Ginkgo biloba prevents mobile phone-induced oxidative stress in rat brain.
Ilhan A, Gurel A, Armutcu F, Kamisli S, Iraz M, Akyol O, Ozen S. · 2004
View Original AbstractMobile phone radiation caused measurable brain damage in rats within just seven days, but antioxidants completely prevented the harm.
Plain English Summary
Turkish researchers exposed rats to 900 MHz mobile phone radiation for one hour daily over seven days and found significant oxidative stress damage in brain tissue. The damage included increased harmful molecules and decreased protective antioxidant enzymes. However, when rats were pre-treated with Ginkgo biloba extract, this brain damage was completely prevented, suggesting that antioxidants may protect against EMF-induced cellular harm.
Why This Matters
This study provides compelling evidence for a key mechanism behind EMF health effects: oxidative stress. The researchers demonstrated that just one hour of daily mobile phone radiation exposure created measurable biochemical damage in rat brains within a week. What makes this particularly significant is that the protective effect of Ginkgo biloba confirms that reactive oxygen species are indeed driving the cellular damage. This aligns with a growing body of research showing that EMF exposure overwhelms our natural antioxidant defenses. While we can't directly extrapolate rat studies to humans, the oxidative stress pathway is fundamental to cellular biology across species. The reality is that your brain is constantly exposed to similar radiation from your phone, often at much closer distances and for longer durations than this study used.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study. The study examined exposure from: 900 MHz Duration: 7 days (1 h/day)
Study Details
we investigated the effect of Ginkgo biloba (Gb) on MP-induced oxidative damage in brain tissue of rats.
Rats (EMR+) were exposed to 900 MHz EMR from MP for 7 days (1 h/day). In the EMR+Gb groups, rats wer...
Oxidative damage was evident by the: (i) increase in malondialdehyde (MDA) and nitric oxide (NO) lev...
Reactive oxygen species may play a role in the mechanism that has been proposed to explain the biological side effects of MP, and Gb prevents the MP-induced oxidative stress to preserve antioxidant enzymes activity in brain tissue.
Show BibTeX
@article{a_2004_ginkgo_biloba_prevents_mobile_2222,
author = {Ilhan A and Gurel A and Armutcu F and Kamisli S and Iraz M and Akyol O and Ozen S.},
title = {Ginkgo biloba prevents mobile phone-induced oxidative stress in rat brain.},
year = {2004},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14734207/},
}