Magnetic Fields and Cancer: Animal and Cellular Evidence: An Overview

Abstract

A few animal studies on the possible carcinogenic effect of magnetic fields have been published. They have been designed to reveal a possible tumor promotion obtained by applying continuous or pulsed alternating fields at flux densities varying between 0.5 pT and 30 mT on mice or rats initiated with different initiators. One study with 2 mT applied on DMBA-nitiated mice may suggest a copromotive effect together with the promoter TPA. Another study on rats suggests an inihibitory effect by a magnetic field on rat liver foci formation, induced with DENA. Cell studies show that magnetic fields at some frequencies, amplitudes, and wave forms interact with biological systems. Thus effects have been seen, e.g., on enzymes related to growth regulation, on calcium balance in the cell, on gene expression, and on pineal metabolism and its excretion of the oncostatic melatonin. Cellular and physiologic studies thus suggest effects that may be related to cell multiplication and tumor promotion. -Environ Health Perspect 103(Suppl 2): 63-67 (1995)

Portable device for magnetic stimulation: Assessment survival and proliferation in human lymphocytes

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Biological side effects in systems exposed to a magnetic field have been studied in the last decades. Many studies were published about the magnetic stimulation on the algal growth and its nutrition composition, the ability of prokaryotic microorganisms to activate strategies in adapting themselves to the environmental stress induced by exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields, the growth of yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisae, the magnetic field effect in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, among other.…”