Ground state

It's been a while since we've looked at bizarre alt-med health claims, so I was excited to stumble on an article in WellnessMama called "How to Get Healthy While You Sleep: How to Use Earthing & Grounding to Boost Health."

We're put on notice right away in the first paragraph when we read the following:

I’ve been self-testing an innovative new way (inspired by a very old way) of reducing stress and improving sleep lately and I now feel like I have enough personal data to pass on my results to you.

Because if there's anything that we find out from any reputable scientist, it's that the plural of "anecdote" is "data."  But this is only the beginning of the issues with this article, so we'll let that be for the moment.

The next thing she tells us is that we would all benefit from coming into direct contact with the ground regularly, i.e., walking barefoot.  I'm certainly not opposed to that; in fact, when the weather is warm, I tend to wear the legally permissible minimum amount of clothing, and in fact have been known to enjoy a nice skinnydip in my pond at times when no one is looking.  But wait till you find out why she thinks that going barefoot is good for you:

Basically, the theory is that our bodies are meant to come into contact with the Earth (a “grounding” force) on a regular basis. Positive electrons in the form of free radicals (ever heard of those guys?) can build up in our bodies and direct contact with the ground balances this out as it is a negative grounding charge. 

Our bodies and cells have electrical energy, and especially with the high prevalence of Electromagnetic waves, Wi-Fi and mobile phone waves, many of us have a high amount of positive electrons built up in our bodies.

"Positive electrons" do exist, by the way.  They're better known to physicists as "positrons."  But there's one problem with her claim, and that is that positrons are actually antimatter.  If your body built up a "high amount of positive electrons," they would come in contact with the plain-old-garden-variety negative electrons in your body, self-annihilate, and you would explode in a flash of gamma rays.

Which honestly sounds worse than being stressed and sleepless.

[image courtesy of CERN and the Wikimedia Commons]

Oh, but it's all real, she assures us:

At first I was skeptical that something so simple could work but after researching it... it seemed at least plausible that it would work.  I also ran the idea by some electrical engineer friends and a friend who has done research in the biomedical field and they confirmed that there was some science to back it up.

So let me get this straight; you told some electrical engineers and biomedical researchers about your body building up positive electrons, and how those were the same thing as free radicals, and they said that this all made sense?

Where did your friends get their degrees, Big Bob's Discount Diploma Warehouse?

Then we hear some of her evidence that this works:

Have you ever noticed that you sleep better on a beach vacation after walking in the sand or being in the ocean?  The sand and ocean water and both naturally conductive materials and both help ground the body and remove excess positive electrons.  For the same basic reason that we ground electrical outlets to avoid the build up of excess positive charge, our bodies need the same ground effect.

No, I think I sleep better while on vacation because I don't have to spend every spare minute thinking about lesson plans and grading papers.  And we don't ground electrical outlets to "avoid the buildup of excess positive charge," it's so that if there's a short in the wiring, the current will divert harmlessly rather than electrocuting you or burning your house down.

Or did you learn about that from your electrical engineer friends, too?

Then we hear all about the things that walking barefoot can cure, which include high blood pressure, insomnia, muscle aches, headaches, jet lag, bedsores, and (I'm not making this up) snoring.

Bet you didn't know that snoring was caused by excess positrons in your nasal cavity, did you?  I sure didn't.

In any case, the reality is that even if you wear rubber-soled shoes -- hell, you could wear an entire rubber suit if you wanted -- you ground yourself every time you touch a faucet (or anything metallic that's in contact with the ground) with your bare hand.  It's the principle of the carpet shock; you do sometimes build up a static charge (it could be positive or negative) on your body, but if you brush against a grounded object, the excess electrons will jump one way or the other and you're going to become neutral with respect to that grounded object.

Because that's the way electricity works.

Then she goes into how we should not only all walk barefoot, we should buy "grounding mats" to sleep on.  At that point, my eyes were crossing and I had to stop reading.

