The Curiosity Daily podcast covered this a few days ago.
The podcast is a daily 15 minutes where the hosts present science topics like this in a more casual friendly way. One person tells the other about the contents of the article and then have a back and forth discussion on the key points or to clarify things that were left out. It's a pretty good way to get a quick idea of the latest scientific research in an easy to digest format.
This sounds cool but its usefulness seems limited.
Why is healing wounds limited purpose?
It seems very small. There doesn't seem much advantage in healing such small wounds 30% faster. It doesn't seem like a sure thing that it can scale to larger wounds; will it be able to generate the same amount of electricity over a larger area? Also it seems like it would help only with surface wounds; it doesn't seem like it will help with deeper wounds were healing speed would matter more. Then we have to consider factors such as costs. Does the marginal utility justify the extra costs? But who knows, maybe there is a very specific niche for this.
your cells are sensitive to charge in general - cells attempt to maintain certain voltage differentials across their membranes via ion channels in the cell membrane, can communicate voltage information with each other via gap junctions, etc. That electrical communication does control how cells behave. If you have 20 minutes to watch this ted talk interview I highly recommend it. My mind was blown. Your DNA determines…
That TED talk was great! Hoping to watch the other video tonight, thanks for sharing
I go back and watch that 2 hour talk every couple months.
We use a zinc based cream to speed up healing after the wound has closed as it reduces inflammation and helps reduce scar tissue forming. Any cream with zinc oxide will do. It's a pretty magic ingredient.
Nope ion concentration gradients (which also manifest as electrical potentials) serve to guide everything from white blood cells to the precursors of both replacement and scar tissue. You can mimic this signal directly by applying a potential difference. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10849...
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I do not see the argument as specious. You might be lacking sufficient exposure to the topic.
The Curiosity Daily podcast covered this a few days ago. The podcast is a daily 15 minutes where the hosts present science topics like this in a more casual friendly way. One person tells the other about the contents of the article and then have a back and forth discussion on the key points or to clarify things that were left out. It's a pretty good way to get a quick idea of the latest scientific research in an easy…
I do not see the argument as specious. You might be lacking sufficient exposure to the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bQWfmeB8
It's specious because it doesn't speak to whether or not it does anything else.
It's well established that the COVID vaccine causes a sore arm. Does that mean sore arms protect from COVID infection? This is the level of reasoning you both are applying here.
And no matter how clearly you show that the vaccine causes a sore arm, you can't convince me it's the sore arm that prevents COVID infection.
It seems very small. There doesn't seem much advantage in healing such small wounds 30% faster. It doesn't seem like a sure thing that it can scale to larger wounds; will it be able to generate the same amount of electricity over a larger area? Also it seems like it would help only with surface wounds; it doesn't seem like it will help with deeper wounds were healing speed would matter more. Then we have to consider…
Just because a wound is small doesn’t mean it’s easy to heal. I had a foot wound that took over a _year_, and that was staying off my feet 95% of the time.
Honestly, that is indistinguishable from the crystal mumbojumbo you get. And it feels like we're at the magic/science interface with electrotherapy. That said it is somewhat suspect, and the hypothesis is not really falsifiable by the experiment which is why the journal article itself is not claiming to test that. It is really disappointing that IEEE didn't actually link to or name the article directly. Very poor sci…
Nope ion concentration gradients (which also manifest as electrical potentials) serve to guide everything from white blood cells to the precursors of both replacement and scar tissue. You can mimic this signal directly by applying a potential difference. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10849...
Regardless of the low level effect, if there was a measurable difference, wouldn't it be fairly trivial to have a trial where people measure healing time of this vs a normal bandage, to see if the difference is statistically significant?