Are you aware of what the real effects of electromagnetic radiation on the human body are? There is a lot of information on the dangers of EMF exposure but how much of it is actually true? This week, Nick Pineault, will share the latest scientific research on the effects of EMF on humans.

Nick “The EMF Guy” Pineault is the #1 bestselling author of The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs and an advocate for safe technologies. Through his unconventional approach blending humor, science and common sense, he’s becoming a leading voice on the topic of electromagnetic pollution and how it affects our health.

In this podcast, you’ll learn:

• What EMFs are
• How heavy long term use of mobile phones can cause cancer
• How having your phone on your body can be linked to infertility (and how you can avoid it)
• How EMFs can affect your sleep
• 3 simple steps as to how you can lower your EMF exposure today

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The Real Effects Of Electromagnetic Radiation On The Human Body – Transcript

Ari Whitten: Everyone, welcome back. I’m here with Nicholas Pineault. Nicholas is a health journalist who has published more than 1500 online articles through a daily newsletter called Nick and Gen’s Healthy Life. In 2017 he authored the Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs, and that’s actually why he’s here, why I have him here to talk to you all today.

This book is an unconventional book, which combines common sense and humor, to tackle the very serious topic of electromagnetic pollution and its effects on human health. So if you’re interested in learning more about his work, I’ll also mention his website here, it’s called nontinfoilemf.com.

So, welcome Nick, thank you so much for joining me.

Nick Pineault: Hey Ari, big fan of the show and thanks for having me.

Ari Whitten: Thanks, brother. I appreciate it. You sent me your book prior to this podcast which I have gone through and is awesome.

Nick Pineault: Thank you.

Ari Whitten: I want to start off by just kind of stating my general take on things, and I want to mention as a general context for everyone, that I have actually really avoided this topic of EMF. I have almost avoided it like the plague, to be honest with you. A long time now, for years, I haven’t invited anybody else to talk about this subject on the show. I’ve never talked about it myself. I generally hesitate to talk about it anywhere.

The reason why, is that I’ve really felt there isn’t a strong consensus in the science, and you know I hear some people saying one thing, other people saying other things, some people really saying it’s a terrible danger, other people saying it’s perfectly safe, and everybody who thinks otherwise is just a quack wearing tinfoil hats. I really appreciated this really sane look at EMFs, and that’s why I ultimately invited you on the show and wanted you to share this with my audience. I just wanted everyone to kind of hear my general take on this and why I haven’t really talked about this subject before.

Nick Pineault: Gotcha. And if I can add to that, my book and my work if … the number one thing it’s not, is definitive. I’m a health journalist, I’m not a researcher doing a meta-analysis. I’m just saying what should we do before there is consensus, from today up to maybe 30 years in the future? How should we act now? Is it precautions, or is it increasing the levels? That’s all I’m saying. This is my message.

Ari Whitten: In the situation where there’s something where we think, “Well it might be harmful, and it might, and we don’t really know for sure,” I think that it’s obviously the smart thing to do to err on the side of caution. Because it doesn’t really hurt to do that, but if you don’t do that, then you potentially have to suffer very serious consequences.

Nick Pineault: Yes.

Why people who discuss EMF are not taken seriously

Ari Whitten: I definitely appreciate where you’re coming from. So with that said, I would love if you could just elaborate a bit on this idea of non-tinfoil. Where does this come from? So for people who maybe are kind of unfamiliar with the whole landscape of EMFs and really they’re new to this topic and they don’t really know anything about it, what’s this non-tinfoil stuff that you talk about in your book?

Nick Pineault: Well, non-tinfoil, I decided that a lot of people that are skeptics when it comes to EMFs refer to the … a segment of the population that kind of believes in conspiracy theories UFOs and then that EMFs are something orchestrated by, I don’t know what, aliens or whatever, to destroy our health.

Something completely crazy and they call these tinfoil hatters. As a reference, if I remember correctly from the film Signs with Joaquin Phoenix that where people wear tinfoil hats, going to listen to extraterrestrial signals, I don’t remember what. But it’s a common meme that people who talk about bee stings are put aside in this category as like, “Oh you’re tinfoil,” your pseudoscience would be another word, or unscientific or a quack.

I don’t think it’s okay to call names for starters, if you want to have a scientific debate.  And then looking as a health journalist, looking in the issue, I discovered that well there’s a lot of very, very intelligent people that are dedicating their entire life, putting their careers on the line, going against the grain trying to research the health effects and saying, “Wait a minute, maybe there are health effects, we should listen.”

So, it’s actually a subject that I discovered is very serious, but I had to market it in a way that I say, “Okay, this is not the usual alarmist thing, I’m not alarmist here, I’m realistic.” I won’t tell people, for example, to take their iPhone and shred it to pieces because it doesn’t make sense. We all want our phones. We do not all want to live in the woods, for example, go out the grid. So I try to position that in a way that is realistic of the average person to do, and to act upon it.

What is EMF? Electromagnetic fields explained

Ari Whitten: Yeah, absolutely. So what are EMFs? And I want you to … I know there are multiple different types of electromagnetic fields, EMFs for short. You’re going to give us kind of an overview of what those are. But one thing I want to mention actually before we get into that on the subject of why so many people perceive this area as pseudoscience?

I think there’s something kind of in a way obvious going on here, which is that the things that we’re talking about are invisible. We can’t see them, we can’t really feel them, at least most people can’t except for maybe electro sensitive people which we’re going to talk more about later but, it’s like this realm of the invisible and immaterial.

So, I think the human brain is inherently wired to be skeptical of anything that you can’t see and feel. If you can’t see and feel it, it’s not real. I get where that’s coming from and I have a human brain that’s wired that way also. But I’m also aware of certain areas of science where, for example, I’m really big into light. There are certain wavelengths of light on the electromagnetic radiation spectrum which are actually well studied. There’s a mountain of science on them.

We know lots about them. None of this is controversial. If we’re talking about the effects of infrared radiation, far infrared or near infrared, we have a mountain of studies talking about how these invisible things affect our physiology. So we know that there’s stuff that’s invisible that we can’t necessarily see or feel that affects us.

But EMFs, again I think it just falls into that category where so many people are skeptical of it. So anyway, I just wanted to mention that as a context. What are these different types of electromagnetic fields and how do you classify them.

Nick Pineault: Sure. So basically the EMF spectrum goes from one end, you’ve got the very, very low frequency like 50, 60 hertz, that’s just the electricity running in your wires in your home depending on 60 hertz in the US and 50 in Europe. The other end is gamma rays and hard core Chernobyl like signals that we know we shouldn’t be exposed to.

Then you have also x-rays that we use in medical settings in a very controlled manner these days. Whereas in the 50s, they used it just for the public and children in shoe stores to look at whether a shoe would fit or not.

