Major league baseball players can't be wrong. Or at least that's what some of their fans think. All summer, an increasing number of professional ballplayers have been wearing necklaces and bracelets embedded with titanium for their supposed energy-boosting properties. Now their fans have begun to wear them, too.
Greg Benoit, 23, an amateur center fielder in Anaheim, California, learned about the necklaces, made by a Japanese company, when he saw his cousin Joaquin Benoit, a pitcher for the Texas Rangers, wearing one last year.
"Then when I saw guys like Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and a lot of the World Series Champion Boston Red Sox wearing it, I had to ask about it," said Benoit, who now owns two necklaces and two bracelets he bought at a Phiten store in Torrance, California.
"The guys in the majors are the ones doing what we want to do. They're superstar pro athletes, and we want to be superstar athletes, so if they have it, we'll try it."
Phiten, the company that makes the necklaces and bracelets -- nylon strands embedded with titanium -- claims on its Web site that they produce an electrical charge that enhances the body's "energy management system, increasing the capacity of every cell."
The absence of any scientific evidence to bolster the company's claim seems not to have slowed sales. This month alone, Phiten says, it has sold 25,000 necklaces and bracelets, which retail for US$23 and US$15 respectively, in the US. That is more than seven times the 3,500 sold nationwide in April.
But sports medicine experts doubt that the thousands of new customers are getting what they pay for.
"We have a long history in our society of looking for quick fixes," said Michael Voight, an exercise physiologist at the University of Southern California who also advises five of the university's sports teams. "Athletes are bombarded with images of these necklaces on TV and in print media, so they assume it works. That kind of exposure can have a very profound psychological effect and the resulting psychosomatic feelings cannot be underestimated."
Titanium products appeal not only to athletes like Greg Benoit but also to ordinary exercisers, who hope they will make everyday workouts easier. Some people think of them as a kind of alternative medicine that assuages their aches and makes them feel better.
Clayton Everline, 27, of Short Hills, New Jersey, has been wearing a titanium necklace since friends recommended it a few years ago. "Every time I wear the necklace or another Phiten accessory, I do perform better," said Everline, a third-year resident at St Michael's Medical Center in Newark. "I surf and lift weights. I attribute my improvement in those activities to Phiten."
At first he wore the necklace only at the gym. But soon he stopped taking it off after workouts, and even took to wearing a Phiten T-shirt under his hospital scrubs and has observed an effect at work, too. "I feel an increased blood flow throughout the day," he said.
How are the products supposed to work?
According to Phiten, a water-soluble form of the element titanium is given an electrical charge. After processing, the company says the special titanium can make the bioelectric currents in people flow more efficiently, increasing energy levels and stamina, said Joe Furuhata, a Phiten spokesman.
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