What have more than a hundred studies on Wi-Fi and human brain wave modulation found? 

You may recall that I’ve addressed how cell phones may affect brain function and how both cell phones and Wi-Fi may affect male fertility, but what about the effects of Wi-Fi on brain functioning? 

“The possible existence of cognitive effects of RF [radiofrequency] energy has been one of the more contentious discussions in the forever-contentious issue of whether exposure to RF energy at levels that we all commonly encounter in the environment has any health consequences.” 

Wi-Fi has been called an “uncontrolled global experiment on the health of mankind.” The effects of radiofrequency fields gained new urgency after the World Health Organization officially declared cell phone radiation to be “a ‘possible’ (class 2B) human carcinogen” based on brain tumor risks, but its decision “has no relevance to possible health effects of Wi-Fi, for which the exposure conditions are very different…” As you can see below and at 0:56 in my video  Friday Favorites: Does Wi-Fi Radiation Affect Brain Function?, we may absorb one hundred times less radiation in a typical exposure to Wi-Fi compared to cell phones, but you don’t know if there are effects until you put it to the test. 

“To date, more than 100 studies have been published on effects of RF energy on electroencephalograms (EEGs)” of human brain wave patterns. “While the results are mixed, a fairly consistent finding is that short (10–20 min) RF energy exposures to the head produce small, but statistically significant, changes in the EEG of resting and sleeping subjects….[and] most health agencies acknowledge these findings,” so the question is: What do you do with that information? “For example, a recent review sponsored by the European Commission concluded that ‘relevance of the small physiological changes remains unclear and mechanistic explanation is still lacking.’” We don’t even know how it’s happening at all. Some have suggested it’s an artifact of the test and that “EEG wire leads can act as antennas that carry RF energy to the scalp, skull bone, and brain”—in effect, contributing to the changes that they’ve been set up to measure. 

Either way, from what researchers have found, you don’t see the kinds of neurocognitive effects with Wi-Fi exposure that you do with cell phones. For example, “no measurable effects of acute Wi-Fi exposure were found on…reaction time in the psychomotor vigilance test…or objective measures of sustained attention.” Now, these results were from testing 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi, but if anything, we would expect even lower levels of exposure from the newer 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi “due to the shallower penetration depth.” 

Though, more accurately, “a person who spends hours a day glued to a smartphone or tablet may well experience all sorts of neurocognitive effects—from the use of the technology, not from RF exposure,” not from the radiation. 

There is a large literature about the health implications of these new technologies for young people—but it’s about the content. For instance, “sexually explicit material is now indiscriminately available to youth, and studies have linked pornography with a number of negative health effects.” We need to ask ourselves as a society what effect that may be having. Girls and boys are “being exposed to a ‘colossal’ amount of digital media on smartphones,” which makes access to pornographic material all too easy, cheap, and anonymous. 

“Young people can watch pornography in school and other public places as well as in the more private setting of the home or bedroom,” and researchers have only just begun cataloguing the effects this may have on young people’s attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. 

Most college students these days report seeing online pornography as a minor, before age 18. Of 1,500 high school boys surveyed, the vast majority admit to accessing pornographic websites, with nearly one in three for more than an hour at a time. What is that teaching the next generation? 

As you can see below and at 3:50 in my video, after sitting through and content-coding 400 videos from mainstream internet porn sites, researchers found that more than a third of the videos displayed acts of physical violence against women, such as gagging or choking. Does watching such material lead to sexually aggressive behaviors? Researchers followed 1,500 10- to 15-year-olds for years to see if there was a link between intentional exposure to such material and later sexually aggressive behaviors, such as sexual assault. They “found that intentional exposure to violent x-rated material over time predicted an almost 6-fold increase in the odds of self-reported sexually aggressive behavior.” But, which came first? “A major difficulty with interpreting most research in this field is that adolescents predisposed to earlier and more varied sexual engagement may be the ones who will seek exposure to sexual content through the media.” They may be drawn to that material in the first place, so no cause-and-effect link can be established. All we can do as parents is closely monitor what our children are doing to the best of our abilities.  

