Cell Phone Radiation, EMF & Electrical Pollution

• National Toxicity Program
• Bioinitiative Report
• NTP Evaluation of Carcinogenicity of Cell Phone Radiation
• Ramazzini Institute in Italy
• Iris
• Doctor’s Data GI 360 Test Kit

INTRO:

Welcome to Dr. Ruscio radio, providing practical and science-based solutions to feeling your best. To stay up to date on the latest topics as well as all of our prior episodes, please make sure to subscribe in your podcast player. For weekly updates, visit DrRuscio.com. The following discussion is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. Please do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor. Now let’s head to the show.

DrMichaelRuscio:

Hi everyone. Today, I speak with Daniel DeBaun about EMF, radiation, cell phone exposure. Something that we’ve discussed on the podcast in the past and I feel as if when we do subsequent interviews, they get better and better each time. This interview really did layout a good explanation as to what you have to avoid and reasonable ways to avoid it. My concern here, which I do share in the podcast is that some who have taken up the mantle of educating people on the dangers of excessive exposure may have gone a bit over the deep end with how rigorous we have to be in our mitigation and/or our avoidance. I feel like Dan, really, as a scientist, did an excellent job of toeing that line that will reduce your exposure to some of the documented negative health effects to male sperm, female fertility, neurological health, oncological health, among others. At the same time, not tipping you over to fear and recommendations that are almost impossible to adhere to. So a great conversation with him today. I hope you will enjoy it and if so, please head over to iTunes and give the podcast a review. Okay, here we go to the show.

DrMR:

Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Dr. Ruscio Radio. This is Dr. Ruscio. Today I’m here with Daniel DeBaun and we will be discussing the world of EMF exposure and dirty electricity pollution from EMFs, which can be a challenging topic to get a non-biased read on. Dan has a pretty interesting background and I think he’s going to be able to give us a good, even-handed narrative here. So Dan, I’m really looking forward to digging in on this topic and welcome to the show.

Daniel DeBaun:

Dr. Ruscio, Thanks so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it. I look forward to chatting with your listening audience. So again for inviting me, absolutely.

Daniel DeBaun’s Story

DrMR:

You know, we were just talking offline and you were giving me some of the backstory. I think we should start there because you kind of started into this field with a bit of skepticism, which to me is refreshing because it’s always important to challenge views. Unfortunately in natural medicine it does seem that a lot of opinions are based upon a priori assumptions and there’s not a good scrutinization back to science to make sure that we’re cultivating out of our recommendations things that are devoid of any kind of scientific mooring. So why don’t we just start with kind of your background and how you got into this field and then we can go from there.

DD:

So Mike, probably for 30 some odd years, I participated and actually ran the organizations that developed standards for telecommunications technologies. So my role in life was to define what a piece of technology should do. And then I had another division that actually tested to see if those standards were compliant with the technologies we looked at from the various vendors. So I had a rich history and scientific background, and I was very precise in how I evaluated that technology. So fast forward, about 10 years or so ago, I had my sons visiting and they were adult men and they were using their laptops three or four hours at a time. And my wife walks by and she’s a social worker, right? So she says that technology on your lap can’t be good and I want grandchildren. That’s what she said to them. So I thought about it for a second. I said, there’s no way the power levels that were emitting from that technology could any way influence a cell. That was my opinion at that time. But because of my scientific background and my research work, I decided, well, let me go take a quick look. Believe it or not, even at that time, we knew that after three or four hours of exposure from a laptop that the male sperm was over 20-25% immobile. So we knew, clearly, from multiple data studies that there was an influence when a male put a laptop on their lap. Literally that’s what started me. I began the journey of trying to understand the physics of radiation to the biology of the body. So that’s where I started.

Health Effects of EMF Radiation

DrMR:

I’ve heard that in Asia, it’s fairly common for both women and men to wear kind of EMF shielding garments, and probably in part for the reason that you cited there. Do you want to talk more about some of the most deleterious impacts that EMF and similar exposure have on the human body?

DD:

I will, but let me reinforce something first. It is interesting that you say that because I created a shielding device for my sons that actually shielded both the radio frequency, the RF, as well as the extremely low frequency, the ELF, which are much lower rates. I built them and we began selling them to the community. Believe it or not, we were selling them in Europe before we were selling in the US. It was ironic. So you’re right, Mike, there were different understandings of it, depending on what part of the world you’re in and in the U S we seem to be behind many others that seem to have a have a better understanding than we do.

