User:Tweenk/Earthing

Earthing™ is a practice of maintaining an electrical connection with the Earth. Its proponents claim that it results in a variety of non-specific health benefits. Earthing involves buying specially branded conductive mats and blankets and connecting them to the ground wire in electrical outlets. You can also buy some overpriced electrical equipment to check whether the outlet is really grounded. The practice was invented by Clint Ober, a marketer with no formal education associated with the cable TV business. Interviews with him suggest that he just invented the idea out of the blue and then sought to confirm it.

Claims
Clint Ober claims to have reduced his chronic back pain by sleeping while his body was connected to a grounding wire. He also claims to have successfully used his practices to improve the health of people with a laundry list of problems: chronic pain, severe inflammation, immune disorders, insomnia, and multiple sclerosis.

Proponents of Earthing claim that its effectiveness is supported by several scientific studies. Upon closer scrutiny, however, these studies turn out to be horribly flawed: none of them used control groups or blinding. They were published in journals such as the Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, indicating that either the "serious" medical journals rejected it, or the authors didn't even bother trying to submit it there. Therefore it can be concluded that all effects of Earthing are a result of the placebo effect.

Problems
The proponents do not sell shoes with conducive soles, even though that would be an obvious thing to monetize and should work just as well, instead emphasizing going barefoot.