Dear Mark: What Are the Health Benefits of Negative Ions?
Anyone who’s been through a health store has heard about ions. If it’s not someone offering samples of ionized water, it’s someone selling ionized bracelets. It sounds wacky, woo-woo, crazy, and as if it belongs firmly in the same realm as crystals, magnet therapy, and cryptozoology (although the kid in me is still holding out hope that both Squatch and Nessie are found), but is there actual science behind this negative ion stuff, or are the people who buy into this stuff totally off their rockers? Today, we venture into what some might consider the realm of the non-scientific to discuss negative ionizers – both the natural kinds (like waterfalls) and the man-made variety (negative ion generators).
Let’s get to it:
Hi Mark,
I’m almost scared/embarrassed to even ask you about this, but here goes: my friend, who’s into crystals, homeopathy, and other types of alternative health modalities with less than concrete supporting evidence, has been talking my ear off about negative and positive ions. She’s got her entire house decked out with negative ion generators and she’s always trying to “avoid positive ions.” I’ve even seen her ducking past air conditioners. Is there anything to this, or is she crazy?
Thanks,
Beth
Maybe. Let’s take a look.
But first, lest we fall into the trap of talking about abstractions (a la “toxins”), let’s define our terms. What are ions?
Ions are atoms or molecules in which the number of electrons is different than the number of protons. In other words, an ion is a negatively (more electrons than protons) or positively (more protons than electrons) charged atom or molecule. Positively charged ions are called cations, while negatively charged ions are called anions. Because they are either positively or negatively charged, ions are “mobile.”
Negative ions generally appear in natural settings in greater numbers than positive ions. For instance, negative ions are generated by moving water – rivers, waterfalls, crashing waves, even showers and fountains – and the presence of negative ions is actually used to identify potential sources of water on other planetary bodies, like Enceladus and Titan. Waterfalls are probably the greatest producers of negative ions, thanks to the violence with which falling water breaks apart on both hard and aqueous surfaces (PDF). Plants also produce negative ions, especially when exposed to intense light during photosynthesis.
Okay, that’s great and all. Everyone likes waterfalls and all, but does the fact that they generate lots of negative air ions have any bearing on our health?
They can certainly exert “physiological effects” on living things. In fact, that negative and positive air ions could have physiological effects on people was once a field of serious study, but after snake oil salesmen released a slew of air ion generators with the promise that they’d cure cancer, heart disease, and just about every malady under the sun in the 1950s, the reputation of the field was forever tarnished. Research continued, but its name was sullied, and little serious attention was paid to its findings. The result is that anytime anyone even mentions “ions,” they’ll get laughed out of the room or immediately branded a nut job. And that’s a shame, because there is something to this stuff.
Even if some modern skeptics pride themselves on discarding an idea that sounds a little kooky without doing any actual research, that doesn’t mean evidence doesn’t exist. Let’s see what the research says:
Mood
Not everyone with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can afford to slumber amidst the babbling mist of a nearby brook with the gentle caress of the day’s first sun softly nudging them awake. It’s ideal, but studies indicate that simulating those conditions with negative ion generators, naturalistic dawn simulating lights, and someone blowing raspberries at your face can be just as effective at combating SAD as bright light therapy (okay, maybe not that last one).
Chronic non-seasonal depression has also been shown to be improved with negative ion therapy. High density ion therapy was far more effective than low density ion therapy.
Negative ions (along with bright light and auditory stimuli) reduced subjective measurements of depression, improved mood, and reduced anger in both depressed and non-depressed college students.
Stress
In a study on the salivary responses of people completing a 40-minute word processing task on the computer, exposure to negative air ions reduced the rise in salivary chromogranin A-like immunoreactivity (a marker of stress and anxiety) and improved performance.
Breathing
The trachea is the windpipe, the passage through which air travels into our lungs. Along the trachea are cilia, tiny organelles which keep airborne particles from passing into the lungs. If cilial activity is inhibited, as in cystic fibrosis, more foreign particles are introduced into the lungs. If cilial activity is uninhibited, the junk is kept out of the lungs and discharged later via saliva and mucus. Research shows that negative ion exposure increases cilial activity in the trachea of humans and monkeys, while positive ion exposure inhibits it.
Another study in asthmatic children found that exposure to positively ionized air exacerbated their asthmatic response to exercise.
