iRenew is for iDiots

Posted By elissa on Oct 10, 2010 | 8 comments

I did a leg workout this afternoon over at my local Gold’s. During my one of my rest periods, I idly glanced up at the flat screen TV on the wall near the power cage. An infomercial for a fitness gimmick called the iRenew Bracelet flashed on the screen… and my jaw dropped with complete astonishment at what a complete and obvious scam I was viewing. The bracelet is supposed to improve strength, balance and/or endurance by “balancing” the wearer’s “biofield” (whatever that is). The commercial featured promoters walking around (what appeared to be) a shopping mall, yanking on (allegedly) skeptical people to demonstrate how much harder it was to pull them off balance after they put the bracelet on.

All I could do at that point was shake my head in disbelief. I have a hard time seeing how anyone would find this sort of strength/balance test convincing – it’s one of the oldest tricks in the pseudoscientist’s playbook. I first read about this particular BS in James Randi’s book, “Flim Flam” – which was written around 30 years ago (and this trick was old even then). Lemme quote Randi’s description of one bogus practitioner using a variation of this silly gambit:

“Miss Wallace had a bizarre method of diagnosis. The patient stood beside her with one arm extended straight out to the side. Sue would think a part of the body, then pull down on the arm. If the arm went down easily, there was trouble in that area. Do you follow that? Of course, a little experimentation will convince my readers that an arm held in that position can offer very little resistance when pulled down. It all depends on how much force is placed on it.

Sue Wallace used this arm-pulling method in another demonstration that she said she could depend on, which involved cigarettes. In fact, she said, she was trying to sell the discovery to the tobacco companies. She claims she can remove the toxicity of a cigarette by “magnetizing” it. I must not tell you the exact procedure, since she believes she has a million-dollar idea here, but the proof was in a demonstration she performed many times – without a single failure – at the Psychic Fair. A patient was asked to hold a “magnetized” cigarette in his hand, arm outstretched as described. Sue could not force his arm down. But when he held a regular, untreated cigarette, he was affected by the toxins, she said, and therefore his arm sank under her effort. Of course, it was Sue Wallace who was applying the pressure, so the method is obvious.

Lest you think that such a nutty procedure is limited to “doctors of magneto-therapy,” witness a recent popular book about “kinesthetics” that actually claimed a subject’s arm was more easily depressed after sugar was ingested than before. A New Jersey dentist actually tried to convince me of this, to the amusement of my colleague Alexis Vallejo, who showed me the sugar lump that he had palmed off instead of placing it under his tongue as instructed when the doctor tested him. It was obvious to Vallejo that the dentist merely pressed harder when he thought the sugar was there.

Emphasis mine. The point is that the so-called “experimenter” conducting the iRenew test, could easily have adjusted the amount of effort used in each before/after trial. And beyond that, it would have been much easier for the subjects to resist being pulled off-balance during the “after” test, as they would have known what to expect from the “before” condition. It’s not even close to being a controlled, let alone fair, test.

But who cares about “controlled” or “fair” when there are sheep… errr, I mean “customers” to fleece? I love this bit of “sciency” fluff from the web site:

iRenew^TM‘s quantum physicist has over 20 years of human energy research yielding a highly effective, 100% safe, holistic energy balancing technology called BioField Technology^TM.

Riiiiiight. So who is this so-called “quantum physicist?”  What peer-reviewed journals has s/he published his/her “research” in? How was the “effectiveness” measured? On what basis was the iRenew judged as “highly effective?” Were any placebo-controlled tests performed?

That last bit, is – of course – the reason why some people might feel some results from wearing this goofy gimmick, despite the fact that it’s almost certainly bogus. The deal is: placebos work.  The power of suggestion is strong – which is why placebo-controlled tests on new drugs and therapies are done in the first place.  Doctors even prescribe them from time to time – which poses a genuine ethical dilemma for the profession.

All I can say is that iRenew purchasers are living proof of H.L. Mencken’s quip, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” I doubt that most visitors to this site would find the iRenew ad or site to be convincing – but if there are any wavering souls out there looking for a quick, easy, energy “fix” – save your money. There isn’t a shred of genuine science behind this product.