In the previous chapter, you learned how EMF exposure damages your body. Now let’s take a look at the results of those mechanisms and see how regular exposures have been linked to the development of specific diseases.
Of course, disease doesn’t take root overnight. You don’t install a smart meter on your home and wake up the next morning, or even the next week or month, with heart disease. It starts with subtle shifts in your body, things you’re not likely to think about too much.
Perhaps you notice that you’re not sleeping as well as you once did and you’re a little tired. Or you catch a cold that you would have otherwise fought off. But those symptoms could be explained by any number of things, so you don’t connect the dots back to EMFs.
Because the damage that EMFs wreak is happening far below the level of your awareness, you simply aren’t cognizant of the need to lessen your exposure. After all, nobody else seems to be concerned, so why worry?
The problem is that the effects of EMFs—particularly when it comes to brain cancer, which has a minimum 10-year latency period—usually take quite a while to manifest as a disease that you recognize. This makes it easy to dismiss any concerns you might have about the health risks of EMF exposure.
Yet research has firmly established that EMFs contribute to many diseases. I will review the major ones in this chapter. Please understand that it would take hundreds, if not thousands, of pages to comprehensively document the evidence for the damage that EMFs can cause to your biology. But I hope this concise summary will help you understand how EMF exposure can create and contribute to disease.
Tinnitus is the perception of sound described as ringing in the ears, with the absence of any source. While this is certainly not a life-threatening problem, it is a common ailment, affecting an estimated 1 in 10 adults. Interestingly, humming or ringing in the ears is one of the most common symptoms of those who are impaired by or suffer with EMF hypersensitivity.1
Tinnitus may also be a sign of some other, more serious underlying condition such as ear injury or circulatory system disorder.2 Worse still, it may be a sign of permanent nerve damage that could predict future hearing impairment.
Tinnitus occurs when cells inside your inner ear, or cochlea, are damaged. These malfunctioning cells end up sending signals to your brain even in the absence of audible sound. Your brain translates these signals into what has been described as ringing, buzzing, hissing, clicking, chirping, screeching, static, roaring, pulsing, whooshing, and/or whistling sounds.3
The pitch can be either high or low and may change intermittently. The volume may also be high or low, depending on surroundings and other factors. Oftentimes the sound is most noticeable at night, which is why tinnitus is frequently associated with sleep disturbances and depression. Many people with this problem report that it negatively impacts their quality of life.
Most of those who suffer from tinnitus have no idea that it may be related to EMF exposure. In early 2019, I had mold damage in my home. The lead remediator for the damage had long-term ringing in his ears. When he shared this with me, I recognized it as a common side effect of EMF exposure and took him to my completely RF-shielded bedroom. (More on shielding in Chapter 7.) When I shut off the electricity in the room, his ringing disappeared for the first time in more than 15 years.
Ears appear to be highly susceptible to the influence of EMFs, and thus they can be early indicators of EMF damage—sort of the canary in the coal mine. Perhaps this is because ears don’t have the protection of the skull, as your brain has, and are therefore more on the front lines of exposure.
The link between EMF exposure and tinnitus is likely related to the way your body uses electrical signals to transmit information. In your brain, nerves communicate with each other via tiny electrical charges, and external EMFs can interfere with these signals. There is substantial evidence from electrophysiological studies showing EMFs, especially from cell phones, influence your brain function4 and nerve processing in the auditory system of your brain.5–7
A 2010 study published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine compared 100 patients with tinnitus to 100 patients without it, in pairs matched by sex and age. While the researchers did not see a significant increase in tinnitus based on regularity of cell phone use or duration of calls, they did find an increase based on long-term cell phone use of four years or more.8
A pair of identical studies in Göteborg, Sweden, done nine years apart showed that tinnitus is increasing dramatically in young children. In 1997 just 12 percent of the seven-year-old schoolchildren studied had tinnitus.9 In 2006, 42 percent of seven-year-old schoolchildren had tinnitus.10
There is also a link between tinnitus and electrohypersensitivity, which I cover later in this chapter.
Cataracts aren’t discussed much as side effects of EMF exposure because they are not life threatening and there are relatively easy and inexpensive surgical solutions available. Nevertheless, they are some of the most well-documented ailments linked to EMF exposure.
