Claim: Fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field (geomagnetic storms) causes a myriad of different health problems.

[jdog]

Injecting some personal experience, my wife had spinal surgery last year and the surgeon's team prescribed a bone-growth stimulator that generates a pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) that puts out a field a few dozen microteslas strong over an area of a few centimeters for a 30-minute interval. That's roughly as strong as the static geomagnetic field. (The literature says the static field is close enough in strength to most potential PEMF applications and varies enough with local and environment that it should be accounted for in clinical testing but often isn't, making it hard to replicate and evaluate studies.) But the physiological effect of stimulating bone cell growth is backed up clinically and approved by the FDA.

We also use a vet-recommended PEMF device on our aging dog, who suffered some muscle injuries. (Well, it's not the actual $1,000 mat recommended by our vet, but a much cheaper one.) That puts out a much stronger field, 1 mT or 2.5 mT (milli-Teslas), that's in the refrigerator-magnet range. The repeated changes of the magnetic field, the pulsing, can help activate ion channels at the cellular level and affect cellular metabolism, but it's much less clear from the literature whether these sorts of over-the-counter PEMF products do much good, since the potential ion channel affects appear to vary with the strength and frequency of the field, and it doesn't seem like any two products offer the same combination. (And for our dog, well, we also give him other recommended medications and exercise him, so we have no idea which treatment is helping.)

Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields (PEMF)—Physiological Response and Its Potential in Trauma Treatment from the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, has some interesting background on the subject and a couple of passing references to research on the geomagnetic field's potential impact human health.

 

[serpentdebunker]

Injecting some personal experience, my wife had spinal surgery last year and the surgeon's team prescribed a bone-growth stimulator that generates a pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) that puts out a field a few dozen microteslas strong over an area of a few centimeters for a 30-minute interval. That's roughly as strong as the static geomagnetic field. (The literature says the static field is close enough in strength to most potential PEMF applications and varies enough with local and environment that it should be accounted for in clinical testing but often isn't, making it hard to replicate and evaluate studies.) But the physiological effect of stimulating bone cell growth is backed up clinically and approved by the FDA.

We also use a vet-recommended PEMF device on our aging dog, who suffered some muscle injuries. (Well, it's not the actual $1,000 mat recommended by our vet, but a much cheaper one.) That puts out a much stronger field, 1 mT or 2.5 mT (milli-Teslas), that's in the refrigerator-magnet range. The repeated changes of the magnetic field, the pulsing, can help activate ion channels at the cellular level and affect cellular metabolism, but it's much less clear from the literature whether these sorts of over-the-counter PEMF products do much good, since the potential ion channel affects appear to vary with the strength and frequency of the field, and it doesn't seem like any two products offer the same combination. (And for our dog, well, we also give him other recommended medications and exercise him, so we have no idea which treatment is helping.)

Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields (PEMF)—Physiological Response and Its Potential in Trauma Treatment from the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, has some interesting background on the subject and a couple of passing references to research on the geomagnetic field's potential impact human health.

Looked this up and found this page on the Skeptoid site: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4863

Perhaps Oz is not aware that an MRI machine is used for non-invasive imaging, it's not used to treat pain. And it's great for imaging, because magnetic fields don't interact with the human body. It's not going to do anything to you, which is the basic reason all PEMF devices can be considered worthless snake oil.

The majority of articles promoting PEMF all refer back to a single old trial from way back in 1990, that found pulsed electromagnetic fields "significantly influence healing in tibial fractures with delayed union," meaning it can help broken bones heal faster when they weren't doing so on their own. This one study appears to be the cornerstone upon which most marketing of PEMF devices is based. However a 2011 analysis published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews sought to shed more light on all such research. They found a total of four such studies that included 125 participants, and found the use of PEMF in non-union bone fractures was "inconclusive and insufficient to inform current practice." Meaning, in short, there's no reason to use it.

And they're right about FDA approval not proving that a product works. All it means is the product is safe and can be manufactured to federal quality standards. Plenty of snake oil products meet that standard and are FDA approved, and yet don't have any therapeutic value at all.

