Sawbones: Medical Jewelry

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion.

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All right, Tom is about to books.

One, two, one, two, three, four.

We came across a pharmacy with its windows blasted out.

Pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a luck around the medicines, the medicines, the Escalant Macau

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Sawbones Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine.

I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy, and I'm wearing my headphones for no reason that I can

tell you.

And I'm Sidney McElroy.

They're off now, folks.

I'm going solo.

I always think you

this is not the first time.

This is not the first time you've done that, and it may not even be the first time you've referenced it in the opening of our show.

The thing is, Sid, I come from a long line of radio men, and us radio men like to hear our voices reflected back into our ears so we can marvel at the timbre and quality of our tone.

I figured it was just like a prop, like you were in podcasting mode, so you had to have your prop on.

You're not wrong.

Like, I feel I feel like I'm in a podcast now because my headphones are wrong.

There are days where I walk around the hospital with a stethoscope around my neck, and it does feel like a prop because I have this whole team of doctors I work with, right?

And so like,

I'm not often the one doing the listening.

I mean, I do that.

I can do that.

You don't really listen.

No, no, I mean with the stethoscope.

I mean the auscultation.

Oh, the auscultation.

Yes.

I mean, I'm listening.

But I'm like the problem solver, right?

I'm like the closer.

You call me in when nobody else can figure it out.

The rest of the team.

is usually handling anyway.

Isn't it interesting?

It does feel like a problem.

Isn't it interesting when you have these objects that aren't really useful?

They're not really doing anything, but just the having of them and the using them makes you feel like they're having some sort of like mental effect.

This is a great lead-in, but I will argue that the stethoscope does absolutely have a use and it's essential to the practice of medicine.

So do the headphones, but I'm saying, like, you just don't feel right unless you've got the stethoscope.

Right.

Even if I'm not going to use it, even if I'm looking at like a foot wound, I'm going to have my stethoscope around my neck because it's a talismanic symbol of your power.

Okay.

I guess, I guess we'll.

They don't let you.

Well, I mean, sometimes I might think like, oh, but has the infection spread to your bloodstream?

And then could you have endocarditis?

And should I listen for a murmur?

So there might be a reason for the stethoscope, even if it's a foot wound.

Here's what I'm saying, Doc.

Here's all I'm saying.

You don't wear a coat.

at work.

You don't wear a white coat.

I don't wear coats.

I don't have a fancy white coat.

And when you do the mirror on your head, like in the old movies, they make fun of you because you don't need that anymore.

I don't do that either.

So

you've got to wear the stethoscope so people know you're a doctor.

That's it.

People got to know.

That's the only, honestly, it really is the only way that people know.

I want to talk about something else that I guess is

talismanic.

I think that's a good.

That's a good way to describe what you're doing.

I love you, but if you sit here and disassemble the segue that I so lovingly built brick by brick for you and take it apart and look at each of its components, they don't want to see how the sausage is made.

You just got to effortlessly glide.

Like, you know, Justin, speaking of.

We were on vacation

with some friends and family this past week.

And one of my dear friends, Autumn, asked me about.

Longtime McLroy listeners will know Autumn is the voice of Crystal with a K from Steeplechase.

That's right.

And she had seen some ads for these rings that were supposed to help with stress and anxiety and sleep and just like general wellness.

And she was asking me,

thinking these are probably not legit, but like, are they?

They're not, right?

Like that was the kind of the frame of the question.

She was getting bombarded with ads.

Yes.

And a lot of the ads from her telling made a lot of claims that you wouldn't necessarily see with a lot of these sort of more like holistic products that are a little bit more, the claims are generally a little bit more

amorphous.

It usually is.

We talk about the wellness space and sort of like the Gwyneth Paltrow kind of area of, I don't even want to say medicine, wellness.

Wellness is the word because they're not claiming to diagnose, treat, cure anything, right?

And that usually is in there somewhere.

There's usually a little statement that says specifically we're not doing that.

We are promoting wellness.

And that means nothing, right?

In a court of law, did this product indeed promote wellness?

I don't know.

I'm not a lawyer, but I would bet that's kind of a

nebulous thing that you couldn't prove or disprove.

So it's fine to say.

The FTC won't get you in trouble.

These rings, specifically the Call Me rings, and there are the Call Me rings that are actually like Call me rings, but then there are the kind of knockoffs that are all over Amazon.

One way or another, it's like a ring with some magnets in it.

