I remember several years ago magnetic therapy was all the rage for managing pain due to arthritis or other chronic conditions; magnetic bracelets, anklets and other magnetic products were clearly visible in the marketplace just about everywhere you looked. I even know a couple of people who used magnets as therapy for pain and swore by them.  I personally have never used magnets in this manner, though I certainly didn't discount the idea that they could have some impact on our body considering we have metals such as copper and iron in our system. 

I hadn't given magnetic therapy any thought at all in recent years until today, when I happened to stumble upon this article on the New York Times website entitled "Magnetic Therapy Gets a Boost from Real Study".  In this study, Thomas Skalak of the University of Virginia studied the impact magnets had on swelling, using the swollen hind paws of rats as the subject.  He found that magnets reduced the swelling in the rats paws by as much as 50%.  Clearly, a reduction in swelling would certainly reduce the amount of pain caused by a chronic condition, such as arthritis, though the study didn't go that far since it's hard to come up with a placebo for a magnet and because pain is subjective.  The study did give magnetic therapy some validity however.  No one is sure exactly how magnetic therapy works (there are numerous ideas and theories, many of which you can read for yourself in the Times article or on the magnetic therapy website I linked to), but it seems that science is starting to prove that they may have a place in the medical field.