As you’ll recall from Chapter 3, ophthalmologist Milton Zaret conducted research on military personnel who were exposed to radar and other similar radio frequencies as part of their work in the late 1950s. What he found was that exposure to low-grade microwave frequencies contributed to the formation of cataracts in a different location of the eye than cataracts typically form.
In 2008, Israeli researchers set out to assess the effects of 1.1 GHz radiation on the eye. They observed two types of damage in the lens: a reduction in optical quality of the lens, which was reversible, and structural and biochemical damage to the epithelial cell layer of the lens that was irreversible.11
A 2010 review of 45 studies on the nonthermal effects of nonionizing radiation on the lens of the eye found evidence that low-power microwave radiation alters cell proliferation and apoptosis (also known as programmed cell death, where impaired or damaged cells die off), impairs intercellular communication, and causes genetic instability and a stress response in the cells that make up the epithelial lining of the lens.12
The type of cataract that most of us are familiar with occurs with age, when proteins in the lens of the eye start to clump together and cloud the lens. Microwave-associated cataracts actually form in the capsule of the eye, which is the membrane that surrounds the lens.
One of the most concerning perils of cell phone radiation is the damage it can cause in your brain.
Your blood-brain barrier (BBB) forms a protective shield around your brain. This barrier is composed of cells that have such tight junctions between each other that there are no openings for items in the blood vessels to escape into the brain. The existence of the BBB was discovered in the late 19th century by the German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich.
Your BBB exists to protect your brain from any toxins—alcohol, environmental pollutants, viruses, or bacteria—that might be circulating in your bloodstream. It also serves to selectively allow nutrients and neurotransmitters in so your brain has what it needs to function properly, as well as maintain constant pressure inside your head so you don’t have a stroke.
The increased oxidative stress triggered by EMFs and peroxynitrite production can cause an increased permeability in your BBB. When your BBB is damaged in this way it can contribute to a wide variety of problems, including cancer and neurodegenerative processes like Alzheimer’s disease.13
The first researcher to demonstrate a link between EMF exposure and permeability of the blood-brain barrier was Allan Frey, who conducted research for the military in the 1960s and ’70s on the physiological effects of exposure to radar.
In the ensuing decades, Swiss neuroscientist Leif Salford conducted several studies into the effects of microwave radiation on the BBB of rats. In a study published in 1994, his team exposed rats to 915 MHz in continuous and pulsed signals for two hours. One hour later, the rats were sacrificed and their brains examined. In 56 out of 184 exposed rats, there were two proteins, which are normally filtered out by the blood-brain barrier, still present in their brains (as opposed to in only 5 out of 62 brains of rats who were not exposed).14
In 2009, Salford conducted a similar experiment, although this time the rats’ brains were tested seven days after the two-hour exposure, and got similar results.15 Other studies had failed to replicate these findings, but in 2015, Chinese researchers were able to do so. They exposed 108 rats to 900 MHz at an intensity of 1 milliwatt per square centimeter for three hours a day over the course of either 14 or 28 days, and compared their brains to rats who had not been exposed. The rats who had been exposed for 28 days showed significant leakage of the BBB.16
For more specific details of how our knowledge of the impact of EMFs on the blood-brain barrier has evolved, you can review the BBB section of the BioInitiative Report, which I referenced in Chapter 4 as a comprehensive review of the science on the physiological effects of EMFs, as it contains a very detailed analysis and explanation as to precisely how EMFs impact your blood-brain barrier.17
Suffice it to say here that EMF exposure figuratively pokes holes in a vital protective mechanism producing consequences we are only beginning to understand.
One of the most common symptoms reported by people who are experiencing a new EMF exposure is insomnia. Extremely low frequency EMFs (such as those emitted by power plants and electric wiring)18 and radio-frequency EMFs such as those emitted by cell phones19,20 have been shown to impair sleep.
One reason why this may be so is that EMFs excite the cortical region of the brain, which makes it harder to relax into sleep.21 Another likely reason is that EMFs reduce melatonin levels. Melatonin is a hormone primarily produced in your pineal gland, which is essential for establishing a healthy circadian rhythm.
When your melatonin levels are disrupted, you tend to experience a decrease in duration of deep sleep, which is essential for your body to function properly. Sadly, sleep is a seriously overlooked strategy to optimize your health. For a detailed discussion and increased appreciation of the importance of sleep to your health, I strongly recommend reviewing UC Berkeley professor Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep.22
But melatonin is related to far more than just sleep. The sheer number of places in your body that have receptors for melatonin indicate just how important it is to whole-body function. It is used by nearly every organ, including your brain, liver, intestines, kidneys, cardiovascular system, and gallbladder as well as in immune cells, fat cells, and even in your skin.
