← What's That Rash?
What's That Rash?
Is a vibration plate worth the cost?
00:24:00
We've all probably wished for a way to achieve our fitness goals without the strain and sweat that can come with exercise. So what if you could lose weight, gain muscle and improve circulation just by standing on a vibrating platform? Norman and Tegan buzz through the evidence for and against vibration plates and so called "passive exercise". References: Dr Gustav Zander’s Victorian-Era Exercise Machines Made the Bowflex Look Like Child’s Play The effects of whole body vibration therapy on reducing fat mass in the adult general population: A systematic review and meta-analyses Whole-body vibration administered during a 3-week in-hospital multidisciplinary body weight reduction program increases resting energy expenditure in obese adolescents, a randomized clinical trial Immediate effects of localized vibration on flexibility: A randomized crossover trial Effects of whole body vibration with exercise therapy versus exercise therapy alone on flexibility, vertical jump height, a...
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- [00:00]
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The world right now is a disaster. It's easy to feel helpless. But there was a moment when millions of people around the world said, enough. I'm Sison Kim Simong. Join me for Boycott the fight to end apartheid. How Australians joined others around the world to push back against racism and won whites only teams.
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We thought that to the average Australian that would be despicable.
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B
Boycott the fight to end Apart Search for ABC Rewind on abc. Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
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C
I'm not quite sure how to ask this. Tegan, is vibration part of your life?
- [01:12]
A
God damn it. I knew you were gonna go here today. And look, I think we're all feeling good, good, good vibrations as the beach.
- [01:20]
C
Yeah, Vibe is the thing, isn't it?
- [01:23]
A
Vibes is the vibe. But very, very specifically, vibrations is the topic today on what's that Rash. And you're almost certainly going to be disappointed when you realise what we're talking about.
- [01:34]
C
You just sidestepped that very nicely, if I may say so to you.
- [01:38]
A
It's the podcast where we answer the health questions everyone's asking.
- [01:44]
C
Well, they're vibrating with excitement because this week we're looking at vibrations.
- [01:49]
A
So just to just to get this off the table straight away, we're not talking about vibrators today, we're talking about vibration plates.
- [01:56]
C
Well, well, we might actually, but we'll leave it at that. Let's just do that, that little tantalizing
- [02:02]
A
thing, trick up your sleeve that I don't know about. Anyway, Madeline. Madeline has written in asking. Vibration plates have been a discussion amongst myself and friends lately and I'm actually curious to know if they have any proven health benefits. I'm especially interested to know if they are good for circulation and lymphatic drainage. And I think, Norman, our first order of business has to be what the hell is Madeleine talking about?
- [02:25]
C
Well, Madeline is talking about what's mostly called whole body vibration. You stand on a plate and. And that plate vibrates and that vibration is transmitted throughout your body.
- [02:38]
A
It literally looks like, I don't know, like a, like a plug in hot plate or one of those like foot massager things. It's sort of big enough for both of your feet to go on. But that's basically it. And the idea is the plate vibrates and it kind of vibrates your whole body along with it.
- [02:53]
C
Yeah. And there are all sorts of theories as to why vibration may theoretically be of benefit. So for example, you may be contracting your muscles to stay still on the vibration machine, depending on how actively it vibrates so that you get micro contractions of your muscles to stay on the plate. Or as you stay on the plate, it may be that it shakes up your circulation and you get better circulation to the muscles. Or it may do other things which we don't fully understand yet.
- [03:22]
A
I feel like it's a sort of a higher tech version of when everyone was obsessed with sitting on exercise balls, like the Swiss balls. Or sometimes you could have a half one where it was flat on one side and then round on the other and you had to sort of stand in balance on it. It's sort of like taking that to a level where you need to plug it into the wall for some reason.
- [03:39]
C
I think that's part of it, but it's the origin and the attraction is, as always, can you get away without exercising by standing still on a machine? So in other words, it's a labor saving exercise. A device is really what people are thinking about. Although some people, to be fair, use the vibration machine and exercise at the same time.