This is the point.

Yes.

Jennifer Anniston wears them allegedly.

I have seen ads that say she does.

And there are pictures of her with her hand up with a ring on that may or may not be magnetic.

I don't know.

I don't know Jennifer Anniston.

I can't ask her.

But perhaps, there we go.

Maybe Jennifer Anniston wears them.

That's a, you could say that about anybody.

Maybe anybody wears them.

Maybe anybody wears them.

You don't know.

You don't know which rings are.

But before I said that, well, if this is a magnetic ring.

It probably isn't doing the things that it says it does.

We've talked about magnetism on the show before, right?

Yes.

Do you remember when Ben Franklin wanted to investigate if we could feel magnetic forces?

So he gave the kid the stick, and the kid wandered around looking for the tree that was magnetized, and then he passed out because it was so hot.

That's a great story.

Anyway, so I decided to at least look into it before I said this is probably not true, because there are weird things, right?

Sometimes you get a tick bite and then you're allergic to beef.

Or you become the tick.

No.

No one knows how the tick came to be.

So it's possible.

So I tried to look into the history of these rings.

And more specifically, I was curious, the idea of medical jewelry,

I feel like is pretty pervasive.

Like we kind of accept, especially with rings, because rings have all this other sort of side, mystical, magical, powerful connotation throughout.

culture and literature and art, right?

How many different forms of media have we consumed where a ring is essential to the plot in some way?

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, if you think about like a lot of fantasy.

Yeah.

Very famously.

Obviously the Lord of the Rings.

Yeah.

The circle is a big like element throughout all of

storytelling.

Yeah.

And so that gets really complicated when you, so I started trying to search for like, what is the history of medical rings?

There's also something about.

Something that is like on your body the whole time.

Like I think you would probably like it probably has more to do with like whatever attachment we have to jewelry, period, right?

Because you're talking about like oh even like royal seals on the rings and you know rings representing royal power things like that's definitely like we're imbuing with rings of power already but there's something about the idea of it being on your body physically all the time that feels

i think to the the monkey part of our brain like this must be doing something

all the time absolutely well and it's attached to it's why there are medical necklaces and bracelets i'll talk about a few of those but the rings specifically

we also use rings to symbolize devotion to others to symbolize positions of royal power.

So they, you know, to then use the ring medicinally,

you get why we would feel like it is something more important.

Like we would have this sort of innate idea, like, well, it's a big deal.

It's a ring.

If you start to try to get into when did this start, it's really difficult.

Oh, and we talk about this a lot on the show.

Medicine and faith and spirituality was so intertwined and still is, I think, for for some people and a lot of people maybe.

It's been so intertwined that to try to look at when did we first start wearing a piece of jewelry for a medical, physical, medical, like physiological purpose is really hard because we believed in spirits, we believed in negative energy, we believed, you know, like just as a people, we thought we could ward things off by wearing talismanic or spiritual or certain symbols or colors or gems or whatever.

And I, and I don't want to sit here and bash the idea that,

you know, if it's your religious, spiritual faith belief, that's, that's a totally separate thing from medicine.

But the two were intertwined for a really long time.

And, and I mean, I personally

have worn both a hematite ring at one point in my life to help with stress

and a brown scapular to ensure that if I died with it on, I would get to go to heaven on the next Saturday.

Right.

Killer.

So

that's a wild thing to say around.

That's not actually, by the way, that is not actually what the dogma says.

Just in defense,

in defense of Catholic dogma.

Because I was raised Catholic.

Is it time for this segment already?

Let me do the jingle.

I am not.

Everybody, welcome to Sydney's Corner to defend Catholic.

Says some.

Here she comes at Sid.

I'm not.

Sydney, can I please finish the song?

Here she comes at Sid.

There's no dogma she won't chase.

There's no dogma she won't defend.

Every choice the Catholic church has ever made is one that Sydney loves.

Here she goes.

No, that's not true.

That's not true.

That's not true.

I was raised Catholic, and I am just saying that I was, I wore a brown scapular for a long time, which you can look up a picture of this if you're curious.

It's kind of a, it's not an eclipse.

Wait, people can look up a picture of you wearing a black scapular.

No, of a brown scapular.

And anyway, I wore one because there was a misunderstanding, and people thought if you died with one on, then it sort of was like a get into heaven free card.

And that's not, that's not even what the papal bull said, but it was from the 1300s and I don't know.

