In the last six years, our research group has made a lot of breakthroughs in understanding how electromagnetic fields affect living systems, not just humans, but plants, animals, and all living systems. Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) come from everything that uses electricity in our world today. Every light fixture generates an EMF. Fluorescent lights at work or even in your home have transformers. The three biggest sources of electromagnetic radiation in our environment are transformers, either stepping up voltage or stepping down voltage. Fluorescent lights use step-up transformers to step the voltage up because they use much higher voltage than ordinary incandescent lights. An example of a step-down transformer would be halogen lighting which use much lower voltage. The neighbourhood transformers that step down voltage from the higher voltage neighbourhood distribution lines that bring electricity to our homes are step-down transformers and they generate very strong electromagnetic radiation fields. Another large source of EMF’s in our environment are motors. Any electric motor generates very very strong EM radiation, for example an electric shaver. In fact, studies have shown that just a few minutes exposure to that kind of a field will affect you for more than 24 hours.
Three Major Sources of Extremely Low Frequency Fields (ELFs)
EMFs are in the category of what we call extremely low frequency fields or ELFs. Generally, anything that is working off the utility grid, things you plug in to the electrical plugs in your home and office, generate extremely low frequency fields defined as 60 cycles or less alternating current. That is the classic definition of ELF. However, modern electronics, TV’s, stereo systems and computers, all the electronics generate high frequency fields when they are plugged in. Appliances generate higher frequency fields as well. The other big source of very very strong fields are cathode ray tubes, video display terminals, TV’s monitors, all those kinds of things.
EMF And the Pineal Gland
How many of you remember your parents saying don’t sit too close to the television? What do we do when we work on computers? How close do we sit? Right up next to it. Most people working in front of a computer are eventually going to become environmentally sensitive because the pineal gland is chronically stressed, not only when we are sitting in front of the computer, but all the time. We are exposed to electromagnetic radiation every waking, sleeping moment, every moment of our lives. The only time you are not chronically exposed to EM radiation is when you are out in a wilderness area, far, far away. When you hike in the wilderness you feel different. When you camp, you sleep fantastically well, you are emotionally balanced and mentally clear.
Melatonin
The most sensitive part of your body to EM radiation is your eyes and the pineal gland. The pineal gland controls all the hormonal balances in your body. One of the most important hormones it controls is melatonin. Many people have multiple chemical sensitivities, or environmental illnesses – they are universal reactors who have chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia. All these things have been closely linked to low melatonin. Melatonin is related to the day or night sleep cycle and to jet lag when we travel by plane. Some people take melatonin so their body can reset itself more easily because that is exactly what melatonin does. When the pineal gland is stressed, melatonin levels go down, and the first thing that occurs is sleep problems. In addition, our immune system’s ability to target chemicals in the body and metabolize them safely out of the body is decreased because melatonin does that for us. Our exposure to chemicals in our environment is unfortunately rapidly increasing every day. The other thing that melatonin does is help the body find abnormal cell growth. There have been media reports about the relationship between EMF and cancer. We don’t think there is a direct relationship, but there may be an indirect relationship because EMF’s put stress on the body and reduce the immune system’s ability to deal normally with abnormal cell growth.
High Frequency Fields (HF)
Examples of high frequency fields are microwave ovens, cellular phones, all wireless forms of communication, and TV and radio broadcasts. According to one top British researcher quoted in Reader’s Digest 1980, who specializes in studying the negative effects of EM fields on human energy, the most rapidly growing forms of communications proliferating on this planet today are wireless, satellite, microwaves, and cellular. In the article, he stated that according to his research from 1940 to 1980, our daily exposure to electromagnetic radiation in industrialized countries has increased by a factor of 100 million times. You feel more stressed today than you did ten years ago because EMF’s are still inundating us at a rapidly proliferating rate.
EMF’s Cause Stress
The physical body becomes stressed in ways we can directly measure. If we sent 1,000 people to a wilderness area and instrumented them with electromyography (EKG sensors) to read muscle tension and stress levels in their bodies over a 15-minute period, we would find that some would be relaxed and some stressed out. If we then induced artificially made electromagnetic radiation similar to that in a properly wired suburban home (one-half to one milligauss per square meter), we would see a big jump in everybody’s stress level, a direct physiological response. Then if we increased the level to three to five milligauss per square meter as we might find in an office environment with all the fluorescent lights, computers, fax machines and copy machines, all that great stuff, we will see another big jump in stress levels. Maybe that’s why people don’t like to work very much, and why our work is so stressful. We live in a totally different world than our grandparents did. Every new cellular phone added to the environment you live in creates more physical stress in your life, and when the physical body is stressed, the emotional body goes into tunnel vision, into survival mode.
When we have a lot of magnetic radiation passing through us with a lot of random sub-particles, creating an enormous irritation to the limbic brain, the limbic brain perceives that as omni-directional low-grade physical threat to our survival. That invokes an adrenal response. Virtually 99% of people who live in industrialized countries have weak adrenal systems because we are constantly under assault. Do cellular phone companies care about this? Do the computer manufacturers and utility companies care about this? They should because they live in the same environment that we do. They have children who are being affected.
For more information on EMFs and your health visit our page: YOUR BODY: Body Electric
