Bioelectromagnetics Applications in Medicine

PANEL MEMBERS AND CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS

Beverly Rubik, Ph.D.--Chair, Robert O. Becker, M.D., Robert G. Flower, M.S., Carlton F. Hazlewood, Ph.D., Abraham R. Liboff, Ph.D., Jan Walleczek, Ph.D.

Overview

Bioelectromagnetics (BEM) is the emerging science that studies how living organisms interact with electromagnetic (EM) fields. Electrical phenomena are found in all living organisms. Moreover, electrical currents exist in the body that are capable of producing magnetic fields that extend outside the body. Consequently, they can be influenced by external magnetic and EM fields as well. Changes in the body's natural fields may produce physical and behavioral changes. To understand how these field effects may occur, it is first useful to discuss some basic phenomena associated with EM fields.

In its simplest form, a magnetic field is a field of magnetic force extending out from a permanent magnet. Magnetic fields are produced by moving electrical currents. For example, when an electrical current flows in a wire, the movement of the electrons through the wire produces a magnetic field in the space around the wire (fig. 1). If the current is a direct current (DC), it flows in one direction and the magnetic field is steady. If the electrical current in the wire is pulsing, or fluctuating--such as in alternating current (AC), which means the current flow is switching directions--the magnetic field also fluctuates. The strength of the magnetic field depends on the amount of current flowing in the wire; the more current, the stronger the magnetic field. An EM field contains both an electrical field and a magnetic field. In the case of a fluctuating magnetic or EM field, the field is characterized by its rate, or frequency, of fluctuation (e.g., one fluctuation per second is equal to 1 hertz [Hz], the unit of frequency).

A field fluctuating in this fashion theoretically extends out in space to infinity, decreasing in strength with distance and ultimately becoming lost in the jumble of other EM and magnetic fields that fill space. Since it is fluctuating at a certain frequency, it also has a wave motion (fig. 2). The wave moves outward at the speed of light (roughly 186,000 miles per second). As a result, it has a wavelength (i.e., the distance between crests of the wave) that is inversely related to its frequency. For example, a 1-Hz frequency has a wavelength of millions of miles, whereas a 1-million-Hz, or 1-megahertz (MHz), frequency has a wavelength of several hundred feet, and a 100-MHz frequency has a wavelength of about 6 feet.

All of the known frequencies of EM waves or fields are represented in the EM spectrum, ranging from DC (zero frequency) to the highest frequencies, such as gamma and cosmic rays. The EM spectrum includes x rays, visible light, microwaves, and television and radio frequencies, among many others. Moreover, all EM fields are force fields that carry energy through space and are capable of producing an effect at a distance. These fields have characteristics of both waves and particles. Depending on what types of experiments one does to investigate light, radio waves, or any other part of the EM spectrum, one will find either waves or particles called photons.

A photon is a tiny packet of energy that has no measurable mass. The greater the energy of the photon, the greater the frequency associated with its waveform. The human eye detects only a narrow band of frequencies within the EM spectrum, that of light. One photon gives up its energy to the retina in the back of the eye, which converts it into an electrical signal in the nervous system that produces the sensation of light.

The classification of EM fields in terms of their frequency of oscillation, ranges from DC through extremely low frequency (ELF), low frequency, radio frequency (RF), microwave and radar, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x rays, and gamma rays. For oscillating fields, the higher the frequency, the greater the energy.

Endogenous fields (those produced within the body) are to be distinguished from exogenous fields (those produced by sources outside the body). Exogenous EM fields can be classified as either natural, such as the earth's geomagnetic field, or artificial (e.g., power lines, transformers, appliances, radio transmitters, and medical devices). The term electropollution refers to artificial EM fields that may be associated with health risks.

In radiation biophysics, an EM field is classified as ionizing if its energy is high enough to dislodge electrons from an atom or molecule. High-energy, high-frequency forms of EM radiation, such as gamma rays and x rays, are strongly ionizing in biological matter. For this reason, prolonged exposure to such rays is harmful. Radiation in the middle portion of the frequency and energy spectrum--such as visible, especially ultraviolet, light--is weakly ionizing (i.e., it can be ionizing or not, depending on the target molecules).

Although it has long been known that exposure to strongly ionizing EM radiation can cause extreme damage in biological tissues, only recently have epidemiological studies and other evidence implicated long-term exposure to nonionizing, exogenous EM fields, such as those emitted by power lines, in increased health hazards. These hazards may include an increased risk in children of developing leukemia (Bierbaum and Peters, 1991; Nair et al., 1989; Wilson et al., 1990a).

However, it also has been discovered that oscillating nonionizing EM fields in the ELF range can have vigorous biological effects that may be beneficial and thus nonharmful (Becker and Marino, 1982; Brighton and Pollack, 1991). This discovery is a cornerstone in the foundation of BEM research and application.

Specific changes in the field configuration and exposure pattern of low-level EM fields can produce highly specific biological responses. More intriguing, some specific frequencies have highly specific effects on tissues in the body, just as drugs have their specific effects on target tissues. The actual mechanism by which EM fields produce biological effects is under intense study. Evidence suggests that the cell membrane may be one of the primary locations where applied EM fields act on the cell. EM forces at the membrane's outer surface could modify ligand-receptor interactions (e.g., the binding of messenger chemicals such as hormones and growth factors to specialized cell membrane molecules called receptors), which in turn would alter the state of large membrane molecules that play a role in controlling the cell's internal processes (Tenforde and Kaune, 1987). Experiments to establish the full details of a mechanistic chain of events such as this, however, are just beginning.

