2 Things In Your Home That Can Make You Sick, Light and EMF, and Simple Tips To Fix Them

Artificial light and electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are an inescapable reality of city environments. Rather than sleeping when the sunlight tells us to, we alter our circadian rhythms with electric light, sometimes at the expense of our immune system and sleep quality. Artificial lights that mimic the sun may provide a more natural environment for our bodies. EMFs emanating from our devices may generate heat, disrupt melatonin and even cause mechanical vibration of cell membranes. Ways to lessen EMF exposure include putting your phone into airplane mode while sleeping, keeping it away from your body, and avoiding the use of your laptop on your lap. Checking your home with an EMF detector may also reveal external sources, which you can block while you sleep using some forms of shielding.

Episode Intro

Dr. Michael Ruscio, DC: Hey, everyone. This is Dr. Ruscio. Welcome to Dr. Ruscio Radio. I am here today with Dr. Rob Brown. We’re going to be talking about artificial light and EMFs, a follow-up to the conversation we had with Joe Mercola a number of weeks ago. I’m excited to probe a little more deeply into this issue. So, Rob, thanks for being here, and welcome.

Dr. Rob Brown: Thank you for having me, Michael.

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DrMR: Yeah. It’s an interesting topic. I’ve been trying to practice proper lighting strategies for a while. The EMFs I’m newer to. I have been trying to mitigate at home, and especially at nighttime in my bedroom, as best I can. But the tough thing is, you can’t see the EMFs. So I am happy to have this opportunity to circle back and cover these concepts again, and make sure that our audience and I are well-focused in our avoidance strategies. I’m really looking forward to getting into it in more detail.

Before we do that, can you briefly tell people about your background and how this came to be an area you’re interested in?

DrRB: I’m an allopathically-trained physician. I’m a radiologist. I’ve been practicing for over 25 years. In that time, I’ve noticed that a lot of diseases have come and gone. I’ve decided a lot of them are environmentally-based. I’ve worked in different areas of the country. I’ve worked in rural settings and cities.

So I’ve seen different trends, and I’ve seen different locations where diseases become more prevalent. So I started probing deeper into that. It’s like going down the rabbit hole. The more you search, the more you uncover. It’s become a fascinating field of study and I think a very important one for disease prevention. I think that if we, as a society, concentrate on environmental toxicity, particularly in the home, we’ll all be a lot healthier.

DrMR: Sure. And it is very pernicious and insidious when you can’t see it. It’s easy to overlook it, of course. But I will say from my own personal experience that once I started modulating my environmental light to coincide with the sun and moon cycles—blue light and bright light exposure during the day and then soft, yellow lights at, I guess, a lower “amplitude” at night—it felt really good to my body.

Then it felt very unnatural being out of that setting. For example, if I go to a Target at night with all those bright, white, halogen lights, it just feels terrible. Certainly, modulating the light feels good to me. And I think things that feel good—with some exceptions—are typically your body’s way of telling you that you’re doing the right thing.

Artificial Light Can Disrupt Your Immune System

DrRB: It’s true. We’ve gotten used to having artificial light all around us. We’ve lost a sense that we’re part of this world, and like all the animals around us, we have the circadian rhythm. We’re supposed to have periods of light and dark. And the dark period should be really dark, not how a lot of us have in a bedroom now, with TVs on in the background, or all these indicator lights, diodes, and other sources of illumination in the bedroom.

When you open your eyes in the typical bedroom now, you see all these little points of light. You have a pathway that goes directly from your eye to your brain which tells the brain whether or not there’s light outside. It’s not the visual system. It’s a different system. The brain knows when there’s light out, and it doesn’t produce melatonin unless it’s dark.

The circadian rhythm is a mechanism where we can effectively produce melatonin at night, which is very important for the immune system. I like to think of it as the vitamin D for wintertime. During the summer, we’re exposed to lots of daylight, and the body produces vitamin D, and it bolsters the immune system.

In the wintertime, we have just a little bit of daylight, especially in the northern latitude. Because of all the darkness, our body is supposed to produce lots of melatonin, which bolsters the immune system in the wintertime. If we pollute ourselves with these sources of artificial light at night, the body doesn’t produce the melatonin, and our immune systems go down. I believe that’s one of the reasons why we have cold and flu season.