All told, there does appear to be something to it.
Maybe that’s why sitting around a campfire with your buddies surrounded by towering examples of plant life feels so good. Toss in a nearby river gurgling over stones, throwing mist up in the air? You’ve got a potent recipe for negative air ions. Could that be why camping out in the great outdoors is so rejuvenating and so energizing? Sure, you could argue that camping is just a way for us to get away from the madness of work and city life, get some fresh air and exercise, and reconnect with our Primal selves… but there has to be a physiological mechanism for that. What if negative ions play an important role in that mechanism? What if part of what we’re “getting away from” is the glaring lack of negative ions?
How to Get Exposure to Negative Ions
The best way to get exposure to negative ions is of course going to be the old, natural way. Go to the beach (and play in the water, don’t sit bundled up on the shore). Climb a mountain. Go for a hike. Spend an afternoon reading a great book in a garden, surrounded by plant life. Swim underneath a waterfall. Heck, even just stepping outside the stifling stuffy air of your office, turning off the AC and lowering the car windows, or letting some cross breeze into your house will help.
Take a shower. The closest thing many of us get to moving water is our regular showers. And that’s not so bad. Moving water is moving water, and showers do a good job of producing negative ions in their own right.
Another way is to design a negative ion-generating garden, using running water (preferably a waterfall or fountains) and plenty of green life. This method is a mite more involved than simply buying a generator or visiting natural sites of negative ion generation, but here’s a study in which researchers mapped out the distribution of positive and negative ions across a sample garden (PDF). It should give you an idea for your own garden. The important factor appears to be the presence of running water, since the negative ions were highest right around the waterfall.
For your home or office, I highly recommend a negative ion generator. Many of them aren’t terribly expensive. For, say, 50 bucks you can enrich your stale office in negative ions and filter out impurities to boot. Give it a shot, especially if you don’t spend time in the natural settings where negative ions predominate. If you’re stuck inside all day, bathed in air conditioning, a negative ion generator is worthy of serious consideration.
Or, if you’re handy enough, you could always just make your own ioniser.
Anyway, I’d like to hear about your experiences with negative ionizers (and negative ions in general). Have you noticed anything? Let us know in the comment section!
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Hi Mark,
Nice article.
So let’s assume negative ions are good. How do I measure them to confirm they are there and how many there are?
John
Instructions
1. Push the power button on your ion tester for several seconds until a negative sign flashes on the small screen on the front of the tester.
2. Find the small metal piece on the back of the tester. Hold the tester level so the metal piece points at the ground. A reading will display. This reading helps the ion tester calibrate itself and gives you a measurement to test against.
3. Press the pad of your thumb over the small metal square on the front of the tester. Hold the tester so the square on the back points toward your negative ion generator, air purifier, or simply into the center of the room.
4. Watch for a reading to display. A small minus sign will appear before negative ion readings. If you see no minus sign, the ion tester is measuring positive ions and your generator isn’t working very well or too few negative ions are present to measure.
5. Compare the original calibration reading to the reading from the negative ion generator. Ideally, the second reading should be much lower than the first. For example, if the first reading was -10, the second reading should ideally be -80, -90 or higher. The higher the reading, the more negative ions are in your environment.
Mark
The study on SADS and dawn simulation did not say what you summarized. It said that bright light, dawn simulation or pulsed low level light were superior to low levels of negative ion radiation. Why there was no control group is beyond me. We can’t really tell if the remission rate was better than no treatment at all.
Similarly, the study on light and ionization did not necessarily mean that high levels of negative ions were helpful. It could be that exposure to low levels of negative ions is detrimental. Without a control group, you can’t really tell if this is a real effect or just a test-retest effect.
I used a negative ionizer stick for a while to make my tap water more alkaline, that certainly seemed to increase my energy levels… that was part of general experimentation on reducing acidity in the body.
SAD lights makes sense to me, when you consider the low LUX generated by office lights vs lovely sunshine… definitely need a dose of bright lights to lift the mood in gloomy months. Ask anyone from Scandinavia or northern Canada how depressed people get in the winter months!
I’m from Canada, and I have to say that now, living in the US Pacific Northwest, I feel much more light-deprived than I ever did in northern Ontario!
