Subject: Faith M. Uckun's "DNA damage" research.....
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 053339 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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Hi everybody:
Jeff Gordon has forwarded the following report from another list BB.
It is a report on the research by Dr. Faith M. Uckun of the Wayne
Hughes Institute (St. Paul, MInnesota) that was reported earlier here
on EMF-L. Many of you will remember. [Perhaps it was about six months
back. Also, I referred to this research in a response I sent to NIEHS,
which I shared with some of you.....guru]
It bears repitition because it is (1) NIEHS sponsored research that
surely will be hard for them to ignore when they write the RAPID report,
(2) it has been replicated by other international labs, and (3) it
shows "DNA damage" as a possible consequence of EMF exposure.
Perhaps it is also worth noting that the chief researcher, Dr. Uckun,
approached his research project as a "non-believer" in the "EMF may
cause cancer" thesis. But, as he says below, he has since changed his
mind....
Cheerio.....
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
rbeavers@llion.org..............http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html
................................It is better to light a single candle ...
than to curse the darkness...............................................
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 23:16:53 -0400
From: jeff.gordon@wellnow.com
To: rbeavers@llion.org
Subject: (fwd) Oxylist EMF be careful
Hi, Roy --
This just came across the oxygen therapies mailing list; might be
something you already knew or even have posted, not sure, but thought I
should forward it in case it's new info for you.
-- Jeff --
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The following message is forwarded to you by jeff.gordon@wellnow.com
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>Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 20:11:32 -0400
>Was-to:
>Subject: Oxylist EMF be careful
from Healthy News You Can Use...
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS MAY TRIGGER ENZYMES
Though numerous epidemiological studies have hinted that exposure to the
electromagnetic fields (EMFs) associated with power lines, home wiring,
and appliances may cause leukemia or other malignancies, researchers have
lacked any explanation of how EMFs could produce such effects. The fields
seem incapable of delivering enough energy into the body to damage DNA
or bring about other harmful changes. Now, in a palr of studies, an
international team reports what may be the first EMF-triggered change in
a cascade of events that could result in cancer. The cascade begins with
the activation of enzymes tyrosine kinases produced by tumor-promoting
genes.
For about 6 years, pediatric oncologist Fatih M. Uckun of the Wayne Hughes
Institute in St. Paul, Minn., reviewed radiation research proposals,
including those focusing on EMFs, from people seeking grant money from
the National Institutes of Health. He was highly skeptical of the link
between EMFs and cancer. Without a mechanism for suspected EMF risks, he
says, I had thought it was voodoo. That assessment is now coming back to
haunt him, he says.
His latest test tube studies show that magnetic fields with a frequency of
60 hertz and a strength of 1 gauss on the high end of exposures that might
be encountered in the home or workplace trigger a cascade of
enzyme-driven cell-signaling events. These short-distance communications
serve as a means by which cells can relay operational directions to their
DNA.
A year ago, Uckun and his team reported that ionizing radiation could
prompt cell membranes to initiate a similar signaling cascade. Those
data, he says, suggested that events triggered by the enzyme tyrosine
kinase are responsible for the final DNA damage that ionizing radiation
induces.
Out of curiosity, the team decided to look at EMFs, expecting that they
would prove ineffective. Instead, the EMFs activated a tyrosine kinase
dangling from the inner surface of the cell membrane. By alternately
removing and inserting the gene that makes the enzyme, Uckun and his
colleagues report in the Feb. 13 Journal or Biological CHEMISTRY they
showed that cells exhibit a response to EMFs only when the kinase is
present.
This suggests that activation of the enzyme represents the initial
manifestation of EMFs biological influence, Uckun says.
In a second report, slated to appear in the journal in April, the team
details the cascade of events triggered by EMFs activation of that enzyme.
It includes the turning on of a second tyrosine kinase, known as BTK.
Studies in people have shown that excessive activation of BTK can lead to
leukemia, lymphomas, and other cancers, Uckun observes. Because you don't
have any hormone production without activation of tyrosine kinases, Uckun
says, the new findings may also explain provocative hormonal
perturbations linked to EMF exposures. Science News, February 21, 1998
Vol. 153 p 119.
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-- End of forwarded message
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Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html