Background: Practitioners of the alternative medical practice 'external Qigong' generally claim the ability to emit or direct " healing energy" to treat patients. We investigated the ability of experienced Qigong practitioners to enhance the healthy growth of cultured human cells in a series of studies, each following a rigorously designed protocol with randomization, blinding and controls for variability. Methods: Qigong practitioners directed healing intentionality toward normal brain cell cultures in a basic science laboratory. Qigong treatments were delivered for 20 minutes from a minimum distance of 10 centimeters. Cell proliferation was measured by a standard colony-forming efficiency (CFE) assay and a CFE ratio (CFE for treated samples/CFE for sham samples) was the dependent measure for each experiment. Results: During a pilot study (8 experiments), a trend of increased cell proliferation in Qigongtreated samples (CFE Qigong/sham ratios > 1.0) was observed (P = 0.162). In a formal study (28 experiments), a similar trend was observed, with Qigong-treated samples showing on average more colony formation than sham samples (P = 0.036). In a replication study (60 experiments), no significant difference between Qigong-treated samples and sham samples was observed (P = 0.465). Conclusion: We observed an apparent increase in the proliferation of cultured cells following external Qigong treatment by practitioners under strictly controlled conditions, but we did not observe this effect in a replication study. These results suggest the need for more controlled and thorough investigation of external Qigong before scientific validation is claimed. © 2004 Yount et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
CITATION STYLE
Yount, G., Solfvin, J., Moore, D., Schlitz, M., Reading, M., Aldape, K., & Qian, Y. (2004). In vitro test of external Qigong. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6882-4-5
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