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CFS/ME and Nature

sb4

Senior Member
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1,654
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United Kingdom
@Wishful It's all well and good saying that the sun contains blue light etc and that the body can't tell the difference but that is not an argument against man made emf being potentially harmful. If I remember correctly, blue light inhibits mito complexes whereas red light increases atp via cytc oxidase. The levels are finely balanced in nature. Sit in front of a blue lit screen all night with no IR light and you will not only screw up your circadian rhythm, but also potentially cause myopia. In this way your body "knows" this is not natural light.

If you are exposed to too much red / IR it has a U shaped response and causes decreased atp production. These sorts of things happen with man made EMFs that are naturally present in sun light, so it is certainly possible that EMFs that are not naturally present are also causing problems.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
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5,684
Location
Alberta
I agreed that artificial or even natural levels of EMF of any frequency could possibly cause biological effects. Some are known, some aren't. I object to the term 'non-native EMF' or other such terms that there's some sort of distinction between natural photons and unnatural ones.

I'd also disagree with claiming that the levels of red and blue light are 'finely balanced in nature'. The levels in nature are whatever they happen to be, constant or random. We are the ones that have adapted to the existing levels. If Earth orbited an m-class star and had a different atmosphere, we might be arguing about the importance of infra-red and green light, and ultra-violet might not even reach the surface. Parts of natural human habitat varies in its spectrum too: mountaintops vs sea level, cloudy vs clear sky, tropic vs polar, winter vs summer. Some people are noticeably affected by those differences; others aren't.

I accept that it's possible that 2.4 GHz, for example, has a significant biological effect at some level below 'cooking flesh'. The problem is that no one has been able to determine what level causes harm. The uses of EMFs do have significant benefits for human society. A lot of lives have been saved because we allow radio communication. Should we ban all EMF emissions because no one can prove that mW levels of 2.4 GHz has absolutely zero probablility of causing health harm?

If we did have a nice, tidy chart showing health risk vs power level at various frequencies, we probably still wouldn't completely ban EMF emissions. We'd balance benefits vs risk. At present, we only have wild guesses about health risk vs power level, so the balance is set by greed vs fear.

Someday history books might say that we greatly underestimated safe levels at most frequencies, but underestimated the risk at x.yz GHz, which led to an estimated 20,000 EMF-triggered earlobe tumours.

For myself, I'm still waiting for the opponents of EMF emissions to provide adequate evidence for the maximum exposure levels they want to see.
 

sb4

Senior Member
Messages
1,654
Location
United Kingdom
I agreed that artificial or even natural levels of EMF of any frequency could possibly cause biological effects. Some are known, some aren't. I object to the term 'non-native EMF' or other such terms that there's some sort of distinction between natural photons and unnatural ones.
I'm fine with the term non native EMF. It means man made EMF ie not sun light, schuman, etc. I think most people understand this. Also there can well be differences even in the same type of photons, polarization, frequencies they arrive at (flicker).

At one point my vision was messed up where almost anything that was slightly bright hurt my eyes and left a significant after glow. I could only stare at my computer screen for small amount of time in between breaks as it hurt my eyes. I even installed software to read aloud text so I wouldn't have to look at screen. This reduced massively when I changed my screen to non flicker. Bit of a tangent but also maybe useful to someone.

I'd also disagree with claiming that the levels of red and blue light are 'finely balanced in nature'. The levels in nature are whatever they happen to be, constant or random. We are the ones that have adapted to the existing levels. If Earth orbited an m-class star and had a different atmosphere, we might be arguing about the importance of infra-red and green light, and ultra-violet might not even reach the surface. Parts of natural human habitat varies in its spectrum too: mountaintops vs sea level, cloudy vs clear sky, tropic vs polar, winter vs summer. Some people are noticeably affected by those differences; others aren't.
First part of this we agree, when I say finely balanced in nature, I don't mean nature has gone out of its way to make it so, I mean the human body and all the things we where before that have balanced and tweaked theere systems to take advantage of this and if we go changing the light levels significantly it could mess up this balance.