You could see your feet under x-rays. Eventually, they discovered, “Oh my God, what are we doing? It’s actually causing more potential risks than rewards. So let’s remove that and let’s just keep it for hospitals.”  This is what happened for x-rays.

Now we go down the spectrum, and eventually, we reach a critical point. I’m going to talk about that non-ionizing versus ionizing because this is a critical reason that there’s a scientific consensus among physicists on now. But you go into the radio frequency range, and often it’s called, part of it is microwave. So the microwave signal is basically what comes off a microwave oven to cook food, and then all the signals that we use these days, cell phones, tablets, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, are microwave signals as well, is the same frequency.

Obviously, no one is cooking right now, so it’s a very, very, very low power compared to a microwave, so I have to acknowledge that.

Mainly what I talk about when I talk about cell phone radiation is microwaves. The four types basically you would have microwaves, or also called radio frequency.

You would have magnetic fields. These are created mainly, let’s say inside your home, there would be a breaker panel. Any source of a big motor or a big source of electricity creates a magnetic field and then also an electrical field which is a third type.

Electric fields are basically a field radiating from anything that is plugged in. Even just a power cord of a lamp, even if the lamp is not on, has electricity in it, just like a hose that you’re not actually using it to water your garden, it has water in it, it has pressure. This is an electrical field.

And the fourth type is a kind of subtype that’s identified by building biologists that are the guys, there is an entire profession that looks at EMFs and how to reduce them to better human health, and especially sleep quality, and especially for people that are sensitive. These guys look at dirty electricity. So this let’s say how smooth or not smooth the electricity in your home is, or how clean or unclean it is.

So that’s another thing. But mainly, in the discussion, if you will, we can talk about microwaves. Because I think this is a number one source of EMFs people are exposed to. The reason is simple, the closer they EMF is or the source is to your body, the more potential danger there is. So obviously we’re talking here about a cell phone. That would be the number one source that people are exposed to these days.

Ari Whitten: So I just want to clarify, because you mentioned microwaves. Most people in their heads are going to jump to a microwave in their kitchen. So can you just clarify, you’re saying microwaves, just so people get this? Microwaves also come out of other devices other than a microwave in your kitchen.

Nick Pineault: Yes, yes. Maybe I went over that a little bit fast, in my head it’s all clear, but it’s definitely big news for a lot of people. So it’s a microwave frequency. So your microwave, how it works actually, is that it will agitate the water molecules inside the food 2.4 gigahertz is the frequency that it uses.

That means 2.4 billion times a second of shaking. And this is why eventually the food … so you have that plus power, so a lot of power, eventually your food will heat up, or a cup of coffee.

The cell phone uses the same frequency, but instead of 1000 watt super high power, sometimes it’s less than a watt. So it’s low power, but the microwave signal is the type of EMF if you will.

Ari Whitten: So just to make sure I understood that correctly, you’re saying the cell phone is emitting let’s say essentially the same frequency just with a much lower wattage?

Nick Pineault: Yes, exactly, the same thing.

Ari Whitten: Okay. But same basic type of radiation? It’s just the intensity, the power that it’s being emitted at.

Nick Pineault: Exactly, correct.

How not all factors are taken into account when cell phone radiation safety is decided

Ari Whitten: Okay. Now would imagine there’s some trade off here in terms of like the overall dose that one receives of this is going to be proportional to not just the power output but also the duration that one is being exposed to it. So in other words, like being exposed to a microwave sort of radiation for 10 seconds versus having a cell phone next to your head for three hours a day.

Nick Pineault: Yeah, sure. This is where the debate comes from, I think originates. It’s you have a category starting in the UV range that starts to be ionizing to the human body. What this means basically is that the type of radiation has enough power in it to break your DNA, to break chemical bonds.

So we know that the effect can be immediate and powerful and that cannot be repaired. So this is why we identify that x-rays fall into that and that while it does damage, the more x-rays you’re exposed to, the greater your cancer risk. We know that this is why we restrict them.

However, when it comes to microwaves, the signal is not strong enough. The power of microwave frequency is not strong enough. It’s non-ionizing. So it means it will not instantly break your DNA.

So physicists and also people from the industry have concluded, “Okay, well, in that case, what we need to look at is not ionization because obviously, it doesn’t happen, it’s whether it heats you too much.”

Because let’s face it, if you put 1000 watts right here, you cook your brain essentially, like a microwave oven. But if you put one watt, you do not cook your brain. So they reduced the power until the head will not overheat and the brain will not overheat.

So all the safety guidelines right now are based on heating effects alone. What they have not looked at is what kind of biological effects can happen inside the cells, or maybe a part of the cell, or maybe mitochondria.

So when you go to the very tiny details of a human cell, can it be possible that these signals that do not heat your head, can they affect the human cell?

This is the real question that biologists are looking at. But the industry has stopped at heating effects, and right now everything is based on heating effects alone.

So what biologists are saying is, “Well guys, it’s a mistake. Because we realize that the low, the thermal threshold before it’s going to heat you up, it’s going to cause certain effects that might be detrimental.” So this is exactly why there’s such a disparity of opinions.

Ari Whitten: Okay. So this is basically the fundamental reason why there’s so much controversy around EMFs?

Nick Pineault: Yes.

Ari Whitten: And why there isn’t a consensus among scientists. Or you have some that are kind of saying, “This is really unsafe.” Others who are saying, “It’s perfectly safe, it’s non-ionizing, there’s no harm here.” So say that one more time, so there’s ionizing like x-rays, and I assume there’s some other maybe gamma rays and other types of radiation that are really harmful and immediately creating DNA damage of measurable significance that we can immediately say, “Well this is clearly very harmful, there’s no debate around that.”

Nick Pineault: Yep.

Ari Whitten: Then, in this category of non-ionizing, where it’s not creating that sort of measurable DNA damage immediately, they’re basically saying, “Well it’s not doing that, so therefore the only other possible way it could create harm is by overheating tissues.”

Nick Pineault: Yes, by burning you basically, exactly. So they say, “Well it doesn’t burn you, hence it does nothing.” And this is a logical fallacy that people fall into, and it’s kind of a meme, that the more you repeat it, the more people believe it.

Now is the number one argument, you’ll see forums and debates and everyone from working in the IT, they’re going to say, “Well it’s non-ionizing.” But it doesn’t mean anything really, it just means that well, maybe it would have meant something, but unfortunately, biologists have found that there might be indirect effect in the cell that eventually lead to downstream problems.

As we know, I mean, there are so many things that we don’t know yet, and just research on mitochondria that you’re working on Ari in your program is so recent that our understanding of the human body is constantly being revolutionized right now and the standards date from 1996.

