Electromagnetic Fields and Health:
Steps to Reduce
Potential Risks
T
The National Cancer Institute recently
reported that in 2014 there were 1.68
million new cancer diagnoses in the
United States. Of those, over 15,000
were diagnoses made in children less
than 19. Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in this country and
the world. It is estimated that there will
be 22 million diagnoses of cancer in the
world over the next two decades.
With the cost of treatment reaching
$125 billion in 2014, epidemiologists,
researchers and physicians are looking
at lifestyle and prevention to propagate change. One of the most debated
areas of concern is that of the potential
adverse effects of electromagnetic
fields (EMFs) on health and development of cancer and other adverse
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WRITTEN BY Nancy Palermo Lietz MD
health effects. There have been concerns over health effects dating back
to the 1940s, but until recently there
have been no epidemiological studies.
The difficulty in evaluating the actual
risks lies in the fact that EMFs are
ubiquitous, and their effects are possibly related to long-term exposure. Cell
phones alone have only existed for 25
years and have just become a household norm in the last decade.
EMFs are categorized by frequency,
related to their presence along an electromagnetic spectrum. Low frequency
EMFs are produced by power lines
and household electronic appliances
and devices. They produce weak
electric currents that can flow through
the body and have been implicated in