DD:

What we now know from a plethora of research, thousands and thousands of reports of well-documented scientific research about the impact to the body and the cells. We know there are neurological impacts. When you have a cell phone to your head, you got a signal going through towards your brain. We’re going to talk a little bit more about what the science of this is, but it goes into the brain. It goes particularly into the very soft tissue of the frontal lobe. There are neurological impacts such as mood changes, we have research that talks about that level of impact. So that’s the starting point, which by the way, I consider pretty important on this laundry list. There are physiological changes. There’s tingling in your hands, potentially, particularly if you’re hypersensitive. Your eyes hurt, maybe you have tendonitis, possibly headaches. You may have nausea, insomnia, headaches and pains, fatigue, dizziness. You may be depressed. Burning sensations. Actually it’s a microwave signals. So when you feel burning, it is literally the start of a microwave signal and what it does to the body. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that. Then there are allergy like symptoms. There are concussion-like symptoms, believe it or not. And then of course, as we we talked about at the beginning, infertility. There are known cancer causing impacts, and there is some very, very large study work on that we can talk about and there are many other chronic illnesses. So it’s a plethora of stuff going on when you have exposures to this electromagnetic radiation in our lives and the sources by the way, are the microwave, the laptop, the tablet, the cell phone.

DD:

And if you think about it, Mike, all of these kinds of devices really have only been in our lives over the last 10 years or so. You know, I had a cell phone when they first came out but I had no one to call because none of my friends had cell phones. Now, of course, at six years old, you’re given a cell phone and you’re calling your grandma from it. So the use of this technology and our environment and how it may be influencing our body even over the last 10 years has fundamentally changed.

Evidence for Harmful Effects of EMFs

DrMR:

Let’s talk about the evidence that supports this. I think most people understand that there can be an impact, but they question, as you had questioned way back when, is the amplitude, the duration, the intensity enough to cause any type of ill effect. And we’ve had guests on the podcast in the past that have said, yes, it is. But I think for those who are sitting on the fence or skeptical, hearing about what has been documented is really helpful to kind of sway them. So let’s go into what some of the better evidence here has found.

DD:

Okay. So in the world of medical study, as in the world of electronics, by the way, when when you evaluate something and then you standardize it saying “I just tested it and it looks like this”, there’s a certain confidence level you have with what you’re stating. So in the past five years or further out, most of the studies had populations of 50, 100, 200, 500 participants. So when they would find a result, it wasn’t statistically significant. To be statistically significant, you have the need for very, very broad population sizes. So we have all these studies that were done, but none of them were statistically significant. Now as a side note, if you look at the metadata, which is the data of all of these studies, it’s overwhelming evidence, but individual studies themselves were not statistically significant. Then about seven, eight years ago, the national toxicity program, which is a part of the federal government funded a $25,000 study epidemiology study. They took very large populations and they exposed very large populations. Then they had those who weren’t exposed. Because the populations were so broad, they were able to say at the end of the study, “look, this is what we found and it’s statistically significant”. So the national toxicity program actually was intended to sort of dispel the linkage between a cell phone and frontal lobe cancer. Ironically, it came out and pointed out that there’s a statistically significant increase of exposed populations.

DD:

So all of a sudden we now had epidemiology study that showed a direct correlation in a closed environment that showed a direct link. After that, there was a Ramezani study out of Italy. Ramezani is a Institute that brings together researchers and scientists, and they collaborate in Europe. The Ramezani Institute did an almost identical research study with statistical samples that were broad enough and believe it or not, they found the same statistical significance. What I didn’t mention, it was not only the frontal lobe, but it was the heart. A lot of us were surprised about that. But Mike, as you know, the frontal lobe is very, very soft tissue and so is the heart so it wasn’t terribly surprising. So, now we have very large epidimiology studies that are clear and evident. And then you look at the thousands and thousands of research study work that’s been done and it’s very, very specific stuff that’s going on. It’s well-documented, it’s well-written and it’s well executed and there is clear evidence that some would say eliminates all doubt. Then of course, on the other side of the fence, Mike, we have those who don’t think there’s any evidence at all. You know, it’s funny, I was reading an article by a biochemist and this individual said there was no link. And I’m thinking to myself, you as a biochemist for sure should understand that there’s clear evidence, whether it is significant enough for you to agree or not is another discussion, but there is certainly evidence that’s been done in research that shows those links.

