An unpublished test of Epsom salt absorption
Three pages on PainSci cite Waring 2006: 1. Hot Baths for Injury & Pain 2. The Complete Guide to Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain 3. Does Epsom Salt Work?
PainSci commentary on Waring 2006: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
Magnesium and sulfates in the blood were measured and found to be higher after people had Epsom salts baths. No therapeutic effects were studied or claimed. The results seem straightforward. However, this study was never peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal or repeated by other scientists — it has only ever been available as a PDF from the website of the Epsom Salt Council, an industry lobby group that is “Eager to let everyone know the benefits of our product … to help spread the word about the wonder that is Epsom salt. You see, we're wild about this pure, time-tested mineral compound and its dozens of uses.”
Despite the obvious potential for bias here, Waring told me in personal correspondence that her experiment was straightforward and conducted independently.
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This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Common interventional procedures for chronic non-cancer spine pain: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials. Wang 2025 BMJ.
- Gabapentinoids and Risk of Hip Fracture. Leung 2024 JAMA Netw Open.
- Classical Conditioning Fails to Elicit Allodynia in an Experimental Study with Healthy Humans. Madden 2017 Pain Med.
- Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
- Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.