Research of Oscillating Magnetic Field Therapy

U.S. Patent 4,665,898: Malignancy Treatment

FDA report: Kinetics of Microbial Inactivation

U.S. Patent 4,524,079: Deactivation of Microorganisms by an Oscillating Magnetic Field

U.S. Patent 4,665,898
Inventor: Jonathan L. Costa, Gunter A. Hofmann
Date: May 19, 1987

Malignancy Treatment

Abstract

A body part of an animal afflicted with malignant cells is disposed within a magnetic coil and subjected to a plurality of magnetic field pulses, the pulses having intensities of between about l and about 100 Tesla and characteristic frequencies of between about 5 and about 100 kHz. The pulses magnetic field selectively inactivates and/or destroys malignant cells with relatively little damage to normal tissue.

Summary of the Invention
... Herein, it is discovered that high intensity magnetic fields applied in short pulses with moderate frequencies, can be used to selectively destroy or otherwise inactivate malignant cells within tissue of a living animal. Selective inactivation of malignant cells within animal tissue subjected to a pulsed magnetic field is accomplished without noticeable deterioration of gross characteristics of normal tissue.

Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment
It is found that subjecting body parts containing cancerous tissue to a plurality of magnetic field pulses, with characteristic frequencies above about 5 kHz and intensities above about 1 Tesla, will either arrest the growth of tumors or progressively reduce the number of cancerous cells, resulting in remission of tumors... The magnetic field in the coil is produced upon discharge of a bank of capacitors. The capacitor bank is charged from a source, and when a switch is closed... an oscillating current can be generated between the plates of the capacitors. The oscillating current, in turn, generates a pulsed magnetic field which is concentrated within the region bounded by the coil... Immediately subsequent to closing the switch, an intense magnetic field is produced by current flowing in one direction. As the current changes direction, the magnetic field changes polarity... The oscillating current and, hence, the oscillating magnetic field rapidly decreases after about ten oscillations dropping to a few percent of the original magnetic field strength. Herein, magnetic field intensities refer to the intensities of the initial peaks... The method is applicable to practically any type of tissue and is believed applicable for treatment of most types of malignancies... In each session, an animal is exposed to at least 1 and up to 1000 magnetic pulses. Generally a living animal would be subjected to at least ten pulses at each therapy session and up to one hundred pulses. An animal will be subjected to additional sessions until tumor remission is achieved... Malignant cells are more susceptible to destruction and/or inactivation by a pulsed intense electromagnetic field because the field may create eddy currents that are unique to the tumor. These localized eddy currents may cause effects that are deleterious to the viability and/or reproductive capability of the tumor cells. Alternatively, there may be macromolecules unique to malignant cells which are especially magnetically susceptible... Furthermore, treatment with a pulsed magnetic field does far less damage to the natural immune system than does radiation treatment or chemotherapy. Frequently, a patient who is treated extensively with ionizing radiation and/or with chemotherapy will experience an almost complete breakdown of the immune system. Subsequent to treatment, the immune system may take up to a year to recover, particularly with respect to immunity to viral infections. As a result, even if a patient is cured of the malignancy by radiation and/or chemotherapy, he is subject to debilitating disease or even death by infections to which his body would ordinarily have built up immunity. With the magnetic treatment described herein, here has been no evidence of major immune system beak-down.

A secondary advantage of the procedure of the present invention relative to radiation procedures is that it poses no hazard to the technician performing the process. The high intensity magnetic field exists only within the coil and immediately therearound. Within a very short distance from the coil, the magnetic field drops off dramatically. For example, whereas the field generated by a coil may have an intersity of 5 Tesla in the interior of the coil, within abort 2 meters exterior to the coil, the intensity drops off to below 10 -4 Tesla, a value comparable to the magretic field of the earth. Thus, providing that the teclnician is positioned a reasonable distance from the activated coil, there is substantially no likelihood of cells in the tissues of the technician being affected in a manner similar to the cells of the animal within the coil, and the process may be operated without any special shielding. Of course, the approximate distances increase in proportion to coil dimensions. One exception to this is that, as is the case with microwave apparatus, it should not be operated in the presence of persons wearing certain electrical or electronic prosthetic devices, such as pacemakers.