The second part I agree with. Actually quite interesting as on another forum somebody brought up in relation to autoimmunity, vitamin A and the color of eyes. More blue eyes further from equator, more blue light further from equator, blue eyes change the blue light/other colors that come in some how? blue light reacts with A in eyes. Could there be a link with blue eyes, and those who find Vit A worsens autoimmunity?

I accept that it's possible that 2.4 GHz, for example, has a significant biological effect at some level below 'cooking flesh'. The problem is that no one has been able to determine what level causes harm. The uses of EMFs do have significant benefits for human society. A lot of lives have been saved because we allow radio communication. Should we ban all EMF emissions because no one can prove that mW levels of 2.4 GHz has absolutely zero probablility of causing health harm?

I don't think we should ban EMFs I think we should be way more cautious about there usage, and look for alternatives that might not be as harmful if they are proven to be so. I mean, isn't it a bit reckless to have smart meters/TVs, 10+ wireless gadgets per home, phone masts on top of schools, wifi at all locations it schools, constantly chasing the next level of G despite there being no time to properly come up with safety testing.

Do you think 5g will have been properly tested by the time its unleashed? Of course not, it might take decades for the effects to visibly manifest.

Why do schools need to be wifi everywhere? Whats wrong with keeping with ethernet until we can be sure?

Why is the government forcing smart meters on everyone. For the last year straight I have had URGENT PLEASE OPEN letters through my door saying they need to send someone around for my meter. It turns out that there is very little saving for the consumer for smart meter usage but big big money to be made in selling the data it retrieve from your habits. I'd say this is massively reckless behavior on a technology that safety is still undecided in the literature.

It doesn't have to be black or white, ban all emfs. I would like it so that the public opinion shifts from emfs cant cause anyone biological harm and those that think so are tin foil hat loonies, and to, well there might be some harm, we should be cautious, and recognizing that wireless tech /cell companies have billions of dollars riding on this. I think they have absolute sway over the government/media/scientifc research with that sort of cash.
 

Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
Messages
13,251
I mean, isn't it a bit reckless to have smart meters/TVs, 10+ wireless gadgets per home, phone masts on top of schools, wifi at all locations it schools, constantly chasing the next level of G despite there being no time to properly come up with safety testing.

Its truely appalling. When we consider how many people have these increasing weird illnesses, unraveling bodies, profound stress and celebrity misguided culture......its obvious to me the way we currently live in the world, many bodies are not holding up to this multi-systemic assault. What does it mean when a country has 1 million disabled people, for just one Canary in the Coal Mine illness?

X umpteen countries. When we will "get the message"?
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
If you are exposed to too much red / IR it has a U shaped response and causes decreased atp production. These sorts of things happen with man made EMFs that are naturally present in sun light, so it is certainly possible that EMFs that are not naturally present are also causing problems.

I was thinking more about that, and your example involves frequency-selective molecules that we evolved to affect our bodies. Our bodies have several molecules that respond to specific frequencies of EMF in the solar spectrum. That doesn't necessarily mean that we have any that respond to other frequencies. It also doesn't mean that we don't. We can only deal with the ones that we have discovered, and keep looking for others. We can't stop all progress until we know absolutely everything about everything. Moderation is a good policy for most things.

As a counter-example for the policy of 'ban it until we're sure it's completely safe', pretty much everything in the natural organic produce section should probably be banned too, since we still don't know absolutely for sure what levels are safe for humans. Eating too much natural organic spinach is probably harmful, and the safe amount varies with the individual. The recommended maximum consumption is a guess made as a safe level for a typical human; just like EMF exposure. The people who believed that humans would die if they travelled faster than 20 mph (or whatever it was) would probably still be demanding that the government prove that faster travel is safe before allowing car, trains, etc, to operate.

