Andy Smith 00:00 
A quick disclaimer before we begin, the PEMF podcast does not contain any medical advice and the content provided is for informational purposes only. If you have any health concerns, please visit a healthcare professional.

Andy Smith 00:19 
Welcome back to the PEMF podcast.

Joshua Roberts 00:22 
And today we will be looking at PEMF and eye health, not something that's necessarily spoken about loads I think in the whole kind of PEMF industry, but there's some really interesting research coming out about how PEMF can actually help with eye health overall and even help in some specific conditions as well.

Andy Smith 00:38 
We're going to break down what the current research says from lab studies looking at retinal cells to clinical work in areas like glaucoma as well as injury and inflammation models in the eye. We'll also explore what those findings actually mean in real world terms, we'll then zoom out and look at the broader effects of PEMF like circulation, inflammation and cellular energy and how those could potentially relate to eye health even where direct research is still limited.

Joshua Roberts 01:04 
And yeah, on top of looking at how PEMF can interact with the eye at cellular level, we'll also be looking at practical ways you can actually apply PEMF to the eye and kind of what settings you might need. So this episode will be kind of a full comprehensive breakdown looking at what actually the science says. And as I say it then more looking at the practical applications. And for anyone who maybe is new to the podcast and has never heard of PEMF before potentially, can you just say what it is in 30 seconds?

Andy Smith 01:32 
PEMF therapy, which stands for post-electromagnetic field therapy is a non-invasive, a drug-free and natural treatment uses post-electromagnetic fields to stimulate the body's natural healing processes to create the optimal environment to heal.

Joshua Roberts 01:46 
Perfect, so what does the research say about PEMF and eye health? Is there kind of any direct research between the two?

Andy Smith 01:52 
Yeah, there's a few studies and this one gives a bit of an insight into how PEMF might interact with the eye at a cellular level. This study looks at the retinal pigment epithelial cells, also known as RPE cells, which are a layer of supportive cells that sit behind the light sensing cells in the eye and help nourish, protect and maintain visual function. These cells are crucial for the health of the retina, which is a part of the eye responsible for detecting light and turning it into signals your brain uses to see. In this study, the cells were exposed to PEMF at 50 Hertz and around 10 Gauss. What they found was that PEMF didn't cause any damage to the cells and didn't change how they grew or died, which is good from a basic safety perspective. However, it did increase the activity of several genes linked to the process of forming new blood vessels, including things like VEGF, a key signal that tells the body to grow new vessels, and HIF-1 alpha, which is involved in how cells respond to low oxygen levels and can trigger the same process. New blood vessel formation is a normal and important part of healing and tissue maintenance, but in the eye, excessive or uncontrolled blood vessel growth is also associated with conditions like macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.

Joshua Roberts 03:07 
And that might sound a little bit kind of concerning for some people who might be new to PEMF, but there was another study that kind of showed that PEMF doesn't just blindly increase things like the blood vessel formation, actually perhaps helps your body regulate and balance it a little bit more. So what did that study show?

Andy Smith 03:23 
Yeah, exactly. So there's a more recent lab study looking at the human RPE cells that were mentioned before. These are, of course, really important because they support the retina and help maintain normal vision. In this study, the cells were exposed to PEMF at a higher intensity of 150 Gauss, sorry, and a frequency of 120 hertz. What they found was that the PEMF didn't negatively affect how the cells grew or died, which again suggests basic safety at cellular level. But interestingly, it actually reduced the activity of several genes involved in the formation of new blood vessels. This included genes like VEGF and HIF-1α that were mentioned earlier too, which are key signaling molecules that promote blood vessel growth and are often elevated in conditions like macular degeneration. So rather than increasing blood vessel formation, this study showed the opposite effect, suggesting PEMF may help regulate or even suppress abnormal blood vessel growth under certain conditions.

