Muhammad Ali seeks unusual treatment
Posted: Saturday August 01, 1998 03:22 PM
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Ali, 56, is using magnetic treatments in an effort to combat his bout with Parkinson's Andy Lyons/Allsport |
BOCA RATON, Florida (AP) -- Muhammad Ali still wants to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
And he's hoping an experimental magnetic treatment will help him regain at least some of the grace that earned him four heavyweight championship titles.
Ali, who has suffered from Parkinson's disease for years, has come to this South Florida town to begin the treatments with Jerry Jacobson, The Palm Beach Post reported Saturday.
The retired dentist and oral surgeon claims his resonance machine, which emits a weak magnetic field, could cure the former heavyweight champ.
Ali has received five treatments already, which consist of sitting between two magnetic black, 8-foot high circles in a $15 lawn chair.
Jacobson theorizes that his machine's magnetic waves will re-awaken "homeotic genes" that normally turn off after childhood, and cause cells in Ali's brain to regenerate. The cell would then produce dopamine, the lack of which causes Parkinson's.
"I've been to 15 different doctors," Ali said. "None of them have been able to do anything."
But "homeotic genes" isn't a familiar term to Dr. Robert Brodner, a West Palm Beach neurosurgeon who has performed brain surgery on about 60 people with Parkinson's.
"So personally, I don't know what this fellow is talking about. I only hope that he does," Brodner said. "Any treatment that doesn't have the potential to harm a patient can be considered."
Jacobson is conducting a study to prove to the Food and Drug Administration that his machine works to treat osteoarthritis in the knee. He uses the machine to treat everything from a bad knee to neurological disorder's like Ali's.
At least 135 patients must participate in the study for the FDA.
About 70 are patients at two centers at West Boca Medical Center -- the Pioneer Services Medical Center and the National Medical and Research Institute.
The hospital says it has no affiliation with the research.
About 120 people are being treated for illnesses that are not part of the FDA study. Most of the patients are seen in suburban Boca Raton; the rest are being treated at clinics in Miami-Dade County and Gulfport, Mississippi, Jacobson said.
The treatment is free for the FDA participants. It costs others about $100 per treatment.
Separate studies are underway at Cornell University and the University of Oklahoma, Jacobson said.
Other sports celebrities have received magnetic treatment. Professional Bowlers Association Hall of Famer Dave Davis, of Boynton Beach, and Pro Golfer Doug Tewell both have said their treatments were successful. Davis went for pain in his right knee, Tewell for pain in his right elbow.
The standard prognosis for people with Parkinson's varies.
Some last years without any noticeable effects, others immediately are bedridden and incoherent. Patients can be susceptible to other problems like choking, pneumonia and falls -- which can result in death.
Ali, 56, has had the disease since his early 40s.
"I'm going to make a comeback," he said. "That's my dream."
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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