Research on ELF magnetic and electric fields from residential and commercial building wiring.
Every home and building contains miles of electrical wiring hidden behind walls, under floors, and above ceilings. This wiring carries alternating current (AC) electricity at 50-60 Hz, creating extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields that extend into your living spaces. While you can't see these fields, they're present wherever electricity flows, and unlike many EMF sources, electrical wiring operates 24/7 in virtually every indoor environment. The science on ELF fields from electrical wiring reveals significant biological activity.
Unknown authors · 1998
University of Washington researchers exposed rats to 1 mT, 60 Hz magnetic fields (power line frequency) for one hour before each water maze training session. While the rats learned to find the platform normally, they swam slower and showed impaired spatial memory during testing, suggesting the magnetic field changed how their brains processed location information.
de Seze R, Fabbro-Peray P, Miro L · 1998
Researchers measured adrenocorticotropin, thyrotropin, growth hormone, prolactin, luteinizing hormone, and follicle stimulating hormone in nine weekly blood samples taken from three weeks before exposure to two weeks after. Five of the six hormones showed no difference across samples, while thyrotropin decreased 21% on the seventh sample but returned to baseline afterward.
Fetter JG, Ivans V, Benditt DG, Collins J, · 1998
Researchers tested whether NADC/TDMA-50 digital telephones interfere with Medtronic ICDs in 41 patients. No ICDs in the 41 patients were affected by electromagnetic interference from the telephone during the in vivo study. In vitro antenna-generated field testing showed GSM and TDMA-50 modulation frequencies did not cause ICD sensing interference at predicted electric field intensity. Near-field tests with analog and digital phones in service or test mode also showed no interaction with normal ICD operation. However, a static magnetic field from a phone placed within 0.5 cm of the ICD activated the reed switch, temporarily suspending ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation detection.
Bassen HI, Moore HJ, Ruggera PS · 1998
An in vitro study tested three ICD models for susceptibility to electromagnetic interference from two digital cellular phones and one analog cellular phone operating at maximum output power. All digital cellular phones produced electromagnetic interference to varying degrees. TDMA-modulated digital phones caused the most pronounced effects, including high-voltage firing and inhibition of pacing output. Interference occurred only when phones were within 2.3–5.8 cm of the ICD pulse generator submerged 0.5 cm in 0.18% saline, and performance returned to baseline when phones were removed.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers exposed primary rat tracheal epithelial cells and two immortalized cell lines to a 50-Hz magnetic field at 100 microT[rms] combined with a 55 microT geomagnetic-like field and to gamma rays from cobalt-60. Both exposures produced similar patterns and amplitudes of c-jun and c-fos protein induction. Combining magnetic field and radiation exposure did not produce a synergistic effect on protein expression.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers examined the separate and combined effects of 60 Hz magnetic fields and a phorbol ester on PKC activity in HL60 cells. Exposure to a 1.1 mT magnetic field alone or combined with 2 microM PMA for 1 h did not enhance PKC activity. In a second experiment, cells preexposed to 50 nM PMA for 45 min then exposed to both PMA and magnetic field for 15 min showed a greater decrease in cytosolic PKC activity and a larger increase in membrane activity than PMA treatment alone or PMA with sham exposure. The authors concluded that magnetic fields may act synergistically on an already activated pathway.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers exposed human blood cells to 60 Hz magnetic fields (the same frequency as power lines) and found the fields enhanced the activity of protein kinase C, a key enzyme involved in cell signaling. The magnetic fields didn't create new biological effects but amplified existing cellular processes that were already activated.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers exposed HL60 cells to 6-microT 60 Hz magnetic fields and measured MYC expression. The assay methods and exposure conditions were as close as practical to those of the investigators that originally reported a positive effect. A chemical agent demonstrated the cells responded to a known stimulus and the system had low basal variability to detect effects of the previously reported magnitude. Using cells from a commercial source and from the original investigators, no evidence was found that EMF exposure induces MYC expression.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers used BTK-deficient DT40 B cells reconstituted with the human btk gene to test whether a 1-gauss 60-Hz electromagnetic field alters inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate production. Blinded exposures with anti-IgM treatment as a positive control showed no significant effect of the field on inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate production. The researchers also evaluated BTK activation in wild-type DT40 cells and found that while pervanadate activated BTK in a dose- and time-dependent manner, detection of BTK activation depended on the kinase buffer. Using cells from the original investigators, no evidence supported the hypothesis that the magnetic field had a causal effect on protein-tyrosine kinase activities affecting inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate production.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers assessed whether a 60-Hz magnetic field at 0.1 mT could reproduce earlier reported transcription changes in c-fos, c-jun, and c-myc oncogenes in CEM-CM3 cells. Cells were exposed for 15, 30, 60, or 120 minutes to the field or to a sham condition with coils in bucking mode. Transcription rates measured by nuclear run-on assay and transcript levels measured by Northern analysis showed no significant difference between exposed and sham or control cells at any time point.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers tested whether 60-Hz magnetic fields at 0.1 mT could trigger cancer-related gene activity in human immune cells, attempting to replicate previous findings. They found no changes in oncogene transcription rates or levels after exposures ranging from 15 minutes to 2 hours. This study failed to reproduce earlier claims that power-line frequency magnetic fields activate cancer genes.
