EMF could be a cause
I knew when I seen this article that another poster from another website had posted....I just had to post it in here. Why ? Because my Grandmother (who had alzheimers) was a seamstress and spent countless hours on a sewing machine. She worked for simplicity and also sewed the clothes for simplicity's local fashion shows. This article mentioned studies of seamstresses with unusually high rate of alzheimers. They speculate it could be from the EMF emitted from the sewing machines.
In her book, Electromagnetic Fields, written in 1995, B. Blake Levitt has this to say: "Many people think that Alzheimer's disease - a progressive, fatal, complete mental deterioration - is a a disorder of normal aging that afflicts an unlucky few. But there is nothing about Alzheimer's that is normal to aging. Nor is it related to mild forgetfulness. It is a degeneration of the neurons in specific areas of the brain that results from some disturbance within nerve-cell networks utilizing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
Just ten years ago, Alzheimer's was considered an obscure and rare condition, but today it is the nation's fourth leading cause of death. What happened? Is it simply that better diagnosis has turned up more statistically reliable numbers, which perhaps had been lumped together in years past with senile dementia? Or ware we dealing with another degenerative nerve disease increasing in incidence beyond a mere increase in the population? It looks like the latter is true - although increases in the population of those living beyond the age of eighty-five plays a significant role in the sheer numbers of cases today. And although there are only a handful of indicative studies and much speculation at this stage, there is a possibility that some EMF frequencies may play an important role, too.
Alzheimer's is a specific organic disease that afflicts only some people. It is quite different from memory lapses that plague all of us as we age, in which long-term memory is crystal clear and short-term memory seems to all but evaporate. A typical memory lapse of old age would be a person's remembering in vivid detail an event from youth as if it were yesterday but forgetting where his or her glasses were a minute ago. With Alzheimer's, people forget that they ever wore glasses.
Alzheimer's is a physical process in which the nerve cells of the brain take on the abnormal characteristics of "plaques" and "tangles." In time brain tissue comes to resemble long strands of gray knotted rubber. The disease affects women twice as often as men. Women who have taken anti-inflammatory drugs for arthritis or have had estrogen-replacement therapy have been found in some studies to have a reduced risk of developing the disorder. These studies indicate that inflammation as well as hormonal changes may be important factors. (EMF's and hormonal changes were discussed in Chapters 7 and 8.)
Research particular to acetylcholine was conducted in 1976 by a research group headed by J.J. Noval, at the Naval Air Development Center in Johnsville, Pennsylvania. Studies using rats exposed to very weak electric fields vibrated in th extremely low frequency ranges (the kind of EMF typical of any office or modern home) produces an increase in brain-stem acetycholine levels, indicating a subliminal stress response in test animals. (This also has implications for humans and low-level 'contact currents' produced by touching any common machine, including small appliances. Far more work needs to explore this possibility.)
Genetics may also be involved. Several studies have found a genetic abnormality similar to those with Down's syndrome also occurring in Alzheimer's patients. And recent research has found that the presence of a protein molecule called apoliprotein E (ApoE4) was present in 64 percent of those studied with Alzheimer's, whereas only 31 percent of those in the control group had E4. (However the presence or absence of E4 was found to have a clearer relationship to the age of the person at the onset of Alzheimer's. Some of those without E4 did get the disease, but the onset was after age eight-four.)
Recent research by Daniel Alkon, at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, has turned up a fundamental difference between the skin cells of Alzheimer's patients and healthy people. Alzheimer's patients appear to have defective potassium ion channels, which funnel potassium out of the cells. It was found that Alzheimer's patients had this cellular malfunction in the nerve cells leading from the nose to the brain. Learning and memory are associated with a number of changes in the flow of potassium ions through cellular channels. It is not known yet whether the defect originates within the brain, or even whether it precedes Alzheimer's symptoms. All that remains to be seen.
