Introducing a Novel Multi-Phase Method for Effective Screening of the Individuals Diagnosed with Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity.

Dear Editor-in-Chief

Here we introduce a novel multi-phase method for effective screening of the patients diagnosed with Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). EHS is a phenomenon usually characterized by non-specific symptoms such as redness, tingling, burning sensations, fatigue, tiredness, concentration difficulties, dizziness, nausea, heart palpitation and digestive disturbances after exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs). EHS is characterized by a variety of non-specific symptoms, which afflicted individuals attribute to exposure to EMF. The symptoms most commonly experienced include dermatological symptoms as well as neurasthenic and vegetative symptoms. The collection of symptoms is not part of any recognized syndrome. World Health Organization (WHO) believes that EHS reveals as a variety of non-specific symptoms, which differs among different individuals. WHO suggests that EHS individuals, health-care professionals and employers should be informed about possible adverse health effects of exposure to EMF by the governments (1). Now there is a debate over whether EHS is unrelated to the presence of electromagnetic fields and to date the etiology of EHS is not clearly understood. The population based surveys performed over the past years have estimated the prevalence of EHS in some cities/countries; e.g. 1.5% in Sweden (2), 5% in Switzerland (3), 3.2% in California (4), 3.5% in Austria (5), 4% in the UK (6), and an extraordinary rate of 13.3% in Taiwan (7). It is hypothesized that ethnicities may play a basic role in determining the EHS risk (4). Some studies have shown that the avoidance of electromagnetic fields can help in full or partial recovery (removed or lessened symptoms) in a large proportion of EHS persons (8).

However, it is found interestingly that individuals with psychiatric problems are more likely to report sensitivity to electromagnetic fields (9). We have previously published reports on the health effects of exposure to different sources of electromagnetic fields such as mobile phones and their base stations, mobile phone jammers, laptop computers, radars, dentistry cavitrons and MRI (10–12). For introducing a method for screening of the patients diagnosed with electromagnetic hypersensitivity, we used a calibrated ICU monitoring system for recording the patient’s biological parameters such as systolic and diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, oral and peripheral temperature, heartbeat and respiration. Our method is composed of six consecutive phases; I: patient was exposed to mobile phone microwave radiations for 10 minutes. II: sham exposure for 10 minutes. III: same as phase I but the patient was informed that the mobile phone was on (in the talk mode). Phase IV, the patient was sham exposed and was informed that the mobile phone was switched off. V: same as phase I but the patient was given incorrect information (he/she was told that the mobile phone was switched off). VI: same as phase II but the patient was given incorrect information (he was told that the mobile phone was on). In each phase, patients were asked if they could feel the presence of electromagnetic fields. Our preliminary results show that EHS patients cannot recognize real and sham exposures in different phases of the experiment. Furthermore, monitoring of the patient’s biological parameters in each phase could not show statistically significant differences between the means of biological parameters in real exposure and sham exposure phases. Altogether, our preliminary findings confirm that under blind conditions, exposure to EMFs cannot trigger any subjective symptoms. Based on the findings of our multi-phase method, it can be hypothesized that neurological symptoms such as headache in EHS patients is not caused by the presence of electromagnetic fields. These findings lead us to this conclusion that psychological factors possibly play an important role in electromagnetic hypersensitivity.