In addition to optimizing your circadian rhythm, melatonin has powerful antioxidant properties, helping to suppress excessive harmful free radicals and reduce markers of brain aging and degeneration.
The negative impact EMFs have on melatonin has been known for decades.23 A 2002 review found 17 existing studies proving nonionizing radiation lowers melatonin.24 Because melatonin has a role as an antioxidant and has been shown to protect against the oxidative stress caused by EMF exposure,25 lowered levels are doubly problematic.
Similar to how EMFs degrade your BBB, they also weaken the integrity of another important barrier, your intestine. EMFs weaken the tight junctions between the cells that line your intestinal tract, creating a condition known as leaky gut.
While a leaky gut is primarily associated with inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, healthy people can also have varying degrees of increased intestinal permeability, which can lead to a wide variety of symptoms.
Once the integrity of your intestinal lining is compromised, toxins and foreign proteins can enter your bloodstream. This results in many problems, including an increase in inflammation. Chronic inflammation can also contribute and/or lead to other health conditions such as arthritis and heart disease.
This compromise in your intestinal barrier may also cause your immune system to become confused and begin to attack your own body as if it were an enemy, which is a hallmark of autoimmune disorders.
Another way EMFs sabotage your gut health is by interfering with the function of the friendly microbes that live in your digestive tract and play an important role in many vital functions, including immunity.
As Dietrich Klinghardt puts it, the human microbiome is “hugely and directly damaged by the electromagnetic waves we’re exposing them to.”
When EMFs increase the permeability of your BBB, toxins are allowed easy access to your brain. This results in an increased toxic load in your brain.
Not only is your toxic load increased, your detoxification systems are impaired largely as a result of the increased oxidative stressors. And as I mentioned previously, EMF exposures can also reduce your deep sleep, which then disrupts the glymphatic drainage system in your brain that would normally help eliminate toxins while you sleep.
Another way EMFs can contribute to your overall toxic load is if you have any “silver” or mercury amalgam fillings. EMFs have been shown to significantly increase the amount of mercury leaching from any metal fillings you have in your teeth.26 One theory as to why this is so is that there are tiny pockets of saliva trapped between the tooth and the amalgam.
Because the amount is so small, the radiation from a cell phone call can heat the saliva enough to create a “hot spot,” which then causes the saliva to bubble, and these bubbles then cause the mercury in the amalgam to leak.27 Regardless of the mechanism, this is yet another reason why I continue to advocate for stopping the use of mercury amalgams.
While the wireless industry and its captured federal regulatory agencies would have you believe there is no relationship between cancer and EMFs, this is simply not true. There are a large number of peer-reviewed studies documenting an association.
One of the probable links between EMFs and cancer is the increase in oxidative stress; that contributes to mitochondrial dysfunction that is a major cause of DNA damage and cancer. There are a few types of cancer that currently have a stronger scientific connection to EMFs than others.
Perhaps the most conclusive association between EMFs and cancer belongs to brain cancer. There is now overwhelming evidence of the link between EMF exposure and brain cancer; here, I will highlight just a few of the many studies that show this connection.28–33
If you would like to examine the evidence more thoroughly, you can consult the BioInitiative Report I introduced in Chapter 4, which has compiled hundreds of studies in four PDFs on the use of wireless phones and the evidence for an increase in brain cancers.34
The type of malignant tumor most associated with EMF exposure is the glioma, which forms in the glue-like tissue of the brain that supports the neuron. It is a rare and highly aggressive form of brain cancer.
As with lung cancer caused by smoking, glioma has a long latency period in humans—more than 20 years35—so it is frequently not recognized as being associated with cell phone use, and epidemiological studies only recently have started showing a connection between the two.
Though glioma is a fairly rare disease that only accounts for a bit over one percent of all cancers,36 there have been some high-profile cases of it in recent years; for example, U.S. Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy both died of glioblastoma. These tumors are difficult to detect; by the time they are diagnosed, the typical survival time after discovery is only about a year.