Some important questions need to be asked, such as: Are different EMF frequencies responsible for opening and closing (or permanently shutting down) potassium channels in the same way that research indicates window effects for calcium ion channels at the cellular level? Could an EMF resonance factor be involved with potassium ions? Melatonin is also known to be suppressed in those with Alzheimer's, and EMFs have been found to lower melatonin in some studies. is there any significance to the concentration of magnetite in the nasal area? What of the studies that have found EMFs to increase the permeability of the blood-brain barrier?
Recent work done jointly by Dr. Eugene Sobel, of the University of Southern California School of Medicine, and Dr. Joseph Bowman, of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, found statistically significant increases in Alzheimer's in some EMF-related occupations. The researchers combined the data from one American study and two Finnish studies and found that tailors, seamstresses, and dressmakers (who work with electric sewing machines) were overrepresented among the Alzheimer's cases. Increases were also seen for carpenters and electrical engineers, among other EMF professions. A fourth study is in the offing, as well as additional research in Finland.
Dr. Sobel indicated that the use of certain high-EMF-emitting machines may eventually be linked with Alzheimer's, but that a casual relationship between EMFs and specific people is premature. Kitchens, however, are high-EMF sources, and this may eventually account for the two-to-one ratio between women and men with Alzheimer's.
There is also some indication that the microwave frequencies are particularly suspect. Dr. Sam Koslov, director of the Applied Physics Laboratory at John Hopkins University, found, in a study using microwave exposures on chimpanzees, that the repeated low-level nonthermal exposures to the eyes produced clinical Alzheimer's in test animals. At autopsy, the classic plaques and tangles were found in brain tissue. (The researchers discovered this relationship by accident; they were testing for something else.)
Regarding the causes of Alzheimer's, a range of possibilities exists, including subtle genetic alterations initiated by environmental EMFs. Or EMFs may be acting as co-factors in melatonin suppression and in changes to the blood-brain barrier, potassium ion channels, or acetylcholine levels in the brain stem, among other possibilities. With between 2 and 4 million people afflicted with Alzheimer's in the United States alone, this will prove to be one of the most provocative research areas within the next few decades.
pp. 200-203
source mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/01/10-million-baby-boomers-face-alzheimer-s-epidemic.aspx
Paul Doyon (poster)
In her book, Electromagnetic Fields, written in 1995, B. Blake Levitt has this to say: "Many people think that Alzheimer's disease - a progressive, fatal, complete mental deterioration - is a a disorder of normal aging that afflicts an unlucky few. But there is nothing about Alzheimer's that is normal to aging. Nor is it related to mild forgetfulness. It is a degeneration of the neurons in specific areas of the brain that results from some disturbance within nerve-cell networks utilizing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
Just ten years ago, Alzheimer's was considered an obscure and rare condition, but today it is the nation's fourth leading cause of death. What happened? Is it simply that better diagnosis has turned up more statistically reliable numbers, which perhaps had been lumped together in years past with senile dementia? Or ware we dealing with another degenerative nerve disease increasing in incidence beyond a mere increase in the population? It looks like the latter is true - although increases in the population of those living beyond the age of eighty-five plays a significant role in the sheer numbers of cases today. And although there are only a handful of indicative studies and much speculation at this stage, there is a possibility that some EMF frequencies may play an important role, too.
Alzheimer's is a specific organic disease that afflicts only some people. It is quite different from memory lapses that plague all of us as we age, in which long-term memory is crystal clear and short-term memory seems to all but evaporate. A typical memory lapse of old age would be a person's remembering in vivid detail an event from youth as if it were yesterday but forgetting where his or her glasses were a minute ago. With Alzheimer's, people forget that they ever wore glasses.
Alzheimer's is a physical process in which the nerve cells of the brain take on the abnormal characteristics of "plaques" and "tangles." In time brain tissue comes to resemble long strands of gray knotted rubber. The disease affects women twice as often as men. Women who have taken anti-inflammatory drugs for arthritis or have had estrogen-replacement therapy have been found in some studies to have a reduced risk of developing the disorder. These studies indicate that inflammation as well as hormonal changes may be important factors. (EMF's and hormonal changes were discussed in Chapters 7 and 8.)
