published 7/21/08
I Was (Partly) Wrong about Epsom Salts Baths!
A cool new science experiment shows that you probably can absorb Epsom salt through your skin
by Paul Ingraham, Vancouver, Canada MOREclose
Credentials and qualifications
I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.
For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.
Credentials and qualifications
I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.
For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.
I recently discovered that my Epsom salts article is one of the most popular pages on my entire website. There’s a curve ball.
Not many other people have written about Epsom salts seriously, I guess, so my article has enjoyed a decent Google Page Rank, and an awful lot of people who search for information about Epsom salts end up at that article. (And probably this one in the future — welcome, web surfers of the future!)
This peculiar popularity gives me some kind of sacred Information Age responsibility to publish accurate Epsom salt analysis, a strange professional fate. So, imagine my dismay when I learned that I’ve been leading thousands of readers astray all this time!
Sort of.
It would seem that I have some kind of sacred Information Age responsibility to publish an accurate analysis of Epsom salts.
Since I published it in October of 2006, visitors have been learning from my article that “there is no evidence or reason to believe that bathing in Epsom salts aids recovery from muscle pain, soreness or injuries,” as usually claimed. The argument against Epsom salts has always had two parts:
- It’s unlikely that the stuff can get into you: it can’t get across the skin, which is an excellent barrier to most substances, and thank goodness for that.
- And, if it can get into you, it’s unlikely that it has any reliable therapeutic effect on muscle aches and pains.
It turns out I’m probably wrong about the first part. The second is still holding (salt) water. What follows is a summary of the detailed update published in the full Epsom salts article.
Dr. Rosemary Waring
Rosemary Waring, a British biochemist at the University of Birmingham, did a nice Epsom salts science experiment. She did just what any curious person would do if he or she wanted to know whether or not Epsom salts can get past your skin: she measured magnesium and sulfate in the body before and after people bathed in Epsom salts.
And she found that people had soaked the stuff up during the baths! Fascinating! The results seem straightforward, but I was so amazed by them that I contacted Dr. Waring. “I agree that it is a bit surprising,” she agreed, “but the results are certainly there.”
And so, I was wrong.
Despite the fact that I couldn’t think of how it would work before I read Dr. Waring’s report it seems that there probably is a mechanism for getting magnesium and sulfate across the skin! Epsom Salts do get across the skin somewhere. I still don’t know how, and neither does Dr. Waring. But, dang it, they do.
“I agree that it is a bit surprising,” she agreed, “but the results are certainly there.”
Perhaps just as important as the new information about Epsom salts is this opportunity to showcase an important operating principle of science: the ability to “take the shame.” No, it’s more than that: I’m not just willing to admit that I’m wrong, I’m actually eager to admit that I’m wrong.
Being wrong about science is just the bomb. Why? Because every single time you’re wrong, it means that you’ve learned some cool new thing about how the universe works. Because every bit of evidence that throws a wrench in your theories proves that the world is still full of surprises, and forces the question, “Holy cow, what else don’t I know?”
And I just love that. I am far more interested in knowing how things really work than in defending how I used to think that they might be.
For the full scoop on Dr. Waring’s research, and the (still unchanged) problem of therapeutic effect, see the main Epsom salts article.
