EMF Radiation (electromagnetic field radiation) with Daniel DeBaun

07/12/19 • 37 min

The Functional Medicine Radio Show With Dr. Carri

In this episode of The Functional Medicine Radio Show, Dr. Carri’s special guest Daniel DeBaun talks about EMF radiation (electromagnetic field radiation), and its effect on health.

Daniel DeBaun is an internationally recognized expert in EMF radiation, EMF shielding, and EMF-related health issues with special focus on the effect of exposure from mobile devices such as laptops, tablets, and cell phones. Daniel’s concern regarding the health impact of EMF emissions grew from over thirty years of engineering experience in the telecommunication industry, where he held a variety of executive positions at SAIC, Telcordia, AT&T, and Bell Labs. He is the co-author of Radiation Nation: The Fallout of Modern Technology.

Main Questions Asked about EMF radiation:

What is EMF radiation?
Where does EMF radiation come from?
How does EMF radiation damage our bodies?
How can we protect ourselves?

Key Points made by Daniel DeBaun on EMF radiation:

100 years ago, electromagnetic radiation didn’t exist in our lives. Nature doesn’t generate emissions that can potentially be dangerous to our bodies.
One major source of EMF radiation is all the devices we use to communicate with – cell phones, Wi-Fi, Blue-tooth,
Another is when you have an electric motor – e. g., refrigerator, hair dryer, etc. – as a byproduct it releases emissions into the air.
As little as 6-7 years ago, I didn’t think that the low level signals from a laptop could be harmful to the body; but I looked into it and found that there was a lot of research as to how these signals were interrupting our body’s behavior.
To be more specific, when you have a cell phone to your head or when you have a laptop in your lap, the emissions are touching the cells of the body. With the constant aggressive radio frequency signal touching the body like that, the cell becomes diminished in its capacity to defend itself.
At the same time, there’s an immune suppression effect from these devices, which can significantly worsen an already compromised immune system.
You can have mutated cells, you can have DNA damage, you can all kinds of potentially longer lasting health problems.
For a bit of context, a microwave oven is around 2.3 gigahertz which is transmitted into the water in your meat, it oscillates the cells and, all of a sudden, your meat is cooked.
It turns out that cell phone emissions are around two gigahertz. Just like the microwave it is a thermal-emitting signal. The standard for cell phones is that the cell phone is allowed to increase the temperature of the head around the cell phone by two degrees and the signal is allowed to penetrate one inch into the skull.
Fast forward 30 years and you have children using cell phones, not the six-foot males that the standard was based on. The same signal is going completely through a six-year old child. Children are three times more vulnerable than adults.
Over the last ten years, research says that frontal lobe cancer has increased by two percent per year, compounding every year; this being the primary cancer for cell phone exposure.
With children, however, we’re also looking at neurological impacts – e. g., ADHD, and child behavioral problems – we’re talking about all kinds of disruption of brain patterns. We’re looking at a lifetime of exposure.
EMF radiation symptoms are somewhat non-specific. You have a headache today, is it because you have blue light, i. e., visible light exposure to the retina? Or is it because you have a radio signal from your router that’s two foot away from you bothering your brain and the panels of the brain? There are just so many symptoms that rear their ugly head, and it’s hard to prove.
Furthermore, blue light is a component of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum that actually is visible. And it turns out; its strength is really, really strong.
So what you want to avoid is exposure before going to bed, as this disrupts creation of melatonin which disrupts your circadian rhythm which can lead to a whole raft of problems.
One of the best ways to protect yourself, is to know where the EMF radiation is coming from – when a cell phone is on it’s constantly transmitting to the tower, your Wi-Fi is constantly transmitting to the router, – then, ask yourself if you need all those transmitters. Reduce the number of transmitters in a room, and you begin reducing your exposure.
The worst case of poten...

In this episode of The Functional Medicine Radio Show, Dr. Carri’s special guest Daniel DeBaun talks about EMF radiation (electromagnetic field radiation), and its effect on health.

Main Questions Asked about EMF radiation:

What is EMF radiation?
Where does EMF radiation come from?
How does EMF radiation damage our bodies?
How can we protect ourselves?