It means it was a time where these studies were not out, the mechanisms were unknown, and also who used a cell phone in 96? ?So these safety guidelines are just outdated so much. We’re rolling forward with increasing more signals. This is what concerns me personally. This is really what I think is a little bit careless.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, okay. So on that note. I actually want to deviate a little bit from the list of questions that I have written out that I wanted to ask you. I want to go a little deeper into some of these mechanisms.

Nick Pineault: Okay.

Ari Whitten: There’s potential from ionizing radiation, there’s potential damage from heat, and then there are some indirect mechanisms which it sounds like we still need a little bit more research to really identify exactly what’s going on.

Nick Pineault: Yes.

Some ways EMF Exposure might cause indirect damage

Ari Whitten: Can you talk a bit about some of maybe those mechanisms, or some of the mechanisms that there’s at least some bit of science on as far as EMF might cause indirect damage?

Nick Pineault: The number one guy to study is called Martin Pall, P-A-L-L. Martin Pall is from the Washington State University and gladly for our sake, he’s retired. So it means he can say whatever he likes.

So this guy has been researching something called the VGCCs. VGCCs is Voltage Gated Calcium Channels. These are little channels that let calcium in and out of the cell. Might not seem like much, but the mineral balance inside a cell actually has a lot of downstream effects, because it changes the electricity and everything basically in a cell. So affecting that, what he realized is that while the cell itself is not affected, these little gates, they are voltage mediated, so they work by voltage and just a microwave signal might come in and disrupt this gate. [1]

So it’s kind of like a little door that stays open for several hours after exposure to microwave signals. What he realized, and this is true, because it’s been published in several papers, his 2013 paper has been recognized as one … I don’t remember the institution, but it’s been very recognized in the scientific circles as one of the best in 2013.

Now he has published multiple others and he realized that this effect can be seen at 7.2 million times lower signal strength than whatever strength will be necessary to heat a cell. So it means that even the cell phone at several feet, technically your cell could be affected.

Now I’m not saying that it’s affected at a point where you could feel it or even that you would feel ill from the effect, I don’t know that, but what he realized that excess calcium in a cell causes extra excess nitric oxide to build up. And this excess nitric oxide plus the super oxide in a cell, what it creates, it’s a very powerful oxidant called, it’s peroxynitrite.

This thing is linked with DNA damage, and DNA breaks, and oxidative stress. Then when you look at the effect of peroxynitrite on mitochondrial health … I have one from Journal of the British … I don’t remember. I have it right here. I can send you all those links, by the way, I’ll be happy to share the research with you.[2]

Ari Whitten: Yeah, I would love to post some of the relevant literature on that, and show notes page for this.

Nick Pineault: Yeah, and you know the research on mitochondrial health is so early, but the effect of peroxynitrite is basically a very powerful mitochondrial poison. So it might be that in very doses, there is no problem. But our exposure, to Wi-Fi for example, for the average person living in a city, is literally 24/7 unless you go camping in the countryside.

So maybe over time this excess calcium builds up and builds up, and creates these indirect health effects. That could affect people that maybe have a potential predisposition. Because it’s not 100% of the population that has health effects, but linking these things too, for example, heart failure because the heart contains a lot of VGCCs, a lot of voltage gated calcium channels. In the brain, it relates that to neuronal formation and neuronal death because neurons find each other through magnetism and through these calcium channels. [3]

So he looks at what parts of the body has the more VGCCs and then can we find health effects, or can we actually try to correlate, are we kind of causing that these days?

Actually what is interesting from this guy, is that he has more than 30 studies in rats where he applied … he gave these rats a calcium channel blocker drug and a lot of different types. Each time, most of them either nullify or reduce greatly the effects that EMFs will have on calcium channels. So in other words, what that means is that he’s giving Wi-Fi to the cell, and the calcium channels stay open, and then he sends a blocker in and the effects will stop. So it proves the mechanism, it proves his theory.

It used to be a theory, but now we’re moving forward and he’s actually going forward and saying that a lot of symptoms, neurological symptoms like anxiety and depression could be related to just overall levels, not even cell phone use, just overall levels of EMFs. Which of course there are a thousand more factors in cities. I mean I can talk about stress, and traffic, and air pollution and what not, but this might be one of the mechanisms. His research is very, very solid.

Ari Whitten: Very interesting. So in terms of sources of these types of EMF radiation that we need to be concerned about, I’ve heard some people make references to, “Is it just our device that’s next to us, for example, our phone, our laptop or whatever? Is that really the only source of EMFs? What about Wi-Fi in our house? What about where we might be 20 or 40 feet away from it?” And what about being in a city environment in general where maybe you don’t have a device right next to you within 20 feet of you, and there’s no Wi-Fi immediately next to you or in your house or something. Just by being in a city are you being exposed to any sort of baseline levels of EMFs constantly? And what is the source of that?

Nick Pineault: Yes, well the sources are multiple, as people might have heard, we’re moving towards the internet of things. Which is basically connecting your toaster to your plants, to your TV, to your cell phone.

So that way your plant tells you, “Hey I need to be watered.” And your TV tells you, “There’s a new show coming on, you should open me.” Like everything is smart. So all these devices, any kind of either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi signal, or cell phone this is your immediate environment and the one you’ll control the most.

Cell tower radiation health effects

Then when you live in a city, you have to also care about cellular towers. In Downtown San Diego I did a talk at a Mindshare Summit, and I shared that there were 13 towers in one square kilometer, that’s less than a square mile for Americans, and well, like, I guess 75%, I’m not good at math.

But either way, it’s a lot of towers. And these towers actually produce background levels. So the background levels in cities right now in the frequency of let’s say 1 to 2.5 gigahertz range, I talked to a top EMF engineer a couple of weeks ago to prepare for my talk. He told me “Well Nick, these levels are one quadrillion times the levels in nature in those frequencies. Because these frequencies are basically unseen in nature, they’re barely there.

You have the earth’s frequency, you have the sun, UV, IR, a lot of infrared and a lot of different, and even gamma rays, even pollution coming from the space storms and what not. There are a lot of EMFs everywhere in nature, but not in those frequencies. These frequencies are said to be man made. So it’s like all these levels are created by our use.

But generally what I tell people to focus on, and in my book, first it’s their devices. Because of course, these are the ones like, you’re the one blasting yourself in a sense, if that makes sense, or exposing yourself. I don’t want to be over the top. But you can be either exposing yourself, or you can put it on airplane mode when you don’t need to receive a call and then remove this exposure.

Just like you can choose to have better air quality at home but if you go outside in the smog, well guess what, you’re not getting a changed it that much. So focus on what you can control is basically my message here. And then, the second part of it is, well do the background radiation levels matter? And is it making people sick? Well, it’s really hard to tell.

