4 ms·

It's tempting to dismiss this, but it's a bona fide randomized double blind study that found significant improvements in inflammation and pain versus placebos.

It's tempting to dismiss this, but it's a bona fide randomized double blind study that found significant improvements in inflammation and pain versus placebos. And the sacrifice required amounts to wearing a patch on your foot when you sleep. I'd prefer to know the mechanism, but it sounds like no risk and low effort for a reasonable benefit, if it replicates. I wonder if it would help to have a conductive patch through shoes and socks, for grounding during normal daily perambulation.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
> randomized double blind study Always the first thing you got to ask when you encounter these is this: What is the size of the study, and what was the effect size?
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  The linked paper (if you can get past the intro paragraphs which are full of babble) is a review that answers those questions. As you suspect, the studies are not huge, and some are not double blind. I don't want to defend the experiments by any means because all of my pseudoscience alarms are ringing. However, some of them are... kind of intriguing. I wouldn't hold my breath for this panning out. But would be curious to know if any of them have been replicated since this review was published in 2012.
JohnBooty 4y ago
I had the same reaction. The positive mental health effects of time spent in nature are pretty well documented and, I think, well accepted. Certainly my own personal experience matches with this. But... "grounding?" The introductory section seems like the purest of nonsense. I clicked the link to have a laugh. But at least some of the studies seemed... promising? If replicable, obviously. randomized double blind study Some were double blind. Others were single blind. Some had no control groups at all. And the sacrifice required amounts to wearing a patch on your foot when you sleep I see there are no shortage of new-agey grounding products on Amazon.

marginalia_nu 4y ago

> randomized double blind study Always the first thing you got to ask when you encounter these is this: What is the size of the study, and what was the effect size?

JohnBooty 4y ago
The linked paper (if you can get past the intro paragraphs which are full of babble) is a review that answers those questions. As you suspect, the studies are not huge, and some are not double blind. I don't want to defend the experiments by any means because all of my pseudoscience alarms are ringing. However, some of them are... kind of intriguing. I wouldn't hold my breath for this panning out. But would be curious to know if any of them have been replicated since this review was published in 2012.

JohnBooty 4y ago

I had the same reaction. The positive mental health effects of time spent in nature are pretty well documented and, I think, well accepted. Certainly my own personal experience matches with this. But... "grounding?" The introductory section seems like the purest of nonsense. I clicked the link to have a laugh. But at least some of the studies seemed... promising? If replicable, obviously. randomized double blind study Some were double blind. Others were single blind. Some had no control groups at all. And the sacrifice required amounts to wearing a patch on your foot when you sleep I see there are no shortage of new-agey grounding products on Amazon.