Yes, the government should fund research into possible health hazards of EMF at various frequencies. The research so far seems to indicate that the present levels are relatively safe for most people. There are claims of medical disorders from low-level EMF exposure, but not verified ones (that I know of). If the opponents of EMF emissions can't provide verification for those claims, maybe bans should wait until they can do so.
 

sb4

Senior Member
Messages
1,654
Location
United Kingdom
@Wishful As I said in my last post, I don't think we should "ban it until we are completely sure", I think we should be a hell of a lot more cautious. Do we agree that the exponential explosion of EMFs in the last 20years is reckless, especially when it comes to things that are just small conveniences or governments enforcing EMFs upon people?

That is true about molecules we have evolved to react to frequencies, but like you say that doesn't mean they will only react to those frequencies. Calcium gated voltage channels would fall under this category and I doubt that would be the only thing.

Yes I would agree that most studies say it safe so far, and there is still research being done, however there are also many peer reviewed studies implying harm. The mainstream public and scientific narrative does not reflect this and this then influences what levels of EMF we allow and are comfortable with.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
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5,684
Location
Alberta
The molecules that react to light of a specific frequency are unlikely to respond to other frequencies. Those can be modelled and tested fairly easily, I believe. Other molecules can be modelled too, so you can check what cytochrome C oxidase molecules, for example, are sensitive to. Doing that for every molecule type in the body is simply tedious work, but it could be done. It's also possible for larger-scale components (parts of cells, groups of cells) to absorb and react to EMF, and that too can be checked by models. Given the advances in computer science, that might actually be a faster way of determining safe levels of EMF than lab testing or statistical analysis of groups of humans.

I'm still not convinced of the validity of the claims for EMF sensitivity of VCCGs. I've tried to find a copy of a paper showing the experimental setup and results, but haven't found it. All I've found are citations of that one paper, claiming that it's proven. For all I know, the experiment was set up in a way that isn't valid for cells in vivio at expected levels of EMF.

I don't agree that the increase in use of EMFs is reckless. Reckless would be if there was reasonable evidence of harm, or reasonable theoretical possibility of harm. So far the evidence seems to be that it's reasonably safe at the existing levels. We've had around a century of 50/60 Hz powerline use, and many decades of radio transmisions below the microwave band, and several decades in the microwave band, all without obvious signs of health hazard at the power levels allowed for the general public. We've had a couple of decades with higher microwave frequencies. Even higher frequencies aren't really different, in that there aren't any known, verified reasons for why they should have significant biological effects at the levels proposed.

The chance of cancer from keeping a cellphone next to one's head for many hours each day is as far as I know, still controversial, and may result in changes or health warnings. Using earphones and keeping the phone a bit further away from the head, or just using it less might drop the effects enough to drop the health risk into the 'background noise' level. There's always some risk; that's life.
 

sb4

Senior Member
Messages
1,654
Location
United Kingdom
I agree about the testing of each molecule and that isn't really practical. The practical thing is just proving harm. This area is still controversial. I think controversial enough to warrant significant caution.

Perhaps there is something wrong with a paper on VGCCs but if I remember right there was more than one paper on it.

As a side note, you mention the cancer phone head thing, as far as I am aware, the safety limits for phones was made by testing on a stocky military guy. I can't remember whether it was heat or whatever they where measuring but several other researches have been stressing how inadequate this is for babies and young children whose skin and skull is much thinner. Even babies use wifi connected ipads now. I saw an add not long ago for a cot with a slot for an ipad so the baby can entertain itself using the bright blue wifi connected ipad screen for as long as it want's. IMO this is massively reckless. Even smartphones have it in there terms and conditions (???) to hold your phones 2cm (?) away from your body (which nobody does). If this is due to it exceeding current safety standards (which many think are inadequate) in a stocky military guy, then how much is this going to exceed standards in a 5yo girl?
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
Proving harm isn't really practical if there's harm to society by restricting use until it's proven totally safe. If harm takes 30 years to show up, that's hard to prove in less than that. Where do you set the limits for 'harm' or 'safe'? Having a person talk on a phone for a few minutes and then asking if they notice any health problems is a test for harm, but I don't think you'd be satisfied with it. If you insist that it be tested on mice for 500 generations, I think society would be unhappy with that too. There has been and continues to be testing for harm from EMFs, and the government has set the present safe levels based on those findings. If you want stricter testing and more conservative limits until the tests are finished, contact your government representative and lobby for changes.