DrMR:

I can clearly appreciate what you’re saying, just to give the audience a quick example of that, which they may or may not have come across. 60 Minutes recently did an expose on probiotics and they interviewed a few experts. And one of the experts, I believe her name was Dr. Patricia Hubbard. Although I may have her name slightly off professor of medicine at some major university. When asked if there was any evidence showing that probiotics can help with IBS, she said, no. Now to your point, and kind of the parallel analogy here, I would consider handfuls of meta analyses, even some meta analyses of 23 clinical trials that consolidate it to only the highest quality clinical trials concluding that probiotics can help IBS, it’s pretty darn hard to understand how she would comment there is no evidence when this is the gold standard level of scientific evidence used to prove something. Now, perhaps she’d like to see larger clinical trials, more of them, or perhaps because researchers haven’t agreed on, well, this is the one strain or species or combination of that are the best. But to say that there is no evidence is clearly either misinformed or just biased or intellectually dishonest. So I can fully appreciate the point you’re making here, where if someone has a very, very high level of evidence they need before they make a recommendation, perhaps they could make that claim that there’s not adequate evidence. My retort would be, we are doing more harm to people than anything else if we’re telling those with IBS that there’s no evidence that probiotics can help them because clearly there has been. And perhaps there are some risks associated with probiotics, but they are infintisemally small when compared to the benefit that one can gain from them. So this seems to potentially be a parallel. When Dr. Joe Mercola was on the podcast, he did mention the national toxicity program, as well as a Ramezani paper.

Criticisms of the Data for EMF Health Effects

DrMR:

Now, my next question was going to be what would the common criticisms of those papers be? What you’re saying is that there is evidence showing detriment, but depending on how perfect the data set needs to be to sway someone’s opinion, one may look at this data with a different conclusion. Is that fair?

DD:

There’s no question about it. You can question the transmitter relative to the subject and its impact. The length of that could change the results. But what was interesting about the NTP was that these guys were smart. What I didn’t talk about is that there are standards for cell phone transmissions. The FCC defines 1.6 watts per kilogram as being the maximum power level of a signal. With that, it allows a signal to penetrate a six foot male by two inches into the skull and heat up by as much as two degrees. So what do I mean by that? Well, a cell phone uses roughly a 1.-2.0 GHz signal, and a microwave is 1.3 GHz and they’re basically the same signal. So when you put a piece of meat into a microwave oven, the water between the cells heat up and oscillate, and it cooks the meat. Now you’re talking about an equivalent, but much lower power level heating up the body by two degrees. These guys who did the NTP was smart enough to say, I’m going to take the signal and move it far enough away, that all I see is biological. By the way, the standard that I just mentioned was quite a number of years old, over 20 years old. It was based on a model of a six foot male, in the army by the way. That roughly represents about 3% of the population. Today, people using cell phones, include women, children, smaller men (not 6-foot) and the variation is maybe why some think that the standards are not accurately protecting us.

Sponsored Resources:

Hi, everyone. I want to thank Doctor’s Data who helped to make this podcast possible and who I’m very excited to say has now released a profile called the GI 360, which is finally a validated microbiota mapping measure. If you remember back, I’ve discussed numerous times, the only lab that is really validating a mapping of the microbiota to have clinical significance is the GA MAP out of Norway. Well, turns out that Doctor’s Data is not only using the same methodology, but also in collaboration with this group in Norway using their parameters to adjust what we call normal abnormal or dysbiotic and normal. So great news. We finally have a validated measure. Now, this test also offers, in addition to the microbiota dysbiosis index, a PCR assessment for bacteria, virus, and pathogens, a comprehensive microscopy for parasites, a MALDI-TOF bacteria and yeast culture. And as you would imagine, because of the rigorous validation they’ve gone through, they also have approval from the CE, which is equivalent to the European FDA. So great tests, please check them out. Doctor’s Data is offering 50% off practitioner’s first GI 360 test kit. Go to doctorsdata.com/Ruscio to claim your first kit limit one per provider. And the offer ends October 31st, 2020.

