Electromagnetic radiation could be behind rising rates of breast cancer, brain tumors and more, says Dr Jenny Goodman. Here’s what you need to know about this pervasive pollutant and how to protect yourself for better health
All of us are being bombarded with increasing amounts of electromagnetic radiation (EMR)—from our phones, laptops, “smart meters,” headphones, microwaves and more—and it could be having a devastating effect on our health. Here are some of the key conditions and diseases being linked to exposure to EMR, also known as electromagnetic fields(EMFs), and what you can do to protect yourself.
Infertility
Fertility is falling rapidly everywhere, and the effect of mobile-phone radiationon sperm quality is a major factor in this trend.1
The human ovum (egg)is harder to study than sperm, but we can reasonably assume that similar damage—fragmentation of the DNA2—is occurring there too, if a switched-onmobile phone is carried in the pocket or if a laptop is used on the lap, connectedto Wi-Fi.
When women exposed to mobile-phone radiation domanage to conceive, they have a significantly greater risk of miscarriage thanwomen less exposed. At levels above 16 milligauss (mG; or 1.6 microtesla, mT), the risk is much higher, especially in women at less than 10 weeks gestation and those with previous miscarriage or infertility.3
For context, a typical electrical power line connecting to a home in the US emits 10–30 mG (1–3 mT), and one in the UK emits 70 mG (7 mT), when standing directly below it. The greater your distance from the source, the lower your EMF exposure.
Neurodegeneration
Brain cells (neurons) are directly damaged by EMFs. Studies find that justa couple of hours of mobile-phone exposure causes brain damage in rats thatlooks, under the microscope, exactly like Alzheimer’s disease.4
It seems that in rats, EMR encourages the productionof beta-amyloid protein in the brain, a sticky, unnatural, distorted form ofprotein that is found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.5
Astudy in Switzerland found that people who lived very close to electric powerlines had greater mortality from Alzheimer’s, and the longer they had livedthere, the higher the risk. People who lived more than 600 meters away werea lot safer.6
EMR disrupts the blood-brain barrier, an important set ofspecialized blood vessels that blocks access to the brain by any substances that shouldn’t get in. EMR increases the barrier’s permeabilityso that it leaks (leaky brain, like leaky gut). This means any toxinsin the body will have full access to the brain.7
Damage to the blood-brainbarrier is apparent even when—as is usually the case—the EMR causesno heating effect in the body’s tissues. This is crucial because thetelecom industry’s main argument for the alleged safety of EMR is its claimthat damage can result only when/if the body is heated by the radiation.
Countless studies show that heating effects are irrelevant; the blood-brainbarrier, along with other parts of our anatomy, sustains damage from thenonthermal effects of EMR.8
We know the blood-brain barrier is disrupted in other neurologicaldiseases too, such as Parkinson’s disease.9Could mobile-phone radiationbe one of the contributing factors here, too?
Mental healthproblems
Mental health can also be impacted by the damaging effects of EMR on theblood-brain barrier. Depression and other psychiatric problems are linkedwith exposure to EMR,10as is impaired cognitive function in children.11Timespent on electronic devices seems to increase the rate of both depression andsuicide among teenagers.12
Children are not just smaller overall. They alsohave thinner skulls, and their brains and bone marrow absorb more electromagneticradiation than those of adults.13
Leukemia
The EMFs generated by high-voltage power lines increase the risk of childhood leukemia.14Exposureto EMR via mobile phones can have the same effect, as can proximity toa mobile phone mast.15The BioInitiative Report has gathered hundreds ofstudies confirming this link and other damage done to us by EMR.16
Amongadults, occupational exposure to high EMR levels has also been found toincrease the risk of developing leukemia.17
Health problems in children
Asthma.If amother is exposed to EMFs while her child is in the womb, that child has anincreased risk of developing asthma. Every 1-mG increase in exposure led to a 15 percent higher risk, researchers found.18
Autism.Babies exposed to EMR in the womb, from their mother’s mobile phone or other sources, may be at a higher risk of autism, which is vastly commoner than it was even a generationago.19
We are beginning to understand how EMR maycontribute to autism, including through oxidative stress,with associated damage to mitochondria (organelles that produce energyin our cells), cell membranes and more.20
EMR also interferes withthe body’s ability to rid itself of toxic heavy metals, it seems,21and these have been linked to autism.22
ADHD.Hyperactivity and other behavioral difficulties in children may belinked to both prenatal and postnatal exposure to EMFs.23In my own practice, I’ve seen the beneficial effects of removing children with ADHD or autism from an EMF-filled environment. When parents take their children out into the countryside, especially in thewoods, as far as possible from EMR, they do calm down.