I don't have any financial interest in EM communications, but I'm satisfied with the protective levels set based on the results of prior and present research. I haven't seen any research showing a significant health hazard from present levels of EMF. There might be some tweaking to be done, such as health warnings about wifi transmitters in cribs, just to be even safer (based on wild guesses), but I don't see a scientifically-based reason at present to block 5G deployment or to shield all 60 Hz power cables. If evidence of health risk does become available, then we can debate the trade-offs.
 

sb4

Senior Member
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1,654
Location
United Kingdom
There are studies showing harm currently, of course there are lots not showing harm as well. I found this site that appears to be legit when discussing this on a previous thread. There you can see many studies showing harm.

Yes society would also be harmed if we took all EMF away now, however that's not what I'm proposing. As I have stated previously the essential uses should be kept and non essential should be limited. The problem is, if it is harmful, then the guy next door could have 10+ devices that are affecting you and you can do nothing about. The government could decide to put a 5G mast / smart meter right on your house and you have no say in the matter. In that way it would be like second hand smoke which is now regulated.

I would love stricter testing however I am not going to lobby anyone, I have my own health experiments to do and it would take a huge amount of effort to have a chance of getting any sort of shift in policy, which I don't have.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
The first paper I checked was: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199025/ That paper basically says what I've been saying: that various organizations and countries have weighed the evidence and found no evidence of health hazard at the present levels.

I checked another paper titled: 'Excessive exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields may cause the development of electrohypersensitivity.' and had a good laugh when I found that it had no content. I've never encountered a blank pubmed abstract before.

Another one that caught my eye was: 'Single-strand DNA breaks in human hair root cells exposed to mobile phone radiation.'
'CONCLUSIONS:
A short-term exposure (15 and 30 min) to RFR (900-MHz) from a mobile phone caused a significant increase in DNA single-strand breaks in human hair root cells located around the ear which is used for the phone calls.'

So DNA in hair roots is at risk or damage caused by significantly higher levels of 900 MHz EMF. For some reason, this doesn't terrify me. Maybe the DNA in the fingernails holding the phone is at risk too. Oh, it seems that hair and fingernails are quite difficult to analyze for DNA, so maybe the experimental results are a bit questionable.

I scanned the rest of the titles. Nothing really caught my attention as evidence of a health hazard.
 

sb4

Senior Member
Messages
1,654
Location
United Kingdom
Well things caught my attention on there. I found these in the first few "positive" studies:

Tumor promotion by exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields below exposure limits for humans.
The vast majority of in vitro and in vivo studies did not find cancerogenic effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF), i.e. emitted by mobile phones and base stations. Previously published results from a pilot study with carcinogen-treated mice, however, suggested tumor-promoting effects of RF-EMF (Tillmann et al., 2010). We have performed a replication study using higher numbers of animals per group and including two additional exposure levels (0 (sham), 0.04, 0.4 and 2 W/kg SAR). We could confirm and extend the originally reported findings. Numbers of tumors of the lungs and livers in exposed animals were significantly higher than in sham-exposed controls. In addition, lymphomas were also found to be significantly elevated by exposure. A clear dose-response effect is absent. We hypothesize that these tumor-promoting effects may be caused by metabolic changes due to exposure. Since many of the tumor-promoting effects in our study were seen at low to moderate exposure levels (0.04 and 0.4 W/kg SAR), thus well below exposure limits for the users of mobile phones, further studies are warranted to investigate the underlying mechanisms. Our findings may help to understand the repeatedly reported increased incidences of brain tumors in heavy users of mobile phones.