I used to live in a house with a wood stove in the basement, which (along with the furnace) heated the house but more enjoyably provided some entertainment on cold, snowed-in Canadian winter days (not that far North however). I’d get hypnotized by the fire. It was better than TV sometimes. And to start it, Grok-squatting or kneeling was required – Grok squatting probably being the better option.
I insist on positive ions, I already have too much negativity in my life.
Rob, I think you may of miss understood the ion bit (unless I did). We want the negative ions around us to make us feel better.
My question is (unless I missed it in the article), what comon everyday things produces positive ions? Knowing these I can reduce as many in my day to day living.
And any ideas on the braclelts? Are they any good? If so any brand I should look for?
Thanks for your time.
I think you may have missed the joke…
I bought a negative ion contraption about 20 years ago. I put it in the bedroom since it was supposed to help me breathe and sleep better. All it did was make a dirty spot on the wall, so I guess it was doing something. My allergies remained the same until I eliminated sweets, grain products and a few other things that bother me. Maybe the newer ones work better, or maybe they’re just a scam.
I also bought a Q-Link a while back, on the theory that they protect you from the negative effects of EMF. Didn’t notice any difference with that either.
I bought a q-link as well. It was junk, didn’t do anything.
Electrical devices produce positive ions. For example it’s kind of unhealthy to use a computer – positive ions and radiation (though apparently we can adapt to low levels of electromagnetic radiation – computer’s seem like a sensible indulgence, or worth using). It would help to have good ventilation, and maybe a hazmat suit. Negative ion generator of course.
“‘s” have to point out that grammar glitch for ego’s sake before anyone else gets a chance
What are your thoughts on the ion cleanse technology?
They do work when designed correctly, because the charge of the ion attracts dust down to very small particles (like pollen). The particles aggregate and can be filtered more easily.
Now if only my negative attitude would turn out to have a positive influence on people I would be good to go!
Okay, but what about Thetans?
Hmmm, interesting. I’d always found the thing about ions to be a little too woo-woo for me, although I’m with you on the Nessie thing.
I caught a frog with six legs once (two sets of back legs, both worked!). Probably the closest I came to seeing a monster, wish I took a picture of it. Based on watching it swim in a bucket with other frogs, I think its extra legs made it just a bit faster.
And in BC I saw a weird skeleton on the beach that looked like a cross between a fish and a lizard, maybe around a meter or a bit less in length with the tail being about half the body.
Im building one myself. I know just what shelf to put it on. Time to throw out the flux capaciter. It was a miserable failure!
The study on mood change is suggestive but inconclusive. Using a Beck inventory score of 10 to classify someone as depressed is a joke. I have patients that score 55/60 on the Beck. It suggests that students in a lousy mood report some mood improvement. Also, the comparison conditions are suspect. A better “active control” would be some other activity deemed to have minimal antidepressant activity… doing puzzles? The evidence presented really is weak and I would not make recommendations (or invest in a negative ion generator) based on them. I would not want negative ion generators to be subsidized by tax dollars.
I would like to spend time by a waterfall.
I’ve had a negative ioniser by my bed for the last 30 years. In the days when we didn’t know about wheat damage, it was useful for reducing asthma at night. However, loosing the wheat has a far more powerful effect, and I wouldn’t bother to get one now-a-days – although I will carry on using mine because I have it.
Why don’t you get specific instead of just being rude?
+1
Now who’s the troll!
I’ve had an ionizer for several years, it really DOES help with my allergies and asthma. I also have a small fish pond in my house which has a fountain. If nothing else, the sound of the fountain is very relaxing and soporific.
I have only been doing the Primal Blueprint for 7 weeks, I’m not sure when/if I will see any improvement in the allergy arena. Thanks for the great blog Mark!
the allergy thing is tricky as there seem to be so many cofactors producing not only the reactions but often the conditions where said cofactors will cause a reaction. Example: i’ve been basically primal for 3.5 years (no grains etc etc but with dairy) 8 years ago i had all amalgam removed suspecting it responsible for increasing digestive issues – but left a root canal. all digestive issues cleared (that worked!) but remaining was virtually constant post nasal drip and throat clearing. i finally pulled the (still stable but suspect) molar/root canal and low and behold – - no more compulsive throat clearing within 6 weeks! however i still have a residual runny sinus that hangs on no matter what. is it an allergy to something more i have not changed? dropping dairy does nothing to change it –
my point moodygirl is that you may find certain things changing/getting better but still get to play detective with other chronic issues that may seem allergy related but may or may not be – good luck!
