鈥淚 wanted to be a self-healer.鈥 So says , where she goes by the name 鈥淪elf-Healing Mama.鈥 Antidepressants and anxiety medication made her feel like a zombie, so she decided to heal herself. Except that鈥檚 not the full story. Expressions like 鈥渟elf-healing鈥 and 鈥渉elping the body heal itself鈥 often mean paying for unproven and disproven interventions outside of medicine.
Angeline is part of a dedicated to selling a family of products known as Healy. The devices themselves鈥攍ooking like palm-size remote controls that deliver a mild electrical current via bracelet or earlobe electrodes鈥攁re very expensive, ranging , and they must be accompanied by programs for , some of which are one-time purchases while others require a monthly subscription. There鈥檚 also a , a , a , a , and a variety of .
The Healy is a case study in how pseudoscientific health gadgets are allowed to thrive in a regulatory environment that is not kind to consumers. The device鈥檚 claim of supporting health using 鈥渇requencies,鈥 meanwhile, is yet another example that pseudosciences rarely die. They hibernate, then wake up, clad in the latest fashion, ready to start tempting a new generation.
Rife with pseudoscience
Healy鈥檚 parentage can be traced back to the frequency medicine devices of and of . This area of pseudoscience goes by different names: bioresonance, bioenergetic field theory, even radionics. They are based on the claim that living things have some sort of energy field. Often, this energy is mystical in nature. Sometimes, like with Healy, it is electricity. This energy field is said to vibrate at a certain frequency when the body is healthy and at a different frequency when the body is ill. Bioresonance devices are meant to deliver the right frequency back to the body, so that its field is once more harmonious.
None of this is supported by our scientific understanding of living things鈥攁n understanding that is 鈥攁nd even though these simplistic ideas surrounding 鈥渇requencies鈥 have been debunked before, they keep resurfacing. The skeptical community is a rich reservoir of knowledge on the history of cons, scams, and health frauds. Websites like , , and come in handy when we are confronted with a new wellness device and its alleged mechanism of action. Very often, it鈥檚 just repackaged woo.
The Healy is professed to focus not on a mystical energy but on the electrical voltage that can be measured on either side of a living cell鈥檚 membrane. This voltage is real. Contrary to , though, our healthy cells , and our diseased cells do not simply lose this electrical potential until they reach 0. (In Healy promotional material and in webinars, this claim is supported by the work of two professors, Becker and Nordenstr枚m. As Arjun Nidigallu points out in his video critical of the Healy, these two men had ) There is also no mechanism by which a device like Healy, delivering mild electricity to our body through electrodes, could restore the 鈥渞ight鈥 voltage to diseased cells while leaving healthy cells unaffected. This kind of intervention is indistinguishable from wishful thinking.
In an era of personalized health, however, the Healy is a triumph of marketing. Whereas its ancestors, like , were meant to tap into universal frequencies, the Healy gives you personalized frequencies by allegedly scanning your body to find out what it needs in the moment and feeding it the right healing frequencies. (While this is an oft-mentioned selling point, ) The idea that the device caters to your specific needs is certainly enticing, but it also makes its claims unfalsifiable. If your body鈥檚 鈥渇requency needs鈥濃攚hatever that means鈥攁re changing every minute, how could we distinguish between what the Healy tells us we need and what a computer randomly choosing a frequency program would give us?
The Healy is thus based on a gross oversimplification of biology and is sustained by assertions that are both implausible and unfalsifiable. This is not evidence based. Don鈥檛 take it from me; take it from the company itself. In on how the Healy is supposed to work, a , Zac Deane, reads a disclaimer which states that, apart from one set of specific interventions (which we will get back to), 鈥渁ll other applications of Healy are not recognized by conventional medicine due to lack of evidence in the sense of conventional medicine.鈥
He goes on to claim that , which is not true.
How does a device like the Healy manage to exist within a regulatory environment that is meant to protect consumers from unsubstantiated health claims?
Word play
The official seal of the Food and Drug Administration carries a desirable weight, which is why so many companies selling pseudoscientific products seek it out. But the devil is in the details. In the case of dietary supplements, for example, the small print will reveal that the supplement itself was not approved by the FDA (which ). Rather, the FDA logo is used to indicate that the supplement was produced in . That鈥檚 it. The content of dietary supplements is , as they do not have the resources to do it. Buyer beware.