Towards the end of the article is this:

Particularly entertaining are the "science explanations" given by sellers claiming to describe how and why these work — and, of course, no two websites give the same explanations, because the fact is that there is no mechanism by which these devices might interact with the human body. On the Science-Based Medicine blog in 2016, Dr. Steven Novella discussed the supposedly "science" claims made by a company that manufactured a PEMF pad, something that you'd lay on and it would be magnetic. One of these claims was "The EMPpad's PEMF technology has been developed to deliver an electromagnetic pulse at an intensity and frequency which mimics the Earth's magnetic field." Novella wrote: One immediate question I had — if the device exactly mimics the Earth's magnetic field... then why is the device necessary? Aren't we all being exposed to the Earth's magnetic field all the time?

 

[John J.]

Injecting some personal experience

Hi @jdog, hope the missus is doing well- backs are funny things and can take a while to be sorted out.
And give the dog a tickle from me.

Reading your post, and @serpentdebunker's subsequent post, I don't know what to think about therapeutic PEMF
(I haven't read the linked-to materials yet).

I guess that to get FDA approval, a take-home PEMF device must have limited ability to do harm, say, if you dropped it on a hard surface or inadvisably did some home tinkering, and (improbably) ended up with a device that delivered oscillating/ gradient MF similar to that experienced in GM events, it's unlikely it would hurt anyone.

Looked this up and found this page on the Skeptoid site: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4863

And they're right about FDA approval not proving that a product works. All it means is the product is safe and can be manufactured to federal quality standards. Plenty of snake oil products meet that standard and are FDA approved, and yet don't have any therapeutic value at all.

-That's interesting, I didn't know that. Ta serpentdebunker (and Mr Dunning).

 

[serpentdebunker]

Magnetic storms reportedly mess with sleeping patterns by disrupting cryptochrome in the pineal gland:

https://sleepopolis.com/news/solar-storm-circadian-rhythm/

Because of the magnetic interference, geomagnetic storms may also desynchronize your circadian rhythm—affecting your pineal glands

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.120.021006

Specifically, the pineal gland responds to the magnetic stimuli from geomagnetic activity

I'm not sure why, but most of these studies seem to reference the pineal gland when discussing the mechanism as to how magnetic storms affect our health. The studies seem to reference three specific things in particular, "pineal gland", "schumann resonance", and "(electro)magnetic activity".

This field seems to be "Heliobiology", as when you search "Heliobiology" the search results are mostly consisted of papers about magnetic storms and associated health effects. Heliobiology was founded several decades ago by Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky.

 

[Ann K]

Magnetic storms reportedly mess with sleeping patterns by disrupting cryptochrome in the pineal gland

That "reportedly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I'm someone whose "circadian rhythm" is not very rhythmic, but as a retiree I don't really worry about it any more. I'd like to see how they can separate out the magnetic storm influence from sleeplessness due to mulling the challenges to be faced at work the next day, eating cold pizza at bedtime, wondering when the kids will get home, listening to that damned flying squirrel screeching all night ...and worrying about the magnetic storm that's due.

 

[John J.]

Sleepopolis and the referred-to Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences paper

Magnetic storms reportedly mess with sleeping patterns by disrupting cryptochrome in the pineal gland:

https://sleepopolis.com/news/solar-storm-circadian-rhythm/

Because of the magnetic interference, geomagnetic storms may also desynchronize your circadian rhythm—affecting your pineal glands and increasing melatonin—disturbing your sleep and impacting your intuition.

"Organisms living on Earth are under the influence of Earth's magnetic field, which affects development, metabolism, and information processing in their daily lives," according to Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. "Small changes in Earth's magnetic field result in modified circadian rhythms in organisms … altering the magnetic field at the Earth-strength level suggests that the magnetic field affects circadian rhythms at physiological and tissue levels."

Heather Cherry, Sleepopolis website 4 August 2022.

We might not expect Sleepopolis to be a definitive source for scientific information,

About Sleepopolis

Getting a good night's sleep shouldn't feel like a chore. We'll help you find a great mattress, the answer to all your sleep questions, and all the dreamy Zzz's in between.

https://sleepopolis.com/news/solar-storm-circadian-rhythm/

The Sleepopolis team is a group of sleep enthusiasts that will bring you the latest reviews, news, and analysis on all things sleep. Originally Sleepopolis started with mattress reviews, but we have big plans to expand going forward!

We have affiliate relationships where we are paid a commission on sales through some of our links.