Like, anyway, I don't wear one now.

It's fine if you want to.

This has nothing to do with medicine.

I'm just saying.

I'm just saying.

Anyway, this obviously also overlaps with gemstones.

And I feel like that's a whole other area.

We haven't really ever tackled gemstones

on this show, like the various healing properties of different gemstones, because that's also again, like, is it spiritual?

Is it medicine?

Curative rings in the Middle Ages were an actual thing.

So, like, when I was trying to find like when did we call them something medical, you can find references to like there were different kinds of rings in the Middle Ages.

You could wear a ring that meant I'm powerful, like a king would wear.

You could wear a ring that meant I'm betrothed to you.

You could wear like a symbol of love or romance or you know, fidelity.

You could wear a ring specifically to uh ward off poison so if you wore a sapphire ring you would be immune to poisons now i had that's kind of a medicinal i had one of those in boulder's gate three and let me tell you it worked before you go too far down this road can i was it

from a lot of goblin poisoners was it sapphire it was it was like was it toadstone it was purple so it was a good rarity and it had good stats i feel like you could tell me this if there's an overlap here.

So, Toadstone was something that rings were often made out of because it had a variety of medical properties attached to it.

And it feels like something that would have bled over in some point

to a video game.

There is,

let's see, Toadstone is a thing in the Warhammer world.

It's like a way to

ward off spirits, magic, disease, and poisons.

Well, this was toadstone, and there was some sort of mythology around it.

Like it would come from a toad's head, which isn't really true, but like there was this whole connection with like a toad would eat something and then you would get this out.

There was a way that you could do this with snakes too.

But the point is, you find jewelry made of toadstone because it could

prevent, again, poisoning, but also fix your kidneys, your bowels.

It could fix epilepsy, fever.

You could heal wounds with toadstone.

It was good for labor pains.

You could

give someone in labor a toadstone and their pain would be

I'm not saying that it did any of these things, but here you see like the use of a piece of jewelry for a medical need.

And it's really hard to find it clearly outlined a lot of times like it like it was then.

But obviously we're drawing on all of these faith, spiritual, cultural.

even just creative ideas about rings

to create things today

that resonate with us in that in that deeper way where we would be even the the most skeptical of us may be willing to engage with something that is perhaps a little magical thinking yeah

so even like me for example when have you done that just okay well this is a little bit embarrassing but i'll try to tell it quickly um when i was the very early days of internet like

late late 90s there was a um

there was a i guess it's not super early days of internet but it was for me in west virginia

There was a lot of companies that would do free samples because it was so rare for people to have websites.

They were trying to get you to come to their website.

So they would do a thing where, like, you come here and you put in your information, we'll send you free stuff.

And there were like sites that would tell you

everybody that was doing this, right?

So it was the Jelly Belly, I remember notably, would do a giveaway every day at noon, or if you were like signed up for their thing, if you're there on the page, you could maybe get a free sample.

So I used to do so many of these free samples.

And one of them was this guy named Alex Chu, who created a ring that would let you live forever and Alex's deal was that if you put an affiliate banner on for his immortality rings and 40 people clicked on it you would get a free pair of rings

and I did that I put affiliate I don't remember how I got people to click on it I think I just asked friends to do it until I uh it was just a banner that said new invention allows humans to live forever and then there's a picture of his face on it and then when you click you can go buy the rings and you got like a 35% discount.

But I did get enough to get the

eternal life rings just for getting.

So you got them?

Yeah, I got them.

Where are they?

I received them.

Well, I mean, I

got them.

I haven't been wearing them a lot lately, but I'm still alive.

So I feel like I don't need to worry about putting them on until things get bad.

What did they look like?

They are.

I'll show you a picture.

Because you know why I can show you a picture, Sid?

Because this affiliate offer is still on his website now in the year of our Lord 2024.

By my math, it has been some 25 odd years since I did this.

It is still on the website, but this is the rings.

Like a plastic, these are neodymium.

So it's a plastic adjustable band with two neodymium magnets on either side.

Magnets.

I knew it was going to be magnets.

Well, that's the whole thing we're talking about, right?

Yeah.

Magnets.

Yeah.

Well, I didn't know that they were magnets.

Neodymium, though, rare earth, very powerful.

But yeah, it does allow you to live forever.

He's got a lot of testimonials on his website.

If you go look it up, and it says here, see hundreds of testimonials from Amazon customers about my rings.