Key Points made by Daniel DeBaun on EMF radiation:

100 years ago, electromagnetic radiation didn’t exist in our lives. Nature doesn’t generate emissions that can potentially be dangerous to our bodies.
One major source of EMF radiation is all the devices we use to communicate with – cell phones, Wi-Fi, Blue-tooth,
Another is when you have an electric motor – e. g., refrigerator, hair dryer, etc. – as a byproduct it releases emissions into the air.
As little as 6-7 years ago, I didn’t think that the low level signals from a laptop could be harmful to the body; but I looked into it and found that there was a lot of research as to how these signals were interrupting our body’s behavior.
To be more specific, when you have a cell phone to your head or when you have a laptop in your lap, the emissions are touching the cells of the body. With the constant aggressive radio frequency signal touching the body like that, the cell becomes diminished in its capacity to defend itself.
At the same time, there’s an immune suppression effect from these devices, which can significantly worsen an already compromised immune system.
You can have mutated cells, you can have DNA damage, you can all kinds of potentially longer lasting health problems.
For a bit of context, a microwave oven is around 2.3 gigahertz which is transmitted into the water in your meat, it oscillates the cells and, all of a sudden, your meat is cooked.
It turns out that cell phone emissions are around two gigahertz. Just like the microwave it is a thermal-emitting signal. The standard for cell phones is that the cell phone is allowed to increase the temperature of the head around the cell phone by two degrees and the signal is allowed to penetrate one inch into the skull.
Fast forward 30 years and you have children using cell phones, not the six-foot males that the standard was based on. The same signal is going completely through a six-year old child. Children are three times more vulnerable than adults.
Over the last ten years, research says that frontal lobe cancer has increased by two percent per year, compounding every year; this being the primary cancer for cell phone exposure.
With children, however, we’re also looking at neurological impacts – e. g., ADHD, and child behavioral problems – we’re talking about all kinds of disruption of brain patterns. We’re looking at a lifetime of exposure.
EMF radiation symptoms are somewhat non-specific. You have a headache today, is it because you have blue light, i. e., visible light exposure to the retina? Or is it because you have a radio signal from your router that’s two foot away from you bothering your brain and the panels of the brain? There are just so many symptoms that rear their ugly head, and it’s hard to prove.
Furthermore, blue light is a component of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum that actually is visible. And it turns out; its strength is really, really strong.
So what you want to avoid is exposure before going to bed, as this disrupts creation of melatonin which disrupts your circadian rhythm which can lead to a whole raft of problems.
One of the best ways to protect yourself, is to know where the EMF radiation is coming from – when a cell phone is on it’s constantly transmitting to the tower, your Wi-Fi is constantly transmitting to the router, – then, ask yourself if you need all those transmitters. Reduce the number of transmitters in a room, and you begin reducing your exposure.
The worst case of poten...

Previous Episode

PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) with Dr. Jordan Robertson

In this episode of The Functional Medicine Radio Show, Dr. Carri’s special guest Dr. Jordan Robertson explains PCOS – Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome – which is a very common cause for sporadic or no menstrual cycles..

Dr. Jordan Robertson is a naturopathic doctor and women’s health author. Through her experience in medical literature review, critical appraisal and research, Dr. Robertson has published over 12 literature reviews on women’s health, and has worked closely with McMaster University, writing and facilitating courses on integrative medicine for the last 10 years, speaking for their medical school and working off-site for the Endometriosis Clinic at McMaster Hospital. Dr. Robertson has most recently lectured for the Ontario Association of Naturopathic Doctors convention on PCOS, PMS, PMDD and Endometriosis, and has published a book for women, Carrying to Term, on reducing miscarriage risk. In her clinical practice she focuses on women’s health issues including PMS, PCOS, infertility, menopause and breast cancer recovery.

Main Questions Asked about PCOS:

What is PCOS?
What are the signs and symptoms of PCOS?
Why is making the diagnosis for PCOS so hard?
What are the treatment options available?

Key Points made by Dr. Robertson about PCOS:

PCOS is essentially a metabolic disease that shows up as a hormonal disease in women where the crux of the issue is centered around insulin impacting ovulation and influencing testosterone and the expression or regulation of normal female hormones.
Symptoms include cycles where women don’t ovulate so they may not get a period for some time or have sporadic periods.
It may also show up as elevated testosterone, so for women that shows up often as unwanted hair growth, as acne, and may have almost a male pattern hair loss on their head.
We often find that women, even if they sort of appear as if they have a normal body weight, they actually carry higher fat mass than women without POCS and so they may actually have elevated BMI or they may be a normal body weight.
I think that if women are seeing those changes to their cycle or they’re maybe looking back thinking, “you know what, my cycle was never really regular ever,” they should approach their physician to be assessed because there is such a delay in making an accurate diagnosis for women.
Women with PCOS are at risk for more cardio metabolic disease, they’re at risk for unique cancers like endometrial cancer, and so if they’re not well treated and not well identified, we’re really missing an opportunity for preventative medicine for the future.
Even the name, Polycystic Ovaries, is slightly misleading because we used to only make that diagnosis if women had cysts on their ovaries, and what we’ve found over time is that’s not a necessary feature to struggle with the metabolic disturbances of PCOS.
Diagnosing PCOS involves looking for a collection of symptoms,versus a definitive list of symptoms, so we struggle to either put people in that category or not , when truthfully, we shouldn’t really be declining treatment for women just because they don’t quite fit the diagnosis.
Even women who half fit the diagnosis for PCOS would benefit from some of the diet, lifestyle, and supplement interventions that we use.
Some symptoms of PCOS get dramatically worse during that perimenopausal period, so certainly if women noticed a rapid change in any of those symptoms, that would maybe lead to an assessment.
We have even studies that show that depending on how we apply the diagnostic criteria, we get different answers. So, some studies show eight percent of women have PCOS, some show as high as 15 or 17 percent, and it depends on which diagnostic criteria we use.
Metformin or oral contraceptives are conventional treatments which do have good evidence for reducing cancer risk in women with PCOS.
The greatest clinical benefit comes from diet and weight loss.
Only a few supplements have been shown to have dramatic clinical benefit in PCOS, fish oil being one of them. It improves insulin sensitivity, lowers inflammation, and improves mood in women with PCOS.
Inositol is probably one of the best studied nutritional supplements out there. Inositol improves insulin sensitivity and actually helps encourage better ovulation rates.
The third most important supplement would be vitamin D
Birth control pills induce a withdrawal bleed, or at least prevent women from having endometrial growth which d...

