Reduce Your Exposure to EMF

• The telecommunication industry has manipulated federal regulatory agencies, public health authorities and professionals through powerful and sophisticated lobbying efforts leaving consumers confused and unaware of the health risks associated with EMFs

• Any negative health effects from EMFs, similar to smoking, may not be immediately noticeable, but will likely develop gradually over time. Cell phones indeed are the cigarette public health threat of the 21st century.

What Are EMFs?

According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, EMFs are “invisible areas of energy, often referred to as radiation, that are associated with the use of electrical power.”1

Most agree on the hazards associated with ionizing radiation, which is why the dental hygienist covers you with a lead apron when taking X-rays. Similarly, you would expect to get sunburned if your bare skin is overexposed to the sun’s powerful UV rays. Ionizing radiation is generally believed to have enough energy to break the covalent bonds in DNA but actually most of the damage is due to the oxidative stress resulting in excessive free radicals.

The type of EMF your cellphone emits is in the microwave 2-5 gigahertz range. Besides your cellphone, electronics such as baby monitors, Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, smart thermostats and Wi-Fi routers consistently emit microwave radiation at levels that may damage your mitochondria.

Interestingly I have reviewed a number of studies that show double and single strand DNA breaks are actually higher when exposed to nonionizing microwave radiation than ionizing radiation. This is believed to be due to the excessive oxidative stress that microwave exposure induces.

Martin Pall, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of biochemistry and basic medical sciences at Washington State University, has identified and published several papers describing the molecular mechanisms of how EMFs from cellphones and wireless technologies damage humans, animals and plants.2,3,4,5,6 Many studies indicate your intracellular calcium increases with exposure to EMFs.

Pall also discovered a number of studies showing that you can block or greatly reduce the effects of EMFs using calcium channel blockers — medication commonly prescribed to patients with heart disease. Notably, it is the excess calcium in the cell and increased calcium signaling that are responsible for a vast majority of the biological effects of EMFs.

Pall discovered no less than 26 bodies of research asserting that EMFs work by activating voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs), which are located in the outer membrane of your cells. Once activated, they allow a tremendous influx of calcium into the cell — about 1 million calcium ions per second per VGCC.

When there’s excess calcium in the cell, it increases levels of both nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide. While NO has many beneficial health effects, massively excessive amounts of it react with superoxide, forming peroxynitrite, which is an extremely potent oxidant stressor.

Peroxynitrites, in turn, break down to form reactive free radicals, both reactive nitrogen species and reactive oxygen species, including hydroxyl radicals, carbonate radicals and NO2 radicals — all three of which do damage. Peroxynitrites also do their own damage. All this to say EMFs are not having a thermal influence; they are not “cooking” your cells as some suggest. Rather, EMF radiation activates the VGCCs in the outer cell membrane, triggering a chain reaction of devastating events that, ultimately:

• Decimates your mitochondrial function, cell membranes and cellular proteins
• Causes severe cellular damage
• Results in DNA breaks
• Dramatically accelerates your aging process
• Puts you at higher risk for chronic disease

Peroxynitrites, Cellphones and Spikes in Chronic Disease

Once formed, peroxynitrite reacts relatively slowly with biological molecules, making it a selective oxidant. Inside your body, peroxynitrites modify tyrosine molecules in proteins to create a new substance, nitrotyrosine and nitration of a structural protein.7 These changes from nitration are visible in human biopsy of ALS, atherosclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, myocardial ischemia and septic lung disease.8

Significant oxidative stress from peroxynitrites may also result in single-strand breaks of DNA.9 This pathway of oxidative destruction triggered by low−frequency radiation emitted from mobile devices may partially explain the unprecedented growth rate of chronic disease since 1990.10 This, truly, is a far greater concern than brain tumors, when it comes to the hazards of cellphones.

Once you understand cellphones can contribute to these chronic diseases — not just brain tumors — you may be more motivated to limit your exposure. Although the top health threats continue to be cardiovascular disease, cancer and infections, the rates of increase noted for the following diseases and disorders is astounding. Some of them were not even public knowledge prior to 1980.11

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