Poppy Phillips, founder of Equine Alternatives, LLC, sat down with Assisi’s very own Dr. Judy Korman, VMD, MBA, to learn more about Assisi Animal Health and targeted pulsed electromagnetic field (tPEMF™) therapy.
PP: I love the fact that Assisi Animal Health does independent studies. Can you tell me about any ongoing Assisi Loop clinical trials?
JK: We just started a new trial with feline osteoarthritis (OA). This is a painful, chronic condition in cats. Statistics are showing about 80% of cats over age eight have some degree of OA, and it gets worse over time, just like it does with people. We don’t typically have joint replacements for the pets. So, the Assisi Loop Lounge – a pad with a rechargeable battery and 6,000 treatments – is perfect. The cats just lay on top of the pad and their joints are treated for 15-minute treatments, twice a day. That’s a new study that we started with the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.
PP: Do you get to oversee that and be in the science aspect of all of this?
JK: Yes, I do. I act sort of as the liaison between Assisi and the folks at universities who are running these studies. So, it’s independent in that they develop a protocol, we supply the devices, and they run the studies. [Our two previous studies on IVDD dogs are blinded – so our statistical significance is very significant.] In this OA study, we do hope to see improvement in the cats! We are using about 3-4 different types of measurements, including monitors that the cats are wearing. These monitors detect motion, so the cats that are better-improved will have more motion over time. And that just shows how improved the quality of life can be in those cats.
PP: So you actually use observation, what else?
JK: We are going to be measuring cytokine levels. We are also using the FMPI – it’s a type of questionnaire owners can fill out, telling the investigator how their cat is functioning. Then, they rate the improvement of that cat. It’s great for these pet owners to actually see the improvement in their cats.
PP: Is the Loop measured in gauss?
JK: Yes, the energy level is measured in gauss. In fact, our technology produces very low energy levels – it doesn’t take a lot of power to make the biological changes happen that are required to happen in order to reduce pain and inflammation. So, we choose to use something very gentle; as a result, the side effect profile is really good.
PP: Tell us more about the battery life for these products.
JK: The flagship product, the Assisi Loop, has a sealed battery that cannot be replaced. It has at least 150 15-minute treatments in it. But most people who take care of it and use it as instructed (you want to give it a 2-hour rest between uses to give the battery a break) get at least 200 treatments. Our Loop Lounge, the pad, has 6,000 treatments in the battery pack. The battery can be recharged – you get about 25-30 treatments before you have to plug it in for a couple of hours. The Lounge can be used 6,000 times.
PP: I’m excited about this, I love the technology. It sounds like, if you use it, in time, and don’t let your animal go too long with inflammation, it can really actually reverse inflammation and bring your animal back to homeostasis, avoiding a chronic, systemic situation.
Are there any hacks you can do to make your therapeutic sessions even more powerful?
JK: After pressing the button on the Loop (or putting your pet on the Loop Lounge mat), the therapy will be administered for 15 minutes. When you’re giving a treatment, whether on the pad or having the Loop on the area that needs treatment, that’s one treatment cycle. So, how many treatment cycles do you need in a day?
If it’s something acute, such as a wound you want to heal, we recommend around four treatments a day. Then, you can ratchet it down to twice a day, once a day, as the tissue is returned to a more homeostatic state.
In chronic conditions, you might want to continue with twice a day therapy for a longer period of time. We recommend waiting two hours between treatments to ensure that the battery isn’t strained.
PP: Could you discuss the difference between the Loop and the Lounge?
JK: The Loop comes in two sizes, 10 CM and 20 CM. Those are good for treating specific areas that you know have pain or inflammation. For example, for dental applications, the smaller Loop might be perfect. The larger Loop might be more fitting for conditions such as cystitis and IBD. The Loop can be even placed around the whole body of a cat to treat inflammation, treating the entire dimension of the cat that way.
However, we’ve found that, when it’s multiple areas of the body and 20 CM won’t cover it, it’s best to use the therapy pads. Or, if you anticipate using it for several years of treatment, or using it for multiple animals, one Loop might exhaust it’s supply of treatments too fast. So, you might want to opt for the therapy pad, which has 6,000 treatments.
The therapy pads come in several sizes. The extra small is good for very small dogs and for regular cats. The small size is better for larger cats and dogs up to the size of about a jack Russell terrier. The medium size fits many dogs, and the large is quite big – think German Shepherd or Labrador.