Joshua Roberts 04:25 
Yeah exactly and PEMF is commonly spoken about how it can help the body regulate and balance and as I said earlier not just kind of blindly increase things that are commonly seen as good as we know like excess blood vessel formation in the eyes isn't necessarily good and that study kind of helped show that it was more balancing the effect rather than as I say just blindly increasing things. But is there any more kind of studies that look at PEMF and eye health?

Andy Smith 04:51 
There's also some clinical research looking at PEMF and the eye health more directly. One study looked at people with open angle glaucoma, which is a condition where pressure and circulation issues in the eye can affect vision over time. In this study, they applied PEMF at 50 hertz at 40 gals for 30 minutes daily for two consecutive days. And what they found was an improvement in blood flow and circulation within the eye. Measures related to how well blood is moving through the eye increased in a large percentage of patients, in some cases close to 80 to 90%. Interestingly, the improvements were more noticeable in the earlier stages of glaucoma, suggesting PEMF may have more impact when the system is less compromised. So rather than looking at cells in a lab like the first two studies, this gives bit more of a real world context, showing that PEMF may influence circulation in the eye, which is a key factor in many eye conditions.

Joshua Roberts 05:49 
Yeah, exactly. And already there's quite a nice synergy with PEMF and eye health here where PEMF can help increase circulation and also form new blood vessels, which are also obviously two key areas of improving eye health. But looking more at the research again, is there any more kind of direct studies linking PEMF and eye health?

Andy Smith 06:07 
Yes another study looked at PEMF in a rabbit model where the cornea, the front surface of the eye, was actually chemically burned to stimulate a serious injury. The researchers applied PEMF at 20 gauss and 50 gauss and at 25 hertz and compared it to standard medical treatment and no treatment at all. What they found was that PEMF helped speed up early healing of the corneal surface particularly in the first few days and the results were broadly comparable to conventional treatment. It also appeared to reduce the loss of key structural cells in the cornea which were important for maintaining its integrity. However the effects weren't completely consistent over time and at the later stages the differences between the groups were quite less clear should we say. Importantly PEMF didn't significantly change the formation of new blood vessels in the cornea and some mild scarring was actually more common in the PEMF groups.

Joshua Roberts 07:04 
And yeah, so even though PEMF didn't dramatically kind of speed up healing kind of overall, one of the more interesting positives was that PEMF helped protect important cells in the cornea. These cells are essential because they help keep the cornea clear and structurally stable. And obviously the cornea is what allows light to properly enter the eye. So if you lose too many of these cells after an injury, the cornea will become weaker or cloudier, which can affect vision. So kind of by preserving these cells, PEMF could help support kind of long-term recovery, even if it doesn't make the eye heal faster kind of in the short term. So looking more into the research, we found a study that linked endocrine ophthalmopathy, hope I said that right, which is an eye condition often linked to thyroid issues that can cause swelling and bulging of the eyes. So what did the research kind of say here about this?

Andy Smith 07:57 
There is a small clinical study looking at PEMF in people with this condition. In this study patients were treated with localized PEMF using what they described as electromagnetic spectacles, so PEMF glasses pretty much. Researchers assessed things like soft tissue swelling, eye protrusion and overall eye function before and after treatment. What they found was that PEMF helped reduce soft tissue inflammation. Swelling and bulging of the eyes improved. There were also some improvements in areas like optic nerve function and eye movement, but these weren't statistically significant. Interestingly though, the treatment seemed to be less effective in patients who had been dealing with condition for a longer period of time again.

Joshua Roberts 08:42 
Yeah, that's another nice study looking at different aspects of how PEMF could help with eye health or healing the eye that we haven't really covered yet. There's another subject that we haven't really covered yet and there's a study that looked into it as well and it's all about inflammation. What did that study show?