Obesity.Obesity at any age has many contributory causes, ofcourse, including bad diet, lack of exercise and toxic chemicals like those in pesticides and plastics. But here again it seems that EMR makes a contribution,even before birth. The more EMFs a pregnant woman is exposed to, thegreater the chance that the child will suffer from obesity.24
Brain tumors
There has been a substantialrise in the incidence of brain tumors in recent years,25and there isa lot of evidence to suggest that exposure to mobile phone radiation is why.26You can find hundreds of published papers onthis in the 2012 BioInitiative Working Group Report, compiled by a hardworking group of concerned scientists, atbioinitiative.org.
Some of the studies show that the tumors grow on thesame side of the head where the person holds their phone. Some show effectsfrom cordless landlines as well as mobiles. Most show worse effects in heavyusers of mobile phones, especially in those who have been using themheavily for 10 years or more.
A Swedish review showed that those whobegan using a mobile phone before the age of 20 were five times more likelyto develop a brain tumor later on than those who hadn’t.27
Depending on where the EMR comesout of the phone, it may target the brain, the throat or the parotid salivarygland in the cheek; studies have found an increase in parotid gland tumorson the side of the face where users hold their mobile phone.28
They havealso found, associated with long-term (over 10 years’) use of mobile andcordless phones, an increase in acoustic neuroma, a tumor of the eighthcranial nerve, which transmits messages between the ear and the brain, enablingus to hear and to keep our balance.29
That’s in addition to the increase inglioma, a tumor of the “supporting cells” in the brain.30
There is also evidencethat people living close to mobile phone masts are suffering increased risks of brain tumors.31
Breast cancer
Radiation from mobile phones and masts could be one factor contributing to the explosive rise of breast cancer in the past few decades.32Women who work in electrical industries are especially likely to get breastcancer,33but men are not immune to it, either; a cluster of men with breastcancer has been found among electrical workers.34
The most likely mechanism is that EMR suppresses production of the hormonemelatonin by the pineal gland in the brain. Melatonin is vital not justfor helping us get to sleep at night but also for protecting the reproductivesystem. It prevents early puberty and all sortsof cancers in the reproductive organs, including thebreasts.
Not only does the blue light coming from mobile phone screens suppressmelatonin, so does the EMR. Melatonin is apowerful antioxidant that turns out to prevent (and slow down the growthof) all tumors, not just reproductive ones. Suppressing its production by ouraddiction to mobile phones seems like a very bad idea.
No doubt yet othermechanisms will also be discovered by which EMR causes (or speeds up theprogression of) cancer, but the experimental and epidemiological evidence isvery clear that it does so.35
Electrosensitivity
Electrosensitivity has been known of for some decades, but it’s becomingboth more common and more severe as the density of the “electro-smog”surrounding us increases. As with many new illnesses, patients are not always believed; their symptomsare dismissed as a “nocebo” effect. They are viewed as imagining the symptomsand/or imagining that EMR is causing them (nocebomeans an imaginedharm).
But plenty of controlledstudies have shown that for the people who suffer from it, electrosensitivityis all too real,36and more and more medical scientists internationally areacknowledging this.37Symptoms of electrosensitivity vary widely but can include headaches, dizziness, brain fog and fatigue (see Jeremy’s story, below).
How does EMR damage the body?
One biological mechanism for all these health problems is thoughtto be oxidative stress. When the blood of people living near mobile phonemasts is analyzed, it shows an increase in toxic free radicals, a decrease inthe healthy antioxidants we depend on to defend us from those freeradicals, and increased lipid peroxidation (which means our fat becomesoxidized in precisely the way that leads to heart disease) as well as damageto our genes.38
EMR causes breaks in the strands of our DNA,39leading to cell death or to mutations that, as we’ve seen, result in cancer,birth defects and infertility.
EMF expert Martin Blank, PhD, author ofOverpowered(Seven Stories Press, 2014), points out that the DNAmolecule, extraordinary structure that it is, has the form of a coil andthus acts as a fractal antenna—it picks up most wavelengths of EMFs, whichmay partly explain why EMFs seem to target DNA.40
And the technology ischanging all the time; when 2G was upgraded to 3G, the rate of resultant breaksin DNA increased tenfold.41That was 15 years ago; by the time equivalentstudies on 5G and 6G are published—if they ever see the light of day—whatnew horrors will they show?