The in-test link at Sleepopolis for Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences leads to that journal's homepage,
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/astronomy-and-space-sciences,
not the source of the quote

"Organisms living on Earth are under the influence of Earth's magnetic field, which affects development, metabolism, and information processing in their daily lives"

However Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences has a decent search function; the quote comes from
"How to Live on Mars With a Proper Circadian Clock?", Rujia Luo, Yutao Huang, Huan Ma and Jinhu Guo, 2022, vol. 8 of that journal
https://www.frontiersin.org/journal...ences/articles/10.3389/fspas.2021.796943/full

...under the section "Different Environmental Cues on Mars and Their Effects on Circadian Rhythms", sub-heading "Low Magnetic Field".
Luo, Huang at al. essentially borrow (and appropriately cite) this line from "The Biological Significance of the Earth's Magnetic Field", M. Lindauer & H. Martin in the book Progress in Sensory Physiology 5 (1985, Editor-in-Chief David Ottoson)

As long as living organisms exist on this globe they are under the influence of the earth's magnetic field (EMF). In the last 15 years more and more data have been published which demonstrate that development, metabolism, and information processing are affected by this geophysical force...

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-70408-6_3

It's from Lindauer and Martin's introduction to their chapter, it doesn't cite sources.
Note it is from 1985 (Luo, Huang et al.'s paper, 2022) and since that time there has been substantial research into the effects of electromagnetic fields on human and animal health, often due to concerns about overhead power lines, industrial exposure, use of MRI scanners, cell phones etc. etc. We are probably not as vulnerable to electromagnetic fields as was then feared by some.

In Frontiers in astronomy and Space Sciences, Luo, Huang et al. continue

Small changes in Earth's magnetic field result in modified circadian rhythms in fiddler crabs and other organisms (Brown et al., 1964; Bliss and Heppner, 1976).

(1) Note, their first example- therefore possibly the most significant result/ scientifically rigorous paper they could find- is the fiddler crab (Bliss and Hepner; Brown et al. show that the direction of travel of the mud snail Nassarius is effected by magnetic fields different in strength to Earth-normal). Not pigeons, rats, rhesus monkeys or humans.
(2) Luo, Huang et al. don't identify any work post-1976 that demonstrates that Earth's magnetic field influences circadian rhythms in vertebrates (or before 1976, come to that).
(3) Why fiddler crabs? There must have been many studies into EM effects on organisms, not least on human volunteers.
I think it's probably true to say it was easier to organise animal experiments, and get permission from ethics committees for human experiments (if that permission were required!) in the 1960's and 1970's than, say, over the past 20 years.

(3a) Let's say 20 experiments are run by different groups studying the effects of magnetic fields on different animals.
It's not as if they're testing a new medicine, and they all pragmatically set p=0.05. Even if there is no relationship between the independent and dependent variables (magnetic field and the animal's behaviour), there's a 50% chance of getting a result from one of those trials indicating such a relationship exists. (I think. Stats fans might want to correct me on this).
(3b) A positive relationship in humans would interest many people. The experiment would be replicated, or equivalent experiments run. Same with other primates due to their close relationship to us. Rodents are relatively easy to access for legitimate experimentation even now, so a positive relationship in mice or rats might be investigated by others.

If a consistent positive result for any of these species were demonstrated, especially in humans, Luo, Huang et al. could cite it.
But they don't cite a study demonstrating the effects of magnetic fields on circadian rhythms in anything more closely related to us than a fiddler crab. And let's face it, if that one study's results are a statistical fluke or the result of type-1 error, there might not be as much interest amongst other researchers in replicating the fiddler crab experiment as there would be a human experiment.

Luo, Huang et al.:

These differences in the Mars magnetic field will exert influences on the circadian rhythms of Earth emigrants.

If they're fiddler crabs. Possibly.

Reference to cryptochrome, "Solar Activity Is Associated With Diastolic and Systolic Blood Pressure in Elderly Adults"

"Solar Activity Is Associated With Diastolic and Systolic Blood Pressure in Elderly Adults", Wang, Vieira, Garshick et al., 2021 Journal of the American Heart Association 10 (21).

The study was conducted among healthy men born between 1884 and 1945 and enrolled in the NAS (Normative Aging Study) (Boston, MA), a cohort established by the US Veterans Administration in 1963 as previously described.

The authors are using data from the longitudinal NAS study, accessed retrospectively. The authors were not responsible for recruitment, consenting or gathering of subject information as a quick read might imply.

