The Draw Of Magnet Therapy

For five years, landscaping contractor Joe Yedowitz tried just about everything to ease his lower back pain, reports Bonnie Bernstein of CBS Sports.

"I've seen many chiropractors, I've gone through the massage therapies, electric stimulation therapies, and I've tried the painkillers," says Yedowitz.

What he says finally cured him was a magnetic pad strapped onto his lower back.

"All of a sudden you can bend, you can stretch, you can move, you can work again," he says.

Yedowitz is in good company.

In big league sports, the attraction to therapeutic magnets is getting stronger. The Japanese have been drawn to them for years, says Yankee pitcher Hideki Irabu.

"It increased the blood flow of where you place the magnet on, which helps me get rid of the fatigue," says Irabu.

Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino uses magnets on his ankle.

"You could feel the heat coming to the area as far as maybe moving the blood around," he says.

But for all the Marinos, Irabus, and weekend warriors who have benefited from magnets, there's one catch. Even the experts can't quite explain their magical powers.

"The magnets are being separated by my hand and obviously there's a force that's going around that's circulating through the tissues of my body," says Dr. Paul Rosch in a demonstration.

But many scientists say magnets do not serve any therapeutic purpose.

"I know of no scientist who takes this claim seriously," says Robert Park of the American Physical Society. "...It's another fad. They come and go like copper bracelets and crystals and all of these things, and this one will pass too."

Magnet believers accept the skepticism.

"It's a weird phenomenon but it works," says Yedowitz.

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