There are some good studies about cell phone tower proximity and health, and some people have reported effects that 500 meters or 1500 feet from a cell phone tower, and the closer they got in the survey, so that’s a very imperfect method of studying health. But there’s a lot of them that say, well at 50 meters people were somehow really ill. Hard to say if there’s a correlation, but there’s a lot of-

Ari Whitten: I think there is … I don’t know … I’m not an expert on this particular area of science, but I had looked into it one time years ago where they were I think looking at research linking cancer to the proximity of electrical transmission lines, and cell phone towers and things like that.

Nick Pineault: Yeah, there are definite links and the researcher’s from Brazil, I think his name is D-O-D-E Dode I guess. I looked it up and found cancer clusters really close to cell phone towers. Honestly, there’s no cause or link necessarily but just as a preventative measure in 2012, India decided to remove certain towers that were close to kindergartens, to schools, to hospitals. And what they said, and this is the government saying that it’s not me, is, “This is a threat to human health.”

Okay, they choose their verbiage, maybe it’s over the top, but they judged that it might be a huge problem, and they’re concerned. So they removed them and guess what? People still used their cell phones, it’s just that they moved the towers further way in the countryside, so it’s just a question, it’s just societal decision of how safe do you want to be? How precautious do you want to be?

Other countries are taking action. I mean a lot of countries, France in 2015 has started a ban in kindergartens for Wi-Fi, because again they think, “It’s unclear but maybe there is something where children are going to have problems developing a brain. If there’s even a slight chance, let’s not take any chance. They don’t really need the Wi-Fi.” They decided as a society, let’s remove it.

And I don’t think it sounds that crazy, I think it sounds reasonable. Then they might have iPads still but wired. There are other solutions you know, you don’t have to go like … we used to have wires a couple of years back right? I remember, and I’m not even that old.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, like we talked about at the beginning, I think that that precautionary principle is a good approach. And on that note, I have to say I just recently moved into a new home that I’m renting. Not actually a new home, meaning it’s not just built, it’s an older home, but it’s new for me.

We had the internet installed by the internet company. And I actually have taken off Wi-Fi and hard wired in my internet. Really, just based on that same precautionary principle of just … hey, especially I have a young baby, I have a 10-month-old. If there’s any possibility that Wi-Fi radiation being in this house 24/7 is going to negatively impact my son in any way, I’m happy to deal with the minor inconvenience of having a hard wired internet, and actually having to plug a wire into my computer when I want to use it.

So yeah, I’m with you on that for sure. So as far as safety standards on the subject of EMF. How are these things tested? What are the current like kind of regulations or ways of looking at safety standards?

Why cell phone SAR ratings are inaccurate

Nick Pineault: Sure. Well, you might have heard something called SAR, it’s for cell phone safety. This is something you have on the cell phone box sometimes, SAR rating. Some cell phones are higher, some cell phones are lower. This is basically the heating effect.

So how much this phone is going to heat your head. It doesn’t tell you anything as far as biological effects go, but how they’re tested is that a cell phone cannot exceed a SAR of 1.6, whatever that means, it would be at the exam.

But basically, this is tested, they put a cell phone next to a big mannequin head that is the equivalent of a 220-pound man, 6’2″ tall. So a problem right there that I see, and that everyone is kind of obvious is well, nowadays four-year-olds use cell phones, so can we really have safety standards based on a 6’2″ guy when children use it. And there are no safety standards the equivalent for children, and their head is smaller.

So that’s one problem. Then they tested for six minutes only. Six minutes I think is really underestimating the effect, the exposure long term to the background levels, and when you wear one on your body. And even who makes a six-minute phone call? If you’re a businessman, some people are heavy users for hours plus. Some people are 12 hours per day, literally always on the phone. So these safety standards are insufficient because of these reasons.

So they’re tested to make sure it doesn’t overheat your brain like I mentioned. But aside from that, the safety standards, this is it, this is it. And then if you test that and it doesn’t boil your brain and the SAR is low enough-

Ari Whitten: In six minutes.

Nick Pineault: … In six minutes, let’s put it on the market, and it’s safe. Then the cell phone companies … I do not buy into blaming the cell phone companies. In reality, our society is built on … it’s not a company’s responsibility to figure out the rules. They just follow the rules.

So if you tell the company “You have to have a SAR of 1.6,” Apple says, “Okay, we’ll follow that,” and they have an SAR of 1.6. Then if they’re device is deemed dangerous, they will say, “Well the FCC, Federal Communication Commission, told us to do that. We’re not responsible for the safety standards.”

So I guess it’s a problem of the industry not being liable saying, “You know what, it’s not our problem, we followed the standards, and the standards being broken. These two combined make it that the status quo just no one will take the blame basically.

And there’s also obviously the fact that the more you go forward in technology, the more money you make. Obviously, people don’t want to stop technological advances because it would cost trillions of dollars to look at, okay we need to reduce … let’s say if tomorrow Apple would be called by the government and say, “Okay you guys need to reduce your cell phone emissions by 99%.” They would freak out.

But I think eventually they would figure it out, but it would cost them a lot. So like they don’t see the use of having a low EMF cell phone just as a precaution because they’re not a non-profit. Why would they spend a trillion dollars doing that? So I don’t know, I went on a tangent here, but–

Ari Whitten: Yeah, no, that makes sense. I think that’s important because from what I understand, one of the big problems in the area of safety testing of these devices is that a lot of the testing is being funded by the technology companies themselves, who obviously have a vested interest in proving that they are safe rather than that they’re not safe.

I’ve heard some scientists who I respect talking about this subject, basically saying that part of the reason for the lack of consensus is that some of the research is being funded by these companies, and then where in other studies it’s not being funded by the companies that have a vested interest in proving that they’re safe, they’re finding other things.

So that’s maybe one layer of it, but I think from what you said, it really sounds like they’re just not really looking at the right things. They’re not testing it in a way that they’re going to get a particular, an accurate result.

Like we talked about before testing it for heating effects on the tissues is not really the right thing to be looking at. And yet they’re testing it for heating effects on the tissues and only in this particular window of six minutes. It’s not giving insightful data as to the actual safety of these devices.

Nick Pineault: Definitely, and let me share a study that kind of I think will put the nail in the coffin of skeptics, is the NTP study. So what’s interesting about this study first is funded by the US Government, who would have thought?

It’s been commissioned I think in 97 and done in 2015, so it took A couple of years to get started, like 18 years. So what they did, is the researchers placed a lot of rats, like thousands of them, in cages with a cell phone signal, but they made sure that the effect was not thermal.

So the cell phone signal generator was at a distance, so just to create something ambient. So that way you eliminated any chance that damage or whatever would happen, the effect would have been seen through the eyes of okay, it’s just heating effect.

What they found is that the human equivalent of 30 minutes of cell phone use for 36 years causes a good increase, statistically significant in brain cancer and heart cancer, which is very rare, in the groups of rats that are exposed, and the controlled group zero cancers.