I would not recommend the cheaper ion generators, nor to build your own. These devices generate significant amounts of ozone. You can even smell it sometimes.
I find ozone causing sore throat, beside possible other side effects I have not encountered myself.
Let’s be explicit here. Breathing ozone is bad.
Try wikipedia or the the United States EPA .
because that make it yourself site also has ozone generators claiming…
“Make a surprisingly effective ozone generator for freshening the air in your home or workshop”.
Please don’t do that. Ozone is good for killing microbes in food packing and lots of other applications, but not for breathing.
I would gather to say that the EPA isn’t exactly the harbinger of all things good.
Plus, as Wired.com has shown, Wikipedia can be modified to fit whatever narrative is necessary.
Here are a couple of links to some really thurough evidence on Ozone, Oxygen, and Hydrogen Peroxide.
http://educate-yourself.org/cancer/ozonebymajidli17jul03.shtml
http://educate-yourself.org/ozone/
I was actually thining about getting a purifier a few weeks ago! I purchased some scentedpop-popouri to try and make my bedroom/office smell “fresh”, but it did nothing.
Now I’m confused. I’ve done a little searching for HEPA Ionic Air purifier, but it seems it’s wither HEPA OR Ionic… Is this true? I don’t really think that a filter-less one will do as good job, albeit UV probably is good, I don’t want a blue light when sleeping.
Does anyone have a HEPA Ionic Purifier?
Thanks!
I also gathered that the way Ionisers work is that attract other ions in the air and “weight them down”. They then settle on furniture to be cleaned off? Seems a little counter-intuitive? Would a HEPA air purifier still be good, if it doesn’t have a ioniser?
Sorry, still pretty skeptical. What kinds of ions are these (i.e., what’s the molecule or atom)? What’s supposed to be the mechanism for their interacting with our body? I’m guessing a chemical reaction (since it seems like the most obvious way ions interact with other things) but in that case what specifically are they reacting with?? The discussion of ‘ions’ is just so so so vague and unscientific that it really gives no information to be able to judge its merits. Even if there were some effect there’s way too little information here to have any idea what’s going on, or even if it’s the charge or the molecule overall that matter, or if it’s the interaction of the ‘negative ions’ with something in your body that matters or if they are simply reacting with other ions in the environment and removing them…. I remain a skeptic for now.
Agree. A negative ion of *what*? I would think it matters.
Yeah, if negative electric charges literally had some kind of positive health effects, purely by virtue of being negative charges, then we could all get all kinds of benefits from things like walking across a carpet in socks or wearing wool sweaters in the winter. And I can think of some negative ions (as well as positive ones) that are dangerously reactive (causing explosions or burns or leaching minerals from the body).
IMHO, it’s either simply not a real thing, or if there’s anything in it at least what’s going on is very different from how it’s being explained.
Maybe the extra electrons pass from the ions to us, acting like antioxidants.
+1. “Negative ion” means nothing without talking about which negative ion it is. Superoxide anion is a negative ion that is quite toxic. Maybe some “negative ions” have benefits, but without specifying which ones, it’s not
…science.
“Because they are either positively or negatively charged, ions are “mobile.”” Took me a bit to decipher this but I imagine this must be a reference to electrical mobility rather than to what we normally mean by mobility in common speech? Electrical mobility just refers to how much something moves in an electric field, which is useful if you’re trying to apply a voltage to it and use it to conduct electricity. However it’s not clear to me what it’s got to do with the rest of this article, or to the proposed health effects of charged particles?
I grew up in Niagara Falls (apparently the home of massive numbers of negative ions) I worked many summers beside the falls. I feel a difference in how I feel outside versus inside stale air vs fresh?)but the falls does nothing for me. Pretty! Yes, but thats it!
Thanks a lot for this Mark! I had just written the ion thing off as a bunch of hippie quackery. I’ve even heard that we should be drinking ionized water. Is there any validity to that?
Thanks for the great content as usual!
This feels oddy biased toward negative ions without much compelling evidence. But, hey, maybe it’s just a mark of how REALLY awesome most other MDA articles are? We’re just a bit spoiled now, but these articles can’t all be winners!
