Cell Phone Addiction is More Toxic than You Think!
Technology is ever-evolving, and at a rate that makes my head spin! Wifi is more readily available everywhere, 4G is rapidly moving to LTE and 5G for cell phones, and every new electric vehicle has bluetooth capabilities and streaming now. It makes for ease in productivity, reaching out to loved ones, and media consumed and shared all at your fingertips! This is great for convenience, but not so much when it comes to our health. Many already know about the adverse health effects of blue light from additional screen time and hopefully many if not all of you are taking the precautions to reduce blue light exposure daily, especially in our beloved Silicon Valley, where everything has a monitor.
UNFORTUNATELY with increasing electric wiring and cell towers and expanding coverage, there is another concern that has great impact on our health, which many are noticing with increase in EMF output (electromagnetic fields). My mom experienced this firsthand when she started to get migraines after sleeping with her phone under her pillow every night for months. It prompted me to look more into the research and is the topic I wanted to touch on today.
In 2017, there was a study that can be found HERE. It talks about the thermal and nonthermal effects of EMF on the body on the cellular level. It was previously thought to only be of concern if the EMF was high enough to elicit a thermal response, but more research has found that there is an effect from nonthermal levels of EMF, particularly in cellular function and metabolism. Here are some highlights from this review.
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" Exposure to EMF has been observed to cause increased free radical production in the cellular environment....In this case, antioxidant defense mechanisms are impaired by being subjected to an agent that causes overproduction of ROS, including EMF, thus resulting in oxidative stress [11,12]. Studies in recent years have reported that free radicals play a major role in the mechanism behind many diseases, such as diabetes and cancer [13,14,15]. However, there is still much uncertainty on the subject, and several questions remain to be answered."
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"Oxidative stress plays an important role in DNA damage process, general and specific gene expression and cell apoptosis. The brain has a high metabolic rate, making it more prone to damage by ROS and oxidative damage compared to other organs... Several studies have observed neuronal damage and cellular losses caused by exposure to EMF in many regions of the brain, including the cortex, basal ganglia, hippocampus and cerebellum [71,72,73,74,75].Another case control study by Villeneuve et al. reported a 5.3-fold increased risk of one brain cancer type, glioblastoma, in individuals exposed to EMF, but no increased risk for other brain cancers [80]."
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On that study, you can also find a chart that shows the different organs that can be negatively effected by EMF exposure ranging from kidneys to cornea of eyes, to reproductive system and sperm count.
Here is another study in 2022 about EMF exposure hindering brain growth in early brain development in mice. This is a systemic review on sperm count and pregnancy outcomes in 2021.
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Needless to say, there's a good amount of information on Pub Med that you can find about EMF and the increasing risk factor that they pose on our health. It's particularly concerning because now more and more younger kids are being exposed to EMF as well. I often see toddlers handling cell phones at restaurants or with tablets in classrooms.
Technology is just part of the ever evolving world that we live in, but it makes it even more imperative for us to figure out how to coexist with reducing the risk of damage to ourselves and our children.
But what can we do? Well, there are EMF "blockers" that are advertised as stickers that you can put on your devices, or wearable pieces but do they work? Going down the rabbit hole of diff products and companies, the reviews and results are variable. I tend to follow the research, and I did find a company that provides independent third party and randomized control trial studies for the efficacy of their EMF harmonizing products. Unlike other companies, they do not claim to BLOCK EMF's (because if you blocked it your devices wouldn't work). Instead, they show studies of their products protect with heart rate variability and brain scans on their website HERE.
Read more of WHY with the research and information they extract with their resources including government research, books, and videos.
Being the type to practice what I preach, I have been beta testing EMF Harmony's products in the office with my team and a few select patients for the past month. Vanessa and Dr. Garrett and I have the cell phone harmonizer, I used the wifi one for the office, and myself and several patients have the wearable bracelet as well.
Feedback so far has been positive, with most people reporting improved sleep, more energy upon waking, general improved clarity and less "brain fog." The biggest change was Vanessa, who said that typically by the end of the day she feels "loopy" and in mornings she feels "groggy" with all the screen time she has in office and at home. Now, she notices that both the feeling of loopy and grogginess are near gone!
With our changing world, natural health seems more out of grasp, but I strive to find simple solutions to invisible problems that can have a great impact on your health! If you are eating well, moving well, reducing your known stressors with meditation/journaling/reading, etc and are still finding health related issues that are "unexplainable," it is definitely worth investigating things like EMF exposure that could be impacting us on a cellular level!