Mobile phone radiation causes brain tumors and should be classified as a probable human carcinogen (2A) (review).
Quickly changing technologies and intensive uses of radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF)‑emitting phones pose a challenge to public health. Mobile phone users and uses and exposures to other wireless transmitting devices (WTDs) have increased in the past few years. We consider that CERENAT, a French national study, provides an important addition to the literature evaluating the use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumors. The CERENAT finding of increased risk of glioma is consistent with studies that evaluated use of mobile phones for a decade or longer and corroborate those that have shown a risk of meningioma from mobile phone use. In CERENAT, exposure to RF‑EMF from digitally enhanced cordless telephones (DECTs), used by over half the population of France during the period of this study, was not evaluated. If exposures to DECT phones could have been taken into account, the risks of glioma from mobile phone use in CERENAT are likely to be higher than published. We conclude that radiofrequency fields should be classified as a Group 2A ̔probable̓ human carcinogen under the criteria used by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Lyon, France). Additional data should be gathered on exposures to mobile and cordless phones, other WTDs, mobile phone base stations and Wi‑Fi routers to evaluate their impact on public health. We advise that the as low as reasonable achievable (ALARA) principle be adopted for uses of this technology, while a major cross‑disciplinary effort is generated to train researchers in bioelectromagnetics and provide monitoring of potential health impacts of RF‑EMF.

In vitro effect of cell phone radiation on motility, DNA fragmentation and clusterin gene expression in human sperm.

RESULTS:
There was a significant decrease in sperm motility, sperm linear velocity, sperm linearity index, and sperm acrosin activity, whereas there was a significant increase in sperm DNA fragmentation percent, CLU gene expression and CLU protein levels in the exposed semen samples to RF-EMF compared with non-exposed samples in OAT>AT>A>N groups, respectively (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION:
Cell phone emissions have a negative impact on exposed sperm motility index, sperm acrosin activity, sperm DNA fragmentation and seminal CLU gene expression, especially in OAT cases.

Continuous 900-megahertz electromagnetic field applied in middle and late-adolescence causes qualitative and quantitative changes in the ovarian morphology, tissue and blood biochemistry of the rat.

RESULTS:
Histopathological examination of EMF group ovarian tissue revealed thinning in the zona granulosa and theca layers, shrinking in granulosa cells, reduced mitotic activity and leukocyte infiltration in the follicles and stroma. Secondary follicle numbers in the EMF group were significantly lower than in the other groups. In terms of biochemistry, EMF and sham group superoxide dismutase, catalase and anti-Mullerian hormone levels and EMF group 3-nitrotyrosine values increased significantly compared to the control group. EMF and sham group serum catalase and 8-hydroxy-deoxiguanosine values increased significantly compared to the control group, and EMF group total oxidant status and oxidative stress index values were significantly higher compared to the sham and control groups.

CONCLUSIONS:
A total of 900-MHz EMF applied in middle and late adolescence may cause changes in the morphology and biochemistry of the rat ovarium.

Long term and excessive use of 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation alter microRNA expression in brain.

RESULTS:
Results revealed that long-term exposure of 900 MHz RF radiation only decreased rno-miR107 (adjP* = 0.045) value where the whole body (rms) SAR value was 0.0369 W/kg. However, our results indicated that other microRNA evaluated in this study was not altered by 900 MHz RF radiation.

CONCLUSION:
900 MHz RF radiation can alter some of the miRNA, which, in turn, may lead to adverse effects. Therefore, further studies should be performed.

Of course as you scroll down there are more and more. The thing is, I think it would be far easy to demonstrate nothing happening than something happening. If EMF is harmful, it is quite subtle and slow burning and more than likely variables like frequencies, AM/FM, continuous/random, etc will be the difference between harmful effects and no effects.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
A problem with subtle effects is showing actual harm from them. If it's so subtle that 10 experiments show a p-value just barely qualifying for significance, and 10 experiments show no significance, it's hard to consider it a dire threat to human health. The experts then have to judge the likelihood of a significant effect on long-term human health. The government then has to balance that against the benefits of allowing the technology. The profits from 5G could pay for a whole lot of health research and services. Maybe the government could require a portion of profits from 'we're not quite sure that it's safe' technologies to be spent on research, or held in trust for potential compensation for health harm proven to result from it.