How to Use EMF Devices Safely

DrMR:

So let’s talk about some of the practical aspects of top sources and how one can continue to use these devices. Because of course, there are a lot of drawbacks to going into a cabin in the woods and totally unplugging. As appealing as that sounds sometimes, what’s a reasonable way to use a cell phone, use a laptop, to have WiFi in your apartment, but at the same time, mitigate the exposure and find that middle ground. I think that’s the thing that people are really looking for, the best way to continue to use these devices. Take advantage of the advancements that we have with access to the internet and everything else, but not do it in such a way that they’re posing harm.

DD:

Mike you know, it’s a great question because in the law of physics, the signal levels that start quickly drop off in power levels when distance is created. Signal levels drop off after one to two feet. Distance is your friend. If you use a cell phone to the head, that’s the maximum amount of power level that’s entering into your skull. If you go one to two foot away from there, 80% of that danger is gone,by four foot 98%. So one of the most simple things to do is keep distance from your device because that power that could be damaging to the cell, has less capacity to do that the farther away you are. If you put a cell phone to your head and you used it for three minutes a day, there would likely be never a biological impact to your head. In other words, duration, the time of the exposure, is something you watch for as well. So if you want to be more protected, you can do this simply by using shorter durations of time. This will reduce potential exposures to your body when you’re using technology.

DrMR:

So right now, as we’re speaking, I am seated/standing at a desk and it’s a wooden desk and I have a laptop on the top of the desk. Now I do have an EMF kind of platform shield where, let’s say, I’m sitting on a chair or sitting on my couch and I have the computer in my lap. In those cases, I will use the shield then. Do I need to be using a shield as I have my computer on a small laptop, stand on top of my wooden desk, or is that enough distance there to protect me.

DD:

You have enough distance to protect you. You’re not going to panic about this. In fact, like you, I have a laptop as my primary computer. I have a connected monitor and keyboard to the laptop. Why do I do that? Because I’m taking all of the electronics and I’m moving it away by more than two foot. So I get very little exposure. To further that, I have it on ethernet instead of using WiFi close to me. I have it connected by an ethernet cable and that ethernet goes to my WiFi. So very simple things you can do. With a wifi, by the way, as long as it’s more than 10 foot away from you, you’re pretty safe. I wouldn’t worry about it at all, but I can tell you I’m pretty conservative about it. So I have a timer, a $10 timer on my WiFi, and I have it set up in the farthest place I can in my house. So when it’s being used, I’m very far away from it. At night I turn it off with a little timer. The general rule of thumb, is you think about the transmitters that potentially can be impacting you and you turn them off if you don’t need them. I call these the “bees in the room”. When you have a cell phone in your hand, you have a Bluetooth transmitter on there, you have a WiFi transmitter on there, and you have a cell phone transmitter on there. I don’t use Bluetooth or WiFi. So why do I need them on? In other words, I’m going from three bees to one bee. One bee will hurt a litttle, but will be fine, a thousand bees will kill you. The idea is simply trying to find where you have in your house, these bees, where they’re transmitting, turn them off, and that very action reduces exposures and minimizes the potential impact to your body.

DrMR:

Yeah. I love it. I mean, it’s just commonsensical.

DD:

I mean, if you have a new meter on your house and it’s on the side of your garage, and then you have your kitchen first and then a bedroom next to that, why would you panic? The signal is 20 or 30 foot away. There’s literally zero danger because those transmitters are far enough away that they don’t pose a danger. Now, if this meter was sitting on your bedroom and outside wall, I’d say, move the bed, move the bedroom. Because that’s eight hours of exposure at night that you want to try to avoid. When you’re headboard is directly against the meter itself, that’s a higher power level. But by putting it on the side of the room, 10 foot, 15 foot away, you really substantially reduce the level of concern.

DrMR:

Can you clarify what type of meter you’re referencing?

DD:

The electric smart meters. A lot of people panic about these kinds of things, and there’s literally nothing to panic about. This is physics. It’s not magic. By simply keeping your distance, you really are fairly safe.