Research particular to acetylcholine was conducted in 1976 by a research group headed by J.J. Noval, at the Naval Air Development Center in Johnsville, Pennsylvania. Studies using rats exposed to very weak electric fields vibrated in th extremely low frequency ranges (the kind of EMF typical of any office or modern home) produces an increase in brain-stem acetycholine levels, indicating a subliminal stress response in test animals. (This also has implications for humans and low-level 'contact currents' produced by touching any common machine, including small appliances. Far more work needs to explore this possibility.)
Genetics may also be involved. Several studies have found a genetic abnormality similar to those with Down's syndrome also occurring in Alzheimer's patients. And recent research has found that the presence of a protein molecule called apoliprotein E (ApoE4) was present in 64 percent of those studied with Alzheimer's, whereas only 31 percent of those in the control group had E4. (However the presence or absence of E4 was found to have a clearer relationship to the age of the person at the onset of Alzheimer's. Some of those without E4 did get the disease, but the onset was after age eight-four.)
Recent research by Daniel Alkon, at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, has turned up a fundamental difference between the skin cells of Alzheimer's patients and healthy people. Alzheimer's patients appear to have defective potassium ion channels, which funnel potassium out of the cells. It was found that Alzheimer's patients had this cellular malfunction in the nerve cells leading from the nose to the brain. Learning and memory are associated with a number of changes in the flow of potassium ions through cellular channels. It is not known yet whether the defect originates within the brain, or even whether it precedes Alzheimer's symptoms. All that remains to be seen.
Some important questions need to be asked, such as: Are different EMF frequencies responsible for opening and closing (or permanently shutting down) potassium channels in the same way that research indicates window effects for calcium ion channels at the cellular level? Could an EMF resonance factor be involved with potassium ions? Melatonin is also known to be suppressed in those with Alzheimer's, and EMFs have been found to lower melatonin in some studies. is there any significance to the concentration of magnetite in the nasal area? What of the studies that have found EMFs to increase the permeability of the blood-brain barrier?
Recent work done jointly by Dr. Eugene Sobel, of the University of Southern California School of Medicine, and Dr. Joseph Bowman, of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, found statistically significant increases in Alzheimer's in some EMF-related occupations. The researchers combined the data from one American study and two Finnish studies and found that tailors, seamstresses, and dressmakers (who work with electric sewing machines) were overrepresented among the Alzheimer's cases. Increases were also seen for carpenters and electrical engineers, among other EMF professions. A fourth study is in the offing, as well as additional research in Finland.
Dr. Sobel indicated that the use of certain high-EMF-emitting machines may eventually be linked with Alzheimer's, but that a casual relationship between EMFs and specific people is premature. Kitchens, however, are high-EMF sources, and this may eventually account for the two-to-one ratio between women and men with Alzheimer's.
There is also some indication that the microwave frequencies are particularly suspect. Dr. Sam Koslov, director of the Applied Physics Laboratory at John Hopkins University, found, in a study using microwave exposures on chimpanzees, that the repeated low-level nonthermal exposures to the eyes produced clinical Alzheimer's in test animals. At autopsy, the classic plaques and tangles were found in brain tissue. (The researchers discovered this relationship by accident; they were testing for something else.)
Regarding the causes of Alzheimer's, a range of possibilities exists, including subtle genetic alterations initiated by environmental EMFs. Or EMFs may be acting as co-factors in melatonin suppression and in changes to the blood-brain barrier, potassium ion channels, or acetylcholine levels in the brain stem, among other possibilities. With between 2 and 4 million people afflicted with Alzheimer's in the United States alone, this will prove to be one of the most provocative research areas within the next few decades.
pp. 200-203
source mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/01/10-million-baby-boomers-face-alzheimer-s-epidemic.aspx
Paul Doyon (poster)
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