- [04:04]
A
We'll get to the evidence soon. As always, we do need to look at the history here. And I think that if you hear and you sort of understand what this concept is, you might be thinking of the sorts of pictures I'm going to start describing. I'm thinking about like 1960s times of like a Betty Draper kind of vibe, where she's sort of where they've got like that belt around their waist and they're sort of standing back into it and it's vibrating them. It's meant to give them like a little snatched waist, but it's even older than that. So the earliest things in the same realm as these vibration plates that you can now buy come back to the 1860s and a guy called Gustav Sander.
- [04:41]
C
Yes. Who was considered the grandfather of gym equipment.
- [04:45]
A
And so if you think about the sorts of machines that you would see in a gym now, if you're sort of picturing that in your mind and if you think of like a really, really steampunk version of that, that is what Gustav Zander pioneered. It's that he's said to have pioneered what's called mechanotherapy. And so there's a beautiful slideshow on the Smithsonian magazine website that shows different people in various positions getting worked by these machines. And some of them are like what you would see in a gym today where you're sort of pulling a weight with one arm, for example. Others are more like, more of a massage machine. My absolute favourite actually. I've got two favourites in this slideshow.
- [05:20]
C
One is which we'll have on our website, by the way, our show notes.
- [05:24]
A
So one of them is something called an abdominal kneading machine where a man has. It looks like wheels or something pressing into his abdomen. But the thing that absolutely tickles me about this picture is he is wearing a three piece suit including a pocket watch, but this thing is pressing into his stomach, presumably pressing into his buttons and pocket watch and then the other one. So I, I squawked out loud when I saw the abdominal kneading machine. The other one that is just a delight. And if you'd told me about it, I wouldn't have believed it is a woman sitting sidesaddle on like a section.
- [05:59]
C
Yeah, this is what I was alluding to at the beginning of the program.
- [06:02]
A
Why don't you describe this picture, Norman?
- [06:05]
C
Well, it's like a mechanical horse with a saddle on it and a machine to vibrate it, some sort of circular thing which then vibrates it. And this woman is fully dressed in
- [06:18]
A
a sister suffragette style dress, like very, very demure.
- [06:22]
C
Yeah. And sitting side saddle presumably because she got a shock when she sat on it. Normally
- [06:31]
A
no explanation is given as to what this machine is trying anyway. So I think where Dr. Zander was trying to do all sorts of different things with this, these were part of the sort of the health spa craze that was going on at the time. People wanting to do well by their bodies. And I think for some people with specific injuries, like some of the machines were designed to ease scoliosis and those sorts of things and others I think were just come and try this contraption and maybe get fitter and stronger. And part of the backdrop to what's happening here is one, mechanisation in general and two, because of mechanisation and industrialisation, people weren't working with physical labour so much anymore. They weren't sort of exerting themselves to the same amount. So they needed to look for ways to exert themselves. Which we have machines that are industrialised to help people combat the side effects of an industrialised society. It's very circular.
- [07:26]
C
Yeah. And one of the concepts here is passive exercise. So essentially where you don't have to do any exercise, but you get exercise. That's one of the ideas here. And it goes in and out of popularity through the years.
- [07:38]
A
Passive exercise. I think it's worth mentioning here that there are certain groups where it's important. Like it's an important part of rehabilitation for people after stroke and that sort of thing where someone is maybe helping manipulate your body, that you might not be able to do that independently at that moment for whatever reason. And it might help with joint strength or with digestion, those sorts of things.
- [07:57]
C
Yeah, I remember doing an interview at the University of Chicago on stroke rehabilitation to that point where they had a flat surface with no friction. And we're getting people to move a device around that flat surface. And that was in those days, they were getting good results from that because it was actually restoring the neuromuscular messaging, if you like, from hand to the brain and coordinating it and allowing further rehabilitation in terms of muscle strengthening later on. But that sort of where you really were not spending any calories at all on the exercise, but it was a movement that was training your brain.
- [08:38]
A
So that's some of, I guess, the things that are adjacent to what we're talking about here. The background of where these machines maybe came from. The idea of passive exercise as a concept definitely has some applications, but specifically with vibration plates, they're being marketed to people like Madeline and her friends. There's all sorts of claims that they make. Maybe we need to unpack some of what they are.
