Is the healing effect of Far-Infrared Radiation real ?

I've heard of materials / textiles that supposedly emit far-infrared radiation (FIR). This is said to have all sorts of beneficial effects on the human body and on stored food.
Several of my Asian colleagues are convinced of this technology, which seems to have originated in Korea or Japan.
Anyone experience with this ? Is the healing effect of FIR real or is this more of a placebo effect ?

My BS-O-Meter reacts heavily. However, have no hard facts or literature to back this up yet.

I'll try to find something.

Is it OK if I use the text of your post on another forum?

A quick google search produced only a very doubtable web page. My BS-O-Meter has not quiet down.

EDIT: The reason for my problem here is that any object emits infrared radiation, and if you wrap something in something emitting IR (may it be Near or Far), you simply heat it up. I doubt that special materials are needed; health benefits and dangers of heating are well known (love to visit the sauna ), and stored food would simply get warmer, encouraging bacterial growth (I mean, I put food in the freezer/fridge to prevent this ).

I believe that there are some studies that show an effect beyond what placebos typically achieve (35-45%).... Don't know anything about the following link but it lists some study names that you may be able to find elsewhere and some of the claimed positive effects (and this company sells the light sources):

Laser Therapy

-Bill

There are a number of proven benefit areas, even NASA is involved with funding studies of wound healing, with one of the leading areas under their SBIR programs.

The Phase I effort achieved its objective of ascertaining and demonstrating the efficacy of light therapy using LEDs, alone and in conjunction with hyperbaric oxygen, in the treatment of wounds.

Phase II results in speeding the early phase of wound closure were particularly successful.

http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/successes/ss/8-035text.html

The company involved with NASA SBIR:
http://www.quantumdev.com/applications/medical.html

From NASA's own tech briefs:
http://www.techbriefs.com/content/view/499/36/

DARPA funded projects are mentioned by this page on one of the fellas involved with several of these government funded studies:
http://www.mcw.edu/display/router.asp?docid=11408

More details, The NASA Light-Emitting Diode Medical Program, Progress in Space Flight and Terrestrial Applications:
http://www.mcw.edu/whelan/00.pdf

Besides acting as a researcher, Whelan's other job is as a Commander in the Navy and a diving medical officer for the Naval Special Warfare Command, which includes the SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) teams.


Some additional info:
http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/1031002355.html
http://www.wounds1.com/news/tech.cfm/0
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,60786,00.html
http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home/diod.html

Newbie, what wave length(s) are they using to achieve results?

elgarak said:

Is it OK if I use the text of your post on another forum?

Click to expand...

Sure, go ahead !

cy said:

Newbie, what wave length(s) are they using to achieve results?

Click to expand...

cy, one of the articles that Newbie has linked says it's 670 nm.

Newbie, I'm surprised. This is like science fiction ! I didn't know we have come that far. And I'm tempted to fit a flashlight with a infrared Luxeon and put that into my medical kit.

The products I am talking about have a more subtle healing effect. Actually I have played with such products but I have not done scientific tests.
I obtained some sample products from Malaysian maker Conybio and their elbow bandage with "bio-ceramics" worked nicely for my wife. Pain disappeared and didn't come back. But then I don't know if a normal bandage would maybe have worked just as well.
Their t-shirts do eliminate body odour, but there's several materials that can do this, not sure if it's related to the FIR-active ceramic powder that they add to their cloth.
I also did a test buying some fruits and wrapping half of them into bio-ceramic cloth and the other half not. The ones that I had not wrapped spoiled sooner and the wrapped ones, before they spoiled, had a different taste from the unwrapped ones. I can't say that the different taste was necessarily better or worse.

The semi-scientific explanations of companies in that industry say that their products accept heat and re-radiate it in the shape of far-infrared, thereby entering deeper into the body which is supposed to be good.
What grows my doubts abt these things is that I never found a study by a reputated source and that in the US, these products claim to help in reducing weight, they sometimes include magnets, they are sold expensive, and sometimes thru MLM.
Being an engineering guy I'd actually love to prove the effect of a FIR-active bandage or food container by hooking it up to a spectrum analyzer.

If you go down about 1/3 or father down the LaserTherapy link, you will see lots of information about wave lenghts used and many links down to research near the bottom of the page.

-Bill

I should be noted that Martin specifically asked for fabrics/textiles, not light emitters directed onto the body!

Very interesting about your food experiments. However, from your descriptions it seems that one sample was covered, the other not. To verify the claims, both samples should be covered, one with the super cloth, the other with something of similar texture. Otherwise, you just compare covered/wrapped effects with uncovered storage.

Also, double-blinding for taste tests should be preferred, so that the taster does not know which sample was treated.

Permanent magnets have no health benefits whatsoever (see here and here).

Far Infrared Red tends to be called "heat" and in the short term such heat makes things taste better, but I'll take a refridgerator in the long term.
Heat has beneficial affects on the human body as it tends to increase circulation to the area which can help healing while the body tries to get rid of the heat.

elgarak,
You have dsecribed a single blind test. To be double blind the taster must not know and the server must not know which is which.
King Soloman's ring is a good read for the why of that and there is an experiment done by Feynman in "'Surely you're joking ', Mr Feynman" that mentions the reason.

Mike,

I thought it was implied that the server was blinded also . I'm well aware of that, but I was simply sloppy and didn't want to complicate the post too much.

Also, for a simple household test it's fairly difficult to double-blind, so a single-blind test can be a huge knowledge improvement for the participants.

IIRC the consensus is that heat can be beneficial in promoting healing of certain wounds. IR lights can apparently be useful as a non-contact heat source. While I haven't seen any studies, the science sounds somewhat plausible.

As for the fabric, I very much doubt it.

Back in the early 1900s,the quacks would claim their pendants/tonic/containers/clothes/whatever worked through the curative power of radium.
Electricity, magnetism, X-rays, atoms, nanites.. all have had their time. What it'll cure and for how much changes over the years, but the pseudoscientific babble used to sell the product is pretty much the same.

Putting an IR emitter in your flashlight and throwing that in your first aid kit wont do any good The exposure was long term and an aid to healing and wound closure. Not something you just waved over the wound once to make it magically do anything