Qray works — but I don’t know why!

This is from a letter from a Qray owner in the state of New Jersey.

“For the longest time I was walking around with a feeling that something was not right. I felt anxious and nervous and didn’t enjoy my life most of the time. I went to see my doctor but he couldn’t find anything wrong with me. Then I spoke to a woman that I know who is a member of a local health club. She told me that she believes that exercise is the best medicine and she promised that if I embarked on a running exercise program I would feel better and more confident. The problem was that I didn’t really like to run.  I never have. But I promised my friend I would try and I did. But I couldn’t do it. I tired quickly after a few minutes and I actually felt worse because I had failed at this small attempt to start doing something good for myself. I told my friend that I couldn’t run and she asked me why not. I told her that as soon as I started putting on foot in front of the other I felt that my efforts were futile and I wanted to stop. My friend told me to meet her at the running track and that she had something that would help. I could not imagine what she had in mind but when I arrived at the local high school track she was there with a small box. She gave me a silver Qray bracelet and told me that if I would just wear this bracelet when I ran,  I would be able to run stronger and longer.  Then she offered to run along with me the first time.  This was all  I needed to make a commitment to fitness. With the help of this cute little bracelet I was able to become a daily runner and I can now run for up to an hour straight. I feel better, more confident and I’m losing weight as well.

Sincerely,

Anne H

Boonton, NJ

QRay on the Tennis Court

I want to share an incident that I viewed at a public tennis court in New York City. These courts get pretty crowded and require that players have a tennis permit issued by the city. I was waiting my turn with my tennis partner when I noticed a heated discussion between a part attendant and a woman in a wheelchair. The attendant was telling the woman that she could not bring her wheelchair on the court. His logic was that bicycles were not allowed on the courts and her chair had wheels like a bicycle. The woman argued that the wheels of her chair were rubber as were the soles of tennis shoes. Neither one would back off their positions and it seemed like they were at an impass. But then something happened. The woman was talking fast using her hands for emphasis and the attendant noticed that she was wearing a Qray bracelet. ‘You have a Qray” he said. “Look, I have one too!” “Yes,” she said, “I have arthritis and I think it helps.” “Me too, he said, ” and I know it works.” After that he smiled and let the woman in the wheelchair play tennis.Q

More about the placebo effect

Mind/body medicine is still a very new and largely unproven science. But there are more and more examples of the power of the mind to heal the body.

A recent  study involving hotel maids published in the journal Psychological Science last year (February 2007, Vol 18, Issue 2) is quite fascinating.

The researchers began by measuring the weight, blood pressure, and body mass index, of a group of hotel maids. All the maids were all asked about their exercise habits. Most reported that they exercised little or not at all on a daily basis. The maids were then divided into two groups. One group was shown how the work they did daily as maids was, in fact, exercise and were even told how many calories each of their daily routine cleaning activities burned. The other group (the control group) was not given this exercise and calorie information. Both groupswere observed for 4 weeks, at which time their weights, blood pressures and body mass indexes were measured again and they were again asked about their exercise habits.  The study found that the maids that were told they were exercising actually lost weight and showed lower blood pressure than the control group.

This was a small study and by no means conclusive. But the results can’t be ignored. Apparently the only difference between the two groups was that one group believed that they were exercising and that belief was apparently enough to produce positive results.

If two people put on QRAY bracelets but have different beliefs and expectations, can a similar result be expected?

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.

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