Ari Whitten: Wow.

Nick Pineault: So that’s huge. These results are going to be … have been … the researchers were so concerned. At first, they got … their mission was to prove definitely that cell phones were SAR, that was safe. That was the commissioner’s … the head of the study had this mission, mandated 25 million dollars, take this, go study it, and prove it, let’s put an end to the debate. They found the opposite.

And this is US funded. This is one of independent government US funded, and the results are going to be revealed, the full results in December of this year 2017 as we’re recording this. I know how some skeptics say, “Okay, well rats don’t matter for cancer,” which is not true, it’s actually the gold standard of carcinogen studies. So that’s not true.

So there’s always going to be skeptics saying, “Okay maybe it was a fluke,” or, “Fine, let’s do more studies like this,” but we need independent research, there’s barely any research that’s independent in the US and Canada because it’s not funded. In the past it was industry funded and they stopped around 96.

Everything is done in Europe. So why aren’t we looking at this actively and then trying to find solutions? No, not get rid of cell phones, no one is telling you this. It’s not trying to point fingers, well there’s probably going to be some of that, but still, like we just need to sit down, biologists and engineers, and figure out what signals could be safer. [4]

Some people are looking at Li-Fi, it’s like a type of light, used LED to communicate a signal. That’s one thing. I don’t know, there’s a couple of engineers looking at different things, but if we don’t acknowledge that there’s a problem in the first place, it will never happen. We’re just moving forward with the same potentially damaging technology, and no one’s doing anything about it.

Ari Whitten: Interesting. I personally am excited about the possibility of Li-Fi. I think that’s probably going to be something that’s useful. I hope in terms of the technological aspects of it, that they can actually get it to work, and be a true replacement. But I think in terms of compatibility with human health, it’s probably really a good idea.

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: fact or fiction?

So let’s talk about electro sensitivity.

Nick Pineault: Sure.

Ari Whitten: This is a controversial topic and for those that don’t know, basically this is the idea that certain people are electro sensitive, they’re hyper-sensitive to these EMFs and really get debilitating symptoms when exposed to things like a cell phone nearby, and things like that. So what’s the deal with electro sensitivity? Is it real and has this been studied?

Nick Pineault: It has been studied, it has been laughed at a lot. It has been thought as completely crazy also. So there’s a lot of differing opinions. Some people think … I hear physicists especially that still believe the old myth non-ionizing, they say, “Well it’s just psychosomatic, you know these people need help.”

Other people are taking a more I think scientific approach, looking at, “Okay, people who self-report electro sensitivity, do they have something in common, biologically, not mentally?” I think that all of them seem to be always in fight or flight mode.

So it means that there’s a part that eventually it’s as if you’re … imagine you’re getting whipped by someone. Eventually you barely, just the expectation hurts you. So it’s as if these people have kind of, now they see a cell phone and they become almost stressed just by the sight of a cell phone or the idea of a cell phone. So part of it is kind of an entrainment psychologically.

But they also looked at, for example, Dominique Belpomme is a researcher from France. He looked at what are the reliable biomarkers in EHS, and he has found several of them. Mainly it looks like a lot of responses that looked just like multiple chemical sensitivity. These people seem to be genuinely allergic to signal in a sense. So you see C-reactive protein go up, histamine levels, mast cell activation on the scan, and all of these are related to like someone who would have a rash or like eye level of IGE, or there are different markers in there, even anti myelin antibodies.

So it means they’re a little bit auto-immune to their nervous system. Which correlates with some effects that people are seeing. Some people have muscle weakness. For some people, the symptoms might look like multiple sclerosis. Some people have said … but this is not … they have not … researchers have looked at EHS.

They took people in a room, shielded a room, and then put a cell phone and they were blindfolded, and there were cell phones that were shams, no signals, and certain phones with signals. And the EHS people, people with electro sensitivity, couldn’t identify when the cell phone was on or off. It was tested for just a couple of minutes, and then they called it today and they concluded it’s not an issue. These people, it’s all in their head, they cannot detect the signal.

The problem I have with this is that it’s not reflective of the background levels, it’s not reflective of okay, does the person get sick in 10 minutes or in 10 days. Most people that I have met, and even people that are practitioners and scientists, have told me, “I am personally electro sensitive,” and they respond in different ways.

But for some of them, it’s being a room with Wi-Fi is no problem, day one. Day two they start feeling fatigued. Day three they just cannot think, and day four maybe they’re bedridden.

It’s something that it seems they’re allergic to. They have just a huge reaction when it shouldn’t. It’s had to tell why. Maybe it’s that they have a genetic predisposition to having their calcium channels disrupted, who knows? We need to look at that on a scientific background and look, and probably … we had a discussion at the Mindshare with Alan Christensen, who was very interested in hearing your thoughts, and some people think it’s nocebo effect.

And honestly, maybe, some people are so convinced, like you read something on the internet and all of a sudden you start having symptoms, and maybe you just have some sort of a post traumatic idea creep in your mind that somehow these signals are hurting you and it can happen with gluten too I’m sure, and other things.

Maybe you think sugar is killing you, and then you have a bit of sugar and then you even treat a rash. I don’t know, a human mind is a powerful tool. So I’m not completely rejecting the idea that there’s a psychological aspect, but people I see recovering in a medical setting, and there are people specializing in that, like Dominique Belpomme, they do two things. They reduce the exposure, just like you would be exposed to gluten, let’s say someone with celiac, you need to stop glutens, you need to stop signals.

So these people need to live fairly isolated as a recover. And the second thing is psychological like saying it’s okay, it’s okay that there’s a cell phone because I can handle it. So it’s a psychological and even re-entrainment of the whole fight or flight mechanism so that they don’t have this PTSD anymore. And when you combine these two approaches, some people can go back and use Wi-Fi again. I’ve seen that from completely bedridden and completely okay. But it’s rare. But it seems that the approaches are … it’s still so early, very early and fancy. I think it could be fixed, just like multiple chemical sensitivity or even people with celiac these days can recover sometimes if they do the right things, and they repair and they calm down the body. It’s not impossible. [5]

But for some of them, it seems to be very debilitating. So there’s a vast range. Some people about 3% of the population having strong symptoms. Magda Hava, she’s a researcher from the Trent University in Toronto, she says 35% are EHS, mild to moderate symptoms.

Ari Whitten: Wow.

Nick Pineault: That’s her. Some people would say, “No that’s way too much,” but self-reported in different countries ranges from 1% to 10%, that when you take population, all ages, both sexes, you ask them, “Are you sensitive to these devices?” And I don’t know what questions they ask. People self-report, “Yes, I feel a headache, I feel fatigued, I feel dizziness, heart palpitations.”

