Phiten

Phiten K. K. (Japaneseファイテン 株式会社faiten kabushiki - gaisha ) is a Japanese company, the sports medical products, as well as jewelry and sportswear manufactures. In addition to supporting and heat bandages, tape and plasters also T -shirts, socks, as well as necklaces and bracelets are available.

History

The company was founded in 1983 by Yoshihiro Hirata and Ayako Doue. Hirata opened at the age of 29 years, a physiotherapy practice and later went with titanium edited tapes on the market.

The headquarters of Phiten is in Kyoto, Japan. There are branches in six other cities in Japan, with offices in the USA, Korea, Macau, China, Germany, England and Mexico. The name of the company is derived from the Greek letter Φ (phi ), which interprets the company as a symbol of balance.

The annual turnover for the financial year 2008/09, 13.9 billion yen (about 104 million euros ). The company has 680 employees.

The stated product benefits and criticism

All products of Phiten include alleged traces of titanium, which the company attributed to health-promoting effects. Phiten claims to be able to einzuwaschen small particles of the metal in substance. This should be possible by means of the so-called " Phild - process', is the " Aqua Titan ", a distributed in water and " energized " form of titanium nanoparticles arises. However, from a biochemical point of view such an energizing is not comprehensible.

According to Phiten to their products degrade exhaustion and fatigue by balancing the regulation of Bioelektrik the body, the body's positive and negative ions. Fatigue and tiredness are not caused by a lack of scientific evidence of balance of ions in the body. The alleged by Phiten effects are not proven and are questioned by many experts, especially titanium, contrary to what Phitens is not a good conductor of electricity. Also from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the effect is not recognized. The Bernese Beda M. Stadler Professor of Medicine is one of Phiten products for alternative medicine, and speaks of " pure confidence trick ".

Phiten self-financed studies on the putative effect of the products. Martin Korte of the Technical University of Braunschweig published the results of a supported by the company Phiten study entitled Influence of Aqua Titanium tape on nerve cells of the central nervous System. Wataru Aoi et al. published on the subject under the title Relaxant effect of micro titanium via regulation of autonomic nerve activity in mice. Toshiyuki Kawake, one of the authors of this study, is an employee of the company Phiten.

Sponsoring

Phiten markets its products through sponsorship of numerous athletes worldwide.

Thus, the professional golfer Sergio Garcia, the marathon runner Paula Radcliffe and tennis star Martina Hingis had temporarily sponsorship deals with Phiten. Especially in Japan use some well-known athletes Phiten products, such as Naoko Takahashi, Yu Darvish or Shingo Katayama. In the U.S., Phiten is include sponsoring various MLB players, including Josh Beckett, Tim Lincecum, Joba Chamberlain, Randy Johnson, Justin Verlander and Dustin Pedroia.

In Germany Phiten sponsors including the National Ice Hockey player Michael Bakos, the biathlete Andreas Birnbacher, some athletes in the sport of triathlon and the national level of volleyball.