I did notice that a lot of the entries on that list seemed to be questioning aspects of experiments that showed no hazard from EMFs. It gave me the impression of people who are convinced that EMFs are evil, so any experiment that shows no effects must have flaws, even if the flaws discussed are fairly minor and unlikely to change the results much.

I didn't notice any titles that showed really clear harm from EMFs. The ones you quoted use the terms such as 'may', and 'possibly', which to me means that they didn't find any clear health harm. I compare that with research that has shown harm from other sources, such as neutron radiation, or even high-energy EMFs such as UV light or x-rays. Even with clear evidence, banning tanning beds is still only done in a few countries. Something like 5G has clear benefits for society and no clear evidence yet of harm to health.

The present evidence of harm from EMFs, in my opinion, just doesn't justify greater restrictions than are already in place. If they're so terribly harmful to humans, it should be easy to prove it. If it's terribly difficult to prove it, maybe they're not so terribly harmful.
 

sb4

Senior Member
Messages
1,654
Location
United Kingdom
Yeah subtle effects are hard to prove and it would take years to do so, which is why I think we should be being a lot more cautious than we are. It follows that some people will be more sensitive to the effects than others, perhaps if you have an existing sub clinical condition then it effects you quite significantly, this also would be hard to tease out in studies.

The ones I quoted also showed tumor growth, sperm reduction, damaging of uterus. Whilst I don't know the exact P values without going into the study, there are lots more that show similar things.

I think we are at a stage were we can just agree to disagree. Interesting discussion, hopefully people reading the thread will get something out of it.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
I think the EMF debate can be described as 'No conclusions yet. Stay tuned' At least there's a definite improvement in human safety compared to the days when radium could be sold openly as a health product, and the government wouldn't step in until people were dying in numbers too large to ignore.
 

Davsey27

Senior Member
Messages
514
Well I’m down in southern Louisiana small town of around 9,000k.Feel better some at times but it’s hard to say.More
Sunshine but being in nature doesn’t seem to make workload for Cfs/me to be increased dramitically.
 

Davsey27

Senior Member
Messages
514
Yesterday I was feeling weary.

I decided to leave the house and walk 15 mins to the beach.Grounded my feet inside the ocean for close to an hour.I didnt feel much difference.The inflammation muscle soreness still there.In the past the beach would have a rejuvenated affect

The grounding is supposed to improve mitochondria but if this is the case why do i feel after an hour of standing grounding in the water I want to lay down in a quiet room.

I then went to the grocery and felt brain fog and out of it

Still felt sore muscles now from the 3,000k plus steps last night and not recovered.

Before CFS when I did grounding for a few hours it would energize me to walk 5,000k steps and I no longer feel these effects for some reason
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
As far as I know, there's no scientific basis for grounding (it doesn't make sense in terms of electrostatics), so I suggest you think about what else from those beach visits might have had a rejuvenating effect. Maybe the other times had fewer people to distract you from relaxing thoughts, or some other such factor. Look for what's different at that location from previous visits.
 

Davsey27

Senior Member
Messages
514
Hi wishful,

When I first did this back in 2018

I could stand and walk in the forest in southern USA from about 10am to 6am.During these times when I grounded it alleviated fatigue.It would also greatly increase energy to where I felt like I was close to a 10 on the energy index scale

I would arrive at the forest at 10 am feeling mildly fatigue then after 8 hours of strolling and grounding I felt good.Typically not much crashing.The crashing came a couple months later.Then it progressed.

A year later going back to the same forest
it didnt have the same effect

I have been monitoring myself looking at videos of when I first had mild cfs to now trying to feel the expression of my immune system through the sound of my voice in videos.

I listened to newscasters and felt into their energy and voice.Their ability to say many words for long periods of times.While I spent a good bit of the last year outdoors in the sun and not being anywhere near that

I notice some cognitive declining and more um um in my videos.Looking into my eyes and feeling into the sound of my energy through the computer 2 years ago compared to now it seems to be different

Appreciate it Wishful
 
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