What is the Best PEMF Therapy?

Are you looking for the best PEMF device or application?

Are you trying to sift through all the PEMF info flooding the web to learn more about the technology and therapy behind PEMF?

We understand it can be frustrating, and that’s why we breakdown everything you need to know for your due diligence and selection of the best PEMF for your specific needs.

 

Don’t Be Overwhelmed By PEMF Data

Pulse electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF) is a truly remarkable addition to the field of therapeutic medical devices.

PEMF has become a buzzword for individuals looking for non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical, convenient, and natural assistance with their overall health and well-being and many specific pathologies.

Yet, where there’s buzz around the remarkable, there’s also a lot of fake news, misinformation, and unscrupulous brands to dilute and hide the info you really want to know.

Of course, every brand touts that their specific specs, configurations, benefits, and use of PEMF are all the best, right?

The veracity of claims and sheer volume of information concerning PEMF can be overwhelming for the consumer.

That’s where we step in to be your sifter.

We shake out all the misinformation and false claims to leave you with only the reliable and factual PEMF data you need to make the most prudent decisions.

Our commitment is unbiased, factual information to help you answer all your PEMF questions.

 

What Will You Gain From This PEMF Guide?

We use PubMed as our primary source of information.

Why?

Since 1996, PubMed has operated as a completely free resource for over 30 million citations and abstracts of biomedical and life science literature.

PubMed was developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which still maintains the site today.

It offers completely unbiased information concerning PEMF, which enables this data to most accurately answer all our PEMF questions.

We review the most applicable PubMed PEMF research articles (56 of them to be exact) to summarize and organize the info for you in your quest to find the best PEMF therapy.

The following questions will be answered by our guide:

• Marketing themes of PEMF?
• What is the best PEMF frequency?
• What is the best PEMF intensity?
• What is the best PEMF waveform?
• How do the most popular PEMF mats stack up against the data?
• How to find the best PEMF device?
• What therapies can be combined with PEMF?
• Are there considerations before making a PEMF purchase?
• What is the safe level of intensity for PEMF?

 

What is PEMF?

PEMF stands for pulsed electromagnetic field.

The concept is old, but the therapeutic application of it within a device only dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The first FDA approved PEMF system emerged in the 1980s as a bone stimulator for fractures.

Since that time, the science behind PEMF has exploded with countless studies targeted to everything from generalized health to disease-specific assistance and treatment.

The results of such studies have largely been positive, showing evidence of benefit for an array of health conditions.

The science has ushered in companies and brands that have dedicated their PEMF configurations and designs to specialize in certain areas, or rather benefits, for the consumer.

This includes the EarthPulse, Bemer, HealthyLine, and MagnaWave brands, which we’ve reviewed individually on other pages.

While each brand obviously promotes their own exclusive PEMF therapies and configurations, we must applaud these innovative brands for their collective work in the PEMF field.

They’ve each done a fantastic job at bringing PEMF awareness to the consumer.

Without their incredible marketing, we’d have far less people aware that PEMF exists to even be posing the question: What is the best PEMF therapy?

 

What Are The Common PEMF Marketing Themes?

PEMF marketing focuses around two main concepts:

1. PEMF therapy works, and there are countless studies to support its legitimacy and benefits within a broad spectrum of pathologies and generalized health and wellness.

2. (Insert brand name) has the best and most effective PEMF therapy via a unique PEMF configuration, application, and overall design.

 

Both marketing themes peak consumer interest in PEMF and encourage them to learn more about various PEMF brands, but it also leaves them with two centric questions:

1. Does PEMF really work?

2. What’s really the best PEMF therapy?

 

Our guide answers both questions for you.

 

Does PEMF Really Work?

Yes.

We turned to 56 PubMed studies and research articles to confirm that PEMF is a very promising therapy with the capacity to work.

Here are the results from those 56 studies:

• 50 of 56 yielded positive results.
• 2 of 56 yielded positive to neutral results.
• 2 of 56 yielded positive results with the caveat for further research.
• 2 of 56 yielded neutral results.
• 0 of 56 yielded negative results.

It’s impressive for a subject, in this case PEMF, to yield no negative results within a fairly large collective of research.

