To paraphrase the famous quote: “Le roi est mort, vive le roi” (French for “The king is dead, long live the king”) – this podcast isn’t about the king, but about the technology of microcurrent therapy.

We spoke to biophysicist Dr Thorsten Stüker about this and, in doing so, dispelled some myths that microcurrent devices are an outdated technology.

In Germany, microcurrent therapy has been used successfully since 2000 in professional sport and in the treatment of acute and chronic conditions. Since then, the technology has advanced enormously. From the use of state-of-the-art power electronics to the application of artificial intelligence (AI) for the individualised and precise configuration of current, voltage, polarity and frequency.

YouTube video: https://youtu.be/K6YILaaPLXI

00:00:00
Patrick: A warm welcome, Thorsten, to a new podcast. It’s the first podcast of 2023, and I’m delighted that we’re back together. We’ve recorded podcasts together in the past, and they’ve been extremely well received. That makes me all the more excited about today’s topic. Today we’re discussing: Are microcurrent devices actually outdated? Is microcurrent dead? Or long live microcurrent? That’s the topic for today’s podcast, which is available as a video on YouTube and, of course, on the popular podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer and so on. But now: Hi Thorsten!

00:00:41
Dr Thorsten Stüker: Good morning, Patrick, or ‘Mahlzeit’, as we say here in the heart of Westphalia. If you listen to some people, microcurrent is, of course, obsolete because it’s an old technology – or so I’ve been told. A 50-year-old technology. But the bottom line is that these people aren’t really getting to grips with what’s going on, because they actually have no idea how we work with microcurrent these days or what possibilities microcurrent devices offer today. People always like to compare it to the state of the art from 50 years ago. You have to describe it like this: if you wanted to generate a frequency back then, you needed a quartz oscillator and would generate each frequency individually. There was then a switch setting for each frequency. That was, so to speak, the microcurrent device.

00:01:37
Dr Thorsten Stüker: You can do it that way, but it actually has absolutely nothing to do with what we do today and is no longer at all related to what we do today. What we use are the same fundamental principles of physics. What we do, however, is generate and apply microcurrent using modern artificial intelligence, with extensive use of computer technology, software and power electronics. In other words, you can no longer compare this to any 50-year-old device. It would be like comparing a Tin Lizzie – that lovely old Ford – to a Veyron. The Veyron is certainly the faster car and also the more modern one. And there’s no need to debate it – both are, of course, cars; that goes without saying – but at the end of the day, I’d say the Bugatti looks rather nicer.

00:02:37
Patrick: Yes, it can do a bit more, after all.

00:02:40
Dr Thorsten Stüker: It can do a bit more, too. We see that in other areas of therapy as well, of course. I’m reminded of Konrad Röntgen and his amusing discovery that bones could be seen in an X-ray image. So that was a piece of medical history that he wrote without realising it at the time. You simply can’t compare that with today’s CT scanning systems. Today, we can work with a fraction of that radiation and obtain images that are so detailed and in 3D that we can see exactly what’s going on there. In other words, technological change has not only affected microcurrent devices; it has impacted the entire field of medical technology. That simply has to be said. In other words, developments in medical technology have made significant progress. Let’s now take a look at microcurrent devices. The situation today is as follows: A microcurrent device contains a processor which, in terms of speed – I compared this the night before last, because I was bored whilst watching television – has 67,000 times the computing power of the computer the Americans used to fly to the Moon. That’s not something you absolutely need to know, but it does bring the scale of it home.

00:04:01
Patrick: It’s certainly an interesting comparison.

00:04:03
Dr Thorsten Stüker: It really is an interesting comparison, exactly – because you suddenly realise that we’re working on a completely different technological basis. When I look at my development data and consider what I’ve been doing over the last, let’s say, ten years in the field of microcurrent – and I believe I’m one of the most active developers in the field at the moment – then I can definitely say that today we’re at a level of around 120,000 to 130,000 lines of code alone for software, firmware and the UI. That covers two product lines on the market. It’s not as though we’ve suddenly found ourselves with 30 product lines. It’s quite clear that development is keeping pace with discoveries. That actually brings us to the interesting point. What, for example, have we discovered? Fifty years ago, we discovered that microcurrent works. That it can be used to relieve pain. It gets even more interesting – I think Cheng discovered this 30 years ago; you may correct me, but I believe it was about 30 years ago – that the ATP content in tissue increases.

00:05:21
Patrick: Yes, that was 40 years ago.

00:05:24
Dr Thorsten Stüker: So it’s been 40 years already. Incidentally, many microcurrent device manufacturers are still at that stage, claiming: ‘50 per cent more ATP’.