So the upshot of it all: go barefoot if you want.  It does feel nice, although we do have shoes for a reason, which you'll discover the next time you're "grounding yourself" in your front yard and you step on a thistle.  As far as the rest of her claim, it seems to be unadulterated fiction.

Just like her "free radical positive electrons."

Lights out

I am frequently amazed by how quickly the research for this blog gets me into the deep, uncharted waters of the Great Wingnut Ocean.

Yesterday a friend of mine asked me if I'd heard the contention that the government (for "government" read "evil superpowerful Illuminati overlords") was planning a days-long shutdown of the electrical grid, nationwide, in November.  I said that I hadn't -- and, of course, that I doubted that there was any such plan.

But I thought that this might be fertile ground for a blog post (which was, in fact, my friend's suggestion), so I did a Google search for "planned electrical grid shutdown."  On the plus (i.e., real) side, I did find that various electrical suppliers had run simulations of shutdowns -- essentially, drills that allowed them to develop strategies for coping with the outcome should a real grid breakdown occur.

On the minus (i.e. wacko) side, I found that yes, there are people who believe that the government is planning on turning off the electricity.  There are hundreds of such claims.  Why, you might ask?  What could such a shutdown accomplish?  Well, that's not clear; most of the claims seem to stop at the "see how evil government is?" stage.

What is most amusing about all of this is that since Google pulls out not only recent links but older ones, there were a number of sites claiming that there'd be a grid shutdown on dates that have already passed.  I found several from 2011 and 2012, as well as May 2013, August 2013, and September 2013.

Did I miss it, or was there electricity pretty much continuously through all of those?

But far be it from woo-woos to admit they were wrong just because their predictions have failed a dozen times before.  This time, they say, it's gonna happen.  November 13 and 14, folks -- this is it.  Back up your computer files, make sure you have bottled water and propane for your Coleman stove, make sure you have firewood ready to go -- because They are going to shut down the whole nation.

Still wondering (1) what possible reason people could have to make that claim, and (2) what on earth they think the government could be trying to accomplish by shutting off the power, I started to dig around on such sites, starting with a page called "Will There Be an Electrical Grid Blackout on November 13-14, 2013?", hosted on Etheric.com.  There were hints that this was gonna be some kind of "false flag" event, meant to distract the citizenry while the Bad Guys went off and did something even worse elsewhere, but no particular mention of what this even-worse-thing was going to be.  But I kept running into the name Paul LaViolette, so I figured he might be an interesting source of "information" (using the word fairly loosely) on the topic.  So I started doing some research on LaViolette himself.

Well, it turns out that Etheric.com is more or less run by Paul LaViolette, who is either a wacko crank (generally the view of the skeptics at the James Randi Educational Foundation), or an amazing genius who has made earthshattering discoveries in physics (the view of LaViolette himself).  LaViolette has a theory of "galactic superwaves" -- colossal explosions of cosmic radiation from the galactic core -- and has expounded upon this topic over at none other than Etheric.com.

Now, I'm not an astronomer, and am unqualified to weigh in on LaViolette's contention that the galactic core is sending particle blasts our way every 10,000 or so years, but alarm bells went off when I read his publications list, which included books called Decoding the Message of the Pulsars, Subquantum Kinetics, and The Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion, the latter of which got a one-star review on the Barnes & Noble website that said, "This is the worst so-called science book I have ever read."

But by this time, I was getting a bit far off the track of finding out about electrical grid shutdowns, or what (if anything) they could have to do with galactic core blasts.  So I swam back to shore, and continued my research...

... and then got instantly launched back into deep water, with a contention that the November electrical grid shutdown was to stop Americans from seeing that Comet ISON would be "interacting with the planet Mercury."

This made me say, first, "What the hell?" and second, "Wait a minute; if the power went out, wouldn't people be more likely to go outside and look up into the sky?  If the power's on, then 90% of America will be inside watching Real Housewives of New Jersey and Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo."

So maybe this is the plan, but if so, it's a really stupid one.  If this is the best they can do, I think the current Illuminati seem to have the sophistication level of Boris Badinov and Natasha Fatale, and they need to step down and let some people take over who can really run a conspiracy right. 

