High Vibration Moon Crystal Healing Bracelet

There's something about bracelets that seems to attract pseudoscience.

In the past New Zealand companies have been named and shamed for selling amber teething bracelets and necklaces that are not only useless as a way to help babies with teething, but are also dangerous as they're a choking hazard.

The holographic power balance band craze sadly reached New Zealand a few years ago. Several chains of sports shops over here sold these cheaply manufactured silicone bracelets with a holographic image to unsuspecting customers, making claims about how the hologram was able to help with sports performance. And at up to $100 a pop, they were a pretty egregious scam.

And of course magnetic bracelets have always been a favourite - with the “mystery” of magnets allowing people to make all sorts of outrageous claims about being able to cure diseases. My favourite magnetic bracelet story is the incident at an alternative health fair a few years ago where the owners of two rival magnetic bracelet companies had their stalls put too close together. They started bad mouthing each other's products, and before the end of the day a punch up had occurred.

There now appears to be a new kid on the block; a bracelet that is being advertised on Facebook called a “High Vibration Moon Crystal Healing Bracelet” - and it's a weird mix of nonsense (Thanks to Mads on Facebook for spotting and sharing this one).

The website for the bracelet talks about how it uses a “moon crystal” because of its amazing properties:

The Facebook video advert for this bracelet focuses on weight loss claims, showing women with saggy upper arm skin before they wore the bracelet, and with their loose skin totally gone “after” they wore it. Of course, we have no evidence that they really used the bracelet - but, more than that, we don't see the faces of the people featured in the video, so we don't even know if they're totally different people before and after. The skin tone matches between the before and after, but that's about all we have to go on as evidence.

The video also shows the bracelet glowing, and I suspect that the glow has either been added after the video as a special effect, or they've used UV light - as the glow looks far too bright to be a result of the usual phosphor chemicals used to make things glow in the dark.

Following the link to the website where you can buy the bracelet, we start to see some familiar claims. Firstly, the bracelet apparently works via magnetism, and supposedly uses magnets to “align” the blood cells inside your blood vessels and help increase blood flow. This supposedly works because blood cells contain iron, which is attracted to magnets. There's a couple of issues with this claim:

Firstly, the small amount of iron in blood cells, and the small amount of magnetism that you'd have to have in a bracelet (so that you don't stick to your car or wipe your credit card magnetic strip), both mean that the bracelet won't have any effect on blood cells. And if it did, the effect would be to pull the blood to one side of your blood vessels and stop it flowing, not help the flow. You'd likely end up with a blockage of blood going both into and out of your hand, and over time this is going to cause your hand to suffer!

Secondly, even if you could use low level magnets to “align” the blood cells in your wrist, without screwing up your circulation, there's no evidence that this would help blood flow at all. Fluid flow is a complex topic (I hated studying fluid mechanics at university).

As well as the nonsense about blood flow, the advert talks about the lymphatic system and scares people into thinking that they may suffer from a lymph node condition if they don't use magnets on their body. And from there it descends into talking about vibration, bad energy, detoxifying and chakras. It's all pseudoscientific nonsense masquerading as medical advice.

The product isn't very expensive, at $25 each. You can choose green or blue, and both are what looks like glass embedded with some sparkly flakes. The advert even talks about moon crystals being made of SiO2 - Silicon Dioxide, basically glass. I won't rule out that the makers of this product have embedded tiny pieces of magnetic material in the glass, or used magnets between the beads, but I'm guessing they probably didn't even bother.

And, of course, the real concern when buying products online from non reputable websites is that there's a good chance you'll start to see additional charges being made to your credit or debit card. I have a friend who made the mistake of purchasing a weight loss product she saw advertised on a Facebook advert a few years ago, and it only took a few days before extra charges started appearing on her card. Caveat emptor - buyer beware!