging cases. I have treated patients with spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, chronic pain, and others. It is heartbreaking and frustrating to see patients struggle with progressive, debilitating disease and to be extremely limited with sound, effective options. However, it is insulting to see a therapy that is promulgated without the appropriate amount of vetting or scientific testing that is now the standard in medicine. It is especially egregious to market this treatment to patient populations where real medicine has not yet found its way. The entire world of musculoskeletal healthcare is devalued when treatments like this infiltrate it, and evidence-based practitioners ought to be calling out the nonsense. Give me a clinical trial. Put your products to a fair test, and then we can talk about the results. Hitchen’s razor cuts swiftly; the claims put forth here, without any supporting evidence, are easily dismissed.
I don’t know why I’m bothering to comment, as you’ll find a way to try and discredit me. However, not everyone has the time, money or resources (unlike those with a vested interest such as drug companies) for double-blind clinical studies. I’m sure if another party had the resources to do undertake a study in an unbiased way, they would agree. The fact that people are seeing results when nothing else works can be valid for those who want a different solution. If it’s not for you, fine, but don’t deny people that it’s genuinely helping from receiving that benefit. As a craniosacral therapist, who has seen countless clients change with behaviour patterns, health and emotional shifts through becoming more in relationship to their own systems, I wish the naysayers would actually take the time to experience before denigrating.
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Thank you for commenting. I am never looking to discredit anyone. Putting RCTs aside, there is absolutely no plausible mechanism by which something like this could work, and any results people who get this treatment report could be explained by other factors besides “altered frequencies.” I am not saying people won’t report subjective improvement, but there is no reason to believe it is from the mechanism they propose. At best, people who support this treatment are misguided, but at worst, they are actively lying to desperate people. And as pointed out in my article, there are many signs that something more nefarious is going on then a new breakthrough treatment coming out. Any science they could point to would be helpful, but right now there is nothing at all, which is why I am skeptical.
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I don’t know why I’m bothering to comment, as you’ll probably just find a way to try and discredit me. However, not everyone has the time, money or resources (unlike those with a vested interest such as drug companies) for double-blind clinical studies. I’m sure if another party had the resources to undertake a study in an unbiased way, they would agree. The fact that people are seeing results when nothing else works can be valid for those who want a different solution. If it’s not for you, fine, but don’t deny people that it’s genuinely helping from receiving that benefit. As a craniosacral therapist, who has seen countless clients change with behaviour patterns, health and emotional shifts through becoming more in relationship to their own systems, I wish the naysayers would actually take the time to experience before denigrating.
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https://energicxusa.com/our-technology/ this is where the frequency is embedded and released by thermal energy (body heat). Make some enquiries.
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I literally don’t have enough free time to explain how valid Nick’s skepticism is here. With experience in both Electrical Engineering and Neurology, and a passionate study of using modern Psychology to control others, everything is wrong with both how they present their technology and how they imply it actually succeeds in its intended purpose.
I came upon this after a friend asked me to look into this “treatment” before she gives it a try but I only commented to say this…
My sister has a condition for which there is no treatment and some quack “doctor” convinced my sister somehow that she was helping her which gave my sister peace of mind and an almost psychosomatic temporary relief, so, if you “feel” better doing something then have it. Final note, my sister after 10+ years stopped seeing this doctor when everything continued to get worse and worse and then in the absence of their “treatments” and “supplements” started to feel better.
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