- [08:59]
C
So let's start with weight loss, fat burning. That's a very popular claim from vibration
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A
therapy is the idea that your muscles are kind of contracting without you knowing it, and so you're burning more energy.
- [09:11]
C
Yes, I think that's the core of it, particularly if you're standing on a plate and you are exerting yourself subtly. So it's not entirely passive exercise. So the process of standing with vibration makes the standing a little bit harder to do. And therefore your musculature is contracting and. And you are burning more calories in theory than you would if you were standing just on solid ground.
- [09:35]
A
There have been studies into this. We'll talk about the quality of them. But I think one thing that illustrates the breadth of study here is that there was a systematic review that brought together all of the existing evidence and consolidated it and looked at what it said when it comes to fat loss using vibration therapy. The systematic review came up with a total of 280 subjects across all of the studies that have been done, which to me, I mean, when we're looking at systematic reviews, often in WhatsApp rash, we're talking about thousands or tens of thousands of data points. And with this we're looking at 280.
- [10:08]
C
And they had eliminated hundreds and hundreds of studies that just were not of good enough quality. So, yes, small number. And when they brought it all together, what they call effect size was low. So in other words, there was a hint that maybe there was some fat loss on average that barely reached statistical significance, if indeed it reached statistical significance at all. So it's a hint there, but it's not big.
- [10:33]
A
Well, let's go through some of the other claims that surround these vibration plates. So weight loss, burning fat, that's what everyone seems to want all the time. In addition to those things, sometimes they claim to improve flexibility, enhance blood flow, which I think you mentioned before. Some claim to reduce muscle soreness after exercise, so doms. And then there's claims around building strength, building bone mass and decreasing the stress hormone cortisol. We've talked about the weight loss and fat burning side of things. Let's talk about flexibility. What could be happening there, if anything?
- [11:06]
C
Well, if anything, it could be that simply the musculature is more relaxed after you finish the vibration therapy and therefore you're more likely to be able to bend your joints, particularly your knee joints and hip joints, which is probably where they're really looking for flexibility. They did a study on people with knee pain looking at vertical, jump height, agility and pain, and there really wasn't any evidence on jump height, agility or pain, but slightly contradictory. There was a little bit of extra flexibility, so not a dramatic result compared to exercise. So when you compare vibration therapy to regular exercise, regular exercise does seem in most studies to win out.
- [11:48]
A
All right, well, we better go through the list regardless. Circulation.
- [11:52]
C
There is some evidence that whole body vibration stimulates blood flow through the small vessels in muscles, which is where a lot of the idea that this is good for muscles comes from. It's not a big surprise that it would do that by shaking the muscles and opening them up and increasing blood flow. So it's not nothing from vibration therapy, but it's not big.
- [12:13]
A
Okay, so coming to those last couple of points there, muscle building, bone building, compared to exercise. Is there anything here?
- [12:24]
C
There's a little bit of evidence from one particular study. It was a 12 week study looking at older people. So what they found was that after several sessions, about 36 sessions of whole body vibration training, they found that they were more effective. For example, when it was measured contracting the quadriceps muscles, the muscles at the front of your thigh. And they felt that this was possibly due to better brain muscle communication going on, perhaps facilitated by the vibration therapy, because essentially more messages were going to the brain and back to the body. What they were arguing here was that if this was of benefit to these older people with muscle related weight loss, it was more that you were getting the brain into action to help further training to strengthen the muscles rather than strengthening the muscles themselves.
- [13:13]
A
That's still important, though. That could still be a useful tool.
- [13:16]
C
That's what this paper argued. But when you look at the literature here, I don't think anybody's arguing that vibration therapy replaces what you do normally, that it may well be a useful add on, and in this case a useful add on in older people that actually might trigger the brain into action in terms of making future muscle training much easier. And then there's bone building. You know, the astronauts used to use vibration therapy when they were going to try and stop osteopenia from weightlessness. And they found that vibration therapy did help a little bit, but they now have much more effective ways of exercising, which improves their bone strength. And it's called adaptive resistance exercise. So it's a weight exercise, it's called exercising. Yes, that's right.
- [14:02]
A
They're on a train exercising in space,
- [14:05]
C
and they do sometimes combine, for example, static cycling with vibration. So they don't. They've not ignored vibration altogether, but they've really replaced it with what you say is exercise.