In the case of the Healy device, it is not approved by the FDA; rather, it received . Receiving clearance does not mean your device has been shown to be effective. It simply means . Here, the makers of Healy claimed their device was similar to a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) device already on the market. The idea behind TENS is that tiny electrical currents delivered to the skin can temporarily relieve or distract from pain. (According to , there isn鈥檛 much evidence that it does help with pain, actually). Given that the Healy has been cleared by the FDA based on this analogy with TENS devices, any claim outside of this, such as the whole bioresonance theory, is highly suspect.
There is also a whole linguistic dance that works to Healy鈥檚 advantage. On , a business strategist who goes by the name made the following faux pas while talking about the Healy: 鈥淭he amount of synergistically healing that you can do鈥攚e鈥檙e not supposed to say 鈥榟ealing,鈥 but 鈥榦ptimizing鈥 or 鈥榟armonization鈥 of the body, however you want to say it鈥.鈥 Claims that a wellness device or dietary supplement can heal you are a no-no. That is why the American version of the Healy website has what has been called in skeptical circles tattooed to the bottom of every page: 鈥淸Healy鈥檚 microcurrent frequency programs] are not intended to cure, treat, mitigate, diagnose or prevent disease, and have not been reviewed by the FDA.鈥 The company can鈥檛 claim that Healy cures, but some of its salespeople occasionally slip up.
Some claims, however, are legally fine. They are known as Saying that a supplement will improve cell integrity is verboten, but if the supplement contains antioxidants, an allowable structure-function claim would be, It is then left to the consumer to infer or not that the antioxidant-containing supplement will improve the integrity of their cells.
Promotional material for the Healy is full of these vague claims which, when looked at on their surface, may appear to mean more than they do. The Healy is said to and its Beauty program for your smartphone is whatever that means. You can even because, of course, the Healy can also be used on animals. The mechanism of action of a Healy product designed to wirelessly transmit frequencies to your body, the Healy Coil, is explained using a thick veneer of 鈥渜uantum鈥 gibberish, before revealing that this is all Should a product be sold based on a hunch?
While the company itself tries to stay within the limits of what they are legally allowed to claim (although ), the salespeople who have joined the multilevel marketing plan and who often call themselves 鈥渕amas鈥 on Instagram are frequently seen traipsing into more contentious territory. Mallory Demille, who denounces the excesses of wellness influencers, has documented numerous instances of Healy salespeople making dangerous and potentially illegal claims. One of the Healy programs is said to while the Healy device and its programs One person says ! You may be wondering how Healy could not work and still garner this kind of support from its users, but non-specific effects can easily muddy the waters: symptom fluctuations, self-limiting illnesses, feeling financially invested in a potential solution, and the use of other, real treatments concurrently.
Many users of the device recount their health journeys with the Healy. They do not claim that the Healy helped treat their cancer, but the 鈥渂efore and after鈥 stories they tell strongly imply it. Testimonials become the hallway pass that allows companies selling you bunk to more or less escape from the confines of regulations.
Not-so-good vibrations
There is so much more to touch on when it comes to the Healy, from the New Age connotation of its claim to to its seemingly endless , all with their own prices and symbols, that reminded me of how astrology, with its birth charts, feels like doing science. There is also the fact that, like your typical multilevel marketing structure, there isn鈥檛 much money to be made here: a third of Healy members make , while the top 31 members make an average of 73,070$ yearly.
Made-up quotes from Hippocrates, beloved by wellness influencers, are here traded in for about thinking in terms of frequency to find the secrets of the universe. Never underestimate the persuasive power of quoting men held up as geniuses to help sell your product. And don鈥檛 be fooled by the , alleging that the Healy improved someone鈥檚 blood under the microscope. Live blood analysis is .
The Healy offers programs meant to help with your tonsils, prostate, crown chakra, skin elasticity, scars, extreme stress, fertility, and everything under the sun. As we like to say, if something is claimed to cure everything鈥攕orry, 鈥渉elp support鈥 everything, it usually helps support nothing.
Take-home message:
- The Healy is a family of expensive products that are supposed to use frequencies to help support health
- It is the latest iteration of a long line of disproven gadgets, such as Rife devices, that claim to be able to reharmonize an alleged bioenergetic field
- Pseudoscientific gadgets and supplements can often look more legitimate than they are by using the FDA seal when only the manufacturing facility has been registered with the agency or when a device has been certified, and not approved, by the FDA; by making vague structure-function claims; and by letting users testify to the product鈥檚 benefits