The invention will now be described in greater detail by way of specific examples.

EXAMPLE 1

In this experiment, the destructive effects of a high intensity, moderate frequency, pulsed magnetic field were compared for different malignant cells.

Cells were grown in confluent monolayers on Petri dishes and were treated briefly with trypsin. Supernatant liquid containing free-floating cells was removed, and test tubes containing aliquots of the free-floating cells were held at room temperature for the duration of the experiment. Tubes of cells were placed into the 4-inch coil of a conventional Magneform machine (Maxwell Laboratories) and given 8 pulses with the machine set to deliver approximately 10 kilojoules of energy at an intensity of 5 Tesla and a frequency of 8 kHz. Trypan blue was added to the test tubes to a final concentration of 0.2%. Aliquots of the cells were counted utilizing a hemocytometer and a light microscope; the total number of cells present per ml and the percentage staining with trypan blue, representing the percentage of killed cells, were calculated. Cells were ennumerated approximately 2 and 18 hours after treatment.

A summary of the results is presented in Table 1 below.

TABLE 1

EFFECTS OF BRIEF EXPOSURE TO A RAPIDLY VARYING
MAGNETIC FIELD ON VARIOUS TYPES OF CELLS IN VITRO

                           PERCENT OF DEAD CELLS      
                        ( STAINED WITH TRYPAN BLUE)        
                      Nonexposed Cells   Exposed Cells
                     Observed After    Observed after
CELL TYPE               18 Hours        2 hrs   18 hrs

Undifferentiated            1%            3%     32%
carcinoma                                              
Embryonal                    8%           15%     29%
carcinoma                                                
As can be seen from Table 1, the number of dead cancer cells eighteen hours after exposure was significantly higher in the two malignant cell lines compared to normal cells.

EXAMPLE 2

In this experiment, albino rats with induced or transplanted tumors were subjected to high intensity, moderate frequency pulsed fields, and the effect of this field on the tumors was examined.

The following five groups of female albino rats were prepared: (1) 6 Sprague-Dawley rats bearing no tumors, (2) 7 Sprague-Dawley rats given a single oral feeding of dimethyl-benzanthracene (DMBA) approximately 1 month previously, inducing primary mammary carcinomas in each, (3) 6 Buffalo rats given 3 successive intravenous doses of N-nitrosomethyl urea (NMU) approximately 3 weeks previously, inducing primary mammary carcinomas in each, (4) 6 Buffalo rats, each with an NMU-induced mammary carcinoma transplanted to the popliteal region, (5) 6 Fisher rats, each with a mammary carcinoma of the 13762E/F344 line, transplanted to the popliteal region. If left untreated, all of the types of tumors would generally grow to a size of 20-30 cm3, at which time the tumors would ulcerate. Rats having ulcerated tumors would generally die of secondary causes, such as infection, and in laboratories, rats are generally sacrificed at time of tumor ulceration for humane reasons. The mammary carcinomas in rats bearing primary tumors (groups 2 and 3) were measured in size (length and width measurements with a pair of calipers) for a period of 8 days prior to the start of the experiment. Tumors in rats bearing transplanted tumors were measured for a period of 3 days prior to the experiment. All groups of rats were given food and water ad libitum during the period of examination.

The rats were exposed once a day to a series of intense magnetic field pulses of brief duration. During the experimental period, each tumor was measured with calipers daily prior to exposure to the magnetic field.

At the conclusion of the treatment of 6 days, the rats were observed for an additional period of time, generally about 16 days, during which tumor sizes were measured daily or every other day until the animals were sacrificed.

