I did a leg workout this afternoon over at my local Gold’s.\u00a0During my one of my rest periods,\u00a0I\u00a0idly glanced up at the flat screen TV\u00a0on the wall\u00a0near the power cage. An infomercial\u00a0for a fitness\u00a0gimmick 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,\u00a0yanking on (allegedly) skeptical people to demonstrate how much harder it was to pull them off balance after they put the bracelet on.<\/p>\n
All I could do at that point was shake my head in disbelief. I have a hard time\u00a0seeing\u00a0how\u00a0anyone<\/em> would find this sort of\u00a0strength\/balance test convincing – it’s one of the oldest tricks in the\u00a0pseudoscientist’s\u00a0playbook. 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:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “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<\/em> 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0a 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.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Emphasis mine. The point is that the so-called “experimenter” conducting the iRenew test,\u00a0could easily have adjusted\u00a0the amount of effort used in each before\/after trial. And beyond that, it would\u00a0have been much easier for the subjects to resist being pulled off-balance during the “after” test, as they would have\u00a0known what\u00a0to expect from the “before” condition.\u00a0It’s not\u00a0even close to being a controlled, let alone fair, test.<\/p>\n 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:<\/p>\n iRenewTM<\/sup>‘s quantum physicist has over 20 years of human energy research yielding a highly effective, 100% safe, holistic energy balancing technology called BioField TechnologyTM<\/sup>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Riiiiiight. So who is this so-called “quantum physicist?”\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n 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<\/strong>.\u00a0 The power of suggestion is strong<\/a> – which is why placebo-controlled tests on new drugs and therapies are done in the first place.\u00a0 Doctors even prescribe them from time to time <\/a>– which poses a genuine ethical dilemma for the profession.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0to be convincing –\u00a0but if there are any wavering souls out there looking for a quick, easy, energy\u00a0“fix” – save your money. There isn’t a shred of genuine science behind this product.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I did a leg workout this afternoon over at my local Gold’s.\u00a0During my one of my rest periods,\u00a0I\u00a0idly glanced up at the flat screen TV\u00a0on the wall\u00a0near the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,7,15,28],"tags":[665,1438],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4040"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9212,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4040\/revisions\/9212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}