Next Episode

Pain with Dr. Ann-Marie Barter

In this episode of The Functional Medicine Radio Show, Dr. Carri’s special guest Dr. Ann-Marie Barter explains the links between functional medicine and some of the surprising causes of pain.

Dr. Ann-Marie Barter is on the cutting edge of holistic healthcare. As a chiropractor and functional medicine practitioner, she helps people get out of pain and reach their maximum potential through her unique approach she has developed after studying under some of the finest minds in her field.

She now specializes in difficult functional medicine cases, helping people with issues concerning their thyroid, blood sugar, gut health and hormone dysfunction as well as other metabolic conditions.

Main Questions Asked about Pain:

What are some of the things we can think about as the root underlying causes of chronic pain?
What about the thyroid?
How can the gut microbiome impact people with pain?
What else do you think about for patients with pain?

Key Points made by Dr. Barter about Pain:

My first approach is lab work, but I also like to lay my hands on the patient just to see what is going on. If this indicates systemic inflammation, I look at their labs to see if there’s some kind of underlying infection.
A lot of times chronic infections are low grade until a stressful event triggers them and, suddenly, you have this systemic chronic pain that won’t go away no matter what they try.
I recently had a case with severe shoulder, neck and upper back pain that flared up when she was moving into a new home. In looking at the labs, it turned out she had autoimmune thyroid and ultimately had a chronic low grade viral infection, after we started treating the viral infection, suddenly all her pain cleared up.
So you see those simple cases, just may not be. Because inflammation can present as pain, but doing structural work is not what we need to do to address the main cause.
When we’re looking at reference ranges, it’s a standard deviation of the population – meaning that whoever had lab work done at that lab that year is compared. So if your population is sick or average, you’re put into that normal group, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have symptoms.
But 90% of the time, the CBC is completely ignored. These patients end up on anti-depressants, and pain medications that aren’t working. And, infections are a huge, huge cause of overall chronic pain.
And vitamin D levels for most people are chronically low. And very low levels lead to an increased risk of autoimmune disease; and increased symptoms of fatigue, pain, anxiety, etc. Everyone presents differently with autoimmune disease
We also see a lot of thyroid cases in my office, the big reason being that so many patients with autoimmune thyroids present with pain – they have depression, they have anxiety, they have just chronic headaches and chronic pain.
Ultimately when you start to drill down in their particular labs, you see very high levels of inflammation and also that they have autoimmune thyroid; we’ve also made connections to some viral infections that seem to be high as well in any sort of Hashimoto’s case or autoimmune thyroid.
Another issue is an under-conversion problem, primarily in the liver, wherein T4 is not being converted to the active T3 form of your thyroid hormones. So if TSH is the only thing that they’re checking, something is being missed.
I also think about environmental exposures to chemicals; most of my patients are exposed to about 70,000 chemicals per day. When we look at the labs we see a little bit of functional fatty liver, so they’re not processing the toxins the way they should.
If you have a low functioning thyroid, everything in the system slows down; every enzyme reaction is slower; you can even see the gallbladder contracting slower on ultrasound.
So we actually have a detox issue; and one thing I’ve found very interesting is that most of these patients don’t sweat. I believe it’s really important to get somebody sweating, because one of their main detoxification pathways is not working.
The gut microbiome is a big issue; it’s influenced by what we eat. Has our meat or dairy been exposed to antibiotics, have our grain products been exposed to pesticides? This affects our gut and creates a leaky gut syndrome.
And when the foods we eat are going where they’re not supposed to go, we can have chronic problems every time we eat that food.
I find that doing a very strict elimination diet for about a month and then slowly incorporating foods is effective. It’s an intuitive way to say “How do I feel when I eat this food?” and determine food sensitiv...