The role of calcium
What we do know is that thereseems to be one underlying mechanism in our cells that explains oxidativestress, DNA strand breaks and all the other biological problems resultingfrom EMF exposure. It concerns calcium, an important mineral that we need notonly for making bones but also for “cell signaling,” the wayour cells send messages to each other.
Normally there is vastly more calciumin our bodily fluids than inside our cells; calcium is primarily anextracellular mineral. However,such minerals can enter and exit our cells through the cellmembrane.
Our cell membranes do not let ions (charged atoms) like calcium into thecell freely but only via very specific channels. These channelsare made of protein molecules folded into the shape of pores, occurring atintervals along the cell membrane.
Think of the wall around a medieval city,with guarded gates at intervals. The guard at the gate for some of thesecell membrane ion channels is electrical; a slight change in electrical charge,which in nature would be occasional, subtle and for a purpose related tocell signaling, is the password that allows a few calcium ions in. Thesechannels are called voltage-gated ion channels (VGICs), and the calcium ones(VGCCs) can allow calcium both into and out of the cell.
In the presenceof microwaves, Wi-Fi and mobile-phone radiation, these channels are forcedwide open, and calcium floods in.Calcium flooding into cells is a bad thing; remember, calcium shouldbe primarily outside the cell.
Numerous scientists have now documentedthe many and varied biochemical catastrophes that result from all this calciumgetting inside cells, where it doesn’t belong.42
Preeminent among them is Dr Martin Pall, who says “oxidative stress, single and doublestranded breaks in DNA, blood-brain barrier breakdown, depressed melatoninlevels and sleep disruption, cancer, male and female infertility, immuneand neurological and cardiac dysfunction . . . including sudden cardiac death”can all be fully explained by the action of EMR on those vitalVGCCs.43
VGICs also exist for potassium and sodiumions. All three play important roles in cell metabolism and neural communicationsin the brain and central nervous system.44
Sources of EMR
Electromagnetic radiation (EMR), also known as electromagnetic fields(EMFs), is a form of radiation that has low frequencies and long wavelengths—at the opposite end of the EM spectrum from nuclearradiation. These are some common sources:
Mobile phones
Digital enhancedcordless telecommunications (DECT) phones
Wi-Fi routers1
Tablets, like the iPad
Laptop computers when connected to Wi-Fi
Bluetooth earbuds andheadphones2
Induction cooktops,3microwave ovens and all other home appliances
Fluorescent lights
Fitness trackers and watches
Wireless computer mice
Gaming consoles
“Smart” meters and“smart” TVs
All devices enabling the internet
DECT and Wi-Fi electronic babymonitors
Mobile phone masts(cell phone towers / base stations)
Power lines
Symptoms linked to EMR
Nosebleeds
Tinnitus
Insomnia
Abnormal heart rhythms
Acceleratedaging
Raised blood pressure
Headaches
Skin rashes
Sleep disturbances
Depression
Decreasedlibido
Increased rates of suicide
Concentration problems
Dizziness
Memorychanges
Tremors1
How to protect yourself from EMFs
Although EMFs are everywhere, here are several steps you can take to minimize your exposure.
Use your phone less.It’s hard—this tech has been designedto be addictive—but we have to find other, safer ways to connect.
Use airplane mode when your phone is idle.Otherwise, it’s continually in touch with the nearest masts andirradiating you just as if you were making a call. Disable all unnecessary apps too.Keeping it in a Faraday bag can provide further protection.
Use the speakerphone.Never hold the phone toyour ear, and text instead of calling whenever possible.
Get non-metal air-tube earphones.Headphones help to keep the phone at a safedistance from your body, which makes a big difference in the amount ofEMR you absorb.
Use ethernet cables, not Wi-Fi.Hardwired internet connections work just as well, and often better. To get the connections around the house, you can use dLANplug-in units, which send the ethernet signal around the house wiring atvery low field levels. Then you can get an ethernet connection in everyroom that has a dLAN box plugged in.
Educate teachers.If you have a childat a school that uses Wi-Fi, start a campaign to get the school to replace it with hardwired internet. They will find the kids’health, happiness, concentration and academic performance improve.
Put your laptop on a desk.The same applies to tablets, iPads andsimilar devices. If you don’t have a desk, use a protective tray or pad under it. Better still, plug in an ethernet cable and disable Wi-Fi (and Bluetooth). Or just use an old-fashioned desktop PC.