Bluetooth Radiation Specifics

DrMR:

Now you had mentioned Bluetooth. So I have a couple of selfishly motivated questions here. I have a kind of silver-lined cell phone case. When I’m taking a call, typically when I have some kind of call where I don’t have to be at my desk, I’ll walk outside. So for audience, this is getting movement, which we need to make sure not to be anchored to our desk all the time and it’s allows me to get sun exposure. So it’s a good health practice, but I kind of have to keep the phone on me obviously.

DD:

So I’ll put the cell phone in the silver lined case and either put that in my pocket or hold it in my hand, but I am using a Bluetooth device and I do have concerns about that. I’ve tried the EMF reducing headphones, but sometimes they’re a little bit cloogy. I need to either be convinced that it’s worthwhile for me to not use a Bluetooth device if I’m going to be on a 30, 40, 60 minute call, or if maybe there’s not enough exposure there for me to have to be concerned.

DD:

So Mike, there was a study probably 20 years ago on Bluetooth signal. It was looking to see if there was any correlation to damage to the frontal lobe cells from a cell phone. As I mentioned before, cell phone is 1.6 watts per kilogram. That’s not a lot of power, but it’s enough. Your Bluetooth transmitter is about .3 watts. That’s five times less the power level. Well, in this research study that was run, what they found was that .1 watts could mutate the frontal lobe cell, if you were concussed. In other words, your blood brain barrier is down and it didn’t quite have the defenses that you would normally have. .1 watts per kilogram can impact the frontal lobe cell. So I don’t like Bluetooth for that reason because I know that there have been some fairly well executed studies that show very, very low levels can impact the frontal lobe.

DrMR:

What are your thoughts there? I mean, that’s somewhat in a disease model and I totally appreciate the point that you’re making that if damage was shown in a post-concussive model, long enough exposure could lead to damage. Is that what you are saying?

DD:

That’s exactly right. In other words, if you are damaged already, you are more susceptible.

DrMR:

Well, I’m all sorts of screwed up. So that’s probably a safe, safe bet.

DD:

30 – 40% of us have a concussion and never knew it.

DrMR:

So I’m assuming you feel the same way about Bluetooth mice. And before you answer, let me just throw in a test I did. I have an EMF device here and I was actually shocked that my Bluetooth wireless mouse threw out a ton of signal and ever since then, even if I’m just going to a coffee shop, I just bring a wired mouse and plug it in. Because the meter reading I got was off the charts for that.

DD:

Yeah, remember what I said, remove the bees in the room, if you can. A mouse is a transmitting source. Worse than that, it’s in your hand and it’s close to your body and it’s within one or two foot. Even though 80% is considered safe, why would you increase the potential risk if you don’t need to. Just plug it in and you’re fine, everything works?

DrMR:

If I’m being honest, I’ve changed over my mouse, but I still have a wireless keyboard, which is probably stupid for me to have, because it’s at this stand at my laptop that doesn’t go anywhere. I’m not mobile, so I don’t need the convenience of mobility. So I’m going to go on Amazon after this and get a wired keyboard just to make sure I’m covering that base.

DD:

I had a person call me and he’s electro hypersensitive. Hopefully we’ll talk a little bit more about what that means, but he is electro-hypersensitive. In other words, he couldn’t put anything close to him without feeling ill in some way. I told him, let’s try to create a workstation to minimize your exposure. So I had him get a new monitor. The emission from a modern monitor is a very low. I had him push it a foot and a half away, and put big letterhead on it. I had him get a wired keyboard and mouse and plug them into the laptop. And I had him connect an ethernet cord. So he calls me up and he says, I’m still in trouble. Something’s really wrong. What you told me did not work. And I said, all right, let’s look at your laptop. He didn’t turn the Bluetooth signal off. He was actually feeling that. So it is really important in general to take simple precautionary measures to minimize exposures. But for your hypersensitive folks, it’s definitely important because in time it gets worse if you don’t try to handle it now.

EMF Sensitivity

DrMR:

Let’s go into that topic of hypersensitive individuals. This is one thing on the podcast we’ve discussed before. I believe it was with Heidi Turner who found that some who are very sensitive to, I believe it was sulfur and/or histamine, also tend to be hypersensitive and perhaps even overlap with those who have mast cell activation syndrome. She’s commented that she finds those individuals to also potentially be electrosensitive. So let’s talk a little bit more about what that looks like and what people can do if they feel that to be them.