All of the rats of the control group 1 remained healthy throughout the experiment, exhibiting no adverse reaction to exposure to the magnetic field.

A summary of tumor data of rat groups 2-5 is presented in Table 2 below.


TABLE 2

Evaluation of the Growth of Rat Mammary Tumors Following Multiple Exposures to a Rapidly Varying Magnetic Field

                                                             
                                          Total         Tumors with    Tumors        P
ercent
Tumor                               No. of         Interruption      with              Tumors
Type            Tesla/kHz       Tumors       of Growth      Shrinkage     Shrunken
DMBA          5T / 8kHz            8                    2                   6                  75% 
primary                                                                                                                         
NMU            5T / 8kHz           10                   1                    9                  90%
primary                                                                                                                         

13762E/F344    5T/8kHz             4                    1                   3                  75%
Trans-
planted                                                                                                                         

It can be seen from the above table that the method of the present invention is useful for treating a variety of malignancies, although the response varies according to the type of tumor. Accordingly, the method has general applicability to malignancy treatment.

Example 3

Twelve rats having primary DMBA-induced mammary carcinomas were treated daily with a conventional Magneform machine. A primary mammary gland carcinoma induced by a carcinogen, such as DMBA or NMU, is highly virulent, as outlined in substantial detail in P. M. Guillino, et al., Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 54, no. 2, February 1974. It is common for such a tumor in a rat to increase in size by about 10 to 30 fold in about 30 days, and if left untreated almost invariably will ulcerate within about 45 days. Ten of the rats are treated daily with 20 pulses at 5 Tesla and 8 KHz. Their tumor volumes on the 1st and 30th days are listed in table 3 below.
It can be seen from the below table that after thirty days the tumors were either diminished in size, stabilized, or at least controlled relative to untreated tumors... The eleventh rat was treated in an identical manner but at 1/4th the field intensity, i.e., 1.2 Tesla, 8 kHz, 20 pulses. Its tumor had decreased in size from 1.6 cm3 on day 1 to 1.4 cm3 on day 62. The rats generally appeared to exhibit normal behavior and appetite and did not appear to lose weight. The fact that the rats did not die of infections suggested that the immune systems functioned normally.

TABLE 3
      Tumor Volume (cm3)  
                        percent
Rat   Day 1   Day 30    change

 l.   1.60    1.95      + 22%

 2.   1.20    3.65      +204%
 3.   2.10    l.20      - 43%     
 4.   1.40    3.81      +172% 
 5.    .90     .42      - 53% 
 6.   3.00    3.81      + 27% 
 7.    .38     .45      + 18% 
 8.   2.10    8.18      +290%
 9.   6.79    8.88      + 24% 
l0.   1.1      .85      - 23%                           

                 average +64% 

20 pulses daily of 1.2 Tesla at 8 kHz    
11.   l.6     1.40       -12% 

Our Notes about Patent 4,665,898:
On day 30, on average, the tumors hadn't even doubled in size (+100%), whereas if left untreated they would of averaged 20 times the original size. This treatment didn't totally kill the tumors but keep in mind that this was a very fast growing type of tumor that the treatments basically kept from growing at al. Probably with less active types of tumors this treatment would be successful at killing them. This device produces the same type of oscillating magnetic field as does my OMF Generator. The basic design of mine is the same, with a capacitor (charged with high voltage) connected in parallel with a coil by an electrically controlled switch (a xenon flash tube) to produce a decaying oscillating magnetic field. This patents device varies from mine in application only by the test subject being placed inside the coil, whereas mine was used so that the coil rests on the test subject which is effected by the lines of magnetic force emanating from the coil. Field force becomes less and less with more distance from the center of the coil as is indicated by the field force lines separating more. The results of test example 1 is a reduction of live cancer cells (in test tube) of 32% of undifferentiated carcinoma and 29% of embryonic carcinoma after 18 days. This was after 8 pulses of oscillating magnetic field of 5 Tesla at 8 kHz on day 1. The results of test example 2 is 75%, 90%, and 75% of treated rat mammary tumors shrunken after 20 pulses daily of OMF at 5 Tesla and 8 kHz for 6 days. The results of test example 3 is an average +64% increase of tumor size after 30 days (compared to a typical 20 times (+2000%) tumor growth after 30 days). Treatment was with 20 pulses OMF of 5 Tesla at 8 KHZ daily for 30 days. Tumors were induced by injection of the DMBA chemical. The table also shows the equally positive lower intensity (1.2 Tesla) test results on one tumor with a resultant 12% reduction.