Verified reviews from Amazon.

Cannot lie.

I have a question though.

Where is the other one?

What do you mean?

Well, who'd you give the other one to?

You got two.

You don't need to live forever twice.

You wear them on each of your pinky fingers.

So you didn't think to give me one?

Honey, what is half of forever?

That doesn't make any sense.

You gotta wear them on each one.

I don't know what half of forever is.

I would think if I could live half of forever, I'd want to spend it with you.

Would you prefer?

Here's how old this site was and how, like, back in the early days of internet, you could make a weird website and people would notice that.

Can you imagine?

Like, they would notice your odd website and talk about it.

Like, because it's, oh, look, another website.

We found another one, guys.

This one's wild.

I remember those days of finding websites.

The original testimonials for this site were in real player, if that helps you to date it.

Anyway, that is my that.

Yeah, that is my story.

Mr.

Chu has taken some weird, weird branching paths on YouTube.

He's gotten some different things.

I'm not sure how deeply you need to research old Alex and his views, but yeah, that's

oh.

Yeah.

So, but Sid, this is not going away.

This is still happening.

This is still a question for our friend on.

That's right.

And so I'm going to tell you about the current state of magnetic rings and a couple other rings that I, or a couple of other medicinal jewelries I found in my quest.

But first, we've got to go go to the belly department.

Let's go.

Oh, these shorts?

You've noticed them.

Yeah, these are sort of a transitional short.

They go from the warmer months to the more formal short-wearing months of August and September.

When you need a classier short, Where did I get them?

Yeah, thank you.

It's very flattering.

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All right, Sid, update me.

What's the state of maintenance

of medical jewelry?

It's Dwight, isn't it?

You gave him the other ring.

You wanted to spend half of forever with Dwight.

I know.

Honey.

I know.

You know Dwight's history.

If I gave him an eternal immortality life ring, I would charge him for it.

I would absolutely get money out of that guy.

No way am I going to give it to him, Gratis.

Do you know how many clicks I had to get?

I do.

It's 40.

Call me rings.

So have you heard of the Call Me Rings?

I get ads for them now that I've researched them, but I wasn't getting ads for them before, which is odd because i do get a lot of pseudoscience ads maybe they

do show it to dr sidney so put you on their block list it so there are there are magnetic rings and then there are you can actually like look for like fake call me ring on amazon okay um there are like knockoffs which are the same i mean it's a ring with magnets in it so i am not suggesting you buy any of these.

Fake is fun.

Yes.

It's a fun idea.

Well, that's one of the big selling points on the call me website is that these are the real deal these are the real ones and they work with both

magnetotherapy

so it's not just magnetism i assume magnetism like magnetic medicine magnet medicine magnetotherapy is the word that they use so okay this was new to me i know there okay that's what i was gonna ask there this is something that happens in fake medicine sometimes where you hear real sounding term because we do use magnets in mri machines mri machines yes that's what i'm saying this is different yeah

i couldn't find when you start looking at magnetotherapy you get a lot of hits for magneto

the x-man magneto thank you whoa sydney you know she knows folks it was just because the other word is magnetotherapy yeah it's not magnetotherapy

magnetotherapy would probably be very smart for him because he's got some stuff that he should absolutely work through a lot of unresolved anger that is well-founded, but is not helping him in his walk.

So maybe he needs magnetotherapy.

Maybe he needs magnetotherapy.

So they work through not magnetotherapy.

It probably wouldn't even work on him.

The founder of Call Me, whose name is Callie, and I usually don't even talk about the people who make this stuff because I don't want to.

I'm never trying to get people to go like, go leave comments like, this is fake.

Like, there's no point in that.

You don't need to do that.

You don't have to do that.

I am urging you that perhaps this ring will not do what you would hope it would do.

and maybe it is not worth your dollars.

Callie can do what Callie's doing.

Yeah, the reason her name is important is because that's where the name Call me comes from.

No, that's not right.

It's from Calm and Callie.

This is on her.

I'm just quoting, I'm just saying what she says.

I'm not.

It's not, though.

It's just calm with an eye.

I know, but it's because her name is Callie.

It's not Calm and Callie.

It's not that.

You can't say it's a combination.

It might be Kaylee.

It couldn't.

It could be Kaylee.

Anyway, the point is.

It's Kalmy.

She had personal experiences.

Wait, wait, wait.

Maybe it's the K sound from her name is at the beginning.

