In our presentation (p.89) in the Kuopio Alzheimer Symposium 2012 we talked about prevention. Therefore I will discuss in this blog posting about Statistics related to neurological illnesses + Mechanisms behind (especially) alzheimer + Prevention strategies.
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Professor Colin Pritchard of Bournemouth University has recently pointed out: "Brain diseases are affecting more people and starting earlier than ever before". He also listed heavily increased non-ionising radiation / EMFs as one possible explanation for this increase of dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Update 19th July 2019: In their recent publication, Pritchard, Silk & Hansen point out the rapid increase of neurological mortality:
Especially Total Neurological Deaths (TND) have greatly increased, starting from year 2013 and they suggest that the exposure to radiofrequency (RF) radiation is one of major reasons for it.
Prevention in mind, I will next look at risk groups . Thereafter, I will list some suggested mechanisms which operate in the radiofrequency (RF) and extremely low frequency (ELF) range.
A. RISK GROUPS
In certain occupations, there is an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease , this has been shown by epidemiological studies and meta-analysis. (Garcia et al. 2008).
Occupational risk groups include (among others) welders, locomotive drivers, seamtresses , Power&IT&Telecom -employees.
People who live close to power lines have an increased AD risk (Huss et al., 2009), though there is a small number of epidemiological studies focusing on AD. Memory problems close to cell towers (Khurana et al., 2010 ; Chronic Exposure, 2013) come up in epidemiological studies. However, there is not a single AD-study directly related to cell towers / mobile phone base stations . Similarly, there seems to be only 1 cohort study focused on long-term mobile phone use, with strange results, since it is based on the dubious Danish cohort study.
B. MECHANISMS
Several mechanisms of actions are discussed in the literature:
MECHANISM 1 . Amyloid beta (Aβ) increases in brain cells because of Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) -leakage and nerve cell damage.
Electromagnetic fields (EMF), especially pulsed and heavily modulated microwave radiation affect BBB, but this effect is not linear and the greatest power densities do not make the BBB leak (Frey, 1975 ; Frey, 1998; Nittby et al., 2008).
Most research is done on rats and this research can not directly extrapolated to humans. However, the newest research papers show clearly this nerve cells damaging effect (Tang et al., 2015 ; Sirav & Seyhan, 2015 ).
In the following, edited video professor Leif Salford goes through BBB-studies and research challenges.
In a more recent presentation, adjunct professor Dariusz Leszczynski describes the importance of proteomics research and how it is related to blood-brain barrier leakage.
MECHANISM 2. Increased peripheral or brain production of Aβ as a result of magnetic field exposure cause voltage-gated calcium ion channels to be open longer than normal.
This results in abnormally high intracellular levels of calcium ions, which in turn results in the production of Aβ and that is quickly secreted into the blood and is then transported through the BBB perhaps best chaperoned by the 4 isoform of apolipoprotein E (apoE). (Davanipour and Sobel, 2009; BioIniatiative, 2013)
MECHANISM 3. Positron emission tomographic (PET) studies of cerebral glucose metabolism have shown high diagnostic specificity in distinguishing among the degenerative dementias and differentiating between AD and normal aging (Smith et al., 1992).
Volkow et al. (2011) have showed through a PET study that 50-minute mobile phone call increases glucose metabolism in the brain. This finding is similar to Huber et al. (2002), while Kwon et al. (2012) showed decrease in glucose metabolism.
MECHANISM 4. A substantial body of literature has suggested that the memory and learning deficits associated with Alzheimer's disease and aging are attributable to degeneration of the cholinergic magnocellular neurons of the nucleus basalis of Meynert (nbM) (Muir, 1997). EMF exposures decrease acetylcholine levels in brain in animal studies (Modak et al., 1981, Kunwiljar & Behari, 1993). Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) enzymatic activity increased of 1.4-fold in PC12 cells exposed to 217-GSM signal for 24 h (Valbonesi et al., 2016). These results provide the first evidence of effects on AChE activity, related to in vitro exposure to the RF-EMF generated by GSM mobile phones, at the time-averaged SAR value (2 W/kg) recommended by ICNIRP as the safety limit for mobile phone emissions (ICNIRP 2009). Human studies are still missing, as far I know.
MECHANISM 5. EMFs affect pineal gland and decrease its melatonin production (which may increase the risk of AD) (Srinivasan et al., 2006). Blood tests provide valuable risk-indicators (Noonan et al., 2002).
Summa summarum, the EMF exposure seem to have a link to Alzheimer's Disease. This exposure extends from mobile workplace to living environments. However, the mechanism(s) are not clear and need to be researched further.
After-thought: While attending the Kuopio Alzheimer Symposium, I noticed a very small focus on preventation. These events are heavily sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and the main focus in the symposium was on drug pilots & related presentations.
Update: During 2013 the discussion internationally has been about digital dementia. Perhaps those neuroscientists, neurosurgeons and psychiatrist could look at EMF-exposure closer?
Video: Professor in psychiatry, Manfred Spitzer discussing about digital dementia (in German).
Video: Profesor Manfred Spitzer about addiction and digital dementia (in English)
Manfred Spitzer's e-learning and digital dementia focused research paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211949314000350
By focusing on prevention (minimizing EMF exposure of children, educating about safer ways of using mobile devices) would make enormous cost savings and avoid individual tragedy in later life.
As far as I know, only the Russian National Committee of Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (RNCNIRP) has clearly indicated Alzheimer and Dementia risk of children , pages 3-4, link updated). Other nations should perhaps follow their example?
Every comment on Alzheimer's disease and related topics is welcome.
In a recent study it was found that low level microwave radiation for 30 days causes DNA damage in the rat brain. DNA damage in turn may accerate the development of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and ALS.
Deshmukh PS, et al. Detection of low level microwave radiation induced deoxyribonucleic acid damage vis-à-vis genotoxicity in brain of fischer rats. Toxicol Int. 2013 May;20(1):19-24.
http://bit.ly/10y51k9
Posted by: Juhana Harju | May 19, 2013 at 09:15 PM
Indeed, Juhana, that kind of damage proves (may prove) another mechanism behind Alzheimer's disease. Generally, the damage to neurons indicates a possible risk for neurodegenerative diseases. Below is a relevant paper by Xu et al. (2010):
Xu, S., Zhou, Z., Zhang, L., Yu, Z., Zhang, W., Wang, Y., … Zhong, M. (2010). Exposure to 1800 MHz radiofrequency radiation induces oxidative damage to mitochondrial DNA in primary cultured neurons. Brain Research, 1311, 189–196.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19879861
Later, I might add one more mechanism to this blog posting. Thanks Juhana for your inspiring thoughts.
Mikko
Posted by: PhD Mikko Ahonen | February 10, 2014 at 10:24 AM