But I decided to give it one more try, and swam back to shore again, and this time found that the religious whackjobs were claiming that the government was shutting down the grid on November 13 & 14 because the government is in league with Satan, and this will be the start of the End Times.

At that point, I just stopped struggling, figuring that drowning wasn't looking so bad, after all.

Barefoot in the park

Are you stressed, tired, and feeling low?  Do you suffer from chronic conditions like arthritis, liver dysfunction, or heart disease?  Maybe what you need isn't conventional medicine.

Maybe what you need is more electrons.

I know you probably think I'm joking, but that is the contention of one Dr. Stephen Sinatra, who has a website that claims that just about everything that is wrong with you can be cured by "grounding" yourself.  In his parlance, this means "walking around barefoot."  Let's hear what he has to say about this amazing medical breakthrough:

The terms "earthing" and "grounding" are interchangeable. It is simply the act of placing your bare feet on the earth, or walking barefoot. When you do, free electrons are transferred from the earth into your body, and this grounding effect is one of the most potent antioxidants we know of...  (I)nflammation thrives when your blood is thick and you have a lot of free radical stress, and a lot of positive charges in your body. Grounding effectively alleviates inflammation because it thins your blood and infuses you with negatively charged ions through the soles of your feet.

The earth is struck by lightning thousands of time each minute, primarily around the equator. Subsequently, the earth carries an enormous negative charge. It's always electron-rich and can serve as a powerful and abundant supply of antioxidant free radical-busting electrons.

The human body appears to be finely tuned to "work" with the earth in the sense that there's a constant flow of energy between our bodies and the earth. When you put your feet on the ground, you absorb large amounts of negative electrons through the soles of your feet. In today's world, this is more important than ever, yet fewer people than ever actually connect with the earth in this way anymore. Free radical stress from exposure to mercury pollution, cigarettes, insecticides, pesticides, trans fats, and radiation, just to name a few, continually deplete your body of electrons.

 Okay.  I mean, I only have one question, which is, "What?"

I'm with him that the Earth, being a large object made of atoms, has lots of electrons.  Those electrons move around some, which generates static charges that can be redistributed via lightning.  Sometimes you do the same thing, on a small scale, when you walk across a carpet and then touch a metal object, generating a cracking sound, a spark that jumps from you to the metal object, and a lot of swearing.

But that's where the science ends and the bullshit begins.

There's a name for "transferring electrons rapidly through a substance."  It's called "electricity."  There's also a name for when that process uses a human body as a conduit.  It's called "being electrocuted."  The health effects of being electrocuted include death, so I'm not really all that sanguine about anything that purports to transfer large amounts of electrons into my body.

Of course, there's also the minor problem that any slight imbalance between the electrical potential of your body and that of the Earth is adjusted every time you touch anything that is in electrical contact with the ground.  If human disease really was caused by a lack of electrons, you could cure yourself by leaning on a chain-link fence.

The nonsense doesn't end there, however.  Dr. Sinatra, whose ideas lead me to wonder if he got his medical degree from Big Bob's Discount Diploma Warehouse, claims that walking barefoot (1) helps you to make more ATP, (2) thins your blood, and (3) helps you make white blood cells.  He throws around terms like "zeta potential," which turns out to be a real thing -- it's the degree of stability in a colloidal dispersion -- but I think mostly he likes how it sounds.  We are also treated to a highly scientific experiment in which a sunflower in a vase that was plugged into a grounded wall socket lasted longer than one that was plugged into an ungrounded socket:

What I want to know is how putting the end of a plugged-in electrical cord into a vase full of water didn't either trip the breaker or electrocute the experimenter.

My favorite part of all of this comes near the end, when he blames all human disease on wearing shoes:

Throughout history, humans mostly walked barefoot or with footwear made of animal skins. They slept on the ground or on skins. Through direct contact or through perspiration-moistened animal skins used as footwear or sleeping mats, the ground's abundant free electrons were able to enter the body, which is electrically conductive. Through this mechanism, every part of the body could equilibrate with the electrical potential of the Earth, thereby stabilizing the electrical environment of all organs, tissues, and cells.