Yeah, frankly, this doesn’t really seem to be an area that Mark has any background in, and I’m afraid it shows.
With all the wi-fi around. Does this give off positive ions??
How is this any different than going barefoot in the dirt or “grounding”?
I feel good when i take a shower. I feel good when I get sunlight (not too much sunlight that burns me like in arizona right now). I feel good walking barefoot on a turf, in a creek, etc.. that’s all i need to know.. lol
I’ve always been skeptical of this ion stuff (at least, the way it was explained to me) because apparently some outdoor scenarios are bad. Apparently very windy places and deserts are positively ionized. But I’ve felt at my most relaxed in deserts, and what about the inevitable wind around large waterfalls? How are they both positive and negative? Why do desert tribes not report high levels of allergies if this is true?
My personal opinion is that it’s hokum, but I’m open to evidence to the contrary. I don’t think the evidence exists in this article, though.
Equal amounts of positive and negative sounds a lot simpler than having mainly one, actually. Most things are charge neutral, in which case to create a negative ion you have to create a positive one at the same time. In order to have an imbalance between the number of positive vs negative charges many of one would have to be removed somehow or moved to a different location.
this is quite interesting, and something i will have to consider – just never heard of it before!
I have a Lasko tower fan with a negative ionizer button. It might be my imagination, but the air feels cooler and fresher when I run it with the ionizer feature on.
The whole issue is interesting… our food supply and other ways of living are so different than they were pre-industrialization, perhaps our air is, too.
One of the things that’s inconsistent here is that I see discussion of at least three completely different things under the heading of ‘ions’, which seem to have very little to do with each other. 1) ionized particles (not sure ionized particles of what substance) in the air being brought into the respiratory system 2) water ‘ionization’ which seems to refer to adding certain minerals? in an attempt to change its pH? and 3) static electricity being used to attract dust and particulate matter in air filters.
None of these things seem to have anything to do with each other that I can see
.
Sorry, I was skeptic on this topic and I stay skeptic.
Ok, let’s produce tons of “negative ions”:
- Where do the positive go? Annihilated? Back to pure energy according to E=Mc2?
- Positive and negative irresistibly attract. How long can a “negative ion” stay far away from a ionizer which is constantly charging more and more positively. And how far can it travel most of all: as it freely is floating in the air, it must simply return to the ionizer.
- Ions of which? -CN (cyanide) for example is a negative ion and sure it is not healthy.
- I once studied in details the photosynthesis. Now I cannot remember every single electron moving but as far as I remember there are indeed ions which are generated at a certain point. The fact is that they are reabsorbed immediately. The tree is not a nuclear power plant producing beta rays 8 hours per day!!!
- As for the results of the researches, how much bias is there? We want to prove that ions are so good, we find a way to prove it. Mood, stress and also breath are very psychological (placebo effect?) and me too, despite being skeptic, feel more relaxed in a wood next to a waterfall instead of sitting in my office
There are many other points I could rise, but that would make the post endless. I’ll continue later, maybe
I was given one of those Ion Bracelets as a gift by my mum and told of all the miracle wonders it somehow creates, so I thought why not, i’d give it a go, thinking it was probably plenty of nonsense but no harm in wearing it for a few days.
Within 30 minutes I had the most obscene migraine coming on that i’ve had since I used to be a refined sugar fanatic back before going primal.
I stuck it out for two days hoping it was a coincidence, but couldn’t for the life of me shift it even with every migraine technique under the sun I could think of.
Within an hour of taking it off, the migraine pretty much lifted as though it’d never been there at all.
I’ve tried them out twice since as experiments, and both times i’ve ended up bedridden!
They definitely do something…
Probably best to just go on a walk to a waterfall.
I use Himalayan Salt Lamps at home and in the office. They also in use them at my primal gym. The lamps are a large chunk of himalayan salt with a light in the middle of them (cheap too) and emit negative ions… as well as casting a pink, yellow, orange glow… which is great for pre-sleep. The neg-ions attach to positive ions in the air and neutralise them. I found them to be beneficial
I haven’t had any experience with an ion generator. However, nothing washes away negativity like a shower. When I was at sea in the Navy I felt exhilarated. When I was a welfare case worker (negativity you could drown in) I was only able to cope by long immersion in water, after my showers. Showers while recovering from a cold or flu speed recovery. I’m not an expert, but it absolutely works for me.