 

 


U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
June 2, 2000

Kinetics of Microbial Inactivation for Alternative Food Processing Technologies Oscillating Magnetic Fields



Scope of Deliverables
This section reports the effects of magnetic fields on microbial populations.

1. Definition, Description and Application
Static (SMF) and oscillating (OMF) magnetic fields have been explored for their potential as microbial inactivation methods... an OMF is applied in the form of constant amplitude or decaying amplitude sinusoidal waves. OMF applied in the form of pulses reverse the charge for each pulse, and the intensity of each pulse decreases with time to about 10% of the initial intensity (Pothakamury and others 1993). Preservation of foods with OMF involves sealing food in a plastic bag and subjecting it to 1 to 100 pulses in an OMF with a frequency between 5 to 500 kHz at temperatures in the range of 0 to 50 degrees Celsius for a total exposure time ranging from 25 to 100 milliseconds. OMF of intensity of 5 to 50 tesla (T) and frequency of 5 to 500 kHz (5000 - 500,000) was applied and reduced the number of microorganisms by at least 2-log cycles (1/100th ). OMF of this intensity can be generated using: (1) superconducting coils; (2) coils which produce DC fields or (3) coils energized by the discharge of energy stored in a capacitor (Gersdof and others 1983). Inhibition or stimulation of the growth of microorganisms exposed to magnetic fields may be a result of the magnetic fields themselves or the induced electric fields. The latter is measured in terms of induced electric field strength and induced current density.

2. Inactivation of Microorganisms
Table 1. Effect of magnetic fields in microorganisms.


                                type of
field     frequency   magnetic  micro-
strength   of pulse   field     organism          Effect                  Reference
12 tesla     6000     OMF      Streptococcus   Cell population reduced    Moore (1985)
           (1 pulse)           Themophilus     from 25,000 cells/ml to  
                               in milk         970

7.5 tesla    8500     OMF      Mold spores     Population reduced from    Hofmann (1985)
           (1 pulse)                           3,000 spores/ml to 1  

Hofmann (1985) reported on the inactivation of microorganisms with OMF in milk, yogurt, orange juice and bread roll dough. According to Hofmann (1985) only 1 pulse of OMF was adequate to reduce the bacterial population to between 1% and .1%.

References  

Hofmann G.A. 1985. Deactivation of microorganisms by an oscillating magnetic field. 

U.S. Patent 4,524,079. Moore, R.L. 1979. Biological effects of magnetic fields Studies with microorganisms. Can. J. Microbiol., 25:1145-1151 

Gersdorf, R., deBoer, F.R., Wolfrat, J.C., Muller, F.A., Roeland, L. W. 1983. The high magnetic facility of the University of Amsterdam, high field magnetism. Proceedings International Symposium on High Field Magnetism. Osaka, Japan. 277-287 

Pothkamury, U.R., Barbosa-Canovas, G.V., and Swanson, B.G. (1993). Magnetic-field inactivation of microorganisms and generation of biological changes. Food Technol. 47(12):8593 

