Bioelectromagnetics

[cogreslab]

The Don said (in response to Tai chi's request for reputable published evidence that there was no effect from EMF exposure):

"The citations relating to the health effects of living near power lines have already been posted in this thread. If you're not prepared to look into these then you can hardly xpect someone else to do tis on your behalf.

What a cop out!

There are two meta-analyses pooling the evidence from epi studies of childhood cancer and EMF exposure. One of them (Greenland et al.,) includes our study but not the negative study of the former CEGB (because unlike us the former CEGB refused to collaborate). The other meta analysis (Ahlbom et al.,) though well aware of our study decided to exclude it.

Both of these confirm that taken altogether there is a persistent elevation of childhood cancer in cases where the magnetic fields exceed around 0.4 uT. The present advice from NRPB is that effectively magnetic fields are safe below 100uT (until very recently their guideline was a massive 1600uT, but they reduced it at a stroke to conform with ICNIRP after I and others like the Stewart report pointed out the huge discrepancy between the two "authorities" . We had made this very point to the Stewart committee in our written submission, which clearly took it on board.

Perhaps you can see why so many scientists are concerned that this advice is wrong.

 

[The Don]

There are two meta-analyses pooling the evidence from epi studies of childhood cancer and EMF exposure. One of them (Greenland et al.,) includes our study but not the negative study of the former CEGB (because unlike us the former CEGB refused to collaborate). The other meta analysis (Ahlbom et al.,) though well aware of our study decided to exclude it.

Both of these confirm that taken altogether there is a persistent elevation of childhood cancer in cases where the magnetic fields exceed around 0.4 uT. The present advice from NRPB is that effectively magnetic fields are safe below 100uT (until very recently their guideline was a massive 1600uT, but they reduced it at a stroke to conform with ICNIRP after I and others like the Stewart report pointed out the huge discrepancy between the two "authorities" . We had made this very point to the Stewart committee in our written submission, which clearly took it on board.

Perhaps you can see why so many scientists are concerned that this advice is wrong.

Which one of your studies would this be ?

Given the reservations that have been expressed with respect to your experimental design and execution, this study is likely to be flawed if carried out by the Coghill Research Laboratory.

And remember the results of the meta-analysis carried out by Lagorio et al. (my translation for the comprehension impaired in bold italics

We review the epidemiological evidence on childhood leukemia and residential exposure to 50/60 Hz magnetic fields we are reviewing a series of existing studies. The possibility of carcinogenic effects of power frequency magnetic fields (ELF-EMF), at levels below units of micro tesla (microT), was first raised in 1979 by a case-control study on childhood cancer carried out in Denver, USA A putative EMF-cancer link was identified in 1979. In that study, excess risks of total cancer and leukemia were observed among children living in homes with "high or very high current configuration", as categorised on the basis of proximity to electric lines and transformers brief description of the methodology - suggestion that the classification of exposure was sub-optimal.. Many other epidemiological studies have been published since then, characterised by improved--although still not optimal--methods of exposure assessment since this date other studies have been run with gradually improving means of assessing exposure (no it's still not perfect) . At the end of 2000, the epidemiological evidence to support the association between exposure to extremely-low-frequency magnetic fields and the risk of childhood leukemia is less consistent than what was observed in the mid 90s the more recent studies (i.e. those in which the esposure has been more accurately been established) show epidemiological evidence at odds with the premise that EMF causes cancer. At the same time, a growing body of experimental evidence has accumulated against both a direct and a promoting carcinogenic effect of ELF-EMF. there's more evidence, from non-epidemiological sources, refuting a link between EMF and cancer Such "negative" experimental evidence hampers a causal interpretation of the "positive" epidemiological studies we cannot do a causal analysis on the epidemiologal studies on the grounds that (1) the epidemiological evidence is evaporating now that the exposure is being determined properly and (2) there seems to be no link when we look at non-epidemiological studies

 

[Prester John]

cogreslab said about melatonin:

Why is melatonin so important? Not only is it a powerful cancer-stopping agent, but recently some Spanish research (Carrillo-Vico et al., 2004) has discovered that when the white blood cells responsible for immune competence are challenged they emit large quantities of melatonin as a means of dealing with the challenge.

but this study shows no correlation between reduced melatonin and breast cancer:

Melatonin and breast cancer: a prospective study.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 96(6):475-82, 2004 Mar 17
Travis RC. Allen DS. Fentiman IS. Key TJ.