DrMR: That’s interesting.

DrRB: Yeah. I don’t think we should have that. If you’re stuck in an office somewhere and you have artificial sources of light around you, you should at least have a lamp at your desk to provide full spectrum light. That way your brain knows that it’s daytime. Then at night, as you said, you should have illumination in your bedroom that simulates the sunset. Reddish shades of light simulate the sunset. Then when you go to sleep, your room should be completely dark.

The other thing that can prevent melatonin secretion, as you mentioned earlier, is EMF. Electromagnetic frequency is a form of electromagnetic radiation, just like light. The brain can detect it, and when it does, it thinks that the sun is out. Your melatonin secretion also becomes inhibited or reduced significantly when you’re exposed to EMFs.

I tell people, “If you have a router anywhere near your bedroom, if you like to sleep with your cell phone near your bed, you’ve got to change your habits. If you need to use your cell phone as a timer to wake up in the morning, put it on airplane mode so it doesn’t ping you while you’re trying to sleep.” These are some tricks you can do to improve your melatonin secretion.

DrMR: That’s a really fascinating theory about the cold and flu season. I’d like you to restate that mechanism, just to make sure that we all heard it correctly. It sounded like because there’s less naturally-occurring light in the day to help anchor our circadian rhythms, they’re more prone to being skewed in the winter. Is that correct?

DrRB: Yes. In the winter, in the northern latitudes, we have short days. So the body doesn’t produce enough vitamin D. All of our vitamin D levels go down, and so we’re all taking vitamin D supplements. But actually the body’s way of bolstering the immune system in the wintertime is by producing more melatonin. When you have longer nights, you produce more melatonin, and the melatonin bolsters your immune system.

DrMR: Gotcha. So the vitamin D and melatonin are both shouldering the same load, but you’re more dependent upon the melatonin in the winter.

DrRB: Right.

DrMR: But that’s dependent upon not having the same type of light in the winter that you do in the summer. In this case, it’s artificial light, so you’re getting no melatonin and no vitamin D, so it’s a double negative.

DrRB: Exactly.

DrMR: Yeah. Very, very interesting. Certainly, I can attest to the fact that when I went from California to Massachusetts for the winter holiday, everyone was sick. Everyone was either just getting over a cold or just getting a cold.

DrRB: Yeah.

DrMR: I felt like I flew into a pandemic. I was like, “Gosh, there’s no way I’m getting out of this alive.” Of course, I ended up getting sick because I was just inundated with it. But it is remarkable how the change from the California climate to the Northeast climate results in quite a difference in how sick people get. There are sick people in the winter in California, but it seems like it’s way more prevalent in the Northeast.

DrRB: Definitely.

DrMR: Yeah. Interesting, and I didn’t know that EMFs also can perturb the production of melatonin.

DrRB: Yeah. They say you should turn the Wi-Fi off at least 30 minutes before you go to bed. It significantly delays and reduces the production of melatonin. Of course, we’re talking about the immune system, which can have a lot of effects besides getting the cold and the flu. It can predispose you to cancer. All kinds of things can happen if you don’t have a healthy immune system, so it’s very, very important.

DrMR: I’d like us to define artificial light and EMFs for people in one moment. But I just want to plant one seed for our audience. I think it’s nice when we have contemporary studies that give data for people who might be more skeptical. There are many things I am skeptical of, because as great as integrative and progressive realms of medicine are, we have to also be careful. Sometimes if we’re too open, we can be gullied into something that is maybe not helpful. People can end up spinning their wheels, wasting their time, wasting their money. I understand for those who are skeptical, some evidence is nice.

I found one recently published study very interesting, where they gave blue-light blocking glasses to a group of patients with insomnia for two hours before bed. They documented a significant improvement in sleep quality in this group from wearing those glasses. That’s one method of many. But certainly we’re seeing some well-designed scientific trials documenting that, yes, if you reduce blue light exposure, it can result in better sleep quality.

So, let’s define artificial light and EMFs for people, just in case they haven’t heard these or they’re not sure what they mean.

DrRB: Artificial light is any of these light bulbs, these lamps, that we produce. We have halogen lights. We have all types of diodes. There were incandescent lights for the first light bulbs that we had. There are the CFL bulbs that we were then all inundated with, but I think they’ve taken them off the market for the most part now. And people are now going to…

DrMR: LED.