Though few people connected these men’s cancers to cell phone use, it is highly likely that their use of cell phones did contribute to their disease, as senators tend to do a good deal of business by phone, especially when they’re in Washington, D.C., and away from their constituencies. (What’s more, as The Washington Post reported, Verizon and AT&T installed portable cell towers on McCain’s ranch near Sedona, Arizona, in 2007.37)
Research finding a link between cell phone use and brain cancer has been around for decades. Several studies have also found an increased risk of developing brain tumors for cell phone users,38 including many from the past few years that point to cell phone radiation exposure as a cause of brain cancer.
In 2016, for instance, a National Toxicology Program study (which I described in detail in Chapter 3) exposed male rats to radio-frequency radiation at frequencies and modulations used in the U.S. wireless industry. Rats exposed to cell phone radiation for about nine hours a day over a two-year period were at increased risk of developing malignant gliomas in the brain, as well as another type of tumor, schwannomas of the heart.39
Meanwhile, a 2017 systematic review looking at cell phone use and glioma risk, while noting that current evidence is of poor and limited quality, also found that long-term cell phone use (minimum of 10 years) may be associated with an increased risk of glioma.40
Another concerning study, published in 2015, looked at data from two previous case-controlled studies on Swedish patients diagnosed with malignant brain tumors during the periods of 1997 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009.41 The patients were between the ages of 18 and 80 years old at the time of their diagnosis.
Regression analysis showed that the odds of developing glioma rose concurrently with increased cell phone use. The more hours the subjects spent with a cell phone pressed to their ears, and the more years they’d spent using cell phones, the higher the odds of developing brain cancer were.
The risk of brain cancer is even higher for children. In 2009, Swedish oncologist Lennart Hardell compared the cell phone and cordless phone usage of Swedish residents with malignant brain tumors, benign brain tumors, and healthy controls. He found that anyone who began using a cell phone at an age younger than 20 had the highest risk of developing glioma.42
Hardell also published subsequent studies strengthening the link between cell phone and cordless phone usage and brain tumors. They found that tumors were most likely to form in the area of the brain closest to where a cell phone rests while on a call, and that risks of developing malignant brain tumors spiked in association with three risk factors: number of years of use, total number of hours of use, and age at first use.43,44
There is also some very clear evidence of troubling spikes in brain cancer. In particular, a doubling in the incidence of glioblastoma tumors in England was documented in a 2018 paper published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health.45 The increase in malignant tumors was overwhelmingly found in the front and temporal regions of the brain, precisely where a cell phone is held during a call.
Breast cancer is one of the other common cancers associated with cell phone use. The BioInitiative Report has compiled nearly 50 studies providing evidence that EMFs can promote breast cancer.46
One of the plausible reasons why EMFs are connected to breast cancer is that some women carry their cell phones in their bras. In fact, in 2013 researchers at the University of California, Irvine, studied four young women who had no known risk factors for breast cancer—such as family history or genetic predisposition—who regularly carried their cell phones in their bras and developed tumors in the upper inner quadrant of the breast.
This spot, which was directly where the cell phones rested against their skin, is a very unusual location for breast tumors, which more often form in the upper outer quadrant of the breast.47
Conversely, a 2017 epidemiological study of women in Central Africa found that the habit of not keeping a cell phone in one’s bra resulted in a significantly decreased risk of developing breast cancer.48
A 2015 study looked at how the distance from different EMFs emitted by cell phones affected human breast cancer cells in a test tube. It found that when the antenna was less than 10 centimeters away, there was excessive production of reactive oxygen species and increased apoptosis (natural cell death).49
A similar study exposed healthy human breast fibroblast cells to short exposures of a 2.1 GHz signal, which is emitted by some smartphones. The radiation led to a significant decrease in cell viability and induced higher levels of apoptosis.50 And numerous other studies have found an increased risk of breast cancer in people who are subject to occupational exposure to EMFs.51
In addition, there is evidence linking breast cancer to exposure to extremely low frequency (ELF) EMFs, such as those emitted by power lines and electrical wiring. A 2016 meta-analysis of 42 studies that included more than 13,000 women with cases of breast cancer found that exposure to ELF EMFs is associated with breast cancer, especially in the United States.52
There are few things more heartbreaking than a child battling cancer. Sadly, there is a well-established link between ELF-EMF exposures and childhood leukemia, the most common cancer in children.