All PEMF features three core factors:

• Frequency
• Intensity
• Waveform

This same collective of PubMed data offers insight on the specific types of PEMF that are most effective in terms of best PEMF frequency, intensity, and waveform.

 

What’s The Best PEMF Waveform?

Many brands claim to have the best waveform in PEMF therapy.

It’s a major component in their PEMF configurations.

They can’t all be right. So, what’s the truth?

The truth is that science has not singled out any one particular waveform as “the best.” Therefore, there isn’t one “best” brand.

Here’s what we can tell you as fact.

Of the 56 PubMed studies, 49 did not identify what waveform they used.

Only three of those 49 had a neutral, positive-neutral, or further research needed result.

Why would the studies not indicate a waveform?

In answering this question, you must remember two PEMF facts about waveform.

Fact one is that sine/sinusoidal waveforms are considered a standard, or non-special, waveform.

It’s the same symmetrical wave that plugin outlets use

Fact two is that a full waveform is the distance required in going from 0 to the top, back through 0, to the bottom, and back up to zero.

Waveforms and frequency correlate.

Higher frequencies yield shorter waveforms, and lower frequencies yield longer waveforms.

Many brands create their own unique, or special, waveform for PEMF.

Meanwhile, others use a standard wave.

With the above two facts in mind, PEMF studies not indicating what waveform was used is most likely due to the brand/device not having created their own special waveform, which means that the standard sinusoidal waveform is likely what was being used by the studies.

The translation here is that 46 didn’t indicate a special waveform.

We can read between the lines to say that PEMF therapy effectiveness isn’t reliant upon any one special waveform.

 

What’s The Best PEMF Frequency And Intensity?

Most PEMF brands market themselves as either low or high intensity PEMF, and they’ll usually feature either a single setting for frequency and intensity or multiple settings that scale between various intensities and frequencies.

How do you know which is best?

The PubMed research did not isolate any particular frequency or intensity for the best PEMF. Why?

Different frequencies and intensities were used by 33 of the 56 PubMed studies.

Of that 33, 30 yielded positive results, and three yielded positive-neutral, neutral, or positive with more research required results.

The diversity of positive results reveals a lot about the best PEMF frequency and intensity combinations.

It’s also important to note that many of these PEMF studies were looking at PEMF as it applied to a specific cell specimen or ailment.

What we can glean from the PubMed studies is that the frequency and intensity do not have a preset magic number that can be universally applied to all PEMF users.

PEMF isn’t a one-size-fits-all technology, and certain combinations of frequencies and intensities may work better or worse based on your unique ailment and therapeutic goals.

Yet, even this relatively large body of studies still isn’t suffice to conclusively identify any best frequencies and intensities as it relates to an ailment-by-ailment or pathology-by-pathology level.

We should also note that some of the studies used intensities and frequencies that surpassed the commonly accepted therapeutic range of PEMF.

Such very high frequencies and intensities aren’t designed for home-use PEMF.

Instead, they’re designed to be used in clinical settings by trained professionals, and they’re often utilized on cell cultures and animals, not humans, in the scientific setting.

This is why the safety of extremely high intensity and frequency PEMF can not be confirmed.

The studies using intensities and frequencies within the known normal range yielded positive results.

These studies used PEMF less than 10 Gauss intensity and 1 kHz frequency.

That’s a fairly broad range of intensities, frequencies, and ailments to consider as ideals, which further signifies that the “best” PEMF frequencies and intensities are highly personalized to the user and his/her medical condition and therapeutic goals.

 

What Is The Safe Intensity Level For PEMF?

While the studies can’t pin down a best frequency or intensity for you due to there being so many variables in the user, purpose, and expectations, the PubMed research does have some more specific info about the safety of intensity levels.

Lower range intensities were almost a consensus of safe, positive results across the board.

We did not find the same outcome for high intensities.

You might have come across highly popular brands like Dr. Pawluk and MagnaWave that use extremely high intensities as their distinguishing niche within the PEMF industry.

Such brands commonly claim that they’re the most powerful and side effect-free devices available to consumers.

Yet, if you look at the websites for these extremely high intensity PEMF brands, the science they offer you for due diligence and vetting isn’t really science, and it’s rarely independent.

Instead, their ‘evidence’ is mostly anecdotal “success stories” based on their own internal findings.

