Magnetic field therapy enhances muscle mitochondrial bioenergetics and attenuates systemic ceramide levels following ACL reconstruction: Southeast Asian randomized-controlled pilot trial

Brief, weekly magnetic muscle therapy improves mobility and lean body mass in older adults: a Southeast Asia community case study

“…Here we provide initial findings that brief weekly PEMF exposure of the upper limb of humans produces clinically relevant improvements in pain, mobility, and indications of lean muscle mass, in an age-dependent manner. In accordance with previously published animal preclinical [24] and human clinical [25] studies employing analogous PEMF paradigms, adipose tissue homeostasis was particularly responsive to PEMF intervention. Most notably, the older subjects exhibited the most significant improvements in mobility and body composition.…”

“…The production of mitochondrial ROS and subsequent activation of PGC-1α transcriptional cascades are responses shared by both exercise [ 2 , 32 , 60 – 62 ] and our magnetic paradigm [ 22 , 23 ]. The same magnetic stimulation paradigm used in the present study, consisting of brief exposures (10 minutes) to extremely low frequency (Hz-100 Hz) and low amplitude (1.5 mT) PEMFs was previously shown to stimulate both in vitro [ 22 ] and in vivo [ 24 ] myogeneses towards the oxidative phenotype, and to emulate the molecular signals characteristic of the metabolic and mitochondrial improvements associated with exercise in isolated muscle cells [ 22 ], mice [ 24 ] and humans [ 25 ]. Given this experimental backdrop, it is not entirely unexpected that this magnetic paradigm should improve functional performance and body composition in an older cohort as demonstrated in this report.…”

“…The PEMF paradigm employed here for use in human clinical trials has previously been described [ 25 ]. The quadriceps region of subjects was exposed to PEMFs (1 mT) once a week for 10 min, over 12 weeks, on alternating legs each week.…”

“…Recently, a muscle-specific, low energy (1.5 mT, 15 Hz, 10 minutes/week), PEMF paradigm has been developed and demonstrated effective in promoting muscle regeneration in cells [ 22 , 23 ], animals [ 24 ] and humans [ 25 ] by virtue of its capacity to activate mitochondrial respiration [ 26 ]. By strategically targeting the leg musculature of humans with the coil system [ 25 ], this PEMF paradigm was capable of recapitulating some of the same mitochondrial-dependent regenerative and metabolic cascades typically invoked by exercise, particularly with regards to improving muscle mitochondrial bioenergetics and in attenuating systemic lipotoxicity [ 25 ]. The muscle mitochondrial network also exhibits heightened sensitivity to our magnetic stimulation paradigm [ 22 ] compared to that of other collateral tissues or progenitor cell classes [ 24 , 27 , 28 ] and hence is a favorable target with which to invoke systemic homeostasis for clinical exploitation.…”