Facts and myths about electromagnetic hypersensitivity

Entry

In this post, I wanted to dispel misconceptions about the so-called. hypersensitivity to radio radiation (hereinafter PR) summarizing not only experiments on electromagnetic hypersensitivity, but related research such as: experiments on symptoms, physiological experiments, neurophysiological experiments and epidemiological studies. As readers will see for themselves, all these studies, which focused mainly on the most sensitive signals, i.e. the type of mobile phones and mobile networks, very clearly indicate that the so-called electromagnetic hypersensitivity is only a placebo and nocebo psychophysical phenomenon, with the reservation that individual differences in PR perception and tolerance may exist at PR intensities much higher than the mobile phone, which is the most powerful source of PR for the overwhelming majority of people.

The most important experiments

First, let's talk about the most important experiments that directly concerned electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Well, many experiments were done, which are among the highest rated on the scale of medical evidence, i.e. they had not only an experimental group (exposed to PR), but also a control/placebo/nocebo group (subjected to false/fake PR exposure) and both the investigators and the subjects did not know which of the randomly selected participants belonged to which group. In these experiments, signals with the maximum intensity that a typical human encounters in the frequency range of typical wireless devices were used - signals of the type of mobile phones and mobile networks were usually used, but they do not differ significantly from wifi and bluetooth in terms of frequency. It turned out that there were no differences in terms of cognitive test scores and physiological symptoms between the group of people who described themselves as electromagnetically hypersensitive and the group of people who were not exposed to PR. In other words, there were no significant differences between "hypersensitive" and "insensitive" and between PR and non-PR subjects in parameters such as difficulty concentrating, memory, attention, headache or dizziness, well-being, reaction time, blood pressure, heart rate, itching or tingling of the skin, the ability to recognize PR and many more. Of the vast number of cognitive and physiological symptoms that have been studied in these experiments, virtually only sleep has produced weak, uncertain, and mixed results at best. Outside the field of sleep, they are very consistent and strong, which in itself allows us to assume that the results on sleep will not be confirmed or will not turn out to be significant (like possible changes in EEG), the more so that a large number of studies contradict the impact of PR on sleep (including numerous epidemiological and polysomnographic studies). If any clear effects are confirmed in the field of sleep at all, it is probably only with signal strength comparable to the least of a mobile phone and may not have a significant impact on sleep quality. It is also worth noting that so far no differences have been found between hypersensitive and insensitive groups in polysomnographic parameters and between hypersensitive and non-PR exposed groups in sleep quality.

Additional experiments

The above studies alone are very strong evidence against the so-called. hypersensitivity as more than just a nocebo and placebo effect, at least in the range of cell phone power and below, but the above conclusions are further strengthened by numerous physiological experiments, often much longer than the hypersensitivity studies, which do not deal directly with hypersensitivity but show the lack of the impact of PR of a similar type and intensity on the circulatory, endocrine, auditory systems, the blood-brain barrier and physiological parameters of the skin [RAG 7.2.1, 5.1.4, 4.4, 4.1.4; DI 4.4.1 , 4.4.2 c]. Ekperymenty neurofizjologiczne dają obecnie mieszane i niespójne wyniki odnośnie istnienia pewnych efektów, jak metabolizm mózgu czy EEG, które jednak nawet jeśli zostaną potwierdzone, najprawdopodobniej nie mają istotnego wpływu na symptomy, gdyż ekperymenty nad nadwrażliwością i krótkotrwałymi symptomami pokazałyby różnice między badanymi grupami, i jak wiele innych efektów biologicznych PR z zakresu 100kHz-300GHz mogą być często przypisane wzrostowi temperatury [RAG 5.3, 5.1.3, 5.1.2.2, 4.1] .

Individual differences

Finally, it should be mentioned that for much higher field strengths than those encountered by the overwhelming majority of people, there may be individual differences in perception and PR tolerance, analogous to perceptual thresholds or thermal tolerance. For example, at 50/60Hz, most people recognize the presence of fields >20kV/m, but 10% of people perceive 2-5kV/m, and in order for 5% of people to perceive them as annoying, they must reach 15-20kV/m. On the other hand, regarding the pain threshold, 7% of people describe as painful a spark discharge from them to the ground at 5kV/m and 50% at 10kV/m [ICNIRP_GDL p. 500; ICNIRP_LF_GDL p. 820] . However, here I mainly deal with the field strengths that a typical person comes into contact with, not, for example, people from the occupational risk group, whose exposures can be incomparably higher. Only such people are exposed to fields strong enough to feel nerve or muscle arousal (mainly below 100kHz) and an increase in body temperature (above 100kHz). I already wrote about the significant increase in temperature due to exposure to high levels of PR in the case of working environments in my large medical article [1] , where I also showed how insignificant in comparison are the temperature increases caused by the mobile phone.

Summary

Summing up, numerous already existing experiments on the so-called electromagnetic hypersensitivity and symptoms after short-term exposure to PR with powers in the range of more or less a mobile phone and below, form a coherent and very strong group of studies that receive additional support from epidemiological studies and physiological experiments. All these studies clearly contradict the existence of the so-called electromagnetic hypersensitivity as something more than just a psycho-physiological phenomenon of the placebo and nocebo type created by false beliefs and other psychological factors and/or non-electromagnetic physico-chemical factors. It is not clear whether the most powerful devices the typical human encounters, i.e. the mobile phone, are able to subtly affect certain aspects of human neurophysiology, such as sleep, through thermal and non-thermal effects, but research indicates that there is no difference between “ hypersensitive” and “insensitive” in this regard. Nevertheless, individual differences in PR perception and tolerance may exist and be significant at much higher PR intensities than the mobile phone, but which the overwhelming majority of people do not experience.

WANT TO KNOW MUCH MORE?

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- THEIR IMPORTANCE, COURSE, RESULTS

- ABOUT 20 SCIENTIFIC SOURCES ON WHICH I RELIED ON WRITING THIS ARTICLE,

- ATTITUDE OF INTERNATIONAL HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS TO ELECTROMAGNETIC HYPERSENSITIVITY?

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Sources

• My large medical article on the relationship of radiofrequency radiation and health, in which you will find about 20 scientific sources that I relied on in writing this article: Radiofrequency radiation and medicine