Another line of study focuses on the endogenous EM fields. At the level of body tissues and organs, electrical activity is known to exhibit macroscopic patterns that contain medically useful information. For example, the diagnostic procedures of electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocardiography are based on detection of endogenous EM fields produced in the central nervous system and heart muscle, respectively. Taking the observations in these two systems a step further, current BEM research is exploring the possibility that weak EM fields associated with nerve activity in other tissues and organs might also carry information of diagnostic value. New technologies for constructing extremely sensitive EM transducers (e.g., magnetometers and electrometers) and for signal processing recently have made this line of research feasible.

Recent BEM research has uncovered a form of endogenous EM radiation in the visible region of the spectrum that is emitted by most living organisms, ranging from plant seeds to humans (Chwirot et al., 1987, Mathew and Rumar, in press, Popp et al., 1984, 1988, 1992). Some evidence indicates that this extremely low-level light, known as biophoton emission, may be important in bioregulation, membrane transport, and gene expression. It is possible that the effects (both beneficial and harmful) of exogenous fields may be mediated by alterations in endogenous fields. Thus, externally applied EM fields from medical devices may act to correct abnormalities in endogenous EM fields characteristic of disease states. Furthermore, the energy of the biophotons and processes involving their emission as well as other endogenous fields of the body may prove to be involved in energetic therapies, such as healer interactions.

At the cutting edge of BEM research lies the question of how endogenous body EM fields may change as a result of changes in consciousness. The recent formation and rapid growth of a new society, the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine, is indicative of the growing interest in this field.

Medical Applications of Bioelectromagnetics

Medical research applications of BEM began almost simultaneously with Michael Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction in the late 1700s. Immediately thereafter came the famous experiments of the 18th-century physician and physicist Luigi Galvani, who showed with frog legs that there was a connection between electricity and muscle contraction. This was followed by the work of Alessandro Volta, the Italian physicist whose investigation into electricity led him to correctly interpret Galvani's experiments with muscle, showing that the metal electrodes and not the tissue generated the current. From this early work came a plethora of devices for the diagnosis and treatment of disease, using first static electricity, then electrical currents, and, later, frequencies from different regions of the EM spectrum. Like other treatment methods, certain devices were seen as unconventional at first, only to become widely accepted later. For example, many of the medical devices that make up the core of modern, scientifically based medicine, such as x-ray devices, at one time were considered highly experimental.

Most of today's medical EM devices use relatively large levels of electrical, magnetic, or EM energy. The main topic of this chapter, however, is the use of the nonionizing portion of the EM spectrum, particularly at low levels, which is the focus of BEM research.

Nonionizing BEM medical applications may be classified according to whether they are thermal (heat producing in biologic tissue) or nonthermal. Thermal applications of nonionizing radiation (i.e., application of heat) include RF hyperthermia, laser and RF surgery, and RF diathermy.

The most important BEM modalities in alternative medicine are the nonthermal applications of nonionizing radiation. The term nonthermal is used with two different meanings in the medical and scientific literature. Biologically (or medically) nonthermal means that it "causes no significant gross tissue heating"; this is the most common usage. Physically (or scientifically) nonthermal means "below the thermal noise limit at physiological temperatures." The energy level of thermal noise is much lower than that required to cause heating of tissue; thus, any physically nonthermal application is automatically biologically nonthermal.

All of the nonthermal applications of nonionizing radiation are nonthermal in the biological sense. That is, they cause no significant heating of tissue. Some of the newer, unconventional BEM applications are also physically nonthermal. A variety of alternative medical practices developed outside the United States employ nonionizing EM fields at nonthermal intensities. For instance, microwave resonance therapy, which is used primarily in Russia, employs low-intensity (either continuous or pulse-modulated), sinusoidal microwave radiation to treat a variety of conditions, including arthritis, ulcers, esophagitis, hypertension, chronic pain, cerebral palsy, neurological disorders, and side effects of cancer chemotherapy (Devyatkov et al., 1991). Thousands of people in Russia also have been treated by specific frequencies of extremely low-level microwaves applied at certain acupuncture points.

The mechanism of action of microwave resonance therapy is thought to involve modifications in cell membrane transport or production of chemical mediators or both. Although a sizable body of Russian-language literature on this technique already exists, no independent validation studies have been conducted in the West. However, if such treatments prove to be effective, current views on the role of information and thermal noise (i.e., order and disorder) in living systems, which hold that biological information is stored in molecular structures, may need revision. It may be that such information is stored at the level of the whole organism in the endogenous EM field, which may be used informationally in biological regulation and cellular communication (i.e., not due to energy content or power intensity). If exogenous, extremely low-level nonionizing fields with energy contents well below the thermal noise limit produce biological effects, they may be acting on the body in such a way that they alter the body's own field. That is to say, biological information would be altered by the exogenous EM fields.

The eight major new (or "unconventional") applications of nonthermal, nonionizing EM fields are as follows:

1. Bone repair.

2. Nerve stimulation.

3. Wound healing.

4. Treatment of osteoarthritis.

5. Electroacupuncture.

6. Tissue regeneration.

7. Immune system stimulation.

8. Neuroendocrine modulations.

These applications of BEM and the evidence for their efficacy are discussed in the following section.

Research Base

Applications 1 through 5 above have been clinically tested and are in limited clinical use. On the basis of existing animal and cellular studies, applications 6 through 8 offer the potential for developing new clinical treatments, but clinical trials have not yet been conducted.

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From http://www.naturalhealthvillage.com/reports/rpt2oam/applications.htm