Evidence linking EMF radiation emitted by power lines and childhood leukemia has existed since 1979, when Dr. Nancy Wertheimer and physicist Ed Leeper published their findings that children in Colorado who lived close to power lines—p ELECTROMAGNETIC HYPERSENSITIVITY SYNDROME articularly those who resided at the same address close to power lines their whole lives—had a higher incidence of developing leukemia than those whose homes were farther away.53
At first, their findings were dismissed or met with confusion. Then, in 1988, a study sponsored by the New York State Department of Health supported their findings.54 Now childhood leukemia has one of the strongest scientific records of being connected to EMF exposure. The BioInitiative Report has compiled nearly 100 studies providing evidence of the link between EMF exposure and childhood leukemia.55
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), classified EMFs as a possible carcinogen in 2002 in large part due to the strong evidence supporting the link between ELF magnetic fields from our use of electricity and childhood leukemia. In fact, the 2007 Environmental Health Criteria, a WHO publication, stated:
The IARC classification was heavily influenced by the associations observed in epidemiological studies on childhood leukemia.56
A 2008 Chinese study uncovered a plausible mechanism by which EMF exposure may contribute to childhood leukemia: A genetic variation is believed to be present in up to 6 percent of the population that prevents the repair of DNA strands that are damaged by EMF exposure.57,58
This finding could explain why Mexico City has one of the highest incidences of childhood leukemia in the world:59 Not only are EMF exposures higher there than in other countries,60 but also people of Hispanic descent appear to be much more likely to have the genetic variant that makes them more susceptible to this damage than people of European or African descent, according to statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).61
Your heart has one of the highest densities of voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) and as a result is highly sensitive to EMFs, especially the pacemaker cells of your heart. This may be why EMFs tend to trigger the following heart conditions.
Martin Pall believes that the rising rates of sudden cardiac death could very well be related to the increase of EMF exposure as a result of excessive (VGCC) activation.62,63
So if you, or anyone you know or love, has a cardiac arrhythmia, it is vital to put an aggressive EMF remediation program in place. Worst case is that it will only lead to better health; best case, it could save a life.
When you consider that medication to reduce high blood pressure has been linked to a significantly increased risk of developing skin cancer in a 2017 study published in The Journal of the American Association of Dermatology66—and this medication might be less needed if EMF exposure were reduced—you will hopefully be even more open to the idea of reducing blood pressure via EMF remediation.
If you have any of these conditions, it is important to understand that EMF exposure may be a major contributing factor. Therefore, it would be prudent to take immediate steps to remediate the harm you’ve sustained from your exposure (as I outline in Chapter 7).
Another vital part of your body that has a high density of VGCCs and thus a significant vulnerability to EMFs is your brain. I’ve already discussed the link between EMFs and a disruption of your BBB and brain cancer. But exposure to electromagnetic fields can affect your brain in other ways that are far more common—including mental health challenges, which have become pervasive and epidemic, such as anxiety, depression, hostility, and difficulty concentrating.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting more than 40 million adults ages 18 and older—nearly 20 percent of the population—annually.67 Americans and residents of other higher-income countries are significantly more likely to experience and be impaired by anxiety, according to a 2017 study published in JAMA Psychiatry than people who live in less wealthy countries.68
In America, anxiety is clearly on the rise. In 2017 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) polled 1,000 U.S. residents, and a full two-thirds of respondents said they were “extremely or somewhat anxious about health and safety for themselves and their families.”69 On top of that, more than a third of them said that their anxiety had increased compared to the year before. In 2018 the APA ran the poll again, and this time self-reported anxiety had risen by another 5 percentage points.70
Americans are no strangers to depression, either: An estimated 17.3 million adults in the United States have had at least one major depressive episode, which is more than 7 percent of all adults in the U.S.71
And cell phones are notoriously linked to increased distraction, particularly among adolescents.72 A 2014 study found that a full 94 percent of study participants who were told to walk down a Chicago sidewalk while interacting with their phones failed to notice the dollar bills that the study authors had conspicuously hung from a tree along the walking route.73
You don’t even need to be interacting with your phone for it to negatively impact your ability to focus. A 2017 study published in the Journal for the Association of Consumer Research found that students performed worse on tests of memory and attention when their smartphones were near them—even though the phones were set to silent—than if the phones were outside the room.74
The researchers theorized that the more dependent you are on your smartphone, the more working memory it takes up, even when you’re not directly interacting with it. It’s likely that radiation emitted by your cell phone also plays a role. Radio-frequency radiation has long been known to impair memory.75
Once you know that EMFs may overactivate your VGCCs, it’s no surprise that exposure can affect your cognition and mental health. After all, VGCCs play a major role in your thinking and your mood. As Martin Pall wrote in his review of studies that found a demonstrable link between EMFs and neuropsychiatric effects:
VGCC activation has been shown to have a universal or near universal role in the release of neurotransmitters in the brain and also in the release of hormones by neuroendocrine cells . . . .76,77
Neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, are the chemical messengers that keep your mind and mood running smoothly. If their delicate balance is upset—which is highly likely when your VGCCs are artificially activated by the presence of EMFs—it becomes more difficult to steady yourself when you have anxious thoughts, or to get a good night’s sleep that helps to clear your head, or to focus on a task. Anxiety and depression can settle in as a “normal” way of feeling.
