Iowa researchers discover that static magnetic and electric fields may control Type 2 diabetes

Researchers at the University of Iowa have discovered a surprising new way to treat Type 2 diabetes using static magnetic and electric fields.

The initial experiments were performed on mice that were genetically modified to make them diabetic and obese. Three different types of modified mice were used.

When the researchers exposed the mice to a combined application of static magnetic and electric fields (sBE) for 30 days, they found it reduced the fasting blood sugar of one group of mice by 43%.

The same application of sBE reduced the fasting blood sugar of the two other groups of mice by 33%. It also reversed glucose intolerance in these two groups. The control group of non-diabetic mice showed no such changes.

The research was published in the journal Cell Metabolism on Oct. 6.

The researchers note that "Life on Earth evolved in the presence of a static magnetic (B) field and a vertically oriented electrostatic (E) field," and that many life forms use these fields for mapping and navigation. Yet, "the interaction of both fields with living systems is one of the least understood in biology."

The field strengths used are about 100 times that of the Earth's, which the researchers found to be safe and well tolerated.

The researchers did further experiments to determine whether both fields, electrostatic and magnetostatics were necessary to achieve the result. They were.

They also wanted to know whether long-term exposure of sBE would be effective. It was. After 22 weeks of sBE exposure, the treated mice had a 40% reduction in fasting blood glucose. This indicates that "long-term sBE exposure does not lead to metabolic compensations that attenuate the anti-hyperglycemic effects," the researchers said.

If the treatment was stopped, the mice reverted to their pretreated state within seven days.

The researchers then tested a few hypotheses about the mechanism that might be responsible for the effect.

They concluded that the sBE alters the balance of oxidants and antioxidants in the liver, which improves the body's response to insulin. The effect is mediated by small reactive molecules that seem to function as "encoded electromagneto-receptive mechanisms" that regulate insulin response.

With an eye toward future applications to human diabetics, the researchers then investigated what happened when they treated the mice with sBE for seven hours a day during sleep (for mice this is 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.).

They found that after treatment for 30 days at seven hours a day with sBE, the mice showed similar improvement in glucose tolerance to that of the mice who were continuously exposed to sBE.

The next research steps will be to study the effect in larger animals and then in humans. The researchers note in conclusion the enormous potential this novel treatment may have for Type 2 diabetics. 

"Our studies show that sBE therapy, which can be fully automated, represents an entirely noninvasive means to ameliorate insulin resistance through an interaction with endogenous paramagnetic molecules (e.g., O2⋅−) and through the adaptive restoration of healthy redox homeostatic mechanisms," they wrote. "Thus, the findings presented here identify a novel physiological effect of magnetostatic and electrostatic fields that may be exploited for the automated long-term, noninvasive management of T2D and potentially other redox-related conditions."

A University of Iowa news release on the research notes that the discovery came about serendipitously.

An MD/Ph. D. graduate student investigating diabetes and metabolism borrowed some mice from a colleague who was studying the effect of electromagnetic fields on mice. 

The student found unexpectedly that the diabetic mice exposed to electromagnetic fields in these experiments had normal blood sugar levels. This then led to the further research described in the Cell Metabolism paper.