by: Lloyd Burrell
(NaturalNews) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports, "More than one-third of U.S. adults (35.7 percent) are obese." The CDC's numbers on children and adolescents are just as alarming. "Approximately 17 percent (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese.
• Chronic disease (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure)
• Sleep apnea
• Kidney failure
There is an economic price to pay for this epidemic. In the United States during the year 2008, healthcare related to obesity rang in at almost $150 billion.
Another kind of epidemic
A study published last month, by the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in California, points to another kind of epidemic. Lead researcher De-Kun Li was prompted to examine how exposure to magnetic fields might be related to pregnancy and obese children.
In "A Prospective Study of In-utero Exposure to Magnetic Fields and the Risk of Childhood Obesity," Li documents his findings on the relationship between magnetic field exposures during pregnancy and the weight of the resulting children until they reached the age of 13. Li came to a statistically significant conclusion based on the findings from his research. Li concluded that the fetuses exposed to the greatest amounts of magnetic fields were almost twice as likely to carry excess weight or become obese in childhood.
Let's not forget, magnetic fields are all around us, sources include; microwave ovens, cars, electrical wiring, high voltage power lines, etc.
Dr. Sam Milham, a leading electromagnetic fields (EMF) epidemiologist (retired) and author of "Dirty Electricity," shares his view on Li's research findings, "Childhood obesity is unheard of among the Amish and I believe that at least part of the reason is that they don't have electrical service in their homes, they don't drive cars and don't use cell phones."
The biological effects of weak electromagnetic fields
Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy, a former lecturer in biology from Imperial College London, goes into depth about the biological effects (including obesity), of weak EMFs in his article of the same name from March of this year.
Dr. Goldsworthy's take on EMFs and obesity
Dr. Goldsworthy looked at numerous studies and found glands in the body can react to radiation exposure in one of two ways: stimulated activity or compromised function. Some of these glands are responsible for many of the body's processes including metabolism. Three of these glands in particular, the thyroid gland, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands, have in studies exhibited a profound reaction to EMF exposure.
When rats were exposed to various amounts of radiation for different lengths of time, the thyroid gland showed degenerative effects including the inability to produce thyroid hormones. Another study from this year examined the human response to living near a cell phone base station and found a substantial decrease in the secretion of a multitude of hormones including:
• ACTH from the pituitary gland
• Cortisol from the adrenals
And the inability to produce the thyroid hormones (hypothyroidism), the same results as found in the rat study. What is one of most common symptoms associated with hypothyroidism?
Obesity!
The evidence is mounting; EMFs affect our biological systems in more ways than we can imagine. Obesity is just one of the life threatening consequences. Take action now, reduce you and your child's exposure to unnecessary EMFs from things like microwave ovens, cell phones, cordless phones, Wi-Fi, wireless video games, etc. as much as possible.