So it's actually Kiao Mi.

Maybe it's like that.

Maybe she's the beginning and the end.

So you get the L M from.

Is it Kalmi?

This is what I'm saying.

It may be Kiao Mi.

Kalmi?

Kiao Mi.

Maybe it's Kalmi.

Anyway, the point is she had some experiences with magnetotherapy and acupressure.

and she decided to create a ring that would

mimic those experiences for everyone else to have, too.

Sure.

And so she went to Arizona.

I think that's where these products are from.

There's a lot of this stuff in Arizona.

What are y'all doing out there?

Arizona.

Arizona, you doing okay?

Listen, we're in West Virginia, so I'm in a glass house.

I'm not going to throw too many

magnetic rocks, ancient magnetic rocks.

But so they've designed these.

And here's what's wild to me.

Everything about this product and the way that it's marketed is wild.

And I look at a lot of this stuff.

They use,

this is a modern website.

And they say that they draw on the ancient wisdom.

This is not my word, of oriental medicine.

Huh.

We don't really say that.

No.

Anymore.

No, no, no, no, no.

We're usually.

The first thing is we're usually a bit more specific than

the Orient because we are not

like members of the Adventurer Society from the early 1800s talking about where we're going to go hunt the fearsome tiger.

Even ramen at this point has changed to soy.

It's soy sauce flavored.

Yes.

It's chicken or soy sauce flavor.

So, I mean, they do narrow it down to Chinese practices.

So they do move from Oriental to Chinese.

Anyway, that is not a word we should just be using.

But they, the reason is the tie-in to acupuncture and acupressure.

And I think that that's thrown in there because

there actually is like, there are a lot of people who do have studies that indicate that maybe acupuncture specifically.

There's some interest there, right?

Like, I don't know, did that do something?

Maybe it did do something.

Maybe it did.

And maybe, you know, even if you don't practice traditional Chinese medicine, you may kind of think acupuncture is something worth trying in addition to other healing methods and, you know, traditional medicine and all that kind of stuff.

So I think that's why it's thrown in there is to add to the magnetic stuff, because I think we know by now that magnets don't actually heal you.

I think.

Don't we?

I think.

But that's the other part of it is that they act on your human magnetic field

to do a variety of things.

And they're high-quality magnets, by the way.

They're made from special rocks in Arizona, and they're also really beautiful.

They, they talk about how beautiful they are a lot.

So important.

The fact that they look good is very important.

It also palms me when I look at my beautiful rings.

Look at them all.

The magnets are acting on your magnetic field, and then the acupressure points on your fingers.

So it's not just the where the, like, and the magnets are placed like kind of at the part of the band that's closest to the palm of your hand.

Like, so I guess you would have to always make sure your ring was oriented the right way when you wear it.

What does it do for you?

Nothing.

So specifically, it can, they have a chart.

They calm stress and anxiety, support weight decrease,

better sleep, better blood flow, and be chic.

Now, wait, hold on.

That's also interesting.

The only thing I can verify is the last one.

And I'll be honest, I don't think there's anything that chic

about pretend medicine.

I don't.

Well, I don't.

I mean, I found it wild that they would say calm stress and anxiety.

Calm anxiety.

I mean, that's a, it's a, it's, it's interesting to me that the FTC is cool with all this.

Yeah.

It's interesting to me that nobody said like, you can't say that you're increasing blood flow actually

because you don't have any studies that say you're increasing like what the velocity of blood like the like it's moving through your circulatory system faster the the very first review on their website from i'm certain is real customer it says love my call me ring feels great and looks chic you know it's so strange how i've gone roughly 10 years without anybody saying chic and then twice on the same page call me weird chic chic uh Tray chic.

It has, there are lots of testimonials, which is common for these products, right?

A lot of people who say they work.

Magnet therapy has been found to be no better than placebo in multiple studies.

This has been a thing since the 90s, at least.

And I mean, certainly longer.

We've done episodes on the idea of magnetism being a force that we could harness for medical purposes.

But there have been devices and magnets,

we've tried to use them specifically for like chronic pain and stuff for a long time.

And the thing is, like,

yes, there is, this is usually based on the idea that there's iron in our bodies.

But if

these magnets are strong enough to affect the iron in our body,

then an MRI machine would just rip the blood straight out of your body, right?

That is something Magneto has done in his darker moments.

And it is not a pretty picture.

Let me just say that.

