By Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, CNS.
Simple ways to avoid the growing problems associated with man-made frequencies.
What do bees, birds (not just canaries), and humans have in common? We’re all sensitive to the rapidly proliferating expansion of man-made energy from antennae, cell and cordless phones, digital devices, electrical and electronic equipment, microwaves, radio waves, PDAs, satellite TVs, and wireless.
Birds will avoid microwave radiation if they can; they collapse within seconds if they can’t. And bee colony collapse—a worldwide phenomenon with potentially devastating impact on our food supply since these insects are prime pollinators—has recently been linked to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), rapidly proliferating throughout the world today.
When cell phones were placed near hives, the radiation they emit (900 to1,800 MHz) was enough to prevent bees from returning there, reports research conducted at Landau University in Germany. Both the brain and body of the honeybee can vibrate from man-made frequencies in mobile phones, explains physicist and science teacher Barrie Trower, scientific advisor to the Radiation Research Trust in the UK.
In fact, ants, bats, butterflies, cattle, frogs, plants (including trees), and whales suffer from microwave transmission from cell phones, Blue-tooth, TETRA, and WiFi. Only humans choose to expose themselves daily to electromagnetic fields (EMFs).
For the past 20 years, a small but growing number of people are discovering how debilitating this kind of radiation can be. Take, for example, Arthur Firstenberg, a final year med student, who started having symptoms of a heart attack while on surgery rotation. Sure, med school is stressful, but most doctors-to-be don’t lose 15 pounds in two weeks for no apparent reason. Or have abnormally low heart rate!
It was years before Firstenberg figured out that he was electrosensitive—probably due to electrocautery machines used in every modern surgical operation, exposing surgeons to high levels of EMFs. “I learned that there was a disease thoroughly described in the Russian and Eastern European medical literature called radiowave sickness,” he adds, “the existence of which was usually denied by western authorities.”
Dr. Ann Louise’s Take:
People all over the country have been contacting me with similar stories ever since publication of my latest book Zapped. And despite a tendency by mainstream scientists to dismiss hypersensitivity to EMFs, a recent study in Environmental Health Perspectives concludes that being aware of the risk of electropollution “was not sufficient to explain” the baffling symptoms of people who are allergic to electropollution.
One risk factor, though, that scientists have identified for these canaries in the coal mine is earlier exposure to other environmental toxins. For example, one electrosensitive woman interviewed for Zapped had been exposed to mold growing unnoticed behind a fish tank before she developed a hypersensitivity to EMFs, preventing her from talking on the telephone or even standing under fluorescent lights.
Another “Canary”
A high-school assistant principal in Texas (whom we’ll call “M)” was unwittingly exposed to dangerous chemicals locked away in a school science lab during a routine safety check in 2003. While she suffered fatigue, chronic cough, and aching from her chemical exposure, that was nothing compared to the symptoms she experienced three years later when her husband set up a big screen TV in their home!
“I developed burning in my mouth, numbness in my leg, heart palpitations, rupturing of the blood vessels under my eyes, and fatigue” whenever exposed to EMFs, “M” says. “I continued to work using a cell phone, two-way radio, PDA, computer, photo copier, and fax machines” until it became too painful. When she showed her boss a Gauss meter, registering high EMFs in her office, he finally believed her. But it took years for “M” to find a doctor who would acknowledge and treat her electrosensitivity.
Even after glutathione IVs, hyperbaric oxygen treatments, and immunotherapy, she remains housebound—due to neighborhood and park WiFi, cell phone towers, antennae, high power lines, and transformers. “It has been four years since I have used a cell phone,” she says. “When it gets dark, I go to bed because I can’t be in a room where a 60 Hz current is running.”
“If the power company installs ’smart meters’ on our home, as it has in other parts of our city, my husband and I will have to leave our home,” she adds. “Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a science fiction movie; however, it is my reality.”
Instead of feeling sorry for herself, “M” dreams of updated FCC safety standards for wireless devices that reflect non-thermal effects of EMFs on the human body. She and her husband are working to educate others about the risks of electropollution. Other “dreams” of hers to protect the public from electrosensitivity:
• Pre-market safety studies on human health effects of microwave radiation from cell phones, smart meters, etc.
• Public education on the health hazards of wireless technology (read The Bioinitiative Report available at www.bioinitiative.org), particularly its impact on children.