As I discussed earlier in this chapter, EMFs also suppress melatonin, and this important neurotransmitter and antioxidant plays a key role in mental health too, as low levels of melatonin have been shown to be related to a greater likelihood of depression.78
The studies linking anxiety and depression to EMF exposure are numerous. For example, a 1994 study found that workers exposed to broadcast radio frequencies experienced increased anxiety, social anxiety, sleeplessness, and hostility.79 And a 2011 study found that high mobile phone use among adolescents led to increases in stress, sleep disturbances, and depression.80
Even U.S. government reports validate the link between EMF exposure and mental performance and health. Three government reports have listed multiple neuropsychiatric effects.
The earliest of these was a 1971 research report by the Naval Medical Research Institute that listed 40 neuropsychiatric changes produced by EMF exposure.81 Ten years later researcher Jeremy K. Raines was contracted by NASA to document known biological effects of EMFs on humans. His report reviewed extensive literature based on occupational exposures to microwave EMFs and found 19 neuropsychiatric effects associated with microwave frequency EMFs.82
A third U.S. government report—written in 1994 by Scott M. Bolen and put out by the Rome Laboratory of the U.S. Air Force—also acknowledged the role of microwave EMFs on humans.83
In addition, there are at least 26 different epidemiological studies that show a wide range of neuropsychiatric effects aside from anxiety and depression that are produced by exposure to various nonthermal microwave frequency EMFs.84 These other common neuropsychiatric illnesses are:
Unfortunately, the cognitive effects of EMFs don’t stop with neuropsychiatric illnesses.
As we just saw, when your brain VGCCs are overactivated, they produce excess free radicals that cause oxidative damage to the cells in your brain, spinal motor neurons, and elsewhere. Hence, consequences of excessive EMF exposure can lead to neurodegenerative diseases.
Indeed, studies dating back to the 1950s and ’60s from the Soviet Union and the West (which were reviewed in a seminal 1973 paper85) show that the nervous system is the tissue that is most sensitive to EMFs. Some of these studies show massive changes in the structure of neurons, brain cell death, and synaptic dysfunction.86
Many studies have found that occupations with high EMF exposures—including seamstresses, hairdressers, utility workers, and welders—are associated with an increased likelihood of developing a neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.87
But exposure doesn’t have to come from work to have a negative effect. Research that analyzed mortality and census data on nearly 5 million residents of Switzerland found an association between living within 50 meters of power lines and an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s, and the risk rose significantly for every five years spent living in close proximity.88
In 2003, Leif Salford, the Swedish neurosurgeon who furthered Allan Frey’s research into EMFs’ effect on the blood-brain barrier, conducted a study to see if exposing rats to EMFs emitted by cell phones also affected the neurons in their brains. What Salford found was that the cell phone exposure for just two hours outright killed some brain cells and caused damage to their brain in a pattern consistent with Alzheimer’s.89
Chinese researchers, in a study published in the Archives of Medical Research in 2013, looked at the effects on rats’ brains when exposed to either 100, 1,000, or 10,000 electromagnetic pulses (at a strength of 50 kilovolts per meter with a repetition rate of 100 MHz). The exposed rats had a noticeable cognitive and memory impairment compared to rats who were not exposed. The test group also had increased levels over the control group of beta amyloid protein, a sticky substance in the brain that is a prime suspect in the development of Alzheimer’s.90
EMF exposure and the secondary cellular stress it creates can increase the number of senescent cells in your body.91 Senescent cells are merely aged and senile cells that have stopped reproducing.