DrRB: LEDs are out now, yeah. Light bulbs have different characteristics. We might think because they’re producing light, they’re producing all wavelengths we get in full-spectrum light from the sun, but they don’t. They have a color-rendering index. They have a certain wavelength that they emit. The effects of the light on the physiology differ depending on the wavelengths that you’re receiving. I’m not sure how else to explain that.

DrMR: Yeah, that’s fine. I think artificial light is probably an easy one for people to wrap their head around. Would you say something like, “A full-spectrum light bulb is supposed to mimic the sun”?

DrRB: That’s right.

DrMR: So, it is artificial, but it’s fairly proximal to the sun?

DrRB: It’s supposed to be. I suppose it depends on the manufacturer. But the goal is to give you the full complement and range of the wavelengths produced by the sun.

What are EMFs?

DrMR: Sure. Maybe the harder one to define here is EMFs because there are a few different types. Is there a simple working definition that you use for this?

DrRB: Well, there are the very low-frequency and extremely low-frequency sources. EMF is along the same spectrum as light. If you’re going to talk about the electromagnetic spectrum, that includes everything from, say, very low frequency waves to radio waves to microwaves to visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, blue frequency, all the way up to X-rays and gamma rays. It’s a whole spectrum of energy that is part of the electromagnetic frequency spectrum.

EMFs, as we use them now, in this type of conversation, are at the very, very bottom of that spectrum. These are very low frequency emissions that come from electronics. There are emissions that come from dirty electricity, from outlets and electrical appliances.

The kind that we’re mostly concerned with (at least most people are) are the ones being emitted from wireless devices, like cell phone, Wi-Fi routers, baby monitors, security systems, Alexa. All these wireless communication devices we have in our world now are communicating via these very low frequency emissions.

The problem with them is that the body absorbs them. When absorbed, they cause physiological effects. It was discussed that they can affect the calcium exchange in cells across cell membranes. They cause mechanical vibration of cell membranes, which can have some effects. The physiological effects of EMF are not certain, except for in a couple of circumstances. The melatonin effect, as far as I know, it’s proven. I’ve read some papers that have shown that association.

And EMF causes heat. For example, if you put the cell phone up to your head while you’re speaking on it, you’re going to feel that heat on the side of your face. But what people may not realize is that that heat is not localized to your skin. It actually heats up that part of your brain. They’ve done thermography where they’ve shown that the temperature of the brain on that side of the head increases. That could be pretty dangerous because enzymes and proteins in the body are designed to function at a certain temperature. If you take things out of a certain temperature range, they stop functioning properly.

It’s pretty hard to say what the result of that is going to be. Is that going to cause some type of neurodegenerative disease or cancer? It’s possible. There is a significant incidence of these types of diseases in our society now. Whether it’s from EMF, I can’t say, but it’s certainly possible.

DrMR: Now, regarding scientific evidence, are there a few studies that you felt really influenced you to look at this more seriously or you found particularly compelling?

DrRB: The one that I found most disturbing was called the Interphone study. It turned out that was designed by the industry. It was supposed to say that there was no incidence of brain tumors by cell phones, but the study was such a sham. The research was totally skewed. It was designed to muddy the water.

There have been a lot of studies that have been done to document the effects of EMF, but it’s really hard to go through them and say, “Well, this one is valid. This one isn’t.” I personally have not been able to hang my hat on anything and say, “Yes. This one is the one.”

DrMR: In your estimation, do you think there is a degree of trying to bias the signs from industry influence?

DrRB: Yeah, absolutely. Like all industries, you know? It’s prevalent throughout industry: they muddy the water to try to make their product look better than it is.

Also, there are people that are electrosensitive, so they’re actually allergic to EMF. Then we have people who probably don’t have any tangible effect at all, and there’s everybody in between. To say that EMF is going to have the same effect on everybody is not valid either.

Although the heating effect certainly is valid. Say, if you put a cell phone in a man’s pocket for 20 minutes, his sperm count’s going to go down dramatically. The viability of the sperm will decrease because it’s going to heat up the testicles.

DrMR: Quick question there, because I think this is a good, practical takeaway for people. Let’s say you’re walking or whatever. In transit, you don’t really need your cell phone. So while you’re going to have it on your person, if you have to, you flip it into airplane mode. Is that going to give you a decent amount of protection or decrease from the EMFs?

