Electromagnetic fields, oxidative stress, and neurodegeneration.

Claudia Consales,Carmela Marino,Caterina Merla,Barbara Benassi

doi:10.1155/2012/683897

Abstract

Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) originating both from both natural and manmade sources permeate our environment. As people are continuously exposed to EMFs in everyday life, it is a matter of great debate whether they can be harmful to human health. On the basis of two decades of epidemiological studies, an increased risk for childhood leukemia associated with Extremely Low Frequency fields has been consistently assessed, inducing the International Agency for Research on Cancer to insert them in the 2B section of carcinogens in 2001. EMFs interaction with biological systems may cause oxidative stress under certain circumstances. Since free radicals are essential for brain physiological processes and pathological degeneration, research focusing on the possible influence of the EMFs-driven oxidative stress is still in progress, especially in the light of recent studies suggesting that EMFs may contribute to the etiology of neurodegenerative disorders. This review synthesizes the emerging evidences about this topic, highlighting the wide data uncertainty that still characterizes the EMFs effect on oxidative stress modulation, as both pro-oxidant and neuroprotective effects have been documented. Care should be taken to avoid methodological limitations and to determine the patho-physiological relevance of any alteration found in EMFs-exposed biological system.

Highlights

Over the past several decades people have been constantly exposed to electric (E) and magnetic (H) fields from both industrial and domestic uses
The increased social and public interest in this subject, based on the epidemiological data associating the extra risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), childhood leukemia, adult brain cancer, and miscarriage with the Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) exposure of the power line radiation [3,4,5,6,7,8,9], prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) Report (2007) and WHO Environmental Health Criteria (EHC) Report (2007) to issue precautions against the ELF-EMFs [10, 11]
The biological response induced by high frequency (HF)-EMFs, mainly Radio Frequency (RF) exposure, may be instead explained by two distinct interaction mechanisms: thermal effects and nonthermal effects [35, 36]

Summary

Introduction

Over the past several decades people have been constantly exposed to electric (E) and magnetic (H) fields from both industrial and domestic uses. ROS can harm cells by depleting enzymatic and/or nonenzymatic antioxidants triggering progressive dysfunction and eventually genotoxic events [25,26,27] This redox-related mechanism has been mainly documented for the ELF-EMFs. Scaiano et al [23] first proposed that ELF-EMFs exposure can stabilize free radicals in such a way as to increase their lifetime and permit a wider dispersion rather than their return to the basal level. The biological response induced by HF-EMFs, mainly RF exposure, may be instead explained by two distinct interaction mechanisms: thermal effects (that rely on the ability of RF fields to transfer their energy to biological matter, leading to an increase in average temperature through the vibration of atoms and molecules) and nonthermal effects [35, 36] The latter only have been correlated to the generation of oxidative stress. Differences in cell lines and experimental methods, used for both in vitro and in vivo exposure, might explain, in part, these still conflicting findings

EMFs and Oxidative Stress in Brain

EMFs and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Findings

Comments and Perspectives