LIV Therapy - Low Intensity Vibration Therapy
Low Intensity Vibrations as Therapy
Over the past 25 years, Low Intensity Vibration (LIV) has been developed in University Laboratories supported by government funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the US Army, to provide a non-drug based intervention to safely and effectively build bone and connective tissues, improve postural stability, and - by stimulating the differentiation and proliferation of adult stem cells, accelerate and augment the recovery of bone and connective tissues from injury or disease.
Over $45 million dollars have been invested over the past several decades to support the basic, applied, translational and clinical science that provide the foundation of the LIV technology.
The research behind LIV has been and continues to be conducted by world-renowned scientists and physicians at major universities and medical colleges both nationally and internationally.
What are Low Intensity Vibrations?
Marodyne low intensity vibrations are a type of low-magnitude mechanical signal, delivered by an oscillating platform at a frequency of 30-90 cycles per second (Hz).
To visualize this signal, consider that to maintain postural stability, the various muscles in your legs, back, and stomach are all undergoing the same approximate 30-90 small contractions per second. These extremely small contractions of the muscle generate correspondingly small forces on the cells, including bone, fat, cartilage, and adult stem cells in the surrounding tissue. The Marodyne LIV Tablet is designed and optimized to mimic the contractile spectrum of healthy muscle and deliver a biologically relevant signal to the cells in the body that can sense and respond to the stimulus.
How Do LIV Signals Work?
Scientists have long known that the basic activities and actions of cells are governed by complex interactions of biological, chemical, and physical signals. The LIV signal works at the level of contributing to the physical environment, and therefore allowing a way to non-invasively control the actions of the cells.
The basis for how cells can sense and respond to such small forces lies in that cells form networks, which are capable of acting as integrated units to transduce various stimuli, such as mechanical loading, into coordinated tissue responses. Not surprisingly, this process is extremely complex, but occurs continuously as a part of daily living.
In diseases such as osteoporosis, where the normal mechanical environment is lost due to the weakened bone, LIV can be effective because it in essence recapitulates this mechanical component and stimulates the body's natural responses to the biophysical stimuli to build new bone. When considering the role of sarcopenia (muscle loss) and the diminished mechanical loading in the development of osteoporosis, the decay of muscle-based signal components would also diminish mechanically-based regulatory signals and contribute as much to bone loss as a reduction in the sensitivity of bone tissue to mechanical signals.
Thus, the potential to improve bone and muscle quality and quantity using specific components of the complex mechanical signal as a 'surrogate' for strenuous exercise and signals lost with aging provides the basis of Marodyne's LIV signals as a drug-free intervention against musculoskeletal collapse. Indeed, a mechanical strategy has unique advantages over pharmaceutical therapy, as mechanical signals are self-targeted (maximum strain will occur in the weakest loci on bone matrix) and self-regulatory (increased bone formation in the weak loci will reduce strain, and thus inherently reduce the signal).
Over 110 peer-reviewed publications, ranging from the molecular signals that control bone, muscle, and stem-cell responses to the LIV stimuli, to the clinical trials that evaluate the efficacy of the LIV technology, are available for review.
How Can the Same Signal Be Effective Against so Many Diseases?
Marodyne's science and technology development is based on leveraging the strong sensitivity of cells to mechanical stimuli. While a 0.3g acceleration does not feel like much to an individual, it is a strong signal to an individual cell.
While this work was originally focused on musculoskeletal applications because bone and muscle tissue certainly demonstrate a strong sensitivity to mechanical signals, research studies had indicated that other cells aside from those that formed bone and muscle could also respond to mechanical stimuli.
In particular, the research on bone tissue and how the mechanical forces were being sensed in bone led to studies on the bone-marrow-derived stem-cell population, and in particular, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs).
MSCs are an adult stem cell population primarily found in the bone marrow, and are able to differentiate into various cell types including bone cells (osteoblasts), fat cells (adipocytes), fibroblasts, cartilage cells (chondrocytes), and muscle cells (myocytes). Studies examining the therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stem cells have greatly increased in recent years, and the mechanical control of stem cell proliferation and differentiation is what makes the Marodyne LIV technology applicable to so many different diseases. Importantly, the mechanical influence on stem-cell activity is critical not only to tissue health, but to the regenerative capacity of organ systems.
Recent work in animals has indicated that LIV can suppress the formation of fat (adipogenesis) and that the reduced fat mass in essence can protect against diseases typically associated with obesity. For instance, the development of fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been shown to be attenuated by long term application of the LIV signal. Marodyne's technology has been shown in four completed human clinical trials (three published to date) to provide a unique, safe and effective treatment approach to the control stem cell activity towards osteoblastogenesis (bone formation), and thus the enhancement of bone mineral density, a key step in the prevention of bone loss.
As described in detail in the Scientific Review of Marodyne, results from animal and clinical studies indicate that replacing the regulatory mechanical signals that decay on aging or disuse with exogenously-delivered mechanical stimulation can help protect bone and muscle, preserve postural stability, as well as the regenerative capacity of the stem cell pool.
Not Just a Matter of Magnitude: Fundamental Differences Between Low Intensity Vibration and High Intensity Vibration
The Marodyne LIV technology has been developed and optimized by scientists following several decades of searching for the mechanical signal to which bone is responsive. The understanding we have established based on this long history of research is that the biological system is extremely complex, and that there is a small therapeutic window where biophysical stimuli are effective.
The delivered signal has to be just right: too little or too much stimulus is both equally ineffective as therapies. In fact, in the case of vibrations, too much signal (ie. too high of a magnitude) can actually be dangerous.
Many whole body vibration (WBV) technologies with devices on market make claims that their devices can improve bone mass, can reduce inches and promote weight loss, or can make exercise more effective. Claims of therapeutic benefit with devices such as Galileo and Power-Plate are not based on the same scientific mechanism.
Please note that our research has no relationship whatsoever with the technology or claims made by whole body vibration plates used for exercise and physical training that deliver high intensity (>1g) signals. The magnitudes used in those devices, well in excess of 8.0g, are well beyond the limits recommended for human tolerance by ISO and OSHA, are 35 times greater in amplitude than those mechanical signals that we study.