DrRB: Yes. If I want the phone on, I carry it in my hands or in a bag. If I have to put it on my person, then I flip it into airplane mode. That’s exactly what I do.

DrMR: Okay. For the audience—I’ve been doing this now for the past few months—when you flip in and out of airplane mode, it’s like a 15-second latency until all your stuff pops back up. So it isn’t a huge thing just to flip this button. It’s fairly fast to be able to do it. It’s not like restarting your computer, where with some computers you’re waiting for 10 minutes. It’s seconds, so I think it’s well worth implementing that one strategy.

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DrMR: In terms of other research, Mercola mentioned the BioInitiative Report, the Ramazzini Institute in Italy, and… was it the NTP evaluation of carcinogenicity in cell phone radiation? Do any of those ring a bell?

DrRB: I looked at some of them, but to be honest, I’m not adept to discuss them.

DrMR: Gotcha. Fair enough. Let’s talk now about the top sources. If we can identify the top sources, then we can identify strategies that would be getting at that 20% that’s the most problematic. I think it can be a little overwhelming if people are trying to get rid of every single source. Where would you say are the best places, the most important places, for people to start? I know routers we’ve touched on as one and flipping your phone into airplane mode whenever it’s on your person, but what else? What are the top items?

Key Ways to Reduce EMFs

DrRB: The most important thing, as we mentioned earlier, is to get your bedroom free of EMF while you’re sleeping. So at least you have half of the day while you’re not being exposed. That way your body has a rest. The other would be, yes, when you’re not talking on the phone, put it in airplane mode.

I tell people, “Do not put the phone against your head.” And I do not recommend a Bluetooth device because the Bluetooth devices actually bring the EMF right into your ear canal, which is a direct conduit into the brain. There was Bluetube, a tube that would bring the sound into your ear without a wire. So it wasn’t bringing the EMF into your ear. I’m not sure if they still make that anymore.

DrMR: They do. I actually have a headphone set. It’s headphone and microphone. Admittedly, I have not been using that quite as much as I should. But with your comment, it’s going to reinvigorate my reduction attempts. Pardon, this may be a silly question, but can you make a phone call while you’re on airplane mode?

DrRB: No.

DrMR: Okay. So, when you’re not using your phone, have it on airplane mode. But let’s say you’re on a call and you’re using a wired Bluetube. Here’s a link for a device that I’ve been using. Would you get any additional benefit if you’re doing that and you have the Bluetooth off? Or does switching off the Bluetooth only give you a minimal amount of protection?

DrRB: If you put an EMF detector in the vicinity of a cell phone when it’s in use, the number of microwatts that are being emitted by it are huge. Whether it’s in your hand or on the desk, you’re being bombarded with EMF. Is it going to really harm you? Probably not. I think it’s going to be okay, but I would say don’t put it up against your head. That’s the thing.

DrMR: Okay, a follow-up question on that: this same company, that makes a number of EMF protection devices, has this silver-lined cell phone case. If I’m ever on a call, my typical strategy is to carry the cell phone case in my hand and the case is supposed to be blocking EMFs. Then I’d use the wired Bluetube.

Is it worthwhile to do that, adding some of these cell phone cases that are silver-lined and purportedly reduce exposure?

DrRB: Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve seen them, I don’t use them. They also make those metal disks that you can apply to the back of your cell phone. It’s supposed to somehow model the current so it’s not quite so toxic. Have you seen those?

DrMR: They’re small, right?

DrRB: Yeah.

DrMR: Yeah, I have seen those.

DrRB: I have one of those on my cell phone. I read the research. There was a company called Aires Tech that sent me some of their materials to test. The research is really impressive, so I’ve been using it. Does it really do something? I’m not sure. Unless you have something you can measure like an increase in temperature, it’s very hard to know, “What is this doing for me?”

DrMR: Right. What did their research show?

DrRB: They’ve got a lot of papers. It’s extensive. I would say take a look at their website.

DrMR: Cool. So, we’ve talked about the Wi-Fi router, and that can be fairly simple. Just turn that off when you’re not using it, turn your phone to airplane mode. We’ve mentioned the bedroom. I want to come back to that in a little more detail in a moment, but are there other significant sources that people should be aware of?