Modern lifestyle has increasingly separated humans from the primordial flow of Earth's electrons. For example, since the 1960s, we have increasingly worn insulating rubber or plastic soled shoes, instead of the traditional leather fashioned from hides. Rossi [one of the researchers Sinatra quotes] has lamented that the use of insulating materials in post-World War II shoes has separated us from the Earth's energy field. Obviously, we no longer sleep on the ground as we did in times past.

During recent decades, chronic illness, immune disorders, and inflammatory diseases have increased dramatically, and some researchers have cited environmental factors as the cause. However, the possibility of modern disconnection with the Earth's surface as a cause has not been considered.

Because, as we all know, humans were so much less prone to disease centuries ago, when we were all sleeping on "perspiration-moistened animal skins."  It's not like average lifespan has increased in the last century, or anything.

Oh, but please continue, Dr. Sinatra, and by all means don't let silly little things like facts get in your way.

Interestingly, Sinatra's pseudoscience has been getting enough press that he merits a mention in The Skeptic's Dictionary, on the page devoted to "Vibrational Medicine," wherein he is slapped down as follows:

So what's the treatment for all this potentially damaging electropollution? As noted above, one treatment is "very low frequency pulsed electromagnetic waves." Hmm. I thought these electromagnetic gadgets were the problem, not the solution. Anyway, there's another treatment called grounding or earthing. What's that, you may wonder. It's standing barefoot on the earth so electrons can flow through your feet into your body and thin your blood, kill free radicals, and who knows what else... So, two of the main treatments for electropollution is more electrons and more electromagnetism. Sounds just about right to me. What's the treatment for a broken arm? Hitting it with a hammer?

Now, don't get me wrong.  I love being barefoot myself, and in fact on warm days generally wear the legally permissible minimum amount of clothing.  But I'm not buying that it has the slightest effect on anything but my overall mood.  And if you're ill, you really are better off seeking out conventional medical help, not subscribing to the bullshit ideas of a guy who sounds like he failed freshman physics.

Electric footwear

Have you heard of Kickstarter?  It's a neat idea.  The site is devoted to people who have come up with cool ideas for small businesses or civic projects, but lack the funds to get going.  You launch a page on their site describing your proposal, publicize it, offer promotions and prizes -- whatever you can do to get the idea off the ground.  Interested people donate money, and when you have enough, your idea gets launched.

While the general concept (and most of the proposed projects) are good, it also means that crazy, but appealing, proposals can get way more funding than they deserve.  Because, after all, you have to be able to tell if what the person is saying makes logical sense -- and as we've seen over and over in this blog, lots of folks aren't really all that good at doing that.

Enter Earth Runners sandals.

Now, before we get started, let me be specific about what I don't mean in the following paragraphs.  I am not criticizing the quality of the sandals -- I've never seen one, but have no reason to suspect that they're poorly made.  Nor am I going to comment about the benefits (or hazards) of running while barefoot or thinly shod -- I have read a good many articles that lean either pro or con on this issue, and I am not knowledgeable enough about exercise physiology that my opinion would be relevant.

However, I do take exception to a large chunk of the "science" they're using to sell their product.

I put "science" in quotation marks, because once again we have that "sort of science-y or something" use of language, coupled with a good dose of woo-woo metaphysics, that we've seen so often.  Here's a sample:

Earth Runners are the first ever conductive minimalist footwear inspired by the world renowned long distance runners, the Tarahumara Indians of Northwestern Mexico.  Our original conductive design allows you to absorb ever-present subtle electrical energies of the Earth.  This provides an experience similar to that of going barefoot while still enjoying a measure of safety from varied terrains or street hazards.  The soles of our feet are natural access points for life force energy from the planet.  Typical footwear blocks these natural incoming flows of vital ground source energy, and thus impacts our health and how we move and live upon the earth.

