Blinded by pseudoscience: how a miracle health gadget is being flogged
Monday was the Spring Equinox and that meant an opportunity for quacks to peddle expensive New Age hokum.
One Facebook group was busy plugging a device that can apparently do all sorts of wonders for your body by delivering an “individualised microcurrent frequency”.
It’s called the Healy, the brainchild of a Portuguese homeopath called Nuno Nina, and it’s big business with a claimed 300,000 Instagram followers.
The Healy consists of a small clip-on plastic box controlled by apps on your smartphone, and prices range from £455 for the Healy Gold model up to £3,640 for the Healy Professional, plus more for extra apps.
The HealyLast Sunday the Facebook group focused on promoting a new programme for it that was all about picking the right moment for the right frequencies, and the equinox was said to be the perfect time to start.
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“This is an incredible opportunity for all of us to have a beautiful reset and to come back into alignment, to come back into harmony with nature and all of the cosmic cycles that there are across the universe, not just on our planet,” gushed Healy “global ambassador” Taryn Lee.
Nuno Nina declared: “We are living in a pulsating universe full of rhythms and basically we are children of these rhythms.
“There is a universal symphony and among this fantastic symphony are three songs that I like very much. Solar cycle, lunar cycle, daily cycle. These cycles control our lives.”
The new programme, called Natural Cycle, was described by a third presenter, Rita Ventura, as a set of frequencies “to realign our lives with the solar, the lunar and the daily cycles.”
The fourth presenter, Max Gloeckner, insisted: “Knowing how to use your Healy at the right times, to the right programmes is essential.”
The key, they said, was knowing when different bodily organs undergo functions such as oxidation or the opposite process, reduction.
So, for instance, “kidneys time is between five and seven pm”, the evidence for this peculiar assertion being something known as the Chinese Meridian System.
“Kidneys are fundamental to traditional Chinese medicine,” read a graph that flashed on screen, though I think they’re also quite important in conventional Western medicine.
Blinded by pseudoscience: a graph from the Healy webinarTempted? Then hurry, the Natural Cycle programme was on a brief special offer, down from $303 to $120, about £98.
Expensive, for sure, but just look at the testimonials on another Facebook group for Healy users with 80,000 followers called The Frequency Experience.
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Posters claim to have used it to treat everything from diabetes to epilepsy, arthritis, burns, “brain fog”, chronic fatigue syndrome, menopause hot flushes and cellulitis.
In one post a woman said it had cured her mother’s skin cancer.
Some said they have successfully used it on their pets, one person describing how she was told by a vet that her cat would die after it was run over but now it’s fine.
"I only wish more people could have a Healy with them whenever medics say there's nothing left to do but die," she wrote.
Another woman said she used it to fix her broken boiler, prompting a reply from someone saying they'd used it on their truck.
As any scientist will tell you, anecdotes like these are not the same as evidence from properly conducted clinical trials, as another testimonial neatly illustrates.
Healy fan Janet Byron posted that she’d been stung by a bee for the first time in her life at 62, her finger swelled to twice its normal size and the pain was excruciating.
So she used the Healy chronic pain programme (even though this sounds like acute pain), took an antihistamine and put her finger in vinegar.
Two hours later it was back to normal.
“Thank you Healy!” she posted.
But could it have been the antihistamine that helped? Or the vinegar? Or simply the passing of two hours?
Wavelength: Nuno NinaNot everyone on the Facebook group is happy.
“I’ve been using the Healy for six months with no noticeable difference,” one person wrote. “I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of money.”
Someone suffering from the bacterial infection Lyme disease posted: “My salesman was a louse. He initially said, ‘I do it to help people’, and then it became all about the money.
“He knew nothing about Lyme, which he called Lymes, but claimed the Healy would cure it.”
Confusion: Nuno Nina's Natural Cycles Facebook pageFollowing the webinar the Facebook account Natural Cycle with Nuno Nina has become packed with people saying they don't understand how the programme is supposed to work.
"I went to sleep last night with the screen saying my next session was today. No other info. Just woke up and now it says I was supposed to start my new session at 3:30am. I missed it, and it’s already 6:30am. Should I start it late, or work with a different organ now?" asked one person.
"It is very confusing and I don’t know much more after watching the training video. I think a better video needs to be offered or as someone suggested a Q&A," posted another.
A third wrote: "So much confusion. Given the time sensitive nature of these programs and the protocol this feels quite stressful. I just ran my programs this afternoon based on my location and time zone. The screen now says the next cycle is tomorrow but I can’t see how to access the time for tomorrow so I’m prepared ahead of time. And…is it tomorrow? Do we run these programs daily? I didn’t think so from the webinars but it’s clear most people are very confused, it’s not just me."
The Healy is sold online and through independent distributors on lucrative commission.
A compensation plan that I’ve seen says they get a 25% cut for each device sold, plus a 15% cut of the monthly subscription fees.
There are also rewards for recruiting others to act as distributors: “By growing your team and nurturing their development, you can become a leader and earn a match on the earnings of the leaders below you.”
At the end of the Facebook webinar Max Gloeckner urged: “This is very important, we have to go out and share this information with more people.”
Which sounds like a way for Healy to get others to do its marketing for free while also distancing itself from any unsupportable claims made by independent distributors.
Some claims have got Healy into trouble.
In March last year Healy World Australia Pty Ltd was fined the equivalent of £14,500 by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration for unlawful advertising that referenced serious conditions including depression and sleep disorders.
To be fair, there are disclaimers, and what a let down they are after the outlandish testimonials.
The website eu.healy.shop admits that individualised microcurrent frequency programmes “are not acknowledged by conventional medicine due to the lack of scientific evidence.”
Nuno Nina’s “Akademy” website concedes: “His theories lack scientific validation”.
I asked the charity Good Thinking Society, which promotes rational enquiry, to watch the Facebook presentation, here’s the verdict from its Project Director, Michael Marshall.
“While Healy ambassadors make confident claims that superficially sound impressive, their slick presentation and pretty graphics can’t disguise a complete lack of substance.
“There is no evidence that the human body can benefit from being fed particular ‘frequencies’ at specific times of the day or month, and it isn’t immediately apparent that their device could generate those promised range of frequencies, even if they had any evidence that doing so would be beneficial.
“It also isn’t true that, as they claim, that the body runs through strict daily and annual cycles of oxidation and reduction, nor does it set aside a specific hour of the day to focus on particular organs.
“It rather looks like Healy is selling a digitised version of a much older form of pseudoscience, in this case, acupuncture and meridian lines, and dressing it up in the language of technology, apps and smartphones.”
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