High Intensities Why you really need High Intensities!
Lots of confusing and misleading information is on the internet, posted by sales people selling PEMF devices.
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Impressive videos explaining that intensity is not important by throwing around complicated formulas [Oersted, Coulomb, Ampere, Faraday, Maxwell just to mention a few] which are impossible to understand for people who have no solid background in physics.
Difficult words are used [permeability constant, magnetic flux density, coherent fields etc.] which for lay people are incomprehensible and might actually make some people believe that the offered information is probably right.
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Some of these self-appointed experts claim that high intensity of PEMF devices is not important and on this page we will explain why this is not the case and for high efficacy high intensities are a must.
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Explanations on this page do go a little deeper into the science than on the Intensity page on this website, but the information is still very well understandable for people who just want to know what the best device is for their applications.
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Let’s take a closer look why high intensity is very important to obtain deep penetration into the cells and bones and why low intensity PEMF systems are far from being effective compared to high intensity systems.
Why do we really need high intensity PEMFs?
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Pulsing magnetic fields induce small electrical currents into the human body. However distribution and absorption of these electrical currents in the body depend not so much on electromagnetic permeability [which can be seen as some form of resistance to the degree of magnetization] but more depend on the dielectric properties of different tissues, which is different for organs, blood, bones etc.
Blood is a bio-magnetic fluid, which behaves as a magnetic fluid because of interaction of cellular proteins, cell membrane and haemoglobin for which the magnetic property is affected by factors such as the level of oxygenation saturation. Oxygenated blood is paramagnetic and de-oxygenated blood is diamagnetic up to certain levels.
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In this picture the dielectric properties of the human body parts are shown with the their relevant dielectric penetration depth and dissipation [efficacy] of the induced currents at a pulsing frequency 10 Hz. We can now clearly see that there are large differences between e.g. blood and bone marrow [more than 3.5 times] and as such to obtain complete penetration in order to rebuild bone and cartilage, much higher electrical currents [and thus intensities] are neccesary than required for blood to obtain the desired effect.
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Another example: To penetrate the brain [cerebellum] deep inside the head the induced current must be almost 5 times higher than the required value for blood!
Low intensity PEMF systems cannot penetrate at a cellular level as required for bone, heart, kidney etc. etc. and only have superficial effects at the surface level and as such will only improve blood flow circulation, that’s all!
Wave propagation
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Then there is the issue of electromagnetic wave propagation in the human body.
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Batteries of implanted devices like pumps, pacemakers etc. can nowadays be charged wirelessly exactly the same way as we charge our smartphones with a charging pad. This method is called wireless power transfer.
Because electromagnetic wave propagation is different in skin, fat and muscles, implanted devices are preferrably placed in fat tissue because the electromagnetic charging currents are coupled much easier with less energy loss from the charger outside the body to the implanted device.
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This is another reason why we have to start out with high intensities at skin level to be able to reach deep inside the body otherwise the energy loss caused by skin and muscles will prevent the PEMF pulses to reach the area to be treated deep inside the body.
Electromagnetic scattering, reflection and absorbtion in skin
Then there is the issue of electromagnetic scattering, reflection and absoption of the applied electromagnetic fields on human skin somewhat similar as light behaves when shining through translucent glass. There will always be some intensity loss and changes in the direction of the magnetic field lines at skin level, disturbing the coherence of the electromagnetic field.
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This effect is even stronger taking into account the curvature, torsion, change in thickness of capillaries and sweat on the skin, infuencing the magnetic susceptibility of the body.
Of course this effect will be felt much more with low intensity fields than with high intensity pulsing fields because of the losses which occur.
If low intensity pulsing magnetic fields should be sufficient for completely penetrating the human body, why does the minimum required magnetic field strength of clinical Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MRI] machines start at 0.3 Tesla [3.000 Gauss] and going up to more than 3 Tesla?
The higher the intensity of the magnetic field of MRI machines, the better the picture quality and resolution obtained because of the complete penetration of the high intensity electromagnetic pulses into the organs of the body!
Low intensity pulses would not even be able to generate a simple low quality picture, exactly because the body can not be effective penetrated by weak electromagnetic fields.