DrRB: Children have thinner skulls, and their bodies are growing faster. They’re more susceptible to the effects of radiation. So I would say if you have children, tell them not to put their laptops on their lap. Same rules. Don’t put the cell phone in your pocket. Don’t hold these wireless devices up to your head, very important for children. With babies, I do not care for the wireless baby monitors. I think they’re dangerous. If you need to have one, then put some type of physical barrier to block the radiation between the monitor and the baby, so you can still hear the sound but they’re not being exposed to the radiation.

DrMR: Okay. Do you feel Bluetooth is significant? I’ve heard different claims, and I’ve heard some Bluetooth devices use, I don’t know if it’s called low bandwidth or low intensity, Bluetooth. Is there any nuance there that’s important? Is it significant? Is it minor? Or could you maybe mitigate with some of these devices that are lower in emissions?

DrRB: I think if it bothers you, even if you get a headache from it, then I wouldn’t use it. Again, some people are really sensitive to the EMF emissions and other people aren’t. We can’t live in a bubble. I would say if you use the Bluetooth, and it doesn’t bother you, then go for it. I think as long as you have a period during each day where you’re not being bombarded with EMF and you can heal, your body can heal, then you should be fine. But I don’t like the Bluetooth devices that go to the ear.

Say your car has Bluetooth. Mine does and I use it. My sister has Bluetooth in her car. She gets a headache from it. Everybody’s different.

DrMR: I’ve heard some people say you should get a wired mouse. I’m totally intuiting my way through this, but a Bluetooth mouse wouldn’t appear to me to be a huge source.

I could totally be wrong. Do you have any feelings on that one in particular?

DrRB: I agree. A Bluetooth mouse is communicating with the computer that’s right next to it, so it wouldn’t be a very powerful source of EMF. But the thing is, you add all of these sources together, Alexa, security systems, etc… and you’re in a sea of current.

DrMR: Right. What do you feel to be some of the best strategies for mitigation in the bedroom?

DrRB: If you have a Wi-Fi router that is near or in your bedroom and you can’t put it further away, I recommend using a simple appliance timer that you might use to turn the lights on and off if you weren’t home.

Just have the Wi-Fi router turn off a half an hour before you go to bed, and have it turn back on when you wake up. That way you’re not being bombarded while you’re sleeping. That’s very simple. If you want to use your cell phone as a timer, put it on airplane mode.

If you have EMF coming from outside into your home, through smart meters or some type of high-tension line, or if you have one of those cell phone towers in the vicinity of your home and you’ve got Wi-Fi coming in through that, they do sell paints you can ground that will reflect the EMF out of your home. They have coatings for windows. They have fabrics that you can put on your bed or cover your wall with. There’s a lot of different materials out there. They don’t work 100%, but they work pretty well.

DrMR: Okay. This is what I’ve been doing. Essentially, for nighttime, in the bedroom, I turn the power on my router off. I essentially unplug everything, except for a fan in my bedroom. That’s at the other end of the bedroom. I did buy an extension cable that’s supposed to be EMF-insulated, to try to mitigate anything coming off of that. Cell phone’s on airplane mode. Everything else is unplugged. Wi-Fi router’s off. Would you say having a fan 5, 10 feet away from you—as the only thing going in your bedroom—is a good starting point? Or does that leave any major holes?

EMF Detector Recommendations

DrRB: I think that’s great, except you don’t know what’s coming in from outside.

DrMR: Yes. That’s the follow-up. I live in a somewhat suburban apartment complex. We’re fairly tight here. When I look at my Wi-Fi, I can probably pick up six or seven different places just from in my apartment. Am I still getting a pretty massive dose, even though I’m turning mine off?

DrRB: I don’t know. What I would recommend is getting an EMF detector.

DrMR: Yeah. I want to come back to that and the devices in a minute. So that may be something that people want to test for. Any other major avoidance strategies that you think people should be aware of?

DrRB: I mentioned about laptops. They really should not be placed on your lap, unless you have some type of EMF shielding underneath.

DrMR: Yeah, and I actually have one of those. Mercola scolded me for my routine of reading PubMed abstracts for about an hour after I worked out. I’d lay on my couch with my feet on my ottoman and my laptop in my lap.