But let’s say the signals can affect each cell and each mitochondrion in your body. It can cause anything. Which is the problem? What is EHS? What is electro sensitivity? It’s not like celiac you see the gluten and you take it and then generally these guys have certain like gut effect and bedridden and brain fog. It’s not been identified, it’s too early. But I don’t think it’s pure craziness. I think it’s a mix of biological and psychological effects for sure.

The nocebo effect, how it impacts your health

Ari Whitten: Yeah, interesting. On this note, I actually want to interject a little bit of something I think is an important aspect to add to this discussion which is the nocebo effect. One of the things that I think a lot of people in today’s world are experiencing, especially health conscious people who are learning about different approaches to diet and nutrition, as they get exposed to one type of dietary ideology and then that book they read has a certain list of good and bad foods.

And I’ve seen this happen time and time again, where people actually become so fearful and so neurotic of the foods that have been listed by that particularly dietary ideology as being bad for you, that they actually become debilitated by it. Debilitated might be a strong word, but they do themselves a lot of harm psychologically, and not just psychologically, but actually, by their belief systems around those foods, they create such fear, and stress and anxiety that they actually end up harming themselves physically in a very real way because of it.

So part of the reason that I have not talked about EMFs before and I’ve never invited anyone to share anything on this topic before, is because I’m very wary of that. I don’t want to create harm when there isn’t harm actually from the technology itself.

Basically, my thinking was, “Well, I need to know for certain that there is real science showing that there is potential harm here before I invite somebody to talk about the idea that these could be potentially harmful.”

Because who knows, maybe they’re perfectly safe and I could create this, tens of thousands of people or hundreds of thousands of people who are all of a sudden super fearful and then causing themselves harm when they see a Wi-Fi router or having their cell phone next to them.

So I’m very wary of that situation and I just wanted to mention that because I want everybody listening to be aware of not causing harm to yourself by your belief systems around these devices. Do what’s necessary to minimize risk, but don’t add insult to injury by stressing yourself out over these things.

Nick Pineault: I agree totally Ari. This is a very important message. This is the reason that I wrote my guide … like I could have used another tone. Some people will be very alarmists, and maybe they have the rights to do so. Some people that maybe understand the issue even more than I do. I understand the surface, I understand the big picture. I am a journalist, I’m not a researcher.

But I know that people get … I get into that, I’m passionate about health. Sometimes I will read about something and then I get stressed until I become like … I go to the extremes, and I come back to something more reasonable and usually it’s, “Okay, Nick you’re going to have gluten tonight.” “Oh my God.” It’s okay, just the response, the fight or flight, the adrenalin rush, “Oh now, what have I done? I just screwed up everything.” It might be worse than the gluten itself.

Ari Whitten: I agree completely.

Nick Pineault: And it’s something we have to keep in mind. This is a discussion we need to have because there’s another one, Amazon best seller that will come up with another problem, lectins, and heavy metals, and EMFs and Nick will be there with his book and it’s too much for a lot of people to handle. So we need to be balanced and say, “You know what you do, you control at home, you have decided to,” after that you don’t think about it twice, you’re like, “Okay, this is done.” I recommend … we’ll get into steps, I recommend a couple simple steps.

Then, do not over-stress about it. If you discover you’re very sensitive, then you have to take the necessary steps to look into it, work with a practitioner that knows these things, and there are some out there. Then figure it out. Just like if you’re celiac, you have to look at your restaurant food in a brand new way, and it’s okay. But even celiac eventually you need to learn to better your response and to not freak out when it happens. It’s a lifelong journey of staying balanced and sane in that process.

Ari Whitten: For sure. I think this is … I appreciate everything you just said, and I think this is just an important thing for people to be aware of. I have a particular sensitivity to it because, for many years, I was myself, somebody causing damage to myself through a lot of these fears.

The irony is you’re doing it in the name of being conscious around your health, your like making these efforts to read all these books and learn all these things about how to be healthy, and then you turn yourself into a fearful neurotic mess over fearing this food and that food and then creating those types of stress reactions whenever you encounter a food where you might have some type of thing that’s harmful to it.

Yeah, I think people get the message, but I think that’s an important point.

One thing I want to talk about here is … and we’ve kind of eluded to some of this already but, as far as the evidence around whether they’re safe, whether they’re harmful. I’ve seen some studies for example where they’ve shown men who wear their cell phones in their pocket have like lower sperm counts and lower testosterone and things like that.

So we actually have some human research on exposure to EMFs really indicating hey, these things are causing measurable harm to us. Then there seems to be also some other evidence that says perfectly safe, not harmful, no increased risk of cancer.

What cell phone radiation effects on the brain are

So as far as the overall body of evidence, what’s your impression as far as what the overall body of evidence indicates?

Nick Pineault: It indicates that a lot of things aren’t clear. For example, the brain cancer risks, unclear. However, there’s a lot of ipsilaterals that means the same side that people use their cell phone on, had a brain tumor. So there’s a strong correlation.

So for heavy users. Heavy users, I’m talking about let’s say four hours plus per day. It’s probably a very bad idea to do it. It’s basically like you’re smoking 10 packs a day of cigarettes in 1965. It’s not the link isn’t clear yet, but you’re like overdoing it. So, in that case, I would say, “Okay well, let’s reduce that and if you want to speak for four hours fine, but use a headset and have your cell phone one foot away, two feet away. You eliminate 80% of the problem. So this link I think is unclear, but I think it’s becoming very strong. There are a lot of increases in cancers of the parotid gland right here because it’s not shielded by your jaw. There are strong indications that it might be doing something.

EMF effects on the body – cell phone radiation is linked to infertility

For the average person, barely using your cell phone, having a call here and there, I don’t know if we should freak out about it honestly. I would not use it, but I’m the author of the book, so, if people see me on a cell phone, they will call me out. But the link that is very clear in the research at the moment is sperm count, motility, all aspects of sperm count and male fertility that is very not disabled but at least vastly reduced by EMF radiation.

Just keeping your phone in your pocket. And what a lot of people don’t realize is that a phone when it’s in your pocket, even if you’re not calling, you’re not downloading, it’s always pinging the tower. So the radiation is always pulsing, every couple seconds, just to make sure that the tower in case of a call can locate you very rapidly.

This is how the technology is built, unfortunately. This has been liked … I found six meta analysis looking at 201 studies that show all the same conclusion, that there is a very strong causality effect. So I think in my mind, when I read that, I’m like, “Oh, six of them, oh wow.” Well, it’s pretty much established. [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]

What I think is crazy is that if it’s established, why aren’t we telling all men not to put it in their pocket? Now it’s like a political thing with the industry and what not. So I would say all men, if it’s in your pocket, airplane mode. If you want to receive a call, you don’t want airplane mode, it’s on the desk, or it’s in your bag or something else.

