Why It's So Easy for Athletes to Buy Into Junk Science

For a few years starting around 2010, every Major League Baseball team had a few players who took the field each game wearing a distinctive, twisted-rope necklace. The necklaces were infused with titanium, and at the time their manufacturer, the Japanese company Phiten, claimed that they could ease aching muscles, improve focus, and encourage relaxation.

There’s very little scientific evidence to support Phiten’s claims, but that didn’t stop big names in baseball, like Justin Verlander, from signing on. The company started rolling out necklaces in team colors, and the trend trickled down to the college and high school ranks.

In high-pressure environments like pro sports, athletes are always searching for something to give them an edge, which might be one reason that so many baseball players were drawn to the hype, says Craig Foster, a professor of behavioral science at the United States Air Force Academy. It could also help explain the persistent allure of trendy diets and high-tech pajamas among star athletes like Tom Brady today.

Athletes aren’t more susceptible to quick-fix wellness fads than anyone else—they’re just high-profile, and their wardrobe choices are on TV each week. They serve as an illustration of how easy it is to trick yourself into believing something with no real scientific evidence, and how sneakily harmful it can be.

Wearing a thin rope of titanium around your neck, first of all, can’t do much of anything. “Our products can help maximize your potential energy and strength,” writes Phiten on their website, but there’s little scientific reason that the small amounts of titanium in the necklaces could affect the body, Foster says. “It would suggest a revolution in particle physics.” (Phiten did not respond to an inquiry about their product.)

In 2011, Phiten settled a class-action lawsuit which alleged that the company falsely advertised the health benefits of its products. As part of the settlement, it was prohibited from saying in advertisements that the product could, among other things, affect the body’s energy, relieve pain, or treat any disease.

Foster conducted his own study on Phiten necklaces with a class of 48 undergraduates at the Air Force Academy in 2016. In the double-blind study, half the participants wore Phiten necklaces covered in masking tape, and half wore simple clothesline, also covered in masking tape. Two days later, at the next class meeting, they took a survey, which asked if they felt relaxed, angry, or energized. The results showed no difference between the Phiten necklace group and the clothesline group.

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Even without doing a study, of course, Phiten's claims are easily disproved—Foster, for his part, says the product simply doesn’t pass a smell test. “Just ask the simple question, ‘How would this work?,’ and there’s no answer,” he says. But because the stakes were low, athletes were still drawn to the product. “For twenty bucks, I can maybe get this advantage, and at the worst case, I’m out twenty bucks,” Foster says. “The cost is low and the potential benefit is high.”

The placebo effect might also play a role in individual experiences with the necklaces and other similar products, says John Sullivan, a clinical psychologist and sport scientist. Thinking that something will help a particular symptom, or make you calmer, can make you feel like it’s working. “But it doesn’t do anything for the underlying cause.” Superstition gets involved, as well, if athletes start incorporating something like a Phiten necklace into their routine. And studies actually show that good luck charms—possibly through the placebo effect—can improve performance by boosting confidence.

That anecdotal evidence might keep something like a Phiten necklace moving around a team, especially when athletes say that they see results, Sullivan says. But if they put too much stock in unproven products, they might be foregoing legitimate science that could actually help performance. “Now, you’re hurting the culture and the belief of what sports science is. You’re harming people by proliferating misinformation.”

In the long run, leaning on bad science, or not interrogating the reasoning behind things claiming to help with health and wellness, can be harmful, Foster says. The Air Force Academy study was originally going to be done using healing crystals, he says, before they switched over to Phiten necklaces. The item itself didn’t matter, nor that it was marketed to athletes—the goal of the project, Foster says, was to teach a way of thinking. “We were emphasizing the skill of scientific reasoning in everyday life.”

It’s easy for anyone to be tricked, Foster adds. “It’s uncomfortable to admit it, because the human mind is such a great processor, but it can be fooled.” That’s why it’s so important to learn how to avoid common pitfalls, like relying on anecdotal evidence, or taking a claim at face value. “People need to learn how to process information, and be skeptical when they should be skeptical,” he says.

Nonetheless, wellness trends, which promote the idea that you can feel or be better by using a particular product, are everywhere. The mental gymnastics that lead athletes to buy Phiten products is similar to what leads someone to buy crystals, or use “healing” body stickers, or put their trust in things that are actually harmful, like homeopathy as a cancer treatment. “It’s easy to forget how many non-athletes get duped by these kinds of things as well,” Foster says.

The Phiten fad may be on the downswing, but other products that take advantage of our unscientific impulses are sure to take its place. One strong contender at the moment is KT tape—which claims to help ease pain, improve performance, and reduce injury risk. So far, though, there’s no proof that it has any benefit, and it was the subject of a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company falsely advertised unproven benefits. (KT Tape did not respond to a request for comment.)

As Foster says, “They’ll always be replaced by something else. There’s always something that people are hyping up that they think will give them an edge.”

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