RESULTS: No statistically significant differences in urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin concentrations were observed between women who developed breast cancer and control subjects among premenopausal or postmenopausal women (P=.8 and P=.9, respectively).

Most of the work with melatonin showing a connection with cancer has been done in cell culture and animal models. This does not mean that it automatically carries over to humans. As shown above this may indeed be the case and there could well be other factors that have yet to be discovered. Factors that are not known are just that.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I don't want to take you on faith like you're some god. You see, I am a skepdork. So, it comes down to: Do you have any studies, published in mainstream scientific peer reviewed journals by reputable scientists, with large sample sizes, double-blind procedures, randomization, replication, and no typos in their reports, that show that there is no statistically significant difference?

I don't know and I don't really give a d*mn right now. If you are interested, why don't you go find out? The information is as available to you as it is to me.

Hans

 

[Pragmatist]

Notice the use of attempted character assassination, then a claim that is probably too complicated for lay readers to follow. Two of the tactics I described in a recent post.

LOL! I don't need to assassinate your character Roger, you do a good enough job of that yourself without MY help!

Maxwells equations are not a claim! Don't you mean too complicated for YOU to follow? {IRONY} And I am sure that everyone will agree that *I* always make my arguments so complicated that it's impossible for lay readers to follow what I'm saying {/IRONY}. The whole point of my argument is that such things are above YOUR head - which of course didn't stop you in the past trying to bluff that you understood Maxwell's 4th equation with bogus pseudomathematics.

And for the benefit of BOTH lay readers and Roger let me translate: DIV(B)=0 means simply that magnetic fields are source (or sink) free. In other words, magnetic fields are ALWAYS closed loops WITHOUT POLES. So how can you "polarize" something that doesn't have any poles?

And if any lay readers are confused because they think magnets have "poles" (i.e. north/south), yes that is true, but it's just a convention that arises from the interaction between magnetic fields and matter, the pure magnetic field has no poles. It's not the magnetic FIELD in a magnet which is "polarized", it's the molecular domains in the material of the magnet which are "polarized". Which is a different thing entirely.

THAT is the point. The claim about "polarized" magnetic fields just doesn't make any sense as it is presented. If someone was talking about an ELECTROMAGNETIC wave, then it WOULD make sense, because EM waves are vectors, and vectors can be polarized. But an electromagnetic wave is NOT a pure magnetic field. Similarly, a magnetic field VECTOR may be polarized, but not the field itself.

The only version of Kato's paper I can find on the web is this:

http://hawk.iszf.irk.ru/URSI2002/GAabstracts/papers/p1003.pdf

Which is conspicuously lacking in ANY details of how the alleged "polarized magnetic field" was produced. Now, my personal suspicion is that Kato may have written the original in Japanese and someone mistranslated it. And if this is the WHOLE paper then it is woefully inadequate in terms of description of experimental setup and procedure.

Now let me try to explain this exchange for lay readers.

That should be fun!

Magnetic fields can be circularly, elliptically or linearly polarised, depending on the way the load is configured. What Kato investigated was why some magnetic fields affected melatonin synthesis while others did not. He found that if the fields were circularly polarised there was an effect, but not with linear or 4-1 elliptically polarised magnetic fields. These latter induce a much less important electric component.

O.K. Roger, show us your incredible scientific knowledge. Why don't you explain how magnetic fields can be "circularly, elliptically or linearly polarised, depending on the way the load is configured"?

I mean you MUST understand precisely what that means or you wouldn't have said it, would you? So why not just go ahead and explain it? I am all ears!

So the reason turned out to be that circularly polarised magnetic fields of 7-350 uT induced higher electric fields (or rather currents which gave rise to electric fields) than the other types at the same field strengths. Another Battelle study on primates (Rogers et al., 1995) also found that exposure to only the horizontal component of the magnetic field had no effect on melatonin synthesis, but when a transient electric component was introduced the inhibiting effect was profound.