That took quite a turn, didn’t it? I go where the science leads, and the internet porn angle seemed to be the greatest potential health threat.  

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How many plastic particles have been found in a serving of fish? 

Microplastic pollution of our waterways may not just represent a threat to marine ecosystems, but also to human health. It’s evident we’re exposed to these pollutants when consuming seafood, which may create a food safety risk. Is some seafood less contaminated than others? The first published study looked at mollusks. Eating an average serving of mussels, you consume around 90 plastic particles, whereas an average serving of oysters may contain only around 50. “As a result, the annual dietary exposure for European shellfish consumers can amount to 11,000 microplastics per year.” We don’t know what kind of risk this carries, though. “Nevertheless, due to their persistent nature, microplastic abundance in the marine environment will only increase.” 

“It is inevitable that humans eating seafoods will ingest at least some microplastics, particularly in the case of species in which the entire soft flesh is consumed, such as mussels, oysters, and small fish.” What about sardines? Researchers looked at contamination of canned sardines and sprats with microplastics and mesoplastics (plastic pieces larger than a millimeter). They investigated 20 brands of canned sardines and sprats from 13 countries over four continents and found plastic particles in about one in five. The researchers suggested the disparity might have been due to improper gutting in the contaminated samples.  

We know that ingested microplastics can get through the gut wall of mammals and circulate throughout the body and even cross the placental barrier. Do microplastics actually make it into the muscles of fish, like a fish fillet? That’s the topic of my video How Much Microplastic Is Found in Fish Fillets?. 

If you compare the level of microplastics in eviscerated flesh versus the excised organs, sometimes the flesh actually contains higher microplastic loads than the organs, “which highlights that evisceration does not necessarily eliminate the risk of MP [microplastic] intake by consumers.” Researchers found that microplastics “with a wide variety of colors, shapes and size were detected in all investigated fish muscle samples.” So they do actually get into the flesh! The average intake of microplastics from eating flathead, grouper, shrimp, scad, or barracuda may be in the hundreds of plastic particles per 300-gram serving or just in the dozens of plastic particles in a 2-ounce child’s serving. “Besides physical injuries of MPs [microplastics] ingestion” itself, the particles may release absorbed pollutants, like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), as well as plastic chemical additives, like bisphenol A (BPA), which, collectively, “may cause endocrine disruption, carcinogenesis, and mutagenesis”—that is hormone disruption, cancer risk, and DNA damage. “Hence, although there is no standard dose for [microplastics] MPs’ ingestion, as well as information on exact toxicity of different plastic types in the human body, taking such high weekly doses [of these kinds of fish] can threaten the health of consumers (especially vulnerable groups including pregnant and breastfeeding women and children).” 

In the United States, anthropogenic debris, meaning man-made materials, were found in a quarter of individual fish and in two-thirds of all fish species tested, and about a third of individual shellfish samples. This demonstrates that man-made debris “has infiltrated marine foodwebs”—the aquatic food chain—“to the level of humans via seafood. Because anthropogenic debris is associated with a cocktail of priority pollutants, some of which can transfer to animals upon ingestion, this…supports concern that chemicals from anthropogenic debris may be transferring to humans via diets containing fish and shellfish, raising important questions regarding the bioaccumulation and biomagnification of chemicals and consequences for human health.” The study also included non-plastic debris, like foams, film, and fibers, but we know now that the ingestion of microplastics “appears to be a widespread and pervasive phenomenon” across a number of commercially important mollusks, crustaceans, and fish. 

“The potential for humans, as top predators, to consume microplastics as contaminants in seafood is very real, and its implications for health need to be considered…Despite the existence of considerable uncertainties and unknowns, there is already a compelling case for urgent actions to identify, control, and, where possible, eliminate key sources of…microplastics before they reach the marine environment.”  

For more on this topic, see in my videos Microplastic Contamination and Seafood Safety and Are Microplastics in Seafood a Cancer Risk?. 

What about the proposed benefits of fish consumption? See my videos Omega 3s and the Eskimo Fish Tale and Is Fish Oil Just Snake Oil? to learn more. 

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