Our Notes:
This papers test results revealing effectiveness against bacteria and fungi/mold, and patent 4,524,079, is what inspired me to create my own version of the mentioned device. The OMF Generator I sell is an oscillating magnetic field generator (with an OMF of decaying amplitude as Hofmann and Moore used) with a magnetic field strength of around 6  Tesla and a frequency of around 6600 cycles per second (6.6 KHz). Its electromagnetic coil is energized by the discharge of energy stored in a capacitor. The experiences of myself and others with the OMF Generator are in agreement with the scientific test results of Moore and Hofmann in that it appeared effective against bacteria and mold (fungus) although our test medium was human tissue instead of food. Their test results showed a 96% reduction of streptococcus bacteria (at 6kHz/12T) and a 99.9% reduction of mold spores (at 8.5kHz/7.5T).


U.S. Patent 4,524,079
Inventor: Gunter A. Hofmann
Date: June 18, 1985

Deactivation of Microorganisms by an Oscillating Magnetic Field

Abstract
Material... such as food products... is disposed within a magnetic coil and subjected to one or more pulses of an oscillating magnetic field having an intensity of between 2 and about 100 Tesla and a frequency of between 5 and about 500 kHz. A single pulse of the magnetic field generally decreases the microorganism population by at least about two orders of magnitude. [1/100th]

Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment
The magnetic field in the coil is produced upon discharge of a capacitor. The capacitor is charged from a source, and when a switch is closed... an oscillating current is generated between the plates of the capacitor. The oscillating current in turn generates an oscillating magnetic field which is concentrated within the region bounded by the coil... Immediately subsequent to closing the switch, an intense magnetic field is produced by current flowing in one direction. As the current changes direction, the magnetic field changes polarity. The oscillating current and, hence, the oscillating magnetic field rapidly deteriorates, with the field intensity after about ten oscillations dropping to a few percent of the original intensity. Herein, magnetic field intensities refer to the intensity of the initial peaks... Herein pulse duration is considered to be 10 oscillations, after which the substantially decayed field has a negligible effect.

Example 1
A sample of pasteurized milk is... inoculated with Streptococcus thermophilus at a concentration of 25,000 bacterium/cm3... The milk is subjected to 1 pulse of a 12 Tesla, 6kHz, oscillating magnetic field... An aliquot of the milk is plated on a standard plate. The colony count of the plate shows a concentration of about 970 Streptococcus thermophilus per cm3.

Example 2
350g of plain 4% fat yogurt is opened, inoculated with Saccharomyces at a concentration of 3,500 bacteria/cm3 and stirred thoroughly. The container full of inoculated yogurt is placed centrally within the coil described above and subjected to 10 pulses of a 40 Tesla, 416 kHz oscillating magnetic field. A sample of the yogurt is plated on standard plates, and a count of the cultures reveals a concentration of only about 25 Saccharomyces per cm3 of yogurt.

Example 4
A prepackaged dough product... is thoroughly mixed with mold spores to give a concentration of 3000 spores/cm3 . The chopped rolls... was centered in the above-described coil where it was subjected to 1 pulse of 7.5 Tesla, 8.5 kHz, oscillating magnetic field. A sample of the chopped rolls is plated on standard plates, and a culture count shows a mold spore concentration of only about 1 spore per cm3.


Our Notes about Patent 4,524,079:
This device produces the same type of oscillating magnetic field as does my OMF Generator. The basic design of mine is the same, with a capacitor (charged with high voltage) connected in parallel with a coil by an electrically controlled switch (a xenon flash tube) to produce a decaying oscillating magnetic field. This patents device varies from mine in application only by the test product being placed inside the coil, whereas mine is used so that the coil rests on the test subject which is effected by the lines of magnetic force emanating from the coil. Field force becomes less and less with more distance from the center of the coil. The patents results of test example 1 is a 96% reduction of bacteria (from 25,000 to 970). The patents results of test example 2 is a 99.3% reduction of yeast (from 3,500 to 25). The results of test example 4 is a 99.9% reduction of fungi spores (from 3000 to 1 ).