Power balance is the energy balance

Not since Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong power balance have wrist accessories caused such a stir among celebrities and sports star alike. Although to be fair, Lance’s creations were fundraising bracelets that never purported to provide any scientific gain, unlike the Power Balance silicone wristbands, which currently adorn the wrists of sports stars Cristiano Ronaldo, Darren Bent, David Beckham, LeBron James and even celebrities such as Gerard Butler and Robert De Niro. F1 driver Rubens Barrichello can’t shut up about it either.

So just what can you expect for your $3.15 accessory, or is the bracelet nothing more than a 2010 pet rock?

The Power Balance energy bracelet is essentially a stretchy power balance wholesale usa worn around the wrist, which features a hologram attached to it. Its promise? According to Power Balance’s promotional material, the accessory will ‘dramatically improve your balance, strength and flexibility by as much as five times’ by tapping into your bodies’ ‘energy field’ and determining what the optimum frequency should be.

Apparently when the hologram, printed on mylar,comes in contact with your body’s energy field, 'it begins to resonate in accordance with each individual’s biological, creating a harmonic loop that optimises your energy field and maintains maximum energy flow while clearing the pathways so the electro-chemical exchange functions like the well-tuned generator it was meant to be.' Wait, what?

According to Steven Nissen, head of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic, the powerbalance is “utter nonsense”. Speaking to Busines Week a few days ago, he claims that the current phenomenon is gaining strength through the placebo effect, not through the authenticity of the bracelet wearer’s claims. “Unfortunately, we’ve not done a good job as a society in keeping people from selling snake oil."

"If you come in to see me as a patient and tell me that you have a terrible headache, and I give you a placebo sugar pill and tell you that it's going to relieve your headache, there's a 35 to 40 percent chance that it will relieve your headache," Nissen told the magazine in a telephone interview. "That's called the placebo effect. It's very powerful, and that's what allows quackery to exist."