Induced? Aren't currents INDUCED into conductors? And isn't the electric field inside a conductor effectively ZERO? Oh, sorry, I forgot we are using "Rogscience", not the conventional kind! Once again your ignorance is showing.

These studies taken together point to the strong possibility that it is the electric component of the 60 Hz fields which is suppressing melatonin, and further studies are continuing to look into that.

What do you mean "electric component"? I thought you were talking about pure magnetic fields? So where did the "electric component" come from?

In our lab we are setting up experiments to evaluate the melatonin emitting response by peripheral blood lymphocytes when challenged with and without concomintastnt exposure to electric fields. If this turns out positive (i.e. if the ELF electric field inhibits the ability of PBLs to synthesise melatonin just as it does in the pineal gland, it goes a long way to explain at a cellular level how ELF electric fields can cause cancer. Of course there may be no effect, and since ithis is an importent exercise, we will report it either way in a conference in Septermber. The melatonin determinations need a GC/MS/MS machine to detect the indole, so most labs will not be able to do the experiment, but we are just taking delivery of a quadrupole ion trap machine wihich is upto the task. (Of course we are probably only doing this to make money, according to Prag.).

And *I'm* taking delivery of a transdimensional quantum coffee maker. I guess that makes me a real scientist, doesn't it?

 

[MRC_Hans]

*snip*

Notice the use of attempted character assassination, then a claim that is probably too complicated for lay readers to follow. Two of the tactics I described in a recent post.

Notice Roger's extensive use of double standards. His own many attempts on character assinations are OK (probably justified by some faults of our's). And he feels quite justified to complain when others use explanations that are not for lay readers, while he himself is apparently quite OK in spouting long incomprehensible tirades, like the one below:

Now let me try to explain this exchange for lay readers.

Bary Wilson from Battelle in 1981 reported that 60 Hz electric fields of 2-20kV/m (the lower values are such as one finds under a high voltage powerline) greatly reduced the synthesis of melatonin in adult rats. Rus Reiter from Texas Univ at San Antonio found a similar effect on young rats in 1988. Wilson later reported (1990) a similar effect in humans using certain types of electric blanket. Others discovered that magnetic fields could also do this (e.g. Yellon, 1994, MacCormick et al., 1994), but a third study (Lerchl, 1990) had previously found that specific aspects of magnetic field exposure might critically affect the melatonin response.

So Roger uses studies of fields in the order of 2,000 to 20,000 V/m, to back his claims in the range 20-70 V/m. Go figure .

Magnetic fields can be circularly, elliptically or linearly polarised, depending on the way the load is configured. What Kato investigated was why some magnetic fields affected melatonin synthesis while others did not. He found that if the fields were circularly polarised there was an effect, but not with linear or 4-1 elliptically polarised magnetic fields. These latter induce a much less important electric component.

Now we are suddenly into magnetic fields, although Roger has otherwise consistently claimed that the problem lie in electrical fields. Go figure .

So the reason turned out to be that circularly polarised magnetic fields of 7-350 uT induced higher electric fields (or rather currents which gave rise to electric fields) than the other types at the same field strengths. Another Battelle study on primates (Rogers et al., 1995) also found that exposure to only the horizontal component of the magnetic field had no effect on melatonin synthesis, but when a transient electric component was introduced the inhibiting effect was profound.

I have not read the studies in question, but Roger clearly has only caught some part of it, since talking about "the horizontal component of the magnetic field" is nonsense. A magnetic field consists of field-lines, and it can have various shapes, but these are not normally referred to as polarization as an absolute. If you want to discuss the polarization of a magnet field, you have to state it in relation to something.

These studies taken together point to the strong possibility that it is the electric component of the 60 Hz fields which is suppressing melatonin, and further studies are continuing to look into that.

From what is cited here, that does not follow at all.

*snip*

In our lab we are setting up experiments to evaluate the melatonin emitting response by peripheral blood lymphocytes when challenged with and without concomintastnt exposure to electric fields. If this turns out positive (i.e. if the ELF electric field inhibits the ability of PBLs to synthesise melatonin just as it does in the pineal gland, it goes a long way to explain at a cellular level how ELF electric fields can cause cancer. Of course there may be no effect, and since ithis is an importent exercise, we will report it either way in a conference in Septermber.

