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The Dangers of Electromagnetic Smog      

Andrew Goldsworthy, August 2007

Weak non-ionising electromagnetic radiation in the environment can be linked to more modern illnesses than even the pessimists thought possible. Modern science can now begin to explain how.

Abstract

Weak electromagnetic radiation removes structurally important calcium (and possibly
magnesium) ions from cell membranes, making them weaker and more prone to transient
pore formation. This makes them leaky to even large molecules. Prolonged exposure to
mobile phone radiation causes serious damage to the DNA in living cells, probably
because of digestive enzymes leaking from lysosomes. This may be responsible for the
reduction in sperm quantity and quality found in recent studies of people using mobile
phones for more than a few hours a day. We might also expect it lead to an increase in the
incidence of cancer, but this may not become apparent for many years. Electromagnetic
exposure also increases the permeability of the blood?brain barrier to large molecules and
allows potentially damaging substances to enter the brain from the bloodstream. The
blood?brain barrier is characterised by having cells joined by ‘tight junctions’, where the
gaps between the cells are sealed by impermeable materials. Equivalent layers of cells
with tight junctions cover all of our body surfaces and a similar increase in their
permeability could allow the entry of a wide range of potential toxins, allergens and
carcinogens from the environment. There is evidence that this increase in permeability is
mediated by the loss of calcium from cell membranes and should also be enhanced by
electromagnetic exposure. This effect can link the current rise in the incidence of multiple
chemical sensitivities, various allergy?related diseases and skin cancer to the
electromagnetic environment. Electrosensitive individuals can be thought of as people
who have abnormally weak permeability barriers that are more easily compromised by
electromagnetically?induced calcium or magnesium loss. In general, the symptoms
resemble those of hypocalcaemia and hypomagnesaemia, which suggests a common
aetiology based on a reduction in membrane stability. Low concentrations of either
calcium or magnesium ions in the blood may be predisposing factors, but once the
condition is established, it can be progressive with increasing exposure to radiation. It
then appears to be irreversible.

Introduction

Nearly all of us are exposed to weak non?ionising electromagnetic radiation from all sorts
of electrical appliances and even the wiring in our own homes. If we could see it, it would
look like a fog over almost everything, with particularly dense patches around people
using mobile phones and DECT cordless phones. There would be other dense patches
hovering permanently over their base stations and Wi?Fi routers. People have dubbed this
‘electromagnetic smog’ and, like real smog, it can have serious effects on our health.
Electrosensitive people have known this for a long time because they experience pain and
other symptoms when they are exposed to the denser patches. However, the dangers go
well beyond that. Many people have attributed the recent rise in the incidence of a large
number of medical conditions such as asthma, other allergies, various cancers, diabetes
and multiple sclerosis to electromagnetic exposure. However, until very recently no one
has been able explain just how this could happen, but we are now learning about the
likely mechanisms and just how serious the situation is.

Calcium loss makes cell membranes porous

The most important factor giving adverse health effects from electromagnetic exposure
seems to be the electromagnetically?induced loss of calcium ions (electrically charged
calcium atoms) from cell membranes. We have known for over thirty years that weak
electromagnetic fields remove calcium ions from the surfaces of cell membranes (Bawin et
al. 1975.; Blackman et al. 1982; Blackman 1990). In theory, magnesium ions can be
removed by a similar mechanism (See Goldsworthy 2006). However, divalent ions (ions
with a double charge) such as calcium are important in maintaining membrane stability
(Steck et al. 1970; Lew et al. 1988; Ha 2001) and their loss would make the membranes
more prone to the formation of transient pores and increase their general permeability to a
wide range of materials.

Pore formation can have many biological effects

Spontaneous pore formation has already been reported in stationary artificial
phospholipid membranes exposed to DC fields (Melikov et al. 2001) and we would expect
an even greater effect on the membranes of living cells, which are routinely subjected to
stresses and strains from being adjacent to moving cytoplasm. If these membranes were in
addition suffering from electromagnetically?induced calcium depletion, we would expect
pore formation to be more frequent and give rise to larger pores that are slower to heal. In
this way, exposure to weak non?ionising radiation would give a non?specific increase in
membrane permeability. Such an increase can explain a large number of non?thermal
biological effects of electromagnetic fields, ranging from changes in the growth rate of
plants to accelerated rates of healing and changes in gene expression in animals (See
Goldsworthy 2006; 2007). However, it can also cause serious damage.

Mobile phone radiation can damage DNA

Low?level, non?thermal (i.e. not strong enough to generate significant heat) microwave
radiation similar to that from mobile phones has been shown to do serious damage to the
DNA in cultures of living cells. Lai and Singh (1995) were the first to show this in rat brain
cells, but many other workers have since confirmed it. The most comprehensive study on
this was the Reflex Project sponsored by the European Commission and replicated in
laboratories in several European countries. They found that radiation from GSM mobile
phone handsets caused both single and double stranded breaks in the DNA of cultured
human and animal cells. Not all cell types were equally affected and some seemed not to
be affected at all (Reflex Report 2004). The degree of damage depended on the duration of
the exposure. With human fibroblasts, it reached a maximum at around 16 hours.
Intermittent exposure (5 minutes on, ten minutes off) was considerably more damaging
than continuous exposure, thus emphasising its non?thermal nature. (Diem et al. 2005).
Because of the high stability of DNA molecules, the only plausible mechanism for this so
far is the release of DNAase and possibly other digestive through the membranes of
lysosomes (organelles that digest waste) that had been perforated or ruptured by the
radiation. If this is correct, there is likely to be considerable collateral damage to other
cellular systems.