Well, and that's, so it doesn't make sense.

You cannot wear a magnet that would provide enough force on anything in your body to to physically physiologically to do anything and we have never we've never found a study that says magnets do something medically sid I'm about to go can I stop you for a second because I went to the website to look at some of this stuff and I'm about to go full tinfoil out on you are you ready right now okay look at the website yeah will you read this bit right here can you I'll turn it so you can read it With its refined look and comfort, the Call Me Ring is the perfect way to enjoy the benefits of natural healing

and wellness.

healing h-e-l-i-n-g.

What?

What does that mean, honey?

Is it all AI?

Well, no, babe.

I wonder if it's okay.

This is absolutely some of the way the website feels.

I don't, I don't know.

I am, it feels to me, some of it is AI generated, certainly.

Like the way the text is written, it feels a little like.

That could be a way of getting out of fate advertising.

Oh,

so it's not healing, it's healing.

It's healing.

I don't know.

I'm going to try to look into that.

I just think that like very strange.

To calm stress, I think you can say, because stress is not a diagnosis.

The acupressure part, though,

what I was interested in is when you look at people who actually do acupressure and talk about like the practitioners who not just believe in it, but feel it is a scientific discipline,

it is more complicated than just wearing a ring.

So, I think it kind of devices like this that claim to do acupressure, I think are sort of flying in the face of what even acupressure, even if you are someone who firmly believes in acupressure, this is still not what that is because they, there's a lot more that goes into

a lot of it has to do with the connection between the practitioner and the person who's having acupressure done on them and like understanding what their specific issues are and working with specific pressure points and not just like push on your finger and you feel better.

Like it's a more complicated concept.

And I think it kind of belittles acupressure to say just wear a ring.

It's always a struggle we have with sawbones because there are all these fake practitioners.

And not to say that's call me, but I'm just saying there are a lot of fake practitioners that will use

traditional Chinese medicine as like a

catch-all sort of like, trust us, this is big in traditional Chinese medicine.

And the thing about traditional Chinese medicine is we're largely ignorant of it over here because it's a different, and it's a different system than our system.

And the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine is not really the subject matter of sawbones.

You know what I mean?

Like it's, it's, it's a, but it is a tradition, and there is a system, and there are rules, and there's people who are practitioners of it.

Like, it's, it's, it's very sort of,

it's, it's really crummy, I think, to just sort of like grasp at a whole,

you know, extremely old tradition to just, you know, sell some rings to people.

You're appropriating it

to sell people rings.

And it's, that's why I don't, I try really hard to know what my area of expertise is, not just medicine, but in medicine.

I was trained in a very specific medical, allopathic Western medicine.

That's what I know.

I don't, I am not an expert in traditional Chinese medicine.

We don't do that.

I don't do a lot of medicine.

My basis for understanding the human body is different than a TCM practitioner.

And so I wouldn't sit here and claim to understand that type of medicine any more than I could explain to you osteopathic manipulative therapy, which is in the osteopathic tradition.

Because while most of what allopathic and osteopathic physicians do is pretty much the same, they have this extra area where they do the manipulative therapy that I was not trained in.

And so I would not sit here and tell you how to do it or my understanding of it.

I would get an actual DO to come tell you that.

And you certainly wouldn't sell somebody a ring about it.

I thought it was interesting, though, because as I was looking through that, I stumbled on these.

When you start looking for medicinal jewelry or like the history of medicine jewelry or curative jewelry or healing jewelry, oh boy.

I found these ceramic necklaces.

They're from a company called EM Ceramics.

Well, they're not called EM ceramics.

The product is EM Ceramics.

Now, the original EM product is like a probiotic for your soil.

This is a wild, like if you look at this website, they have sections for farmers, gardening, composting, property care, and then personal health, which is where you find these ceramic necklaces.

Like it's a wild collection of, you really are like hitting all markets with this.

And the other EM products talk about like

these certain microorganisms.

which like this makes sense to me from a soil perspective like we want to put helpful microorganisms back in your soil that will help break things down faster to create more, you know, nutrients for your plants.

This is similar to like composting or compost tea, maybe.

Like, it's the same.

We've, we've, we've gone into this area.

So, like, this all makes sense to me.

I thought this was like bacteria-filled ceramic jewelry,

but what it is, okay.

The EM ceramic necklace is made of far-infrared radiation-emitting ceramics that provide a natural, chemical-free way to improve circulation and recovery.