- [14:16]
A
One more thing I want to tick off this list is decreasing the stress hormone cortisol because cortisol is having a massive moment on social media. People love to talk about cortisol. We've talked about this a little bit on WhatsApp rash before. This idea that cortisol, the stress hormone, is inherently bad for you and is making you puffy and ugly, which, if you've listened to our previous WhatsApp rash, you know is not strictly the case. What do we know about vibration's effects on cortisol levels?
- [14:43]
C
It's conflicting, is the short answer to that question. So a study looking at the hormonal responses to a single session of whole body vibration in older people found there was an increase in cortisol levels in the vibration group compared to people who just exercised alone, and no impact on cortisol over an extended period after that single session.
- [15:05]
A
I think if you made me stand on a plate and buzzed me and made my feet go tingly, I would be a bit stressed out too.
- [15:10]
C
Yeah. Yes, you've taken the vibrations out of my mouth. And then there's a more comprehensive study of a broad spectrum of hormones in response to whole body vibration. These are unhealthy people. Small group, 20 volunteers. They found that vibration therapy increased growth hormone levels in men, decreased them in women. Stress hormones tended to go down. So it's not that vibration does nothing to your hormones of comfort. To men. Gonadal hormones were not significantly influenced. And as evidence that their muscles were actually pumping a little bit during whole vibration therapy, their lactate levels increased. So lactate levels tend to go up when you're doing anaerobic exercise or eccentric exercise on your muscles. So it was having an effect on muscles, and blood sugar levels went down. So it's not that nothing happened, but the picture was really mixed.
- [16:05]
A
I was also very interested to see that they studied dogs as well. And I just have so many questions about how you get dogs to stand on a vibrating platform without them freaking out. I wouldn't have thought it would decrease a dog's cortisol level, even though that is what they found in that particular study, if I've understood it correctly. Anyway, last point we need to touch on from Maddy's question, which was about lymphatic drainage. Again, another thing that the TikTok people seem to be really into. This sense that maybe your body's holding onto lymph fluid and that's perhaps making you puffier than you should be. Big question mark. Listen to our previous WhatsApp rash about that as well, please. What do we know about lymphatic drainage, Norman?
- [16:46]
C
So this study was into not lymphedema, which is a side effect often of cancer surgery, where the lymph nodes are removed and you get lymph buildup in the lim painful. This study was into lipedema, which is a condition where you get fat accumulation in a limb and it really can be quite painful and you can exercise as much as you like, go on a diet, and it's really hard to move. So it looks a little bit like lymphedema. It's a different problem. And what they found in this study, where they did manual lymphatic drainage, where they did vibration therapy, and that when you combine the two, you got an increased improvement in the lipodaemic limb.
- [17:28]
A
So I feel like the overall theme I'm getting from what we've talked about today, Norman, is that by itself, vibration therapy has a pretty small, if any, effect. But when combined with exercise or standard treatments like lymphatic massage. In the case of lymphatic drainage, it seems to enhance or augment that therapy a bit. Especially in groups that have the need for lymphatic drainage. They've got low muscle or, or low bone density for whatever reason that this could just be a little adjunct to supercharge traditional therapy.
- [18:00]
C
There have been studies of people bedbound in hospital to try and use vibration therapy when you literally cannot move. And there are some benefits but they're not enormous and they don't replace the actual exercise. So if you're just going to be lying in bed doing nothing, it seems to be better than that, depending on the technique, but it's not huge.
- [18:18]
A
So for someone like Maddie and her friends who are talking about these vibration plates as maybe like they're obviously interested in their health, we don't know anything el about their health. Assuming that they're otherwise fit and healthy Australian adults, what is the recommendation here?
- [18:33]
C
Spend the money on something else would be my recommendation. But if you really like it, I mean, we couldn't find any evidence of harm in the research that we did. The only evidence of harm would be if you stopped doing something else that was really good for you.
- [18:47]
A
There's this, this is the thing that I wanted to say is that I think often we kind of end on the end of what's that rash with a bit of a shrug and be like, ah, well it's probably not doing any harm so like go for it. I think it's worth talking about like life cycle effects of an electronic product that has to be manufactured and then powered and then has some sort of e waste footprint at the end of its life that like you say there's money that you're spending on it that maybe you could spend on something else. There are knock on effects at every other stage.