00:05:34
Patrick: No, 500 per cent. Five times as much. He’d measured a peak at a…

00:05:41
Dr Thorsten Stüker: That’s not what I was about to say. That’s precisely the point. How does that peak come about? This brings us to one of the most important, most essential properties, which is also responsible for the immediate effect of microcurrent. The immediate effect of microcurrent is, in principle, rooted in an instantaneous change in metabolic conditions. What happens there? And how do we achieve this? What happens is this: the osmotic conditions change. Due to altered osmotic pressures, tissue that has a lot of ATP releases ATP. That was, in fact, what he discovered. He said that ATP production increases by 500 per cent. It’s a bit like me walking around a coal mine’s stockpile and realising: ‘Oh, look. There’s a huge pile of coal there, about the size of a day’s production. So today the coal mine has increased its output by 50 per cent. It’s doubled it.’ Of course, that’s not the case at all; rather, it’s ATP that has been released.

00:06:46
Dr Thorsten Stüker: Why is this interesting? He didn’t actually make the discovery behind it, because he didn’t understand it. It’s interesting because, due to the altered osmotic conditions, cells that now have little or no ATP left are able to take some up. This is, in fact, also a function of the body. In other words, the body provides this functionality. This is not a medical miracle, but rather one of the essential functions of our body: namely, that it can distribute substances. This function is, in principle, the first thing we generate when we apply microcurrent. In other words, that is the first thing that happens.

00:07:31
Patrick: I’d also like to interject very briefly. The study you’ve just mentioned, by Cheng in 1982 – so 40 years ago, over 40 years ago –: I myself replicated this experimental setup at the Fraunhofer Institute in Dresden, but here using modelled microcurrents. Back then, a direct current signal was used, with a current in the microampere range, and he investigated at what microampere level the behaviour of ATP synthesis changed – in rat skin, mind you. We replicated the whole thing; it was actually a difficult technical setup, because, of course, we had to ensure that these human cell cultures – which had previously been treated in both healthy and diseased states, so to speak – weren’t ‘roasted’. That, too, is possible with the microcurrent in the Petri dishes. From that perspective, we could see: ‘Aha! Something is actually happening here.’ We replicated and recreated it straight away, and it’s interesting, first of all, to see that the microcurrent is in fact capable of influencing cellular metabolism. After all, this was demonstrated, amongst other things, using human cell cultures. Absolutely fascinating. But, as you say, the 500 per cent figure is always a flawed comparison.

00:08:45
Dr Thorsten Stüker: We also tested this a little to see how this effect works, using cells from pigs – specifically, from slaughter pigs. You always have the freshest living cells there, and the donor doesn’t complain any more. We tried to see what happens when we apply hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid is brilliant stuff because it doesn’t penetrate the cells on its own, but it surrounds them. Now I can go back afterwards and say: ‘I’ll apply microcurrent once and see what happens’, and then analyse the results. And lo and behold: the hyaluronic acid is then inside the cell. That’s actually the proof of this theory. I’ll put that to one side for now. It’s one of those minor effects that happen anyway – and which even occur to some extent with direct current. With modulated alternating current or pulsed direct current, you can of course amplify this effect considerably.

00:09:46
Patrick: Here’s our podcast dog, our YouTube podcast dog, who’s always with us and who always has to add his little sounds in the background. Our little office dog. He wanted to say hello too.

00:09:56
Dr Thorsten Stüker: The office mascot. If I carry on now, something quite interesting happens when microcurrent is applied; at least if the frequency patterns are right, a corresponding dilation of the capillary tissue takes place. We were also able to demonstrate this in pigs raised for slaughter, and this can actually be applied to humans as well, because it has already been investigated and proven there on numerous occasions. The interesting thing here is that, using precisely this method of investigation, they also demonstrated that this distribution capacity is further enhanced, namely through the dilation of the capillary tissue. Smokers, of course, are particularly affected by this. The capillary tissue is always the first to suffer. These are, in fact, the first vessels to become blocked. This means we have a dilation of the capillary tissue – the capillaries – which in turn ensures that we also have a correspondingly higher transport of nutrients. This, too, is partly responsible for the so-called ‘first effect’.

00:11:00
Dr Thorsten Stüker: And there’s another effect: an electrochemical effect. This is where it actually gets quite interesting. To explain this, we need to go into a bit of detail: if you look at a muscle, it’s connected somewhere. This is called the motor end-plate. From there, the signal travels along a nerve until it eventually reaches a synapse. Sometimes there are several. You have to imagine it like an extension lead. And this isn’t an electrical connection, as one might think, but an electrochemical connection. The electrochemical connection forms an ionic charge. At some point, this ionic charge triggers the electrical impulse along the nerve, which carries it on, and so on and so forth, all the way to the brain.