Senescence has its benefits: It plays a role in tumor suppression, wound healing, and tissue regeneration. As we age, however, senescent cells take on a less beneficial role as they accumulate in tissues and secrete numerous pro-inflammatory mediators.92 Avoiding EMFs and avoiding excessive body fat are the two best ways you can limit the accumulation of senescent cells as you age.
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome (EHS) is an umbrella term used to describe a variety of symptoms reported by patients that seem to have no other identifiable cause. These symptoms include:
As you can see, these symptoms align closely with the conditions and diseases that I have already covered in this chapter and that have well-established research to support their connection to EMF exposures. Other reported symptoms include:
As an illness, EHS is highly controversial; it is not recognized as a disease by the medical establishment. Yet studies from around the world have found that an average of 3 percent of the population experience its symptoms and have no other condition that would produce these symptoms.
Globally, in 2020 numbers, nearly 300 million people suffer from EHS.93 This number is likely a gross underestimation, as far more people may experience EHS without connecting their symptoms to EMF exposure. And this tip-of-the-iceberg number will only increase as 5G is rolled out across the country and the globe, significantly adding to the number of EMFs you will encounter on a daily basis.
A recent study attempting to find objective methods for EHS evaluation discovered that about 80 percent of EHS self-reporting patients were found to present oxidative stress biomarkers in their peripheral blood, which is strongly related to DNA damage.94
EHS bears many resemblances to multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome (MCSS). This is likely because, as Annie Hopper reviews in her book Wired for Healing: Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses, both conditions are presumably a result of injury to the limbic system, which is a complex network of nerves among the areas of your brain that are concerned with instinct and mood. The limbic controls basic emotions such as fear, pleasure, and anger, and basic drives such as hunger, sex, dominance, and care of offspring.
Often, those suffering from EHS will also be highly sensitive to chemicals or have MCSS.95 This makes logical sense since your nervous system is a primary site impacted by both chemicals and electromagnetic fields, and if your nervous system has been damaged from toxic exposures, it may render you more susceptible to EHS as well.
People with specific genetic variants that decrease defenses to oxidative stress also appear to suffer from EHS at a much greater rate.96
Dr. Beatrice Golomb, a professor of medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, has published research that indicates it is a web of cofactors, including low levels of certain antioxidants (including melatonin), genetic variations that result in impaired defense against oxidative stress, and oxidative stress-induced impairments to mitochondria, the blood-brain barrier, and VGCCs that contribute to EHS.97
The research of Dr. Yoshiaki Omura, a prolific medical researcher and educator and member of the Alumni Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, shows that the more your system is contaminated with heavy metals—due to things like having silver amalgam fillings, eating contaminated fish, living downstream from coal-burning power plants, and so forth—the more your body becomes a virtual antenna that concentrates radiation, making it far more destructive.98
Other groups at risk for developing EHS include those with:
Some countries are starting to recognize EHS as a legitimate disability. In 2013, Australia awarded workers’ compensation benefits to a claimant who suffered from nausea, disorientation, and headaches due to exposure to EMFs during the course of his work as a scientist for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, an agency of the Australian federal government.100
In 2015, a French court ruled that a woman was eligible for monthly disability benefits as a result of her EHS. This was significant because the court actually named EHS as the reason for its ruling.101
As of 2020, the United States has yet to give EHS any legal bearing. As an example, in 2018 a Massachusetts family sued their son’s elementary school after he developed symptoms of EHS in the wake of the school’s adopting a new Wi-Fi system. Rather than being given compensation for the damages, as happened in Australia and France, their case was dismissed from U.S. District Court.102
In one sense, people with EHS have an advantage, as the distinct discomfort that exposure to EMF causes strongly motivates them to take proactive steps to avoid exposures, as everyone else remains oblivious while still incurring biologic damage. Whether you feel it or not, damage is occurring.
There are estimated to be at least 48 million couples worldwide who are infertile,103 which is approximately 7 percent of all men and women.104 In couples who are having problems conceiving, approximately 40 percent of the issues are due to male impairments, while the remaining 60 percent is the result of fertility issues in the women.105
Men are facing a worsening trend of factors that contribute to infertility, particularly lower sperm counts, lower sperm motility, and sperm that have irregular shapes. This is likely because a man’s genitals have a very high density of VGCCs, and men tend to keep their cell phones clipped to their waistband or in their pants pockets, very close to the genitals. It’s a double whammy of exposure.