DD:

So, Mike, we know from study work, that’s been replicated quite a number of times throughout the world, actually, that more than 20% of us have some form of electro-hypersensitivity. More than 20% would be characterized as electro-hypersensitive. It’s also true that if you are electro-hypersensitive, you’re chemically sensitive. In other words, the chemical gases that you were talking about a minute ago, you’re sensitive to, and there are very simple reasons why: A cell’s a cell. It doesn’t invent a way of dealing with one toxin that differs from another toxin. So that’s the starting point. 80% of that 20% are women on average. So we know from study work, that women seem to be more susceptible than men. Honestly, I haven’t seen any justification of why. I’ve heard some physicians speculate that it’s the neurological composition or the hormones, but there’s never really been any real evidence telling us why that’s true. But it is from some of the large studies that I’ve looked at.

DrMR:

Yeah. I mean, I think there’s definitely a trend in that direction. Which is exactly why I think we are still trying to map this out. These individuals, I’m assuming they’re somewhat commonly reporting something that I’ve actually noticed which is that if I have a cell phone to my head for a minute or two, I do notice a sensation. It’s mild, but I do notice it. So people are noticing that type of thing where maybe if they hold the cell phone for too long, they notice a tingling in their hands or a warmness at their ear or something like this.

DD:

By the way, though, the numbers I quoted were actually from study work that was replicated a few different studies. I interact with clinics all the time, and it is their view that it’s increasing. In other words, they have patients come into their office and they can’t quite figure out what the sources are. They report having a headache and are advised to “take two aspirin and call me tomorrow”. Except two aspirin doesn’t help because they’re looking at a monitor all day. And the source of the problem is the monitor they’re looking at, not that they have a headache because of some other biological conditions.

Blue Light Blocking Glasses

DrMR:

Do you recommend that people use a blue light screening, or EMF reducing glasses during the daytime. I mean, I know at nighttime. Sure. But I’ve seen more and more people wearing these blue light blocking glasses during the day. And to me that doesn’t make any sense at all because, arguably, we want some blue light exposure during the day.

DD:

So this is a great topic to talk about. So to further the discussion, I was just having about two aspirins because you have a headache. I was talking with one physician and he was telling me how he had a teammate within his clinic that had dry eye and it had gone on for 10 years. And I asked what was the source of the dry eye? His response was that they didn’t really know but it was treated with drops which wet the eye and all is good. And I said, do you realize blue light can create dry eye? And I actually sent him pair of blue light blocking glasses. Within two hours, her eyes cleared up and were now wet. It was the monitor that she constantly looked at. So we know from actually study work, that there’s clear evidence that there’s that linkage, at least with some of us. We also know that there’s a linkage with premature macular degeneration. There’s been study work that clearly shows that linkage. So we’re learning a lot about the blue component of electromagnetic radiation. Visible electromagnetic radiation. You can see it for everyone to understand, it’s right next to the ultraviolet. Ultraviolet is why you get cancer. You go out in the sun and if you don’t put sunscreen on, you run the risk of skin cancers. The blue component is right next to the ultraviolet. So it’s a strong signal. Actually, it’s a wave of emissions and we’re learning more and more and more as time goes on. It’s not just the macular degeneration concern. It’s not just a dry eye concern. They’re seeing actual pathways to the pineal glands and they’re seeing degraded pineal performance under certain conditions. So we know that these electronics that we’re constantly staring at can be potentially dangerous.

DD:

Now let’s talk about the use of blue light blocking glasses. At night, if you need to look at a monitor within two hours of going to bed, you definitely should be looking at blue light blocking glasses. Why? Well, natural light, since the dawn of man, has been how our circadian rhythm is controlled. All of a sudden we have a high intensity LED signal going into our eye at night, and it makes it look like it’s still day. So the cryptochrome protein, which is the switch that turns the melatonin on and off is not kicking in. So you decide after two hours, you want to go to sleep, but you can’t. And the reason is directly linked, in some cases anyway, because you’ve hindered melatonin creation that naturally builds up when it gets darker within your environment.

DrMR:

So the, the need to shield becomes even more true if you’re electro-hypersensitive, believe it or not. A lot of people who are or tend to be, rather than looking at a hundred percent blue light blocking glasses during the day, they may want to consider something around 50% because they tend to be more sensitive than the average. So in general, it’s not a bad idea, particularly if you have a slight sensitivity to it, to begin shielding yourself during the day. Because at that point, the blue component of natural light tends to disrupt biological function.

