Magnetic Fields and Cell Division

Magnetic Fields and Cell Division:

If the cellular events in mitosis are magnetically active and are dependent upon some resonance effect of the Earth’s natural (or normal) fields, then the presence of man-made (abnormal) fields could lead to disturbances in mitosis or to genetic abnormalities. The evidence is clear that all cells in the process of active cell division are directly affected by exposure to both ELF and microwaves. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the physics involved in the process of mitosis is minimal, and experiments on the effects of field exposure on cell division have been limited to simply observing changes in the rate at which it proceeds or in the production of abnormal chromosomes.

However, one intriguing observation was made in 1980 by Dr. David Cohen of the National Magnet Laboratory at MIT. Dr. Cohen reported that the SQUID* magnetometer detected a steady magnetic field from human hair follicles. The cells of the hair follicle are constantly in mitosis, but Cohen did not check on the possibility that mitosis was producing a magnetic signal. As a result, several different experiments that could have evaluated this possibility have not been done. Because no one has yet done the simple experiment of directly observing the mitosis through a microscope while the cell is exposed to an external magnetic field, at present we can only speculate about what would be seen. We obviously need to pry much more deeply into this important relationship.

If one watches cells through a microscope, the process of cell division appears lengthy, averaging about twenty-four hours. During most of this time, the cell is engaged in doubling its amount of DNA so that there is enough to make two new cells. Dr. Abraham Liboff was the first to discover that this process can be speeded up by exposing the cells to ELF magnetic fields. The actual process of cell division is a complex event that takes only a few minutes to complete. Mitosis is the final stage of this cycle and is the only stage that can be seen under a microscope. The same process occurs in cells in both the body and in culture.

Using special techniques, it is possible to synchronize this process in all, or most, of the cells in a culture so that they go into mitosis roughly simultaneously. One can also stop the process at the stage at which the chromosomes are just beginning to “pull apart”. This technique is used to count and characterize the individual chromosomes and sometimes to reveal abnormalities, as first reported by Heller.

Dr. Martin Poenie of the University of Callifornia, Berkeley, has recently shown that major changes occur in the calcium ions within the cell during the anaphase stage of mitosis. Conceivably, the field exposure may interfere with this process via a cyclotron resonance effect.

It is also possible that some of the complex structures formed during mitosis may have magnetic properties of their own. All substances are magnetic to some extent, because the spin of electrons around the nucleus of any atom is equivalent to a tiny electrical current and will produce a corresponding magnetic field. Magnetic substances may be ferromagnetic (producing a magnetic field on their own), paramagnetic (lining up parallel to the field lines of an external magnetic field), or diamagnetic (turning to a right angle to the field lines in an external magnetic field). These different types of magnetic materials were discovered by Michael Faraday in the late 1800s. Faraday exposed many different substances to no uniform or inhomogeneous, magnetic fields, in which the field lines are not parallel to one another. The exact classification depends upon the atomic composition and structure of the materials, and the actual situation is much more complex than that presented here. Nevertheless, this simplistic classification indicates the complexity of the magnetic properties of matter.

If it is somewhat absurd to consider chromosomal effects from ELF fields, it is totally absurd to postulate that DC fields could have any such effect. As a result, the majority of scientists in this area have avoided studying DC field effects. However, while searching the literature in the 1960s I found several earlier reports of DC magnetic-field effects associated with cell division. In 1938, Dr. C.G. Kimball reported that inhomogeneous DC fields of only a few gauss could produce statistically significant decreases in the growth rate of yeast cells. Kimball also reported that homogeneous fields with strengths as high as 11,000 gauss did not change the normal growth rate of these cells. Therefore, the effect had to be due to the inhomogeneous field itself.

In 1978, I experimented with the effects of DC electrical fields (also called electrostatic fields) on growing cancer cells. We implanted cancer cells into mice and then exposed the mice to an inhomogeneous DC field for several weeks. We set up two different conditions: one group of animals was exposed to a field that was horizontal (parallel to the ground), and the other was exposed to a vertical field (at right angles to the ground).

To our surprise, we found a major difference between the two conditions. Chromosomes of the cancer cells in the animals exposed to the horizontal field were markedly abnormal, while those in the animals in the vertical -field group were totally unchanged from their usual pattern. In the horizontal-field group we found chromosome breaks, exchanges of portions of chromosomes from one to another, formations of ring-shaped chromosomes, and tiny fragments that had broken off from other chromosomes.

The production of such severe chromosomal abnormalities usually results in an inability of the cells to divide and ultimately leads either to their death or to production of a new line of mutant cells. We investigated these possibilities and found that the cancer cells with the marked chromosomal abnormalities died because they were unable to replicate. There were obvious clinical implications from this study, but we were unable to follow up on it, and the experiment was never repeated.

It appears that exposure of a dividing cell to an inhomogeneous DC magnetic field causes a physical force to be exerted on the chromosomes or on one of the other microscopic structures associated with mitosis, resulting in structural abnormalities in the chromosomes.

Complex electronic-resonance effects operate at the level of individual ions or molecules and can occur even in the absence of cells. The effect at the cellular level is dependent upon the organization and the specific type of the cell within which the field effects are produced. We have just begun to explore the effects of fields on cells from these viewpoints.

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While the effects of complex electronic-resonance phenomena at the level of ions and molecules may be significant, the resultant change in the function or structure of the cell may be far more important. The effects of field exposure at the level of the total organism will be the sum of the effects at the molecular level, the cellular level, and the level of the specific organs designed to be sensitive to the Earth’s normal electromagnetic-field environment.

Field effects on entire functioning organisms are, therefore, a cascade of changes that finally result in many different structural, functional, and behavioral alterations--such as the new diseases that are emerging today. These are the subject of the next chapter.

The data obtained in the past few years indicate very clearly that we must now include the Earth’s normal geomagnetic field as an environmental variable of great consequence when we deal with the basic functions of living things. In my opinion, this knowledge is probably the single most important discovery of the century. It provides us with a key to the mechanisms by which all electromagnetic fields produce biological effects, and it may enable us to determine more accurately the risks involved in our technological uses of such fields. More importantly, it opens a door to a greater understanding of life processes, similar to that which was opened by William Gilbert in 1600 when he began the scientific revolution. The subsequent discoveries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave us our p9resent world. The new discoveries that are linking us to the Earth’s magnetic field can give us yet another world, if we explore them properly.