If similar DNA fragmentation were to occur in the whole organism, we would expect a
more or less immediate reduction in male fertility as developing sperm become damaged,
an increased risk of cancer, which (by analogy with tobacco and asbestos) may take
several years to appear, and genetic mutations that will appear in future generations. It
would be unwise to assume that exposures of less than 16 hours are necessarily safe, since
covert DNA damage to give aberrant cells could occur long before it becomes obvious
under the microscope. Claims made by the mobile phone industry that their devices are
safe because not all cells are affected are rather like clutching at straws, since very few
genetically aberrant cells are needed to initiate a tumour.

Mobile phones can reduce fertility

We might expect DNA damage to result in a loss of fertility. Recent studies have shown
significant reductions in sperm motility, viability and quantity in men using mobile
phones for more than a few hours a day (Fejes et al. 2005; Agarwal et al. 2006; Agarwal et
al. 2007) so it is advisable to keep your mobile calls to a minimum. Since similar
experiments have not yet been performed with mobile phone base stations, it would be
premature to assume that they are necessarily safe, particularly since living near one will
involve a considerably longer exposure.

Electromagnetic exposure disrupts tight junction barriers

We might expect radiation that is strong enough to disrupt lysosomes also to be strong
enough to disrupt the outer membranes of cells so that these too are made more
permeable to large molecules. The effects of this would be most serious in the cells of the
various barriers within our bodies that prevent the passage of unwanted substances.
These are characterised by cells joined by ‘tight junctions’, in which the gaps between the
cells are sealed with impermeable materials to prevent leakage around their sides. One
such barrier is the blood?brain barrier, which normally prevents unwanted substances in
the bloodstream from entering the brain. We know that the radiation from mobile phones
can increase the permeability of this barrier even to protein molecules as large as albumin
(Persson et al. 1997) and this increase in permeability can damage the neurones beneath
(Salford et al. 2003).

Calcium ions control barrier tightness

The loss in tightness of the blood?brain barrier could be due to an increase in membrane
leakiness as proposed by Goldsworthy (2006; 2007) and/or to a disruption of the tight
junctions themselves, either of which could be triggered by an electromagneticallyinduced
loss of calcium from their membranes. The central role of membrane?bound
calcium in controlling the ‘tightness’ of these layers is supported by an observation by
Chu et al. (2001). They found that either low levels of external calcium or the addition of
EGTA (a substance that removes calcium ions from surfaces) caused massive increases in
the electrical conductance and permeability to virus particles of respiratory epithelia,
which also has tight junctions.

We have many other tight junction barriers

There is a protective layer in the skin in the stratum granulosum, which is the outermost
layer of living skin cells, in which the cells are connected by tight junctions (Borgens et al.
1989; Furuse et al. 2002). In addition to this, virtually all of our other body surfaces are
protected by cells with tight junctions, including the nasal mucosa (Hussar et al. 2002), the
lungs (Weiss et al. 2003) and the lining of the gut (Arrieta et al. 2006). A similar
electromagnetically?induced increase in the permeability of any of these would allow the
more rapid entry into the body of a whole range of foreign materials, including allergens,
toxins and carcinogens.

Loss of tightness can exacerbate many illnesses

Electromagnetically induced losses of barrier tightness at our body surfaces can explain
how the general increase in public exposure to electromagnetic fields may be responsible
for our ever?increasing susceptibility to various allergies, multiple chemical sensitivities,
asthma, skin rashes and bowel cancer to name just a few. In addition, a non?specific
increase in the permeability of the gut has been linked to type?1 diabetes, Crohns disease,
celiac disease, multiple sclerosis, irritable bowel syndrome and a range of others (Arrieta
et al. 2006). The list is truly horrendous and points to a very real need to reduce our
exposure to non?ionising radiation.

Electrosensitivity

Electrosensitivity (sometimes called electromagnetic hypersensitivity) is a condition in
which some people experience a wide range of unpleasant symptoms when exposed to
weak non?ionising radiation. Only a small proportion of the population is electrosensitive
(currently estimated at around three percent) and an even smaller proportion is so badly
affected that they can instantly tell whether a device is switched on or off. At the other
end of the scale, there are people who may be electrosensitive but do not know it because
they are chronically exposed to electromagnetic fields and accept their symptoms
(headaches, pins and needles, numbness, fatigue, irritability and many others.) as being
perfectly normal. Electrosensitivity is in effect a continuum and there is no clear cut?off
point.

Causes and symptoms of electrosensitivity

The cause of the condition is uncertain and not everyone shows the same symptoms, but
they seem to be characterised by having skins that have an unusually high electrical
conductance (Eltiti et al. 2007). This is consistent with them having a stratum granulosum
which is abnormally leaky, and may account for the high incidence of allergies and
chemical sensitivities commonly found in this group. One explanation for this is that they
normally have asymptomatic low levels of calcium and/or magnesium in their blood,
which gives low concentrations of these ions on their cell membranes. This means that less
has to be removed by electromagnetic exposure to produce biological effects; hence their
greater sensitivity.

The range of electromagnetically?induced symptoms reported by electrosensitives, which
includes skin disorders, various paresthesias (pins and needles, numbness, burning
sensations) fatigue, muscle cramps, cardiac arrhythmia, and gastro?intestinal problems are
remarkably similar to those from hypocalcaemia (low blood calcium)
(tinyurl.com/2dwwps ) and hypomagnesaemia (low blood magnesium)
(tinyurl.com/3ceevs ). This suggests that they share a common aetiology, that being
that there are inadequate concentrations of these divalent ions on the cell membranes to...


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