Since 1986, when the first study investigating the impact of electric blankets on fertility potential was conducted, there has been an increasing interest in studying the effects of exposure to nonionizing electromagnetic radiations on reproductive functions.106 A significant decline in sperm quality from 1940 to date has been well documented.107
The beginning of the decline in male fertility precedes the rise of EMFs. A 1992 study published in The British Medical Journal found that there had been a significant decline that had started at least 50 years prior.108 While there are undoubtedly many factors at play, including increasing toxic chemical exposures through pesticide use and air pollution, it is also clear that EMFs are playing a major role in the loss of male fertility.
Studies have established that exposure to wireless radiation reduces sperm motility,109 total sperm count,110 viability,111 and quality112 as well as increasing oxidative stress leading to infertility.113 In fact, at least six meta-analyses that evaluated more than 200 separate studies have determined that cell phone radiation is indeed significantly harmful to sperm.114
Peter Sullivan, founder and CEO of Clear Light Ventures, a prominent funder of environmental health research, who also reviewed the science in this book, shared these insights on the importance of research examining the effects of EMF on sperm health:
I think this is an area where the industry failed to fund any “fake science” until very recently. Also, unlike cancer, which has a long lead time and a range of complex mechanisms, sperm damage can be immediate and the research cycle can be very quick. So, it’s harder for “merchant of doubt” tactics to blur these consequences.
A 2018 review showed that EMFs affect cell physiology by influencing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, antioxidant response, and mitochondrial functionality, which plays an enormously important role in the acquisition and maintenance of the biological competence of the egg and sperm. It appears that EMFs impair mitochondrial function of the eggs and sperm thus impairing fertility.115
Interestingly, EMFs have been shown to decrease fertility in rats by lowering their testosterone levels. Merely exposing the rats to cell phone frequencies of either 900 MHz116 or 2.45 GHz117 for two hours a day for 45 days significantly reduced the rats’ testosterone levels. This is far less than the five hours the typical American spends on a mobile device every day.118
Women’s fertility is also susceptible to EMF exposure, in part because EMFs disrupt the delicate balance of a woman’s reproductive hormones. This is supported by a 2008 study of women who were exposed to EMFs on the job—just as you likely are. Researchers found that the women experienced reduced progesterone levels and significant disruptions in their menstrual cycles, including heavy bleeding.119
Oxidative stress is another mechanism by which EMFs are thought to impair female fertility. Free radicals can damage tissues, including oocytes (which are immature eggs) and embryos.120 This may also explain why EMFs have been found to reduce the number of follicles—the small fluid-filled sacs found on the outside layer of ovaries that contain one oocyte each—in rats.121
Two studies showed that the EMFs from living within 100 yards of a cell phone tower raise salivary levels of alpha-amylase, an enzyme that is released as part of the stress response.122 Women with high levels of alpha-amylase have been found to have a nearly one-third lower chance of getting pregnant than women with the lowest levels.123
Not only is it harder to get pregnant when you are exposed to EMFs, but the risk of having a miscarriage also increases. A 2017 Kaiser Permanente study followed 913 pregnant women; those who were exposed to higher levels of EMFs had a nearly three times higher risk of miscarrying than those with lower exposures,124 confirming the findings of previous similar studies.125
And it gets even worse. A 2017 study from China suggests that EMF exposure reduces fertilization and embryo implantation, a risk that increases as the length and intensity of the exposure increases.126
If the reduction in fertility rates as a result of EMF exposure continues to increase, as it very well could with the introduction of the 5G experiment, EMFs could serve as a potent existential threat to the very existence of our species.
Not only will we have an impaired ability to reproduce, but the children conceived at this time will face the very real, vastly unknown risk of the illnesses outlined in this chapter, as well as autism (as I discussed in Chapter 4), making it tremendously challenging to have a functioning society.
Although EMFs do appear to be playing a clear role in many diseases and conditions, it is possible to protect yourself. In the next chapter, you’ll learn how to repair the cellular damage that EMFs can inflict so that you can prevent these diseases from occurring, or aid your body in mitigating these diseases if you already have one or more of them.