Andy Smith 08:59 
This study looks at PEMF in a rabbit model again, looking at when blood collects in the front part of the eye, often after injury or trauma. The researchers wanted to see whether PEMF could influence healing and reduce complications. They treated the rabbits with two different intensities, 100 Gauss and 200 Gauss over several days. At the lower intensity, PEMF didn't make the blood clear any faster, but it did help reduce some of the more serious complications. For example, protect the inner lining of the eye and reduce the formation of scar-like clots. And that's important, because even if healing takes the same amount of time, fewer complications can mean less long-term damage and a better overall outcome for the eye. However, weirdly enough, at the higher intensities, the opposite happened. Complications increased and healing outcomes were actually worse. So overall, the study suggests that PEMF may have a dose-dependent effect, where lower intensities could support certain aspects of healing, while higher intensities may be less beneficial.

Joshua Roberts 10:04 
And yeah, we've spoken a little bit about those curve in kind of previous episodes before, it's not something that's as prevalent in PEMF, it's more kind of spoken about in red light therapy and kind of, and they measure that in jewels. Fortunately, there isn't kind of a direct measurement that you can have for a session of PEMF, um, like with jewels for red light. So it's kind of harder to track a dose curve. Um, cause there isn't kind of, as I say, that one kind of measurement that can summarize a session, but even weird within that, it kind of gets a little bit messy with red light, if you change the strength of the light, but you still have the same jewels outcome, it can dramatically kind of change your whole session and the outcome of that. Uh, I hope that made sense, but, um, hopefully in the future we'll have a little bit more kind of research around the dose curve, um, when it comes to PEMF. But then also looking at PEMF more broadly, what are kind of some of the benefits that PEMF has been seen to have kind of just in general, that could also be relevant for eye health.

Andy Smith 10:59 
So when we zoom out and look at PEMF more broadly, not just the eye specific studies, the potential ways it could support the eye health are really indirect and come from its general biological effects. For example, PEMF has been shown in other areas to influence things like inflammation, circulation and cellular repair processes. And all of those are really important in the eye. The retina in particular is highly metabolically active so that it relies on a good blood flow and stable cellular environment. So in theory, if PEMF can help regulate inflammation or support microcirculation, that could have a knock-on effect in maintaining healthy eye tissue. There's also some evidence from broader research that PEMF can help influence mitochondrial activity, which is essentially how cells produce energy. And again, retinal cells are very energy demanding. So anything that supports cellular energy could be relevant. But the key thing to say here is that most of this evidence is indirect. We're taking what we know from other tissues and applying it to the eye rather than having strong clinical trials specifically showing improved vision or prevention of eye disease.

Joshua Roberts 12:11 
And like you say, you can't 100% say that the broader effects of PEMF on kind of different tissues and kind of across the body can have the same effectors on the eye, but it is kind of a good insight on how they might then have a positive knock on effect as we have kind of seen in other studies. Um, but it'd be great if kind of that could be looked at more directly in the research, maybe especially when it comes to more of the inflammation side and the microcirculation side as well. I know we touched on them a little bit, but always a little bit more in depth research is always useful, but now, as I said, we're going to talk about the practical side of PEMF and eye health, and we're going to be looking at how it can be applied and what kind of settings to use. And we'll start off with the settings and we'll start off with what some people see as maybe one of the more important settings, which is intensity. So what kind of intensity should people be applying to their eyes?

Andy Smith 13:02 
Looking at the research, a low to medium intensity, so anything roughly in the one to a hundred gauss range. This is where most of the eye related studies tend to sit. For example, some of the earlier cellular studies we discussed used around 10 gauss and even in human glaucoma studies, the intensities were still relatively moderate. And when we look at some of the animal work like the corneal injury study, lower intensity show more favorable effects compared to the higher ones, particularly when it came to protecting important cells rather than just speeding up the healing. So the general pattern we see is that the lower to moderate intensities are more commonly used in this space and maybe more appropriate when you're dealing with sensitive tissues like the eye.

Joshua Roberts 13:45 
Okay, great. And then kind of looking at the other side, which is frequency, what would we kind of say here?