Studies have shown that wearing the bracelet close to the skin can help with sleep, reduce inflammation, lower blood pressure, and promote better body functioning by removing toxins from muscles and internal organs.

Yes.

It's for people and pets, by the way.

And there are a lot of.

So then I dug into that.

There are a lot of ceramic pet products because they're touted as like natural ways to keep like ticks and fleas off your dog or whatever.

So there's a whole bunch of like ceramic ceramic beaded things you can put on your animals out there.

I don't know the whole thing, as I was trying to dig into like, what is this?

Where did this come from?

I don't know if they're saying there's bacteria in the clay that emit radiation.

That's not a thing.

I'm really, and I don't, I couldn't find any of these studies that showed this.

I like they say studies show.

I could not, and I found like the creator of these products, and I went through what was listed as all of the, like all of the publications from the creator of these products, and I couldn't find anything about the necklaces or bracelets.

What they say is that the EM ceramics are clay fermented with effective microorganisms.

So the clay is fermented with the microorganisms

and then baked at high temperatures, which would kill them.

Yes.

But that it captures the DNA of them.

Whoa, didn't expect that.

And then they can emit the non-evasive far-infrared waves, the longest invisible wavelengths in the light spectrum.

And they're natural tick repellents, and then they do all the stuff that I told you.

I just slid that in there.

Yeah.

Ticks hate these.

This one weird trick drives ticks crazy.

I read, and there are knockoffs of this other places too.

I read about a bunch,

about a French company that has made a bunch of these.

And like, there's a strong defense of all these products in their, in their very giant product description, including the idea that like, there's just kind of like the studies don't necessarily show all this, but there's just so much we don't understand, man.

There's so much we still don't get, which is a true statement,

but not usually like the end of a scientific paper.

Like, anyway, it probably didn't work, but there's a lot we don't know.

So maybe it would.

This was one of the wildest, but you can get these ceramic necklaces and bracelets for you or your pet.

And I don't, I just can't even like

from a science perspective, I can't understand how they would do anything other than if you like the look of it, I guess you could also be chic with these.

Yep.

I thought that was fascinating.

It is fascinating.

There was one ring that I wanted to throw in there.

Okay.

Fidget rings.

Okay.

Okay.

Fidget rings, which are you,

I think probably a lot.

Yeah, you made me a fidget ring.

A lot of people are probably familiar with it, but it's, and there are a variety of different things that could be considered the fidget ring, but it is something worn as a ring that has something on it you can move.

Usually there are beads you can slide around or you can turn a piece of it.

It's something that you can interact with.

It's an activity that you wear on your finger.

And the thought was

there are a lot of people who have kind of nervous habits that maybe are less

positive for you, such as picking your cuticles or biting your fingernails or picking at your skin or whatever.

And this would give you somewhere to put that sort of like physical anxious energy, excess energy you have that would be not harmful at all.

Right.

There are a lot of doctors and therapists and psychologists who have kind of suggested like, I mean, that makes sense.

That's probably a good idea.

but there weren't any studies to back it up.

So, I will say anecdotally, yes, the fidget ring helped me stop picking my cuticles.

Not completely, but I picked them less.

I'm not wearing it now.

My thumbs are a mess.

I pick my cuticles less when I wear my fidget ring.

That is an anecdote.

That is not evidence.

I am not telling you that they widespread can do this.

I am telling you my personal experience.

And so it should not be taken as anything else.

Unless you are me, I don't know if they would work for you.

But there was a small study done last year.

This was fascinating by an undergrad at UNC Chapel Hill looking to see.

And it's a very small study, but they took 51 healthy adults.

They were randomly assigned to either receive a fidget ring or a placebo non-fidget ring, which I would love to see.

I couldn't find a picture.

I want to see a picture of what the,

because if you can't interrupt, I don't know.

Is it just a ring?

Just a regular.

I don't know.

How would you know if you're taking it?

That would be tough.

That would be tough.

That's to

do something that's equivalent, like the sham part of that is hard.

Maybe you don't tell them what you're testing.

Well, and so they asked them, wear the ring for a week and answer daily surveys measuring self-reported anxiety, stress, attention, and engagement with the assigned ring.

And at the end, the group that had the fidget ring had a decrease in anxiety levels and the control group had no change.

Now,

this is a small study.

And obviously, I would want to see what the fake ring looked like, the fake fidget ring.

But I think it's really interesting that we are trying to validate.