Find the mobile phone masts.Make sure you’re not going to be living right next to one.
Measure EMFs in your home.Do this before you buy any protective,EMF-shielding clothing, which you mightor might not need. The simplest and cheapest meter is the Acousticom 2 by EMFields (US:lessemf.com, UK:livevitae.com). Safe and Sound meters by Safe Living Technologies (US:safelivingtechnologies.com, UK:beneficialenvironments.co.uk) are another good option.
You can also get anEMF surveyorto come to your home, for a fee, to measure EMF levels and suggest solutions. If they are doing thejob properly, they should spend at least a couple of hours with you.
Consider EMF-blocking paint.If you’ve reduced your EMF exposure, as above, but the meter shows high EMFsin your home, it’s probably coming from your neighbor’s home. EMF-blocking paint could help.
You can confirm whether it works by measuring withyour meter before and after painting. One or two coats will suffice. But it’s usuallyblack, so you’ll probably then want to paint over it in another color.
Try EMF-protective clothing.You can buy protective hats, T-shirts andother clothing to reduce your EMF exposure. Most of my electrosensitive patients findthese clothes make a big difference in how they feel.
Try an EMR-protective phone case.Opinions varyon how much they help, though. It may depend on the angle at which you holdyour phone and which part of the phone (the antenna) emits the EMR. One advantage for electrosensitive people is they can tell, simply by how they feel, whether the protective equipmentis working or not. The rest of us can’t, but it may be best to err on the side of caution.
Get rid of your microwave oven.If you want to reheat something fromthe freezer—anticipate. Take it out the night before. Leave yourself anote. It can be done.
Where to buy EMF protection products.
Jeremy’s story
Jeremy, a 29-year-old entrepreneur, came to me with a constant headache, specifically “unbearable pressure inside the head,” dizziness, fatigue and a worrying cognitive decline. “It’s like my brain is full of cotton wool and my thoughtsdon’t make it through,” he said.
Jeremy was fit, and his diet was excellent. Still, I measured all his nutrient levels and checked for chemical toxins in his system. All clear.Physical examination was normal.
So, what was going on?
I asked if anything had changed in his lifestyle in the preceding year.He couldn’t think of anything.
Then I began asking questions like,Do you have a Wi-Fi router? Do you hold your phone next to your head? How manyhours a day do you spend on it? Do you carry it in your pocketwhen you’re out and about? On airplane mode or just on? Do you use alaptop computer on your lap or on a desk?
It turned out that Jeremy’s office was in his bedroom, so his deviceswere pulsing EMR at him all night long as wellas during the day. He held the phone to his head for his business sixor seven hours a day. He also hada Wi-Fi router on his desk only a foot or two from his body. He satwith his laptop on his lap, and he traveled with his phone in his pocket, fully turned on.
After more questions I discovered that Jeremy had poor sperm quality and had been trying for ababy, unsuccessfully, with his girlfriend for nearly two years. I suspected that EMR was behind his symptoms and suggested time away from his devices.
Jeremy booked a two-week adventure holiday in the woods, far from all electronic devices.
On his return he reportedthat within two or three days of leaving, his brain had begun to clear; hecould think straight again. By the end of the first week, his energy wasback, and his headaches and dizziness were gone. During the second week,he felt better than he had for a long time—back to normal.
But within 24 hours of his return home, his symptoms were back. He unplugged everything, and within 48 hours he wasbetter again.
At our second consultation, Jeremy complained, not unreasonably, thata person couldn’t live like that, cut off from friends andwork contacts. Luckily, he didn’t have to. I gavehim several strategies to protect himself from EMFs while remaining online and in touchwith friends, family and colleagues (see above).
Jeremy tried them, and some years later hisbusiness is booming, he remains welland he has become a father. He uses his phone more safely now, but healso uses it less. His work colleagues know to leave a message if he’s not answering.
Jeremy’s symptoms are called “electrosensitivity,” which an estimated4 percent of the population self-reports. He had a milder case—away from the source of the problem,he recovered. But many people, those with electrohypersensitivity,don’t really recover and continue to react badly to eventiny electromagnetic inputs, such as a simple electric current.
Adapted from Dr Jenny Goodman’s new bookGetting Healthy in Toxic Times(Chelsea Green, 2024). For 30 percent off the book, visitchelseagreen.co.ukand enter the code WDDTY30 at checkout.