Ari Whitten: The other crazy thing about that, the fact that we’re not actively advising men to do that even when we have some solid research showing that it affects testosterone and sperm count and so on, is the fact that we now have an epidemic of decreased fertility and fertility issues among men, among both men and women.

But there is clearly an epidemic going on, and I’ve heard some really scary predictions as far as the amount of infertility that’s going to be present by 2020 and 2030 and so on.

Nick Pineault: It is.

Ari Whitten: And I know there are obviously multiple factors at play here, but it seems to be quite clear from the research that cell phone radiation is likely at least a contributor to this.

Nick Pineault: Yeah, so just as a precautionary measure, I mean even if you don’t want to have children. I remember there was one guy at the TSA Customs at the Montreal Airport. He told me, “Oh, you’re a health author, what do you talk about?” “EMF.” “Okay, what’s your number one tip?” I’m like, “Well, no cell phone in the pocket because your sperm count will be down.” He’s like, “Oh, good thing I don’t want children.”

People don’t think about it, if it’s affecting sperm count, it’s affecting whatever, everything that’s down there, and this is your testosterone production. This is not only your testosterone, your entire health, it’s an organ that’s essential in your body. So do not disregard this information if you’re a woman, because we don’t have a lot of studies when it comes to women fertility, because sperm count is really easy and cheap to study. It costs like a couple thousand dollars.

It costs a couple million to extract eggs and then look at the effects. So women have the one set of eggs from the time they’re newborn until their death. So it’s the same eggs that might potentially get harmed by DNA damage or whatever effects a cell phone might have. So if you’re a woman, do not tuck it in your bra, and do not put it in your pocket either. I would say just create distance. And if it’s on you, if you’re going on a run, I see a lot of women in a run, and having the cell phone in their bra. Do you really need to receive notifications and emails and a text if you’re on a run? No. Concentrate on your workout, okay?

This is Ari your coach. I’m sure this is what he would advise.

Ari Whitten: Yeah.

Nick Pineault: And then put it on airplane mode, and when you’re back from your run, let’s go, go Instagram and whatever and if you have to open it. It’s just the way I put it, is that you have to turn around your use technology. Instead of always on, sometimes off, it’s always off and sometimes on. Just turn it on when you need it instead of the opposite.

Electromagnetic radiation and sleep

Just so sum up on the research, there are also indications that overall background exposure if you’re over exposed, your sleep is going to be affected a lot. The melatonin link, how much it impacts melatonin, even speaking on a cell phone during the day might reduce your melatonin at night. It might be the equivalent though as artificial light. My personal if it is, is what might be happening but, in that case-

Ari Whitten: I just want to clarify really quick on that point so people get this. Because most people talk about the link between for example cell phone use and sleep disturbance through the lens of artificial light disrupting circadian rhythm and depressing melatonin, which is important and we have lots of good science on that. But, I just want to make sure people get what you’re saying, which is that separate from the mechanism of artificial light exposure, the electromagnetic fields being emitted from the device also impact the brain and suppress melatonin.

Nick Pineault: Yes, exactly. And the link is strong. There are several, several studies. I think there’s more than 20 with a strong link between microwave radiations of the EMFs coming from the cell phone, and melatonin disruption. So that means that at night you’ll feel less sleepy, you’ll get less deep REM stage four sleep, so it means maybe less recovery at night from your workout, maybe that your brain will detox less.

All these processes that are happening at night, we now how sleep deprivation is detrimental to human health. So you might as well put your phone on airplane mode, or if you need to receive a call, put it on the other side of the room, or another room, and put the ringer on full blast in case something happens. A lot of parents are telling me, “I will not put my phone on airplane mode,” if their teenager is out or something like that, I totally understand, I will probably do the same. Or you can get a landline too, these exist still. So you can get a landline and just an old school looking phone for emergencies or something like that. But cutting out your EMF exposure at night in the research seems really like something everyone should do these days.

Ari Whitten: Okay, so you just jumped a bit ahead of my next question.

Nick Pineault: Oh okay.

Ari Whitten: But just … and you’ve glossed over this with a few practical tips already. But just to kind of to cap this off and summarize, take all this stuff that we just covered and turn it into some practical recommendations, what would you say as far as your top three or top four practical recommendations that people can walk away from this interview with, as far as steps they can apply to their life to mitigate potential risks of EMF exposure.

Nick Pineault: Sure. Number one is this thing, a phone, personal devices, you can put also a laptop computer in this category. Whatever device you’re using that’s wireless, you need to keep it one foot away from your body. So even having your tablet sitting on your gut as you’re listening to something, I don’t think it’s negligent, I share a couple solutions in my book. There are shielding devices and what not. I think just as a precautionary measure, keep distance between your phone and your body.

Unless it’s airplane mode, maybe you’re watching something that you downloaded already on your tablet, then it’s perfectly fine, just put it airplane mode. That would be my number one thing.

Number two thing would be turn off your Wi-Fi at night. This is something, maybe you’re not going to see a difference, I see a big difference personally. I’ve tested before and after and I wish I had a good reliable way to track my sleep data, which I’m working on, but it’s too expensive, Like an Oura ring or something like that to prove it that my deep sleep goes up, but I dream when the Wi-Fi is off, and I don’t when it’s on.

So that’s one sign. I’ve measured it over and over again, and through a journaling, and that’s something that’s free, and that’s something you can automate actually. If you’re too lazy, not too lazy, but I don’t want to be pejorative, but like let’s face it, we’re all busy, that’s my point. You don’t want to add something you have to think about before bed. We all have so many things going on, racing in our minds.

So you use a Christmas light timer. You put your Wi-Fi on a Christmas light timer. Maybe you put it at 10 p.m. it goes off, and 5 a.m. it goes on before you wake up. Just like this automatic coffee maker that you would set up for your morning, the same thing.

Ari Whitten: Yeah I grew up with aquariums for example and aquariums-

Nick Pineault: Yeah, well, same thing.

Ari Whitten: … When you’re raising, for example, live corals, they need to have the precise daytime and nighttime window of light and no light, so you just put a timer on. And if you’re growing plants under artificial lighting, you just plug in the plug into a timer that goes off at a particular time each night. In my last house that’s exactly what I was doing, because I didn’t have hard wired internet like I do in this one, so we had Wi-Fi and I just shut it down every night.

How Bluetooth can affect your health and energy levels

Nick Pineault: That’s awesome. And the number three I’ll tell you is just Bluetooth. Just think about Bluetooth, I’ve shared that a cell phone is microwave radiation, Bluetooth is essentially the same signal. Again a little bit lower strength, but it’s hard to tell like should you get these headphones, but the Bluetooth Apple version, my personal answer is do you really need that? Think about it. It’s just exposing you to radiation each time you’re listening to music which could be, for me it would be 10 hours per day as I work, I always listen to something, binaural beats, music.