00:11:41
Dr Thorsten Stüker: It is this charge, for example, that allows us to say: something is changing there too. Why does this change? Because we are now able to influence precisely this point via the impulse shape, intensity, geometry, frequency and polarity in such a way that the electrochemistry is reset. Incidentally, the whole thing is called pain memory. It’s a treacherous thing, because nerves and connections remember how they’re used time and again and then function in exactly the same way each time. They go into a state of pre-tension, so to speak. The funny thing is that we can reset this, to a large extent. As you know, we’re currently in the midst of a completely new technological development in this area. We’re involved in this together, after all.

00:12:36
Dr Thorsten Stüker: It’s quite clear to say that microcurrent is set to bring about a further revolution in this field. That’s my opinion. Because we can now influence this pain memory so precisely that microcurrent is irreplaceable. Unless, that is, by using quite potent pharmacological treatments with significant side effects. We can reset it. We have preparations, for example, that reduce muscle tone and also enable this reset. I don’t even want to read out the list of side effects to you now, because you’d turn pale and wouldn’t want to work anymore. What about the list of side effects for microcurrent? That’s the interesting bit – it’s very short. In fact, apart from the occasional case of skin redness, we have none at all.

00:13:27
Dr Thorsten Stüker: The next interesting thing is that, in the field of microcurrent therapy, we’re now also able to generate and deliver frequencies with great precision. This means we no longer have the problem we used to face, where, if you had a frequency you wanted to use, you had to build some sort of electronic circuit for it; or later on, where, if you had a frequency you absolutely wanted, you’d only hit it by chance. Things are different today. In other words, we can specify – within very tight tolerance limits, as defined by the standard – the frequency we want, and we get that frequency. We can specify the frequency, the polarity, the pulse shape and the rise time. So we can specify all the parameters of the pulse, and – last but not least – we can even add new pulses using our new technology. So to describe microcurrent as obsolete at a stage of development where, ultimately, the technological possibilities of microcurrent are only just emerging – I consider that to be very bold, because, in my view, there is virtually no alternative to this technology. I, for one, know of no other technology that can do all of this.

00:14:50
Patrick: No. You’re absolutely right. I mean, if we dare to take a brief look back: we’ve been doing this – especially in my case – for over 20 years now. This includes the development and production of microcurrent devices and, of course, marketing them far beyond Germany’s borders. Naturally, we’ve accumulated an enormous amount of experience. This includes, let’s say, our legally required PMCF study – that is, the study in which a device manufacturer must assess how the clinical performance of their device is faring on the market. This study has been running with us since 2019 and has now received over 2,000 submitted questionnaires, which are evaluated, analysed and statistically assessed on an annual basis. I can see how the effects are changing as the devices undergo technological adaptation. And this is viewed against the backdrop of a very broad range of indications, too.

00:15:54
Patrick: It’s actually very, very exciting, and I think it’s going to become much, much more exciting in the very near future. You’ve just briefly touched on this new development we’ve been working on for quite some time, and thankfully it’s nearing completion, meaning we’ll soon be able to move on to the proof of concept, to put it simply. But the existing devices, with their updated software version based on AI – a topic that’s currently being heavily hyped and, of course, is of immense importance particularly in healthcare, medicine and various physical fields, so much so that the EU has already issued an AI regulation allowing manufacturers to carry out assessments of such procedures. So, absolutely fascinating! I think that in the short time we’ve had for this podcast – you, that is; I’ve contributed less – we’ve conveyed enough information and knowledge to shed a bit of light on the matter. I’d say, by way of a closing remark: microcurrent is dead, long live microcurrent! What’s your take on that?

00:17:11
Dr Thorsten Stüker: I see it exactly the same way, in principle. For a developer and manufacturer, it’s always the same, really. We don’t just do this because we go to work in the morning; we do it because it’s fun and because it’s incredibly interesting. At least for me, as a biophysicist, I naturally have a completely different perspective on why I do this and how I go about it, and I think the next 20 years are going to be exciting.

00:17:40
Patrick: Yes. It’s exciting, it remains exciting, and I believe it’s going to become even much, much more exciting. One final thing I’d like to say: the beauty of it is also seeing that, at the end of the day, we’re producing results – results that, for some people, are actually very, very valuable, very, very important and, in some cases, bring relief from pain. Ultimately, that’s the whole point of it.

00:18:05
Dr Thorsten Stüker: I’d like to add a few words on that. You’re aware of the current situation, and I myself was always someone who never needed anything until I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and I can only say: I’m glad to be helping to develop this technology, because it’s actually what keeps me pain-free, keeps me afloat and enables me to continue working. This really is a technology platform that is anything but obsolete.

00:18:36
Patrick: Yes. In that sense, thank you for your time, thank you for your really in-depth comments, and I think we’ll certainly be doing a few more recordings, podcasts, videos – whatever they may be – together in the future. So I’ll say it again: thank you very much, and see you next time.

00:18:54
Dr Thorsten Stüker: Until next time