What a scam,if you ever get one done,just dip your hand in the water and you can smell the iron oxides,that color is just the electrodes just rusting,i did 3 baths before i caught on and thanx to Russ,you open my eyes too...DONT DO THIS....i cant believe i fell for this

Thanks for posting, and you're very welcome.

I know there are some people who say they do the foot baths and feel better. I say, "good for them". Perhaps there is something to them. Perhaps the mineral supplement that they give you just before the foot bath makes people feel better. Perhaps it's the placebo effect. I don't know.

All I know is what we found out in our own tests located here:

http://herballure.com/Studies/IonicFootSpa.html

I hope people benefit from this information.

All the best.

I know two professionals who use the ionic foot bath. Neither of them give their clients the mineral supplements before the bath as mentioned in the study. Couldn't the bath be removing other toxins from the body, as opposed to metals?

It's possible, I suppose. It's just difficult to move too much through the skin at a time, if that is what is happening in the first place.

I'd like to see more studies done as I'm personally concerned with the idea of exposing the body to unnaturally high voltages like the ones they produce.

I have met a number of people that say they feel better from the baths, although I don't know of any baths that don't recommend taking supplements for each session.

There was certainly a lot of initial misleading information put out about them, especially in terms of leading people to believe that the muck in the water came out of their bodies. I do hope now there will be a higher level of intellectual honesty and hopefully someone will actually work on finding out what the effect on the body really is, especially in the long term.

All the people I've personally spoken to say that the benefit (the improved sense of well being and in some cases relief from pain) quickly dissipates when the baths stop.

I hope this current foot bath craze does not harm the credibility of the alternative health industry in the long run. I worry about that.

It worries me, too. Any time there's a "craze" like this, I sit back and wait (and/or research), because sometimes that's exactly what it is: a craze. The chiropractor I see said I'm entitled to one free foot bath session, but I've hesitated...I'd like to see the solid science behind it...

It's sad to see how people have been conditioned in this society to be skeptical about alternative health treatment. Unfounded claims of success, whether intentional or not, certainly give individuals reason to be wary, which harms the credibility of those who are truly helping people.

Thanks for the info. I saw an ad with the ugly water and thought it must be good. They may feel the placebo effect.

Well, these folks using the foot baths may well be getting a positive effect from them. A friend of mine who provides them for her clients has told me stories of the varieties of things she has seen in the water -- not just different colors, but things that have appeared to be almost parasitic in nature. It's just that I haven't seen any solid science or evidence behind it to be comfortable to do it myself, nor to promote it. Nor am I certain that it will not produce a negative effect with its use, either short-term or long-term.

There are so many variables, including the user's chemical make-up, the quality and material of the instrument being used, etc. And there's always the possibility that what may have been very good originally, could be used by someone less knowledgeable and informed, unwittingly causing more damage than good.

I know that the craze is primarily driven by the fact that herbalists make a lot of money giving foot baths. The craze is sustained by the fact that a certain number of people say that they feel better when doing them.

As far as parasites in the water...

(1) I don't think visible parasites can travel through the skin.

(2) I don't know why electrical current would draw them through the skin

(3) I don't know why the 90+ volts in the water of the unit we tested would not kill the small organisms.

I'd really love to see photos of this first hand. I think we may just come to some different conclusions.

I'm not denying that they may do something good. Perhaps they do. I just don't know what as of yet.

Those are really good questions. I'll ask my friend if she can take some photographs... So what else can we do to gather more information? I'd love to see some studies about what toxins other than metals might be in the water after a bath; how this affects a person physically (aside from the alleged removal of toxins); long-term effects of use; differences in the types of devices used, etc.

I've been researching this for a few weeks. I think that these foot baths are a little worse than harmless. Eloctrolysis has been around since the early 1800's and is well documented. A variety of colors can be caused by using different materials for the electrodes and the the amount of salt in the solution. Pure water, being an insulator, can not be ionized, at least not for any significant period of time. The ions take the path of least resistance from the cathode to the anode and don't accumulate in the the solution. Here is a url to a chemist's site that talks about these foot baths:

http://www.chem1.com/CQ/FootBathBunk.html

My chief complaint is that the electrolysis process causes hydrogen and oxygen gases to be released from the water and chlorine gas to be released from the sodium chloride (salt). Both hydrogen and chlorine gases are toxic and are being breathed in by whoever is sitting with their feet in the bath. So, you're actually putting more toxins in your body than the foot bath could possibly be taking out (which is none). The only benefit is that another byproduct of the process is sodium hydroxide which mixes with the oil from your feet to form lye soap. Your feet will be clean.
Here are a couple more links to check out:
http://www.raygirvan.co.uk/apoth/2004_05_01_arc.html#108575608886281343

http://www.devicewatch.org/reports/aquadetox.shtml

Thank you so much for the information! I'm going to look into this and also forward this to a friend who uses the foot baths on her patients. Several of my friends get these foot baths, and I think it's so important to really understand what they're doing and, possibly, educate them as well.

Does anyone out there have their own ionic foot bath that they know works because they actually feel better from using it, and it's sold on the cheap side ($300.00 is still expensive for me, but the average of the ones I found on E-Bay.) From what I've read I suspect that it would work for me, but wouldn't know for sure without trying it and I need to know which one to buy. I do not want to waste $300.00 + on something that doesn't really work. (I'm not asking anything about color changes in the water, but about how you feel after you use it - whether or not you feel significantly better all over.) Thanks to anyone who can help me with this.