15 research outputs found
Inter-Rater Agreement of Biofield Tuning: Testing a Novel Health Assessment Procedure
Objectives: Practitioners of Biofield Tuning assess health status of their clients by detecting off-the-body biofield perturbations using tuning fork (TF) vibrations. This study tested inter-rater agreement (IRA) on location of these perturbations.
Design: Three Biofield Tuning practitioners, in randomized order, identified locations of the 4–5 “strongest” perturbations along each of 4 sites for the same series of 10 research subjects.
Setting/Location: An Integrative Health and Medicine Center in La Jolla, CA.
Subjects: Adult volunteers with no serious current illness and no prior experience of a Biofield Tuning session.
Interventions: Practitioners used an activated 174 Hz unweighted TF to “comb” the same four sites per subject, located on the left and right sides of the base of the spine and the heart.
Outcome Measures: Practitioners identified and vocalized the distance from the body of perturbations along each site. Distances were recorded by a research assistant in the clinic room. No health information related to perturbation sites was discussed with the subjects.
Results: Practitioners reported 6.3 ± 0.6 (mean ± standard deviation) perturbations per combed site per subject, with no significant difference among the raters. The overall level of IRA was low based initially on a first-pass, nonstatistical, analysis of results, with “agreement” defined within a tolerance of ±2 inches. In this approach agreement was 33%. More rigorous statistical analysis, including a statistical test using a Monte Carlo approach, strongly supported the conclusion of poor IRA.
Conclusions: IRA was low despite attempts to balance the real-world practice of Biofield Tuning with the constraints of research. For example, while IRA necessitates multiple assessments of the same subject, no information exists as to whether an initial assessment may affect subsequent assessments. Our study exemplifies the challenges faced when attempting to fit interventions with incompletely understood procedures and mechanisms into conventional research designs
Non-thermal radio frequency and static magnetic fields increase rate of hemoglobin deoxygenation in a cell-free preparation
The growing body of clinical and experimental data regarding electromagnetic field (EMF) bioeffects and their therapeutic
applications has contributed to a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of action. This study reports that two
EMF modalities currently in clinical use, a pulse-modulated radiofrequency (PRF) signal, and a static magnetic field (SMF),
applied independently, increased the rate of deoxygenation of human hemoglobin (Hb) in a cell-free assay. Deoxygenation
of Hb was initiated using the reducing agent dithiothreitol (DTT) in an assay that allowed the time for deoxygenation to be
controlled (from several min to several hours) by adjusting the relative concentrations of DTT and Hb. The time course of Hb
deoxygenation was observed using visible light spectroscopy. Exposure for 10\u201330 min to either PRF or SMF increased the
rate of deoxygenation occurring several min to several hours after the end of EMF exposure. The sensitivity and biochemical
simplicity of the assay developed here suggest a new research tool that may help to further the understanding of basic
biophysical EMF transduction mechanisms. If the results of this study were to be shown to occur at the cellular and tissue
level, EMF-enhanced oxygen availability would be one of the mechanisms by which clinically relevant EMF-mediated
enhancement of growth and repair processes could occur