• Awareness of electrohypersensitivity within the medical community, including specific biomarkers and other diagnostic criteria plus support groups
• Creation of safe refuges (or quiet zones) throughout the country to accommodate the needs of ever increasing numbers of electrosensitive people.
Grounding Helps
Here’s the story of another “canary” (whom we’ll call “E”), a bookkeeper in South Carolina who, over a five-year period, was forced to leave three different jobs because of electrosensitivity, recuperating at home before taking on a new position. Because the doctors she saw “didn’t understand what was happening either,” she “had to figure it out on my own.”
“Sleeping became a big problem. It was as if all the cells in my body were vibrating,” she says. “Many times I wouldn’t get to sleep until 3 or 4 am,” if she slept at all. And there were other physical problems. “I was having major problems with my right shoulder as a result of using the [computer] mouse.” She also developed “trigger finger” from working with an electronic scanner and suffered other joint pain before she learned about Earthing, nature’s grounding technique.
“I got myself a grounded floor pad and put it in my bed, so that my feet rested on it. I felt the difference immediately—the very first night,” she says. Today “E” sleeps grounded with Earthing equipment every night—and she’s able to resume her career, at least in her own home. “I can work [at the computer] all day, even with a mouse as long as I’m grounded.”
Discovered by a former cable TV executive Clint Ober, Earthing or grounding has been the subject of several published studies. The natural frequencies emitted from the Earth—to which plants and animals (including human) have adapted over millennia—help counter the ill effects of man-made frequencies, much the way grounding electrical current and cable allows us to safely bring these wires into our homes.
Although initially I was rather skeptical about grounding, I have found it most definitely helps me sleep more soundly and reduces aches, pains, and inflammation, as well as balances cortisol (stress hormone) levels. I use the Earthing Universal Mat when I work in my home office and sleep on Earthing Sheets at night. Not only am I sleeping deeply—dreaming again for the first time in years—but I’m also able to work for much longer periods of time at my computer and on my phone (a corded, landline, of course) since I’ve grounded myself.
What really convinced me, though, was seeing my blood cells literally come “unclumped” under a darkfield microscope after Earthing. That’s why I included it as one of the many ways to reduce our exposure to electropollution in Zapped.
Sources:
- Zapped: Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn’t Be Your Alarm Clock and 1268 Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electronic Pollution(available at www.areyouzapped.com)
- EMF Watchdog. “Is the Reason for Bees Dying in Colony Collapse Disorder Finally Solved?” EMFWatchdog.blogspot.com, Oct. 29, 2010.
- Havas M, Marrongelle J, et al. Provocation Study using Heart Rate Variability shows Radiation from 2.4 GHz Cordless Phone affects Autonomic Nervous System. Eur. J. Oncol. Library, vol. 5.
- Oschman JL.Our Place in Nature: Reconnecting with the Earth for Better Sleep. The Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, 2004, 10;5:735-736.
- UniKey Health. “Earthing: Reconnect to the Earth.”
- Sinatra ST. Heart, Health & Nutrition, Feb. 2010.
- Cellular Task Phone Force.”Governments and Organizations that Ban or Warn Against Wireless Technology.”
- La Leva di Archimedi. “Cell Phones: Experts investigating biological effects of cell phone radiation asked to shut up or quit jobs.” http://www.laleva.cc/environment/cellphones.html.
- Oschman JL. Perspective: assume a spherical cow: the role of free or mobile electrons in bodywork, energetic and movement therapies. JBodyw Mov Ther.2008 Jan;12(1):40-57. Epub 2007 Dec 3.
- Oschman JL. Can electrons act as antioxidants? A review and commentary. J Altern Complement Med. 2007 Nov;13(9):955-67.
- Ghaly M. Teplitz D. The Biologic Effects of Grounding the Human Body During Sleep as Measured by Cortisol Levels and Subjective Reporting of Sleep, Pain and Stress. J Altern Compliment Med. 2004,10(5):767-76.
- Levallois P, Neutra R, et al., Study of Self-Reported Hypersensitivity to Electromagnetic Fields in California. Environmental Health Perspectives, Aug. 2002; 110(4): 619-623.
- Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. “Children and Mobile Phones: The Health of the Following Generations is in Danger. Radiationresearch.org, Apr. 2008.
© 2011 First Lady of Nutrition Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article was originally posted through Dr. Gittleman’s blog (“Edge on Health” at www.blog.annlouise.com) on November 17, 2010. HMDI has reprinted them with permission from Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., C.N.S.