He was like, “You are doing a huge disservice to your fertility.” So I bought one of those shields. They’re thin. They’re like a hard mat, and they reflect EMF. They’re like $80, $90. Now I put that under my laptop, and I feel a little safer with that strategy.

DrRB: Yeah. Some of these things, like the wireless mouse, I don’t think are a big deal. But you don’t want to have one of these appliances right on your skin.

DrMR: Right. Now I’m assuming that testing the bedroom at night time—so you can get that healing period devoid of EMF that you mentioned earlier—is something that could be worthwhile. One of the things that I’m trying to offer people, and we got part of the way there with Mercola, was what the appliances are. I want to give people links to the appliances and tell them the general read they should be looking for.

Mercola mentioned the Acousticom 2 for radio frequencies and the Tri-Field EMF Meter for magnetic. But I don’t know if we teased out a good device for electric. That’s what I know and what the audience may know coming into this. Are there a couple of devices that are fairly user-friendly that people could purchase and start assessing their sleeping environment to see where they are?

DrRB: The company that I’ve used is called Safe Living Technologies. They’re out of Canada, and they had an EMF detector that I purchased. I don’t have one that measures dirty electricity and the very, very subtle currents that come from wiring. They don’t travel very far. I just feel that, at least for me and in my home, it doesn’t seem to be an issue. Again, if I was electrosensitive like some people are, then that would be an issue.

But for the general EMF detector that will measure the current coming from wireless devices, there are a lot of companies that manufacture them.

The only thing that I would say is be prepared to do some mitigation. For example, I was doing some testing in New York City, when I was there. There was so much EMF coming from everywhere outside. The woman whose home that I was testing got panicked and then angry. First, she was panicked, like, “Oh my god, what are my children being exposed to?” Then she went into avoidance and anger… “Well, this couldn’t be bad for me.”

So I think before you do this investigation, you have to be prepared for what you may see. It may be that your home is fine. For the people listening, their home may be fine. Their bedroom may be fine. But if they do have things coming from the outside, they should be prepared to act on it. That’s what I would say.

DrMR: What is the device that you’re using?

Because that’s been the challenge for me. Mercola was recommending three different ones for the three different exposure points, which is all fine and good. No problem buying three, although they did seem to be about $300 to $500 each, so that adds up pretty quickly. And that may be out of reach for some people. If there’s a level-one entry point device that could get people started, that would be fantastic.

DrRB: The one that I have is the HF32D RF Detector. Safe Living Technologies is an excellent website with a lot of different products and ways to mitigate EMF.

DrMR: Do you remember what that device costs roughly?

DrRB: It’s $247.

DrMR: That’s reasonable. In terms of the readout the device gives you, is it user-friendly, like a green or red or green, orange, red for safe, moderate, dangerous?

Using Your Detector, Protecting from Outside EMFs

DrRB: It gives you a number in microwatts per meter squared. It goes from 1 to 2,000, and after 2,000, it basically gives you an error. Background should be three. You have to aim this thing in the direction that you’re testing. You don’t just put it in the room and then let it go. You have to actually wand it 363 degrees around the room, and then up and down on different sources to see what they’re emitting.

DrMR: I’m assuming the strategy here, then, is get in your bed with this device, do a circle laterally and a circle horizontally to get a sense for if you’re getting bombarded anywhere in your bedroom?

DrRB: Yeah. And if you have smart meters, you know where they are. So you can point the EMF detector. If you have the Wi-Fi router in your basement and it’s below your bedroom, then point it down. See how much is coming through the floor. Or if it’s upstairs, then point it upstairs and see how much is coming down from above. It’s amazing. This stuff travels far. I had a microwave oven before I started all this research. When I got the EMF detector, we turned the microwave oven on, and the EMF shot throughout the entire first floor, through walls.

DrMR: I’ve heard that. One of my colleagues, Sachin Patel, hosted a video with a meter like that, and he had his microwave going. He was in the next room, and he was still getting hit with it. Now whenever I use the microwave—I hardly ever do—I go into the next room. It’s pretty compelling evidence.

DrRB: That’s the thing. When they first came out with those microwaves, they said, “Only the broken ones leak.” Remember?

DrMR: No.