Andy Smith 13:49 
This lines up with what we see more broadly in PEMF research where lower frequencies are often used when targeting more subtle regulatory effects. There are some studies using higher frequencies like the 120 Hertz study we mentioned earlier but again that didn't necessarily show a better outcome it just showed a different effect. In that case reducing blood vessel formation signaling so similar to intensity there's no single best frequency for eye health but the general pattern suggests that the lower frequencies are more commonly used and likely more appropriate when working with sensitive tissues like the eye.

Joshua Roberts 14:28 
And yeah, normally our kind of general rule for frequencies tries to look anything in the kind of one to 100 Hertz range. And if you can get anything that kind of does a variable frequency or a device that does variable frequency, that's always best. So maybe like we said earlier, maybe something that does 10 to 50 Hertz would be better than maybe just sticking with one specific frequency because you could risk your body kind of getting used to that frequency. But now looking at the application side of things, how could you apply PEMF for eye health?

Andy Smith 14:57 
Looking at this practically, a more localized approach would likely make the most sense. There aren't loads of PEMF devices specifically designed for the eyes though, but we have seen people get creative with smaller applicators. For example, some people use Bob Dennis's device like the ICES device and attach them to glasses as the coils are small and similar size to the glasses. Other simple approach could be placing a small localized applicator around the forehead or between the eyes. That might not be the most comfortable setup and it's probably not something you'd use while going out and about your day, but it does allow you to focus the field more directly around the eye area. You could also combine this with a full body session, for example, laying on a PEMF map while placing a localized applicator around the head. That way you're getting a broader systemic effects of PEMF like circulation and relaxation, while also having the more targeted application near the eyes.

Joshua Roberts 15:52 
And I know a common concern we get when it comes to PEMF is actually applying it to the head. And I know we've kind of said there, you should kind of apply it to the head. What would you say, maybe from a safety perspective around this, is it actually safe to do this?

Andy Smith 16:07 
Looking at the research we've discussed, including the R-related studies, there were no reported negative side effects in those settings. And more broadly across published PEMF research, it's considered a well-tolerated, non-invasive therapy. That said, it's important to keep things into context. Just because something is well-tolerated doesn't mean more is always better. In fact, we'd generally advise against applying very high intensities to the head. For example, anything above around 3000 gauss, unless it's being done under the guidance of someone experienced with that level of exposure. This is mainly because when it comes to applying PEMF around the head, most of the research uses relatively low to moderate intensities and controlled exposure times. So again, it comes back to using sensible settings and listening to your body rather than trying to overdo it. So overall, based on the current research, PEMF appears to be safe to use around the head in the context studies, but like anything, it should be used thoughtfully and within reasonable parameters.

Joshua Roberts 17:12 
But yeah, so as we kind of normally say, allow some medium intensity, anything from 100 to, or one to 100 Hertz. And then you can obviously apply this in this case, kind of with mainly a localized applicator, but you can also pair that with a full body mat if you would like. But the research for PEMF and eye health is really interesting. It's obviously a little bit of a summary, just kind of been shown to help improve blood vessel formation, help with inflammation, and kind of general eye health overall including healing and kind of maintaining important cells within the eye. So there's definitely a kind of real application here for PEMF and eye health, and also kind of supporting maybe conditions as well. But as some of the research obviously did show, you might want to jump on that kind of a little bit earlier if you are kind of trying to target conditions, maybe not when you're kind of at the last step as such. But if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to like, subscribe if you're on YouTube, and leave us a five star review if you're on audio platforms, and maybe even comment down below if you're on audio platforms, and suggest a topic that you would like us to cover next. Apparently comments on audio platforms really helps push us. So if you could do that, that'd be amazing. That just helps us bring bigger and better guests on in the future, and just helps us continue making these educational based PEMF episodes.

Andy Smith 18:27 
Thanks for listening to another episode of the PEMF podcast.