I applaud the scientific rigor.

Let's see.

I think fidget rings help.

A lot of people think they help.

We don't know if they help.

I'm going to actually try to figure out if they help or not.

So I don't know.

I would love it if the only rings that come out of all this that are actually medicinally valuable to us are fidget rings.

Honey,

if we could just one more minute here talking about the call me website.

If you haven't been to the call me website, it's I'm not saying anything about the product, but i've been on the internet for a long time and i have to get smart about when i see products being trying to sell to me about how to you know my spidey sense going off a little bit um that he ling thing is weird because he ling is not a thing i googled it it's not like some word i don't know they're just they don't want to say healing on the website and i am 100 convinced because it's the only thing that where they actually say on the website that it actually cures things Because soothes, can't quantify soothes, right?

I mean, can't promote restful slumber.

You can't, because a lot of what they're saying is, I think this is why they keep saying it looks chic.

Because you put it on, you're like, ah.

I feel calmer about how she,

there's five different uses of the word chic on their website.

There's another review that starts with chic serenity.

I was skeptical at first, but this ring is a miracle worker.

I will also say.

So elegant, so powerful.

On their testimonials, you can't click through to any of the testimonials, like to see the actual source of them.

And they've got these nonsensical charts next to them.

Like, their sleep score without Call Me was three hours and 27 minutes.

And with Call Me, it's eight hours and 34 minutes.

What the heck?

Man, if I put on a ring that makes me sleep for five hours, I don't think I'm going to keep wearing it, guys.

I do think it's weird.

They say customers can't stop raving about Call me.

Not raven.

R-A-V-I-N.

Not with an apostrophe.

It's just raven.

Well, and then

with an eye.

I don't know.

They have video testimonials on there that are all obviously 100% scripted.

They have usernames at the bottom that make it look like they are from a user of a website, but there's no way to click through to endantly verify.

any of this on a place other than on their website.

It is like, I can't talk about medical stuff, but I'll say like internet-wise, it is

it makes me very nervous.

I tell you, I like the, they have the FAQs down here.

Can I wear my ring?

Can I wear the ring all day long?

Are there any contraindications?

The ring is designed to be worn all day long.

However, if you have implanted medical devices such as a pacemaker, consult your doctor before using magnetic products.

They also.

So I guess they're trying to be really careful because how powerful these magnets are.

They also have

two banners going across the screen, which is all very web 2.0 and it's uh it's a list of places cosmopolitan beauty allure l mary claire grazia stylist it's just list and then urban outfitters there's it doesn't say what it is it doesn't say why they're listing these things it doesn't say it was in these it's just a list of brands that are also fashion and then the second banner it just says designed in arizona over and over again yeah this it's a moving banner that says design in arizona as if that's what everybody's looking for it also says instant effects and then it and then they're in the faqs it's like several days or maybe weeks

i i don't know can they ask can anyone use it and they're like yeah most people but ask your doctor can you imagine ask anyway it says eight 1826 reviews and there's a picture of five stars next to it when you click that nothing happens it's just like trust us i don't know

I found some TikToks about it.

There's some, I don't know if they've been.

Well, that was the one that, that was, it was odd because I was watching a TikTok and they were saying like, it's so cheap and affordable because it's $39.90 for one or $63.84 for two, I guess.

But they said that's less than a pizza meal.

Less than a what?

A pizza meal.

You know.

It's a pizza meal.

That's, I mean, for our family, like, there's a lot of us.

So, like, yeah, I guess we pay more than $39.90 for a pizza meal.

I would say just for the four of us, we probably can clock in under $39.90 for a pizza meal.

I mean, if you're getting that pizza pizza deal, you can definitely get it for under $30.

You get a hot and ready, definitely less than $39.90.

I would love to know if any of those brands have actually endorsed this ring or if they're just listing some other.

fashion stuff they know about.

Folks, thank you so much for listening to our podcast.

We hope you enjoyed yourself, we hope you learned something.

Uh, and we want to thank the taxpayers for use of their song Medicines as the intro and outer of our program.

And thanks to you, Sidney McElroy, for listening.

Well, and thank you, Autumn, for our topic suggestion.

Thanks.

Your instincts were correct.

I don't think this ring will help, unless you just want to be chic.

In which case, pretty.

That's going to do it for us this week.

Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy.

I'm Sidney McLoy.

And as always, don't drill a hole in your head.

All right.

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