DrMR:

I’m assuming you also endorse the use of screening computer programs. I use a program called Iris that filters out blue light and flicker. Would you be behind something like that?

DD:

Mike, you don’t need blue light blocking glasses if you do that. They’re actually taking the blue light component out. Absolutely. You do not need to buy if you have technology devices that you actually can control it. You’re right.

DrMR:

It’s funny you say this because, and this, this could be me retrospectively pulling a confirmation bias here, but over the past, maybe two years, I have been using a blue light filtering program on my computer. And I have noticed my ability to work at the computer without becoming fatigued has gone way up. Now, I’ve also gotten healthier during that time. I’ve dialed in a few things from my gut health. I’m sleeping more, I’m taking more breaks. So I can’t say it’s just that, but it is interesting to notice that definitely that feeling of eye fatigue and eye strain, whether that’s from sleep, more breaks and gut health, or from the screening devices, has gone down quite a bit.

DD:

The point about fatigue, we talked about. You’re becoming fatigued because of the blue light component, the stimulation. By reducing the number of potential variables in the equation, you reduce those symptoms and potantial damage. And that’s what you’re trying to do. Taking the best action you can to minimize the potential dangers to your body from the technology.

Sponsored Resources:

Hi everyone. This is Dr. Ruscio. In case you need help, I wanted to quickly make you aware of what resources are available to you. If you go to drruscio.com/Resources, you will see a few links you can click through for more. Firstly, there is the clinic, which I’m immensely proud of. The fact that we deliver, cost-effective, simple, but highly efficacious, functional medicine. There’s also my book, Healthy Gut, Healthy You, which has been proven to allow those who’ve been unable to improve their health, even after seeing numerous doctors, be able to help them finally feel better. There’s also our store where there’s a number of products like our Elemental Heal line, our probiotic line, and other gut supportive and health supportive supplements. We now offer health coaching. So if you’ve read the book or listened to a podcast like this one, or are reading about a product and you need some help with how or when to use, or how to integrate with diet, we now offer health coaching to help you along your way. And then finally, if you are a clinician, there is our clinicians newsletter, the Future of Functional Medicine Review. I’m very proud to say, we’ve now had doctors who’ve read that newsletter, find challenging cases in their practices, apply what we teach in the newsletter and be able to help these patients who were otherwise considered challenging cases. Everything for these resources can be accessed through drruscio.com/Resources. Alrighty, back to the show.

DrMR:

Should You Get EMF Testers?

DrMR:

How do you feel about testing devices? I have one I’ve I have found it to be helpful. Just to share for the audience, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I have my WiFi router and clearly the closer to that I get the more signal I’ll see on the device. I’ve done a few assessments like with the Bluetooth mouse. So it has been helpful for me. The thing that concerns me is that there are these different facets of EMF and micro wave and Bluetooth. And I’m not sure if I know enough about the different lengths and what device picks up a given length. So for me, I thought let me get one general meter and I’ll do the best that I can. What are your thoughts? Is there a good meter for doing this? Or should people just kind of assume that these devices are a problem and just try to mitigate without necessarily getting a specific reading?

DD:

The latter is what I hang my hat on. And the reason why is because so many people that we deal with buy these pieces of technology, and they really don’t understand what they’re doing with it. And they begin panicking if they’re in a micro volt measurement when they should be in a volt measurement. So there’s a lot of concern from the use of those devices, which is inappropriate. When I used to run technical laboratories, we had calibration as a critical part of what we did. Calibration of the testing equipment we use is pretty critical. What I know for sure is a lot of the devices we see are often almost orders of magnitude off. So here you’re looking at something and panicking and it’s really no danger to you. You have the potential looking at something and being misinformed because of the inaccuracy of the technology.

DD:

So in general, what you said is the best coaching you can have. Try to think where there may be problems and try to figure out how to minimize those problems. Most of the time you’re really going to fix all problems. If you go ethernet throughout your house, if you create the sanctuary in your bedroom where you eliminate all the transmitting devices that could potentially be harmful for you. Taking those kinds of actions are far more effective at trying to create a safe environment for you and your home.

