QRay: the power of branding

If QRay bracelets have no actual physical power, why do so many people continue to wear them? One answer is the power of branding. If you admire a certain athlete and that athlete wears a QRAY, maybe you would feel that if you bought a QRAY it would help improve your performance. When Michael Jordan was playing basketball, thousands of fans could be seen on neighborhood basketball courts wearing a bull’s jersey with # 23. Did wearing the number make them play better? Maybe it did.

Is QRAY a placebo?

Anecdotal evidence shows that some individuals can benefit physically or psychologically or spiritually from wearing a QRAY.  The question of why it works is open to question.

In medicine, a placebo has come to mean a “sugar pill” a non effective treatment that is given to the patient. But curiously, it has been shown that taking a placebo provides real benefits.  Here is an especially dramatic example:

One more example should suffice to make the point that better designs of placebo studies are needed.

Forty years ago, a young Seattle cardiologist named Leonard Cobb conducted a unique trial of a procedure then commonly used for angina, in which doctors made small incisions in the chest and tied knots in two arteries to try to increase blood flow to the heart. It was a popular technique—90 percent of patients reported that it helped—but when Cobb compared it with placebo surgery in which he made incisions but did not tie off the arteries, the sham operations proved just as successful. The procedure, known as internal mammary ligation, was soon abandoned (“The Placebo Prescription” by Margaret Talbot, New York Times Magazine, January 9, 2000).*

If a golfer with a painful risk asks a friend who is wearing a QRAY about the bracelet and he is told that it takes away his pain the golfer wants to believe that the QRAY has healing powers.  He then buys his own QRAY and finds relief. Is the benefit only in his mind? Is it real?  This is a difficult question. All we know for sure is that many many active individuals believe that there is something here.

Qray Bracelet

Welcome to the Qray blog. The beautiful QRAY bracelet is worn by millions of consumers who swear that it helps them. Do these bracelets do anything?

The questions brings to mind the story by O.Henry of a boxer who had good skills but lacked confidence. His wily manager told him that he had come upon a revolutionary new material that looked like cotton but when you used it as stuffing for boxing gloves, this material, which was called NOTTOC turned to steel. The fighter went on to a great career but he felt a little guilty because he thought he was cheating. His stuffed gloves had turned his hands into iron. But at the end of his career, his manager told him that nottoc, was nothing more than cotton, spelled backwards! The benefits were in the mind of the boxer–but they were very real.

Ionized bracelets, or ionic bracelets, are a type of metal jewelry purported to affect the chi of its wearer. The Q-Ray and Bio-Ray bracelets are the most well known brands of ionized bracelets.
In October 1973 Manuel L. Polo investigated the effects of different metals on humans, believing that some metals offered a benefit when worn. This led directly to his creation of the Bio-Ray (Biomagnetic Regulator), the first ionized bracelet. Years later in 1994, Andrew Park bought a Bio-Ray bracelet while visiting Barcelona. Believing that it had reduced his lower back pain, he was inspired to found QT Inc., which began manufacturing and selling Q-Ray bracelets in the United States by 1996.

So the question is this: If the founder believed it works, and the customers belives it works. Does it work?

We invite your answer and discussion.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!