Electric Shavers Rot Your Brain

Damek writes "According to UW researchers, prolonged exposure to low-level magnetic fields, similar to those emitted by such common household devices as blow dryers, electric blankets and razors, can damage brain cell DNA. The damage appears to be cumulative, so you'd best get rid of your electric razors & blankets ASAP! The full study is available online now. No word yet for Cell Phone users' brains..."

Comments

Umm...

[inertia187]

Wouldn't this only be a problem if you use these devices every day directly in contact with your skull? I mean, is the range really that far reaching? If the range really is that far reaching, what about power tools and such? Of course, I can think of a few people [McBride] I'd like to have power tools come in direct contact with their skull, but that's beside the point.

Re:Umm...

[jejones]

Wouldn't this only be a problem if you use these devices every day directly in contact with your skull?

Hmmm...I use headphones, don't you?

Re:Umm...

[Dr. Mojura]

Exactly. This doesn't seem to take into account the possible self-repair that the brain performs. It could very well be that any damage inflicted on the brain via magnetic fields would be repaired during sleep.

It's been reported that sleep repairs the normal daily damage done on the brain from free radicals (different stages of sleep repairing different parts of the brain), and I can't see why this wouldn't carry over to magnetic damage. Is there a neurosurgeon in the house?

Re:Umm...

[AvitarX]

I don't know this physics stuff very well, but is this unique to AC?

because my razor has a battery in it (as do most I think) so it is not 60hz AC.

Also I see no mention of new fangled toothbrushs. I use one of them inside my scull everymorning.

I am too stupid to figure out how to read more then the blurb. Maybe it is the toothbrush's fault.

Minor nit to pick...

[American AC in Paris]

Exposure also resulted in a marked increase in brain cell apoptosis, or "cell suicide," a process in which a cell self-destructs because it can't repair itself.

I'd say that apoptosis is better characterized as "natural cell death". It's a natural and essential part of the cell's life cycle, and certainly isn't as alarming as the article's tone suggests.

In fact, we have a word for cells that don't undergo apoptosis: Cancer.

Radiation from Monitors

[jnguy]

How does staring at a monitor for 10-14 hours a day affect your brain? Not good is my guess.

Re:Radiation from Monitors

[mosb1000]

Of course, you should be able to tell that by how it gives you a headache after you've used it for a while. Then again, maybe I just get that from the flicker. At any rate, my girlfriends iMac doesn't have the problem. There's a NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) Spectrometer in the basement of the chemistry building where I go to school. Every-time I get near it I get a splitting headache and feel sick to my stomach (as a result I try not to get near it). I've always wondered it was the magnetic field of just the ultrasonic noise it emits.

Headphones

[Genjurosan]

What about headphones? If something powered only by a couple of AA batteries causes damage, how about my headphones with two silver dollar sized speakers in them?

uggg...

Low (?) level magnetic fields

[Mick Ohrberg]

What about living directly under a ~40kV power line?

Re:Low (?) level magnetic fields

[TechnologyX]

According to this page, it's a minimal risk. I remember a study a while back that said that communities that had standard household power lines running through the yards of the homes yielded a higher cancer rate, but now that seems to not be the case.

Better insulating perhaps?

Re:ugh.

[sacremon]

MRI tends to operate in the area of 1T, which is 2000 - 10000 times stronger than the fields used in this study.

There have been a number of studies in the past that have tried to link exposure to magnetic fields to cancer (particularly leukemia in children who live near high voltage power lines). It has generally been scoffed at, as the energies involved are not enough to break chemical bonds. However, by involving iron and free radicals, the energies involved can have an impact on reactivity.

Makes me wonder, given I did my Ph.D. dissertation in a lab that studied free radicals, using machines that generated fields of 0.3T (note, not mT) for hours at a time...

Fenton Reaction

[DynaSoar]

The effect noted in the article is hypothesized to be caused by a Fenton reaction. This is the reaction of iron with other materials to form radicals. In this case it would be to form oxidizing radicals, such as hyperoxide species. These cause oxidative stress and damage if they're too concentrated. This was discussed in a recent /. article on high EM fields (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/ 09/1223246&tid=). Their hypothesis comes from the fact that they used oxidizer scrubbers, like vitamin E, to prevent the effect. Oxidative stress is blamed for causing Parkinson's and other apoptosis based disorders, arthritis and non-viral immunosuppression (chronic fatigue/immune deficiency syndrome).

As I said then, we're sadly ignorant about the effects of water in its various conditions and products due to external forces, on our systems. We're starting to find out a lot of answers, good and bad, are focused on water. In this respect, this article makes perfect sense.