So is that really necessary? Try to cut down your exposure to Bluetooth. So if you can have for example a wearable that you can turn off and just turn on when you’ve done the data, when you synchronize it, it would be better than a wearable that’s just exposing yourself 24/7.

Just think about those things. I think that it’s an important point because a lot of people are jumping on Bluetooth bandwagon, everything is Bluetooth and these wearables. And I don’t know what it does to your body, but even if there’s a small chance, you’re using Bluetooth to track your fitness and improve your performance, and what if it’s taking away a little bit of this performance. Isn’t that frustrating? So you might as well invest in something that you kind of put on airplane mode too.

Ari Whitten: Okay, quick question on that subject of Bluetooth. I have something in my house that’s not a wearable, but actually, right behind me, you can’t really see it. But on the counter I have a speaker that’s a Bluetooth speaker, connects to my computer so I can play music from my computer on this device. If the device is not on me if it’s let’s say six or ten feet away from me, is there any potential effect that I’m getting by connecting my computer to this speaker via Bluetooth?

Nick Pineault: The levels … well depending on the device, it’s hard to tell without an EMF meter that would give you kind of how it compares to Wi-Fi signal. But if you stand right next to it I would guess it’s pretty much like a Wi-Fi router.

Ari Whitten: Okay.

Nick Pineault: Bluetooth can be powerful. Some Bluetooth earpieces are very powerful because they are the higher end of the scale. One building biologist measured levels five times as a cell phone. So actually this Bluetooth device was worse than a cell phone. I think it’s kind of a fluke because most of them are less harmful, but still, something to consider. Bluetooth, you don’t know exactly what the levels are going to be. So in the car for example and things like that, and unfortunately in a car, there’s no way like … I rent cars sometimes here in Montreal, I don’t have a way to turn off the Bluetooth and 4G signals. I just, I don’t know, I just shrug and I meditate I guess. Like sometimes you just have to let it go as well.

The Real Effects Of Electromagnetic Radiation On The Human Body

Ari Whitten: Okay. So is there one more tip that you can give?

Nick Pineault: Sure. Well, something that’s a little bit more advanced but that costs nothing and takes two seconds is to turn off the circuit breaker for the bedroom. This will remove another kind of EMF in the bedroom that is electric fields, so just electricity.

If people went camping one day or just slept in nature, you realize that you sleep very well. I think part of the reason is that there is no electricity around. Because just the presence of electricity can reduce sleep, especially if you’re sensitive. So maybe you’re not sensitive, maybe you are, but just to verify, when I turn off the circuit breaker there’s no electricity in the room, and then the Wi-Fi it’s turned off. I just sleep better. So again, it might be something to just get a little bit extra edge, maybe wake up in the morning a little bit refreshed, a bit more refreshed, but it means that you’re going to have to recharge your cell phone, not at night. So for some people, it just kills the convenience, but I think it’s one of my top tips as well, especially since it’s free.

Ari Whitten: Beautiful. Well, this has been awesome Nick, thank you so much for bringing such a sophisticated nuanced scientific understanding to this field of EMFs, which is as you know, shrouded in so much controversy and conspiracy stuff, and also just skeptics trying to debunk the whole thing and say it’s nonsense. I really appreciate your perspective on this, and this has been a blast doing this interview with you. So where can people find out more about your work, and specifically where can they can get your book which I’ve already read and is wonderful, the non-tinfoil guide to … is it the Non-Tinfoil or Non-Tinfoil hat guide?

Nick Pineault: Just Non-Tinfoil, there’s no hat in there.

Ari Whitten: Okay, Non-Tinfoil guide to EMFs.

Nick Pineault: Yeah that’s right. So it’s at non… NONtinfoilEMF.com, no S. You’ll find it there, and in October, whenever you’re listening to this, in October 2017 we’re going to start having hard-copies, so I’m going to make sure to send one your way Ari, so you can have it at home. It’s always cool to have. If you have a library if you want it.

Ari Whitten: Yeah. Well, it’s a beautiful book, even the PDF thing you sent me is just beautiful as far as the design elements to that.

Nick Pineault: Thank you, yeah I wanted to … so the difference … it’s not a conventional book, it’s written with humor or my honest attempt at being funny. I’m sure sometimes it’s not, I’m sure sometimes it is. But still it’s a lighter tone, just trying to help go through a book that might have been otherwise very dry and very scientific, and then it’s 50% just action that you can take.

Most of them are free, they’re very easy to apply, and if you want the advanced stuff, it is there. But you can just skim over it if you’re not interested. It’s just a guide that you want there, that’s a good reminder, and that I think it’s essential to consider as one cause of something that might be holding you back a little bit. And if you want to see the positive side, maybe it’s one occasion of increasing your energy as you advocate and increasing your health even more by exposing yourself a little bit less.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, absolutely. So I highly recommend checking that out. Having done so myself, it’s really an excellent book, and that’s why I invited Nick on the Podcast.

Nick Pineault: Thank you.

Ari Whitten: So thank you again, Nick, really such a pleasure to talk with you.

Nick Pineault: Thanks, Ari, my pleasure.

Ari Whitten: Yeah.

The Real Effects Of Electromagnetic Radiation On The Human Body – Show Notes

Why people who discuss EMF are not taken seriously (3:06)
What is EMF? Electromagnetic fields explained (5:15)
How not all factors are taken into account when cell phone radiation is decided (12:04)
Some ways EMF Exposure might cause indirect damage (17:33)
Cell tower radiation health effects (24:05)
Why cell phone SAR ratings are inaccurate (29:43)
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: fact or fiction? (38:07)
The nocebo effect, how it impacts your health (45:15)
What cell phone radiation effects on the brain are (51:13)
EMF effects on the body – cell phone radiation is linked to infertility (52:48)
Electromagnetic radiation and sleep (56:47)
How Bluetooth can affect your health and energy levels (01:01:50)
How to lower radiation from electrical outlets while you sleep (1:04:36)

Links

Nick’s book The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs.

To find out more about Nick’s book and the work that he does, go HERE. His book, the Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs can also be found there if you’d like to learn more.

Science mentioned in this podcast:

EUROPAEM 2016 guidelines — Europeans environmental pollution experts take this seriously.
Dr. Martin Pall’s research on how EMFs screw up our VGCCs (calcium channels)
Dr. Martin Pall’s 2016 paper on how EMFs disrupt our VGCCs to cause a wide array of psychological symptoms
A 2013 Review. The effect of peroxynitrite (which can be caused by excess calcium) on mitochondrial health
You can find the 6 meta-analyses I mentioned about sperm count and EMFs [here], [here], [here], [here], [here], [here]
Dr. Dominique Belpomme — reliable biomarkers of EHS (electro hyper-sensitivity)

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