What kind of energy are we talking about, here?  The Kickstarter page isn't specific, just using the vague, fluffy "earth energies" phrase without ever really defining it, but fortunately, the Earth Runners Facebook page goes into more detail:

Chances are, 99.9% of your reading this are completely disconnected from the earth right now. This is because you are not grounded to her through any direct physical connection. When we do rarely venture outdoors, we tend to insulate ourselves on top of rubber shoes, which block the infinite flow of free electrons which the earth shares with its inhabitants.

Standing barefoot on the earth (or otherwise connecting to the natural frequencies of the earth) connects the human body with an unlimited supply of free electrons resident in and on the surface of the earth. Standing barefoot on the earth also connects the human body with rhythmic cycles of the earth’s energy field. These appear important for synchronizing biological clocks, hormonal cycles and physiological rhythms.

The cells in your body constantly draw energy from the brain and the Earth's electromagnetic field in an effort to achieve what is called "magnetic resonance". Magnetic resonance occurs when the magnetic frequency in your brain matches a harmonic of the frequencies of the other organs and body tissues.

And lo, in order to promote the "free flow of electrons" that the Earth is "sharing with its inhabitants," the soles of Earth Runners sandals are pierced with copper studs, arranged in a "Fibonacci spiral" that lines up with the "foot's acupuncture points."  That way the electrons are free to flow up from the Earth and into your feet.

Well.  That gives us a place to start, doesn't it?  Here are a few responses I had, right off the bat:

1)  Yes, the Earth has lots of electrons.  That's because it's big.  Big things have lots of atoms, and atoms have electrons.  Ergo, the Earth has a great many electrons.  Most of those electrons aren't moving around much because they're participating in chemical bonds, but some of them can.

2)  When electrons move around, it's called "electric current."  If enough of them flow through your body, it's called "being electrocuted."

3)  The Earth's electrons do sometimes get stuck on objects, causing the objects to build up a static charge.  If you experience small amounts of static charge buildup, the result is a carpet shock.  Large amounts of static charge cause lightning.  Neither one is comfortable.

4)  Your biological clock has nothing to do with being barefoot.  It does have something to do with light/dark cycles and the internal production of hormones and neurotransmitters; getting the two to line up is called "entrainment."  Some of us are naturally bad at this.  We're called "insomniacs."  I walk around barefoot all the time, and note that I am still up at 3:30 AM writing this post instead of doing what the rest of the household is doing, namely, sleeping.

5)  The "magnetic resonance" thing is nonsense.  Sorry for being blunt, but really.  The brain "matching a harmonic of frequencies of the other organs?"  What the hell does that even mean?  Your organs aren't magnetic, or else walking through the silverware department of an Ikea would be a dangerous proposition, and would result in stainless steel cutlery flying toward you and embedding itself in your body.  Your water molecules (and any other molecules in you that are free to rotate) do respond to a strong magnetic field, which is the principle behind an MRI.  But the idea that each of your organs has a specific "magnetic frequency" and you'll feel better if they all get synchronized with each other is unscientific horse waste.

The disheartening thing is that so many people lack the scientific knowledge and critical thinking skills to recognize this sales pitch for what it is.  If you look at the Kickstarter page for Earth Runners, you'll see that they've already raised over $5,700.  The optimistic side of my personality wants me to believe that the donors are just interested in getting a cool-looking, comfortable, well-made pair of sandals, and they aren't buying them so as to keep their bodies well-stocked with happy electrons.  But the cynical side -- never very deeply buried -- remembers all of the other stuff people buy, the magnetic bracelets and crystal pendants and water vibration machines and so forth, sold using just such pseudoscientific foolishness.  And it becomes all too easy to believe that the sponsors of Earth Runners are being taken in, and believe that if they just wear their copper-studded sandals, they'll get in touch with Mother Earth.

So, anyway, there you are.  That's all I have to say about that.  Partly because if that wasn't enough of a debunking to convince you, going on for longer probably won't have any effect.  It's also because it's time for me to get going to my day job, where I will be wearing my nasty, rubber-soled, insulating shoes, depriving me of the natural flow of electrons from the floor of my classroom.  Maybe that's why I'm so tired at the end of the day.