DrRB: When they first came out with microwave ovens, there was a concern about, “Well, what if they leak radiation?” The vendor said, “Oh, well, they don’t leak,” it’s only when they’re broken. But I’ve tested a dozen of them. They all leak. That’s, again, the technology and the vendors and the industry. They make up some of their own research.

DrMR: Yep. You definitely have to take the research with a grain of salt, especially if there’s a high chance of there being a bias. Absolutely.

DrRB: Right, right.

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DrMR: Great. It’s nice to have that one device for people as a simple starting point. I’m going to get one and do a test in my bedroom. Now, follow-up question there. If someone didn’t want to go through the labors of painting their bedroom to insulate it, there are sheets and grounding devices. If someone got a sheet and then a bed liner or whatever, the sheet goes on the bed and then a sheet on top. So they have a layer above and a layer below of silver woven into the cotton.

Is that going to be a decent strategy for people who can’t control their environment and paint with these special paints and such?

DrRB: The thing that concerns me is the head, which is where the pineal gland is. Again, if your head’s being exposed to EMF while you’re sleeping, then you’re not going to produce the melatonin you should be.

DrMR: Yeah, you’re missing the most important part. Yeah, that’s a good point. I’m sure one of these companies makes a beanie…

DrRB: That could help, yeah.

DrMR: Maybe? All right, some things to think about.

DrRB: But they have bed canopies too. This company in particular, they sell bed canopies kind of like a mosquito netting.

DrMR: Yeah, that would be good. The bed canopy over you, then you’re laying on a sheet, so you have that 360 protection.

Okay. Final question for you here. Are there any claims made about EMFs that you think people should be skeptical of? Meaning: we want to be progressive here, but are there any claims that you see on the internet that just seem really overreaching? Maybe really fear-mongering that we could debunk here to help people rest a little more decently?

DrRB: Not really.

DrMR: Fair enough.

DrRB: I think that if somebody uses the words “all” or “always,” then you’ve got to be skeptical. As I mentioned earlier, everybody has a different physiological reaction to this technology, except with the generation of heat and the melatonin inhibition.

But can it cause arrhythmias? I think maybe. I know Mercola was talking about that. I think that there’s an increase in cardiac atrial fibrillation in younger people. It’s becoming an epidemic. Is it related to EMF? Quite possibly yes. I know my sister had thyroid disease. She was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. They want to take her thyroid out. She told me she had her Wi-Fi router in her bedroom (I asked her). I told her to move it down to the basement, and mysteriously her thyroid function went back to normal.

DrMR: Wow.

DrRB: There are mysterious effects from being assaulted by radiation. Even though it’s non-ionizing radiation, there are still mysterious effects. I can’t say that any of them are overreaching, you know what I mean?

DrMR: Sure.

DrRB: It’s possible.

Episode Wrap-Up

DrMR: Okay, fair enough. I know you have a book. Could you tell people about your book, where they can pick it up, and if you have a website or anywhere else you’d like to point people, please?

DrRB: Sure, thanks. I wrote a book called Toxic Home/Conscious Home. It goes through all the elements of the home, everything from water and air, through food, cleaning materials, and personal care products. I talk about light, EMF, sound, and other things.

I try to teach people how to make healthier choices. I believe that all of these things do affect our health and that if we can make our home a healthy place to be, then it’s the best prevention we can do for our own health. The book is available on Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com. My website is called RobBrownMD.com. I do post a blog, although I’m a little remiss lately, but I’m going to get started again. Yeah.

DrMR: Awesome.

DrRB: You can follow me on Facebook. I’ve got all the social media channels open.

DrMR: Cool. Well, thank you. This has been a nice follow-up on this issue, and hopefully, for our audience, we provided you with some simple, yet effective strategies for getting started on the road of reducing your EMF exposure.

As you alluded to, Rob, there’s still a lot here that we have to learn and maybe some challenges with what we can’t learn because of some interesting influence. But not a bad idea to at least take some of the lower-hanging-fruit steps toward avoidance. If nothing else, that could be a preventative measure, and hopefully for some other people, that may help you see improvements in brain fog, insomnia, fatigue, weak immune system, etc.

So definitely something for us to keep our eyes on. Thank you again, Rob, for taking the time, writing the book, and sharing some of your thoughts with us.

DrRB: Thank you so much, Mike. It was a pleasure.

DrMR: Yeah, same here.

What do you think? I would like to hear your thoughts or experience with this.

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