Exploring Non-Thermal Mechanisms of Biological Reactions to Extremely Low-Frequency Magnetic Field Exposure

Abstract

The increasing evidence regarding biological effects of exposure to an extremely low frequency magnetic field is of utmost interest not only to the scientific community, but also to legislative bodies and the public. However, the research in this field is full of controversial and inconsistent results, originated from a lack of widely acceptable physical mechanisms that could sufficiently describe the principle of such a field’s action. This experimental study addresses and points to possible sources of ambiguities via investigation of the ion parametric resonance mechanism at 50 Hz frequency. The chosen methodology incorporates exposure of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strain based on an established exposure protocol with special attention to the measurement of an applied time-varying magnetic field corresponding to the ion parametric resonance requirements. Subsequently, the differences in cell growth as a reaction to changes in magnetic flux density are evaluated and statistically analyzed. It is found that fluctuations in the magnetic field within the exposure setup need to be addressed properly, since this could have an impact on replication of the experiments and reliability of the results. Furthermore, comparison of two independently performed sets of 10 experiments showed statistically significant effects even in conditions that did not fulfill the requirements of the resonance theory, putting the validity and practical application of the ion parametric resonance model into question.

Keywords

• grid frequency electromagnetic field
• non-thermal biological effect
• ion parametric resonance
• magnetic field monitoring