- [19:12]
C
The equation in my mind is not that this is a waste. There is a low effect size for a lot of the things that we've just been talking about. In other words, it will have a small effect. But if you're going to stand on it for X number of minutes a day, that's six minutes of a day that you're not doing other things, which might be going out for a brisk walk, which might be going to a dance class where you are actually having some impact against gravity. There are all sorts of things that you could be doing with those minutes of the day. Now if those minutes of the day you wouldn't be doing anything else at all. And you want to try the vibration therapy and you're Prepared to spend the money. Go for it.
- [19:49]
A
Well, Madeline, thank you so much for asking your question. We hope we've given you a straight enough answer and not too wibbly wobbly. If you've got a question for us, our email address is thatrashbc.net au so
- [20:00]
C
what's in the mailbag?
- [20:01]
A
A couple of things. One from Bill. So last week you and me revealed to the world our child, Swirly the snail, and we were talking about snail slime as a potential skincare ingredient. I think we came to a pretty comprehensive conclusion that don't bother but spill did want to call out the risk of parasites that snails and slugs carry. Something I've actually reported about on the Health report before Norman, rat lungworm, which can have some pretty, pretty gnarly side effects. There is actually a case of an Australian teenager who ate a slug on a dare and later died, which is really, really awful. So Bill just wanted to remind people to stay as far away from snails as possible. And make sure you wash your hands if you encounter them, which is good advice.
- [20:45]
C
And if you're going to eat escargot, make sure they're well cooked.
- [20:48]
A
Indeed, indeed. And Marie is asking a question off the back of our episode on vitamin C supplementation. Marie says, I have now had two broken bones and both times the surge put me on vitamin C. Why have they done that?
- [21:03]
C
So what's going on here is there's a smidgen of evidence that vitamin C can improve bone healing. Vitamin C does have an effect on the connective tissues in the body, the tissues that hold things together. So conceivably there is a biological rationale for that. But when you look at the studies in this area, the effects are small and based on our. What's that rash on vitamin C? You really wouldn't be wanting to have mega doses of vitamin C. Cause that actually could get in the way of healing.
- [21:32]
A
Well, speaking of megadoses of vitamin C, Mal has also emailed in saying, a friend of mine read Linus Pauling's Vitamin C and the Common cold in the 70s. He was so impressed, he bought the biggest bottle of vitamin C tablets available and proceeded to munch through them. They didn't last more than a day. Mal notes, Tegan would have been an enthusiastic accomplice. I would. As previously discussed, those little vitamin C dry, chewy, yum, yum, yum. Anyway, Mal continues, my friend worked as a chemist in a lab and realised he had ready access to the ascorbic acid analytical reagent laboratory chemical. It was a white powder that he could eat with a teaspoon. Are you seeing any red flags here so far, Norman?
- [22:13]
C
No, no, I'm completely relaxed about this. It sounds like a lot of fun.
- [22:18]
A
Anyway, Mal's friend is eating ascorbic acid with a teaspoon in the lab. It all came to an end, he writes, when he began to develop dental decay issues which arose from the chemical reagent being unbuffered.
- [22:30]
C
So he's eating acid, basically.
- [22:32]
A
Basically exactly. By definition. So the ascorbic acid obsession had to be replaced by another, which was anchovies. Why not?
- [22:42]
C
Much more sensible. I hope it was on sourdough bread with a bit of grilled tomato and olive oil.
- [22:48]
A
It sounds tastier than straight acid powder. Anyway, Mal finishes. That's part of the Mediterranean diet, isn't it? And look, I brought my bell with me today. Yes, it is.
- [22:57]
C
Oh, is it 100%. They're swimming all over it.
- [23:00]
A
Love to say it, Mel. I hope your friend got the help that they needed in the time that they needed it. And thank you as always for your.
- [23:06]
C
Just like down to this couch so we can have a chat with you about it.
- [23:10]
A
You can email us anytime. Like I said before, it's thatrashbc.net au see you next week.
- [23:16]
C
See ya.