Who's the wacco subscriber who knows chemistry?

[Moon]

A while back--a year or so ago, I think--someone asked about the usefulness of something being marketed as water with its molecular structure re-conformed to make the water more healthful. Someone who knows chemistry and biology gave a very lucid explanation of the impossibility of that claim.

I'd like to pick that member's brain for information on the system in which you put your feet into warm water with salt while a mild electric charge is run through it. It's supposed to draw out toxins more quickly than just, plain sweating can do, and I simply don't know whether that makes any sense.

[Dixon]

Excellent question about the "ionic foot baths", Moon! I spent a few hours digging around on the 'Net to see if there was any good evidence for their claims. I found none. Along with unfounded claims about how the process supposedly draws toxins out through the feet, the purveyors present a lot of testimonials, i.e., people saying they tried it and felt great afterwards, without presenting any reason to believe their feeling better was caused by anything other than non-specific treatment effects (placebo, effort justification effect, etc.) or simply because soaking your feet for awhile is likely to make you feel pretty good. The best, clearest, most authoritative article I found on the subject was this one.

Also, regarding the claim that the discoloration of the water is from toxins drawn out through the feet--it turns out that the water will discolor even if there are no feet in the tub! I looked at several YouTube videos wherein it could clearly be seen that the impurities were actually coming from the "array" (the part of the device that's in the water with the feet)! In one such video, there was an organic carrot rather than a pair of feet in the tub; the resultant water looked pretty much like the results gotten with feet, Apparently the discoloration is corrosion from the array itself, with different colors due to interaction with impurities in the water. There could possibly also be interaction with dirt, sweat, oils, or dead skin on the feet, but the claim that the body's toxins are drawn out through the feet is apparently hogwash. The best short video I found on the subject is this one.

A few general principles to keep in mind:

1. Most claims of healing are false.
2. The burden of proof is on the claimant, and testimonials aren't proof. Neither is pseudo-scientific blather.
3. Claims about "detoxification" are nearly always bogus. Often they don't even make sense, much less being true. The excellent Skeptic's Dictionary has an interesting discussion of detox claims in general here.

[MarilynO]

Hmm…. yep.. the foot bath…. I did that once and was very impressed with all the horrible-looking stuff that supposedly came out of my feet and I couldn't understand how it could be for real and I didn't feel any better at all, just terribly horrified to consider that I might be that polluted with toxins…. and then I thought hmmm… what if all that gross disgusting stuff is coming out of the machine, not out of my feet…. but I was too lazy to research it. Thanks to the person that did.

Excellent question about the "ionic foot baths", Moon! I spent a few hours digging around on the 'Net to see if there was any good evidence for their claims. I found none. Along with unfounded claims about how the process supposedly draws toxins out through the feet, the purveyors present a lot of testimonials,....