The other product we have is Calmer Canine, which we introduced in 2019. This product has a rechargeable and replaceable battery. The signal in this device is different from the signal in the Assisi Loop device. It treats anxiety in dogs. We did a pilot study on dogs with separation anxiety and found that, in a month, treating them twice a day for fifteen minutes each time with that device, their anxiety was greatly reduced. We have video documentation of all of that, it’s really amazing.
PP: That is amazing. So is the Assisi Loop signal frequency the same as the pad frequency?
JK: The Assisi Loop line is all based on the exact same signal. We talk about the Loop’s signal through several characteristics. The signal looks like a wave, like an EKG. So it has amplitude, number of bursts per second, and there’s a distance between the bursts. All these characteristics are really important to the function of the wave in the body. So once it hits the cells, what does it do?
So if you look at a bone growth stimulator wave, for example, that’s meant to stimulate the bone cells to grow, the wave is going to look more square. In comparison, the Assisi Loop signal has a certain pulse rate and actually looks like a series of waves.
The Calmer Canine signal actually has many more bursts compared to the Loop, because it has to get through the skull of the dog and reach the inflammation in the amygdala, which is way down there in the brain.
PP: How do the Assisi Loop and Calmer Canine signals compare to other PEMF devices like Magnawave and Bemer?
JK: Now, all of our devices have been studied and tested, whereas I’m unaware of any studies done on other PEMF devices – I haven’t seen a diagram of what their signals look like. I feel that, if you can show the signal and show its effects in the body, then you can begin to say ‘how can I use it?’. But if you don’t see the signal and can’t understand from research that they’ve done what the effects are, how do you know what it’s doing in the body? So those are the questions I have about these other technologies. Whereas, the reason we go into the science and study it is because we want to connect the signal and its specific characteristics to what it does in the body that’s good.
PP: Thank you for explaining that to me, I’ve never heard that explained in a way that makes so much sense – almost like an EKG! So that makes me wonder, what about bluetooth, what about wifi? What about all this other stuff that’s affecting us on a magnetic field? Unseen energy that could be harming us?
JK: Yes, there has been a lot of thought about cell phones and the emotions they have. But just to know the level and power of the energy our products supply, it’s 1/100th of what a cell phone would be. So when we talk about the Magnawave and more “intense” PEMF devices, we’re talking about much, much higher power levels. And the question is, why do you need that kind of a power level? It may be causing action potential (which is why you may see the muscles vesiculating), but that’s not necessarily beneficial. If a whisper does the job, why would you need to shout? That’s how I like to think about it. So our technology is whispering to the cells, it’s giving them the information they need in order to resolve the inflammation on a low gauss level. Whereas other technologies are “shouting” at the cells, and it’s not clear if it’s going to even be beneficial.
PP: Is there a detox for the Loop?
JK: No. There’s no real need for a detox, but you can ratchet down the treatments over time. A lot of times – after Calmer Canine, in particular – there is an effect once you cease treatments. For two-thirds of dogs in our Calmer Canine study, they retained their positive results two weeks after the stop of the treatments. Some even improved more – because again, when you get the ball rolling, getting the body back to a homeostatic state, the body wants to continue in that state. That’s why you can stop the treatments.
For some conditions, such as chronic osteoarthritis, you may need to continue treatments. But there’s no need to detox. Nitric oxide – which the Loop produces – is andogynous. This means it is a body upregulating (so causing more) of its own nitric oxide to be present. So there’s nothing in the body to detox, really, because that’s just a natural substance in the body that we all have that we can create. Just like endorphins and natural opioids we create, the Loop is stimulating the body to create more of the good stuff. No need to detox, because it’s not a medicine being put into the body.
PP: If your pet’s a bit wet, is it a bad idea to use the Loop?
JK: Not at all! There’s no difference wet or dry. In fact, one of the nice things about the Loop, relative to say, a laser, is you can use it through bandages. You don’t have to take the bandage off to reach the wound. The tPEMF signals are able to cross things like bandages and clothing without a problem.
PP: Is there any benefit of coupling the Loop with other modalities like massage? Would you get an enhanced benefit?
JK: Yes, it is beneficial to couple it with other modalities that you’re comfortable with – massage, acupuncture, chiropractic technique. It’s complimentary with all of those multimodal options – and with medicine.
PP: What does Assisi actually mean? Is there a meaning behind the name?
JK: That came over from the human company. We joke all the time because our CEO is Frank Russo, so we call him St. Francis of Assisi, because in Catholicism the patron saint of animals is St. Francis. So, the name just stuck. We like the connection with the guardian of animal health.
Want to learn more about how Assisi Loop Therapy can help manage pet pain, anxiety, and inflammation?
Check out the third and final part of Dr. Korman’s interview!