DrMR:

I feel that there’s a lot more here that we could explore. We may have to do a part two. Is there, is there any closing advice you’d like to leave people with? I know you’ve written a book, you have a website, a number of products, please do tell people about where they can learn more from you and your good work.

DD:

Yeah, we have defendershield.com and we have the book Radiation Nation that we wrote. Essentially we capture what research has, over the past 30 years, understood about the exposures we have in our lives and the things you can do about it that may mitigate some of the potential. Radiation Nation gives you that. We also have a learning section. I have a section 5-10 pages simply helping you understand what 5G is about. There’s bunch of panic going on about this fifth generation technology and it’s because they don’t have all the facts. The facts will help you understand if you are in danger or not. So we try to offer the latest in information from around the world that can help you understand those things.

DrMR:

If you’re thinking about using your laptop or your cell phone to your head, the reason I invented the shielding for that was because I wasn’t going to throw my technology away. I want to use my cell phone, but I would never put it to my head until I had shielding that would protect me. So we have a variety of those kinds of technologies available. If you choose to shield yourself, we try to offer as many different ways of doing that.

Oxidative Stress & Cell Danger Response.

DD:

One of the things we didn’t talk about much today at all is what used to be referred to as oxidative stress. And I’m sure you have a background with oxidative stress. Most people think that the imbalance with free radicals and the antioxidants characterizes the oxidative stress, and all of a sudden everyone understands oxidative stress. Well, I hate oxidative stress because it does not characterize what the body is doing. I think that the work that Dr. Naviaux, out of California, is doing with CDR, cell danger response, which is an evolutionary conservative cellular metabolic response from a toxin. Science is really beginning to understand what is the impact to our body. And now is better explaining the complexity of the body in response to electromagnetic radiation in our environment today. So I would encourage, particularly the medical community, to look into what is CDR. It is very eyeopening and was the detail I needed to see that explained why a cell is a cell. Why a cell doesn’t respond differently to the gases in the air versus an emission next to your head from a laptop.

DrMR:

Does this tie in with the magnesium channels and how this affects……

DD:

It’s like really exciting. You know, how, if there’s a bear in the room, you’re going to decide to fight, or you’re going to run. Fight or flight. Well, the body does that. The cell does that. So when it gets into those kinds of states, it prevents simple, normal biological response of a cell. There’s all sorts of things that occur when these kinds of cell responses are occurring because of the electronics around us. I suggest that anybody in the medical community should be looking at having a slightly better understanding, a more modern understanding of what these technologies are doing to us. And I see Dr. Naviaux’s work as one of those places where they are doing wonderful work, in my opinion,

DrMR:

Well you’ve given us a topic to potentially explore and unpack in a subsequent podcast.

DD:

Yeah. Right. I am excited about that work because for years I was working with a biochemist and I kept on telling her a cell doesn’t respond differently. The body is responding from a historical perspective from years of years and years and years of response to the environment. Now we have introduced something new and that body is responding as it has for hundreds and thousands of years. And it just turns out it hasn’t figured out how to do it very well with electromagnetic radiation, because it’s only been around 10 years.

DrMR:

Sure. Well, I’ve made a note about that and it’s something I think we’ll pick up. It’s always, always a never ending pursuit here to provide people with the best information. Speaking of, I really appreciate your balanced approach that you take to this. Some of the narratives I’ve heard on EMF have been a little bit absolutist and over the top. I really appreciate the kind of middle ground that you reasonably navigate. So just really appreciate the time, Dan and thanks for the book and the products that you’ve made. I actually just bought in your store while we were talking, an EMF blocking arm band, cause I don’t have one. And so that’s one more layer of protection. I will now be adding to my routine.

DD:

Very good. Thanks an awful lot for inviting me. I really did enjoy chatting with you today.

DrMR:

Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure and.

DD:

I do think we have other things to chat about as well. That may be interesting to your listening audience.

DrMR:

I’m making a note of it now. All right, Dan. Thanks again, buddy. Appreciate it.

OUTRO:

Thanks for listening to Dr. Ruscio radio today. Check us out on iTunes and leave a review. Visit DrRuscio.com to ask a question for an upcoming podcast, post comments for today’s show and sign up to receive weekly updates.