I do hope then, that THIS experiment will be properly designed .

The melatonin determinations need a GC/MS/MS machine to detect the indole, so most labs will not be able to do the experiment, but we are just taking delivery of a quadrupole ion trap machine wihich is upto the task.

I see you have one of those machines that go BING, but what eill you do to enable you to design valid protocols?

(Of course we are probably only doing this to make money, according to Prag.).

Nobody objects to you wanting to make money. We all need to make money. It is the WAY you make money that is the problem.

It is duly noted that Roger is now in the progress of trying to open new avenues of exchange, presumably in order to put as much distance as possible between himself and the many unanswered questions and demolished arguments earlier in this thread.

This could be interesting, since we are some who have collected his earlier statements and who will point out the self-contraditions he is bound to end up in as he further develops his ad-hoc explanations and smoke-screens.


Hans

 

[cogreslab]

To the Don: The Lagorio study is in Italian. Do you by chance have an English translation?

Ruth Travis's new study is interesting and I hope to read it in depth. Meanwhile:

Endocr Relat Cancer. 2003 Jun;10(2):153-9.

Melatonin and mammary cancer: a short review.

Sanchez-Barcelo EJ, Cos S, Fernandez R, Mediavilla MD.

Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of Cantabria, 39011 Santander, Spain. barcelo@unican.es

Melatonin is an indolic hormone produced mainly by the pineal gland. The former hypothesis of its possible role in mammary cancer development was based on the evidence that melatonin down-regulates some of the pituitary and gonadal hormones that control mammary gland development and which are also responsible for the growth of hormone-dependent mammary tumors. Furthermore, melatonin could act directly on tumoral cells, as a naturally occurring antiestrogen, thereby influencing their proliferative rate. The first reports revealed a low plasmatic melatonin concentration in women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast tumors. However, later studies on the possible role of melatonin on human breast cancer have been scarce and mostly of an epidemiological type. These studies described a low incidence of breast tumors in blind women as well as an inverse relationship between breast cancer incidence and the degree of visual impairment.

 

[cogreslab]

Hans said:

It is duly noted that Roger is now in the progress of trying to open new avenues of exchange.

Not at all. The topic is still relating to electric fields and cancer, and describes how one research group (Kato and Shigemitsu, from Hokkaido Univ, Japan) sheds plausible light on the possible mechanism of interaction.

 

[cogreslab]

Funny. I had no difficulty in finding this and other studies by Kato's group in Entrez Pubmed!

Neurosci Lett. 1994 Jan 17;166(1):59-62.


Circularly polarized 50-Hz magnetic field exposure reduces pineal gland and blood melatonin concentrations of Long-Evans rats.

Kato M, Honma K, Shigemitsu T, Shiga Y.

Department of Physiology, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.

In order to determine if pigmented rats also exhibit melatonin suppression like that described for albino rats exposed to circularly polarized, 50-Hz, 1-muT magnetic fields for 6 weeks, two experiments were conducted with Long-Evans rats. The field-exposed experimental group received circularly polarized, 50-Hz, 1-muT magnetic fields for 6 weeks, the concurrent sham-exposed control group was exposed to the stray field of 0.02 muT. In addition, prior to the exposure experiment, two cage-control groups were placed in the facility for 6 weeks without activation of the 50-Hz magnetic field generation apparatus. Rats were sacrificed at 12.00 and at 24.00 h for collection of plasma and pineal gland: melatonin was determined by radioimmunoassay. Significant reductions of plasma and pineal gland melatonin contents were observed at 0.02 muT as compared to the control values, and a further reduction was observed at 1 muT. As do albino rats, pigmented rats rats also exhibit melatonin suppression when exposed to time-varying magnetic fields.

 

[cogreslab]

So Roger uses studies of fields in the order of 2,000 to 20,000 V/m, to back his claims in the range 20-70 V/m. Go figure .

The kV fields are from powerlines, not those inside the body! Such kV fields around home can produce 70V/m fields even inside the home, despite walls being in the way.

