I’m open to you being more specific than that. You didn’t make any acutal points or arguments against my reasoning, you simply dismissed them and said they weren’t logical.

Thanks for the candid note and sharing of your experiences. It seems important to let readers know that not all acupuncturists or chiropractors believe in or use this sort of thing. Even more important, not using AK techniques isn’t a sign that we are ignorant of them or less advanced than those who do…

I ran across your interesting double blind study/challenge quite by accident but found your concerns and issues as it pertains to muscle testing to be quite valid. I have been a practicing Chiropractor since 1976 and have seen a lot of “hoopla” drummed up about muscle testing and its so called validity to determining the requirements of a patients nutritional regiment to maintain or regain health. Frankly I have never seen anything remotely scientific about it.

My first encounter with muscle testing was when I was still in training at Cleveland Chiropractic College in Kansas City. A guest speaker was showing us students muscle testing en-mass. The gentleman stood before the auditorium and asked for a random participant from the students. Upon arriving on the stage the student was put through some basic muscle testing moves. He then asked the subject to attempt to catch a dollar bill as it passed through the space between his index finger and his thumb while making the claim that his subjects reflexes were diminished and this dollar drop would prove it.

Naturally the subject was unable to catch the dollar. It passed between his fingers with ease. The practitioner claimed that was due to the subject having slow reflexes. Several fellow students were all agog unaware that this maneuver is an old bar bet gag. ( The secret is to hold the dollar bill close to the pinching fingers. Gravity pulls the bill faster that ones reflexes can respond.)

The practitioner then “rubbed” a couple of regions on the students body claiming that this alone would improve his reflexes. He once again tested his strength, proclaimed it improved and once again he did the “dollar drop test”. Surprise surprise the student was able to catch the dollar. Never mind the dollar was held 2 inches higher than in the first test.

Suffice to say this event soured me to anything related to muscle testing. In the last 36 years I have yet to see anything scientific which would convince me otherwise. I have seen practitioners attempt to use vials of nutrients or toxins and muscle test but I have never, ever hear any of them explain how the body can determine what is in the vial.

To a very large extent the body and its ability to determine that which surrounds it or comes into contact with it is based on physical components. Light stimulates nerve endings in the eyes, pressure sets off nerves in a finger, chemicals in the air trigger an olfactory response and so forth and so on. How can the body determine what is in a vial when even the vial is an insulator. The only things which we know of that can escape the vial are electromagnetic waves such as light or magnetic fields. Vials are held in closed hands which preclude the eye having an impact on the testing. So what can the body respond to? Nothing I can find in the normal world of physics and chemistry.

Perhaps on the quantum level, through charmed particles or some other near magical sub atomic event the body can determine what rests within a vial. Many a strange thing can and does happen at the quantum level. But, if that is possible then it should be able to do so with some reliability, predictability, and consistency. These standards have never been provided and do not appear to be forthcoming.

I admit to being frustrated by fellow chiropractors which use muscle testing. I was trained to be a doctor, a scientist and as such we are suppose to base our practices on evidence and not wishful thinking. Such a pity that no one has stepped forth and taken up the challenge which you laid before them. But then a challenge not accepted suggests they know all to well the truth preferring instead to continue in the realm of chicanery or perhaps outright fraud for perceived gains.

Doc