In other words, they don’t really back up their claims with verifiable, independent, scientific facts or data.

Was PubMed able to back high intensity, though?

Sadly, no. Claims of 100 percent safety in extremely high intensity PEMF do not align with the research results.

In fact, the evidence to the contrary was so massive and shocking that we compiled it all on a different page devoted to nothing but high intensity PEMF safety.

Like with waveforms, the PubMed data does not indicate any specific frequency or intensity as the best.

 

Frequency And Intensity: How Do Popular PEMF Mats Compare To The PubMed Data?

HealthyLine, Bemer, and iMRS 2000 mats are some of the most popular and respected brands within the PEMF market.

We’ve reviewed each mat independently for a full breakdown of what you get, pricing, configurations, and so forth.

For our purposes here, we just looked to the frequencies and intensities used by our three example mats.

We can use the operation range (configurations) of these three brands to add a little more perspective to the PubMed data. First look at what each mat offers:

 

HealthyLine Platinum Mat

• Uses selectable square, sine, or biphasic bursts of PEMF wavelength with medium, fast or ultra fast selectable pulse duration
• Uses 25 fully adjustable PEMF frequency levels across the earth-based spectrum of 1-25 Hz
• Selectable five levels (10, 25, 50, 75, or 100 percent at mat’s surface) of intensity up to 3000 mG

 

iMRS 2000 Mat

• Four frequencies
• Operates between .5 to 15 Hz
• Operates between .09 and 70 Microtesla (uT)

 

Bemer Mat

• Operates at10 Hz and 33 Hz
• Operates at 0.035 – 0.35 Gauss
• Uses cascading sine wave pulsetrain waveform

 

In comparing the results of the the PubMed studies on a logarithmic chart graph, we were able to determine that all three of these popular brand’s various configurations for intensity and frequency fell in the middle of the all the positive results.

What does this mean?

Bemer, HealthyLine, and iMRS 2000 all use different ranges of frequencies and intensities, but they’re all on par with what science is showing to be effective and positive-yielding configurations.

In order to keep the chart within context, we only used studies that specified both frequency and intensity, which was 44 of the 56 we pulled.

This three-example comparison goes to show just how diverse the answer is when it comes to the “best” frequency and wavelength.

Again, there’s a broad range of effectiveness, but “best” is going to hinge on the purpose of the mat within each home.

 

How Can Any Brand Of PEMF Tout That They’re The Best PEMF?

In our individual reviews of PEMF mat and device brands, we dig deep to offer the consumer an overview of how each brand markets itself, backs up their PEMF claims, and whether or not it all aligns with what we know based on our own examination of the PubMed database of scientific evidence.

We invite you to look at each brand carefully before making any PEMF purchase.

We have found that the PubMed data has been invaluable in vetting a brand’s specific claims.

A big consumer complaint amongst PEMF brands is that the brands themselves aren’t doing enough to back up their marketing points with unbiased research.

For the most part, we agree.

However, the fact is that PEMF is still in its infancy compared to a lot of the other mainstream health and wellness devices.

PEMF research is ongoing, and there’s a lot still to be discovered about this innovative technology and how it applies to various human pathologies.

We can tell you that the research in existence is beyond impressive and that the potential for PEMF within categories and subsets of illness and disease are mind-blowing.

Sometimes this supports a particular brand… other times it doesn’t.

 

Here’s what we do know as fact:

• Fact: The majority of PEMF brands, particularly HealthyLine’s configuration, is using a waveform, frequency, and intensity that independent research has found positive results in clinical lab settings. In some cases, the research used a particular brand’s device. In other cases, the research used the same configuration as a particular brand but not the brand’s specific device.

• Fact: Despite what many brands espouse as high intensity settings without side effects, extreme high intensity PEMF may have safety concerns and be counter-indicated within certain groups of high-risk consumers. Again, we ask you to visit our High Intensity PEMF page for more details.

• Fact: Based on PEMF data from PubMed, any PEMF device using therapeutic configurations could be beneficial to you.

 

Which PEMF Device is Best for You?

After reading the above, it should be obvious why the best PEMF device for your friend or some other reviewer may not be the best PEMF device, mat, or machine for you.

