Phites

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Phiten KK ( Japanese フ ァ イ テ ン 株式会社 faiten kabushiki kaisha ) is a Japanese company that manufactures sports medicine products as well as jewelry and sports clothing. In addition to support and warmth bandages , tape and plasters , T-shirts, socks, necklaces and bracelets are also offered.

history

The company was founded in 1983 by Yoshihiro Hirata and Ayako Doue. Hirata opened a physiotherapy practice at the age of 29 and later launched titanium machined tapes.

Phiten is headquartered in Kyoto , Japan. There are also branches in six other Japanese cities, as well as branches in the USA, Korea, Macau, China, Germany, Switzerland, England and Mexico. The company's name is derived from the Greek letter Φ (phi), which the company interprets as a symbol for balance.

Annual sales in the 2008/09 financial year amounted to 13.9 billion yen (around 104 million euros). The company has 680 employees.

Declared product benefit and criticism

All Phiten products allegedly contain traces of titanium , which the company attributes health-promoting effects. Phiten claims to be able to wash small particles of the metal into fabric. This should be possible by means of the so-called "Phild process", through which "Aquatitan", a form of titanium nanoparticles distributed and "energized" in water , is created. From a biochemical point of view, however, such energization is not understandable.

According to Phiten, their products are designed to reduce exhaustion and tiredness by balancing the body's own positive and negative ions by regulating the body's bioelectrics. However, according to scientific knowledge, exhaustion and tiredness are not caused by a lack of balance of ions in the body. The effects claimed by Phiten have not been proven and are doubted by many experts, especially since, contrary to Phiten's claims, titanium is not a good electrical conductor. The US Food and Drug Administration does not recognize the effect either. The Swiss medical professor Beda M. Stadler counts Phiten products as alternative medicine and speaks of "pure farmer trapping ".

Phiten itself finances studies on the presumed effect of the products. Martin Korte from the Technical University of Braunschweig published the results of a study supported by Phiten under the title Influence of Aquatitan tape on nerve cells of the central nervous system . Wataru Aoi et al. published on the topic under the title Relaxant effect of microtitan via regulation of autonomic nerve activity in mice . Toshiyuki Kawake, one of the authors of this study, works for Phiten.

Sponsorship

Phiten markets its products through sponsorship of numerous athletes worldwide.

The professional golfer Sergio García , the marathon runner Paula Radcliffe and tennis star Martina Hingis had sponsorship contracts with Phiten at times. In Japan in particular, some well-known athletes use Phiten products, such as Naoko Takahashi , Yu Darvish or Shingo Katayama . In the USA, Phiten is a sponsor of various MLB players, including Josh Beckett , Tim Lincecum , Joba Chamberlain , Randy Johnson , Justin Verlander and Dustin Pedroia .

In Germany, Phiten sponsors the national ice hockey player Michael Bakos , the biathlete Andreas Birnbacher , some athletes from the triathlon sport and the national team of standing volleyball players .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Phiten KK: 会 社 概要
  2. ↑ a b Wellness jewelry: Expensive hocus-pocus . Report in the magazine "Kassensturz", Swiss television , September 18, 2007
  3. ↑ Stuart Fox: Do those Phiten titanium necklaces actually enhance athletic ability and promote healing? Scienline, October 6, 2008
  4. ↑ The request concert ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 14 kB). Column by Beda Stadler in the Berner Zeitung , September 15, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iib.unibe.ch
  5. ↑ M. Korte: Influence of Aquatitan tape on nerve cells of the central nervous system . In: Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition . Vol. 43, Sup. 1, July 2008 ( online version [PDF]).
  6. ↑ Wataru Aoi, Yoshikazu Takanami, Yukari Kawai, Takeshi Otsuki, Toshiyuki Kawake, Yuji Naito, Toshikazu Yoshikawa: Relaxant effect of microtitan via regulation of autonomic nerve activity in mice . In: Life Science . Vol. 85, No. 9-10 , August 26, 2009, pp. 408–411 , doi : 10.1016 / j.lfs.2009.07.007 ( online version (PDF; 183 kB)).
  7. ↑ Takahashi - new coach and sponsor, and aiming at an autumn Marathon ( Memento from June 22, 2005 in the Internet Archive ). IAAF.org, June 20, 2005