Pakhomova ON, Belt ML, Mathur SP, Lee JC, Akyel Y · 1998
Researchers exposed yeast cells to UV radiation followed by ultra-wide band electromagnetic pulses. The UWB pulses had intensities of 101-104 kV/m, 1.0 ns width, 165 ps rise time, and repetition rates of 0 Hz (sham), 16 Hz, or 600 Hz. The effect was evaluated by colony-forming ability on complete and selective media and the number of aberrant colonies. The experiments found no effect of UWB exposure on UV-induced reciprocal and non-reciprocal recombination, mutagenesis, or cell survival.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers exposed cultured human osteosarcoma Saos-LP-12 cells to a 400 mT, 50 Hz extremely low frequency magnetic field. The exposure induced mutations in the HPRT gene. The Saos-LP-12 cells have a deletion in the p53 coding region. Introducing a wild-type p53 expression plasmid into these cells suppressed the ELFMF-induced mutations. No marked difference in the mutation spectrum was observed among ELFMF exposure with or without p53 and sham exposures.
Unknown authors · 1998
Researchers screened 1,920 randomly selected cDNAs in HL60 cells exposed to 60 Hz magnetic fields (2 mT) or X rays (5 Gy) compared to unexposed cells. Eighteen cDNAs were differentially expressed in X-irradiated cells, and 15 matched known genes related to cell growth, protein synthesis, energy metabolism, oxidative stress, or apoptosis. BIGEL analysis revealed no differences greater than 1.5-fold in expression levels in magnetic-field-exposed cells compared to sham-exposed cells.
Kavaliers M, Choleris E, Prato FS, Ossenkopp K · 1998
Researchers studied how nitric oxide (NO) and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) influence opioid-induced antinociception in the land snail Cepaea nemoralis, and whether these chemicals play a role in the effects of extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic field exposure. Pain relief was measured by how long snails took to withdraw their foot from a thermal stimulus of 40°C. Exposure to a 60-Hz magnetic field at 141 μT peak for 15 minutes reduced the enkephalinase-induced antinociception in the snails. The inhibitory effects of the magnetic field were significantly reduced by a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor and significantly enhanced by a nitric oxide releasing agent.
Unknown authors · 1997
Rats were exposed for 2 h to a 60 Hz magnetic field at flux densities of 0.1, 0.25, and 0.5 mT. DNA strand breaks in brain cells were assayed by microgel electrophoresis 4 h postexposure. Single-strand DNA breaks increased after exposure to 0.1, 0.25, and 0.5 mT, while double-strand DNA breaks increased at 0.25 and 0.5 mT.
Unknown authors · 1997
Unknown authors · 1997
They note that EMF energies are far below those typical of biomolecules, induced electric forces are considerably smaller than biological forces, and magnetic-moment sensory cells have not been found in humans. Resonant interaction mechanisms conflict with accepted physics and many experimental tests have not found the predicted effects. The review states that biological effects at residential levels [< or = 2 microT (< or = 20 mG)] are implausible, while effects at higher fields [> 10 microT (> 100 mG)] might reach plausibility but lack demonstrated transduction structures.
Lai H, Singh NP · 1997
Researchers investigated whether melatonin and the spin-trap compound N-tert-butyl-alpha-phenylnitrone (PBN) could block the effect of magnetic fields on brain cell DNA. Rats were injected with melatonin or PBN immediately before and after two hours of exposure to a 60-Hz magnetic field at an intensity of 0.5 mT. Both drug treatments blocked the magnetic field-induced DNA single- and double-strand breaks in brain cells, as measured by a microgel electrophoresis method.
Unknown authors · 1997
Researchers conducted a case-control study in northern Taiwan matching on date of birth, sex, and date of diagnosis to evaluate risks of adult leukemia, brain tumors, and female breast cancers in relation to residential exposure to 60-Hertz magnetic fields. The analysis included 870 leukemia cases, 577 brain tumor cases, and 1,980 female breast cancer cases. For leukemia, exposure to magnetic fields above 0.2 microtesla versus below 0.1 microtesla yielded an odds ratio of 1.4 (95% CI = 1.0-1.9), and living within 50 meters versus 100 meters or more from transmission lines gave a relative risk of 2.0 (95% CI = 1.4-2.9).
Litovitz et al. · 1997
Researchers exposed L929 cells to 60 Hz AM microwave fields or a 50 Hz burst-modulated DAMPS digital cellular phone field together with 30-100 Hz ELF noise up to 10 microT for 8 h. ODC enhancement decreased exponentially with increasing noise amplitude, with complete inhibition at 2 microT or higher for 60 Hz AM microwaves and 5 microT or higher for the DAMPS signal.
Unknown authors · 1997
Researchers used data from 12,063 Finnish twins who completed a depression inventory in 1990. Exposure was assessed using 20-year histories of distance to and calculated magnetic fields from 110- to 400-kV overhead power lines. Adjusted mean depression scores did not differ by exposure level. The risk of severe depression was 4.7 times higher for those living within 100 meters of a high-voltage line, though this was based on small numbers.
Fiorani M et al. · 1997
Researchers investigated the effects of 50 Hz magnetic fields (0.2–0.5 mT) on rabbit red blood cells exposed at the same time to an oxygen radical-generating system, Fe(II)/ascorbate. A 0.5 mT magnetic field had no effect on intact red blood cells, but when cells were already under oxidative stress, exposure caused a significant further decay in hexokinase activity of about 20% and a twofold increase in methemoglobin production. The researchers concluded that the magnetic fields studied were able to potentiate the cellular damage induced in vitro by oxidizing agents.
Unknown authors · 1997
Researchers studied intracellular calcium signaling in Jurkat E6-1 human T-leukemia cells during and after exposure to a 60 Hz magnetic field. Cells were labeled with Fluo-3, stimulated with anti-CD3 antibody, and analyzed by flow cytometry for calcium-dependent fluorescence.
Unknown authors · 1997