So, we have some helpful tips to consider as you search out your own best PEMF:

• It won’t tell you that it’s the only and exclusive best waveform in PEMF.

• It won’t tell you that it’s the only and exclusive best frequency in PEMF.

• It won’t tell you that it’s the only and exclusive best intensity in PEMF.

• It won’t tell you that you have to pay an exorbitant price to get extraordinary PEMF.

• It won’t tell you a fact without supporting it with unbiased data.

• It will align with your budget.

• It will align with scientific data related to either your specific reasoning for using it or a natural range that’s suited for general health and well being. See our pages for more info on what natural PEMF is and consists of.

• It will include all of your desired therapies – PEMF, FIR, crystal, negative ion, and/or red light therapies.

• It will have customer assurances (warranty, guarantees, and certifications) that make you feel comfortable and confident in your purchase.

 

As you consider the best PEMF mat or device for yourself, keep the PubMed studies in mind.

Don’t allow any particular brand’s marketing to lead you to believe that they alone have the best PEMF.

The collective of data has clearly demonstrated that a very diverse and broad range of PEMF therapy configurations of waveform, intensity, and frequency can be effective.

The bottom line is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all best PEMF machine, device, mat, brand, or configuration out there.

Be leery of any brand stating otherwise.

Since most PEMF falls within the effective range, consumers are left to tailor their PEMF choice based on their specific uses, applications, and desired results.

The exception is the unknown caveats and safety issues surrounding PEMF devices that use extremely high intensities.

A few brands may point to research supporting their position on high intensity being the best intensity.

If you examine the data, however, it’s often research using configurations that are within normal therapeutic ranges, not high intensity ranges.

Also, many such studies involve cellular or animal subjects, not human subjects.

When it comes to high intensity, brands may be misleading on safety.

Our goal is always to provide you with the data so that you can make the most informed decisions regarding PEMF.

We also offer helpful guides on PEMF pricing and consumer assurances to consider before buying a mat or device.

Our recommendations for buying is to consider your budget first.

This will put you in a position to know what brands and models to further explore.

Next, consider what therapies you want your health mat or PEMF product to include.

Once you’ve settled on a couple of options, do a thorough comparison of the customer assurances being offered – warranty, markings, certifications, brand reputation, and guarantees.

 

What’s Multi-Therapy Verses PEMF-Only Therapy?

If you’re considering PEMF therapy via a mat or machine, then it’s certainly worth knowing about products that combine supportive/supplementing therapies.

PEMF-only brands won’t mention such therapies because it’s out of their wheelhouse.

They’re selling PEMF as a stand alone therapy, which may be all you want or need out of your device.

Still, you should know that other options exist within the multi-therapy PEMF niche.

There are four other primary therapies that are ideal to be paired with PEMF:

• Far infrared
• Red light
• Crystal crystal
• Negative ion

Why these?

These therapies support that same benefits and uses as PEMF to maximize its effect, and some even offer uses and benefits that supplement PEMF to offer a more wholistic approach.

Far infrared is one of the most common to be combined with PEMF.

Why?

PEMF is designed to raise the cellular energy of cells closest to the device’s applicator (mat, loops, paddles, etc.)

On the other hand, far infrared (FIR) is designed to boost blood flow and circulation.

When combined as a multi-therapy, the FIR brings a higher volume of blood cells over the PEMF therapy applicator, and those energized blood cells are then circulated deeper into the body for a more wide spread and maximized result.

HealthyLine is a unique PEMF brand in that it’s the only one of its kind to offer all the therapies in a single application.

We go into the benefits of all the common health mat therapies on our other pages.

We also have specific multi-therapy mat brand reviews, such as for Bemer and HealthyLine’s Platinum Mat.

 

Wrapping Up The Best PEMF

As we’ve demonstrated in this review, PEMF simply can’t be uniformly described in terms of one specific best wavelength, best frequency, or best intensity.

The nature of how many different uses, benefits, and specific pathologies PEMF has been found effective for moots any such single number from existing.

Yet, science does show that effective ranges for specific uses and expected outcomes do exist based on the user’s need and preferences.

We recommend using this information in connection to price awareness, multi-therapy awareness, and customer assurance awareness to pick the best PEMF product for yourself.