 

[The Don]

The abstract is available in English for certain.

Also:

. However, later studies on the possible role of melatonin on human breast cancer have been scarce and mostly of an epidemiological type.

So which is it? When applied to the (non) effects of EMF w.r.t Leukemia, according to you epidemiological studies are the way to go (after all, the other studies do no support the effect.

It would appear that when it applies to women and breast cancer and melatonin, epidemiological studies are impled to be less good.

So, in your opinion CogresLab, which gives the better indication of effect ? Is it the epidemiological studies or is it instead lab-based in-vitro and in-vivio studies ?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Hans said:

It is duly noted that Roger is now in the progress of trying to open new avenues of exchange.

Not at all. The topic is still relating to electric fields and cancer, and describes how one research group (Kato and Shigemitsu, from Hokkaido Univ, Japan) sheds plausible light on the possible mechanism of interaction.

Uhh, yes. So is this a consession that everything you have presented so far has been wiped away and you are now seeking new ways to argue your basic thesis?

Otherwise, it would seem that you have some explaining to do before progressing to new areas.


Hans

 

[cogreslab]

Why do you think there should only be one mechanism? We use electricity in a variety of ways today (e.g. radio, power, etc), and so do multicellular organisms: e.g. signal transduction, ATP synthesis, immune surveillance, regulation of heart beat rate, etc.

 

[cogreslab]

The Don: The abstract is available in English for certain.


The abstract alone is not enough to give detailed consideration to this study.

 

[cogreslab]

The abstract is available in English for certain.

Also:

So which is it? When applied to the (non) effects of EMF w.r.t Leukemia, according to you epidemiological studies are the way to go (after all, the other studies do no support the effect.

It would appear that when it applies to women and breast cancer and melatonin, epidemiological studies are impled to be less good.

So, in your opinion CogresLab, which gives the better indication of effect ? Is it the epidemiological studies or is it instead lab-based in-vitro and in-vivio studies ?

Following Bradford Hill's line you need all of these to identify causation. Epi studies only report association, not causation.

 

[cogreslab]

"magnetic fields are ALWAYS closed loops WITHOUT POLES. So how can you "polarize" something that doesn't have any poles?"

Tell that to the marines. They use magnetic compasses for navigation.

 

[The Don]

The study in question was only published in its entirety in Italian. Of course w.r.t the Melatonin studies in rats, we're arguing about what causes an effect whose existence is still under debate (you see, I don't know whether power lines cause cancer because the studies I've seen are inconclusive).

Do you have a secret reserve of studies to which you can provide access (or at least point out whether you've previously referenced them in this thread) and which have not yet been superceded which indicate that there is an effect like the one you describe.


Of course the real debate actually relates to the products you endorse.

We started off by attempting to demonstrate that the magnetic devices you promote and sell are useless. We've just got sidetracked (among other things) into a discussion about whether there's even a thing from which the geegaws can protect us.

 

[Pragmatist]

The Don: The abstract is available in English for certain.


The abstract alone is not enough to give detailed consideration to this study.

Funny? It's never stopped you in the past!

 

[Pragmatist]

Funny. I had no difficulty in finding this and other studies by Kato's group in Entrez Pubmed!

Oh, well, if it was on Pubmed we can definitely disregard it, because Pubmed is slanted and biased according to you!

Joking aside, perhaps, since you clearly have no difficulty, you would care to simply tell us what the experimental setup was that produced the alleged "polarized magnetic fields"?

I mean one couldn't possibly make an assessment of the value of that data from the abstract alone as you quite rightly pointed out. So since you rely on it to support your argument, you must have the complete details of the experimental set up, right?

 

[Pragmatist]

"magnetic fields are ALWAYS closed loops WITHOUT POLES. So how can you "polarize" something that doesn't have any poles?"

Tell that to the marines. They use magnetic compasses for navigation.

Doh...! Do you actually READ the posts you reply to? Sorry, silly question!

O.K. explain to me how marines have compasses that consist of pure magnetic fields without any material parts to them? And while you're at it, you could maybe explain how these pure field devices, don't just slip through their clothing and fall out of their pockets!