Vitals Spotlight - We Give the Doctor an Exam

Yankee's pitcher Joba Chamberlain (cnycentral.com)

Yankee’s pitcher Joba Chamberlain says he knows the secret to his high-level athletic performance.  It is called the Phiten necklace, and you too can own one for around $25.00.  ”It helps us recover and we’re proud to be associated with it,” said Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain, a paid endorser of Phiten’s titanium-coated sportswear, after winning the American League pennant Sunday night.  And he is not alone - around 300 major-league players wear a Phiten necklace. Do these necklaces really enhance one’s athletic prowess and promote recovery as advertised?

The necklaces were created in 1982 in Japan by Yoshihiro Hirata, an alternative medicine practicioner and founder of Phiten.   According to the company, the necklaces and bracelets work by stabilizing the electric flow that nerves use to communicate actions to the body.

“All of the messages in your body travel through electricity, so if you’re tired or just pitched nine innings, the electricity isn’t flowing as smoothly as it can,” said Joe Furuhata, a Phiten spokesman. “Our products smooth out those signals.

“There’s no science and physiology,” said Dr. Orrin Sherman, chief of sports medicine at the New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases. “There’s just no way the chemical structure of the body can be influenced by magnets that small. It’s all superstitions with no scientific basis.”

phiten necklace (seattlepi.com)

Sherman also noted that when people interact with magnets far more powerful than the Phiten necklaces, like the magnets in a CT (computerized tomography) scan machine, for instance, they do not report any of the effects pitchers and quarterbacks say they receive from the necklace.

However, he does not deny there is the possibility these necklaces really do have some extraordinary powers, the same mystical capabilities attributed to Craig Biggio’s unwashed helmet.   The magical power of placebo.  If the players think they are getting an advantage from the necklace and that gives them increased confidence, then they do in fact get a positive boost from the product.

“You’ve gotta believe in placebo effect,” said Dr. Sherman.

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Tags: Craig Biggio's unwashed helmet, Dr. Orrin Sherman, Joba Chamberlain, Phiten necklace, Yankee's pitcher Joba Chamberlain, Yoshihiro Hirata

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 10:03 am and is filed under Celebrity Doctors, Doctors In The Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.