Participants... ...were asked to return for examination in intervals of 3 to 5 years for a standardized health assessment.
...There were 765 participants and 2443 clinical observations in the NAS cohort during 2000 to 2017

Although any data gathered from each S. is relevant, I don't believe for one minute that subjects born in 1884 made more than one visit! While the Boston NAS (commenced 1963) might well have had participants born in 1884 I would be surprised if this study included subjects of that age (men 116 years +).

The Earth's magnetic field protects living organisms from long‐term, harmful extra‐terrestrial radiation. Despite this protective shield, solar activity can cause geomagnetic disturbances (GMD), disruptions to the Earth's natural magnetic field oscillations, and can impact autonomic nervous system activities,1, 2 which can, in turn, directly and indirectly play a role in initiating and sustaining high blood pressure (BP).

Wang et al. 2021.

Reference (1) is "Circadian clock-mediated regulation of blood pressure", M.G. Douma, M.L. Gumz, 2018, Free Radical Biology and Medicine vol. 119 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0891584917312285?via=ihub.
I haven't read the full paper (not paying for access!) but neither the introduction, or more importantly the abstract, mention Earth's magnetic field or geomagnetic disturbances.

Reference (2) "Exploring the relationship between geomagnetic activity and human heart rate variability",
Mattoni, Ahn, Fröhlich and Fröhlich, 2020, European Journal of Applied Physiology vol. 120,
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-020-04369-7 states

Conclusion
We thus conclude that the effects of geomagnetic and solar activity are (if present) most likely of very small effect size and we question the validity of the previous studies given the methodological concerns we have uncovered with our work.

-Not exactly supporting evidence as Wang et al.'s reference might imply! This is not good.

Wang et al. say their data is available on request; an important possible confounding variable to check for would be when the subjects had their health checks:
The authors used this NASA resource (their reference 17), https://srag.jsc.nasa.gov/spaceradiation/what/what.cfm

If a modestly disproportionate number of NAS appointments happened in 2006 - 2016 (data gathering ends in 2017),
Wang, Vieira, Garshick et al. might have inadvertently found evidence that blood pressure increases with age, not with solar activity. But we knew that already.

...the findings suggest that individuals have elevated BP several days before and after magnetic storms.

Wang et al.

(1) By what conceivable mechanism is BP affected by a phenomenon before it occurs?
(2) Wang et al. use a 28-day "window". If a BP figure is raised above the population norm within 28 days of a geomagnetic rise, that BP increase is viewed as being due to geomagnetic events (if I've understood correctly).
However, if we assume a causal link can only exist at the time of the geomagnetic event (which might be more plausible- BP can change in minutes with the presence / discontinuation of known physiological influences, e.g. hydration, CO2 levels, pain etc.) then "higher" BPs recorded, say, 20 days after a geomagnetic event are not only not evidence for raised BP during geomagnetic events, they would contribute to higher figures for "non-geomagnetic" BPs- and less significant results for Wang et al.

Although exposure to solar activity is ubiquitous, its intensity and subsequent human health effects varies by latitude... Because all participants in this study were in the Boston area, there is minimal misclassification of the exposure in this respect.

Wang et al. are effectively claiming that, all other things being equal, you will have higher BP the closer you are to the poles.
If you travel away from the equator, your blood pressure will rise.

...the pineal gland responds to the magnetic stimuli from geomagnetic activity and leads to subsequent changes in melatonin secretion.

No evidence or reference for this assertion is given.

Although the mechanism for detecting geomagnetic fluctuations has not been established in humans, circadian photoreception through cryptochrome proteins in the pineal gland has been shown in animal studies.

My emphasis. We finally get to cryptochrome!
But (@serpentdebunker ) it is in the context of circadian photoreception, the process where visible light effects our sleep / wakefulness cycles.

Which is well-known and completely uncontentious. It is to do with solar radiation- visible light.

Re. Alexander Chizhevsky,
he has a Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Chizhevsky but the "talk" page is just as interesting,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Alexander_Chizhevsky.

Wikipedia:

In 1916 he entered World War I as a Russian, fighting on the Galician front and earning a Cross of Saint George. There, he observed directly that battles tended to wax and wane with the strength of solar flares and geomagnetic storms during the concurrent height of solar cycle 15

You don't have to be a historian to suspect (correctly) that the ferocity of fighting at different locations during World War 1 was not synchronised. And when fighting on the Eastern Front ceased, it continued elsewhere.


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