The Microwave Oven: Is it actually hurting us? Likely so it appears...

You see at lot of the research was done in the pre wifi and microwave technology reliance era and as such can be considered as unbiased.

Microwave ovens leak energy, Roaming telephone handsets also can be bought that operate within this frequency range, WI-FI operates in the 2.4GHz range.
Many technologies and technology companies rely on the ongoing acceptance of these technologies use of these wavelengths as being safe.
Finding modern research that is unbiased or crippled by industry and hidden from public consumption for the ongoing benefit to companies is hard to find.
Scientists that produce research results that go against the "standard industry findings" (that it is completely safe) can find their research being opposed, governments and their corporate agencies that then ask the "Visible" government to withhold the research from public dissemination as it will POTENTIALLY damage their business, not even that it WILL damage their business, this is enough to ensure that your findings remain hidden and the research track terminated.

The action of Microwave energy on other functions that cause covalent bond destruction, still cause covalent bond destruction that would not take place had not the energy been there to start the process.
Microwave energy destroys covalent bonds and is a cause of permanent DNA damage.
The Damage requires an energetic input, it is believed the 2.4GHz wavelength causes cells to act as a capacitor, which overloads and discharges..
How can an energy specifically tuned into a range that has the greatest effect on water, not have an effect on a being comprised of, in the greater part, water, when exposed to it?.

I posted this in part earlier, you may have missed it.


A Theory of Microwave Induced DNA Covalent Bond Breakage

A review of the data from the various referenced experiments shows a common pattern -- for the first few minutes of irradiation there is no pronounced effect, and then a cascade of microbial destruction occurs. The data pattern greatly resembles the dynamics of a capacitor; first there is an accumulation of energy, and then a catastrophic release. It may simply indicate a threshhold temperature has been reached, or it may indicate a two-stage process is at work. The second stage of this process may very well be the accumulation of oxygen radicals, which would certainly seem to be primary suspects as they have a considerable propensity for dissociating the covalent bonds of DNA. Oxygen radicals can be generated by the disruption of a hydrogen bond on a water molecule. Water molecules exist alongside DNA molecules as "bound" water, two or three layers thick. These water molecules share a hydrogen bond with component atoms of the DNA backbone, including carbon, nitrogen and other oxygen atoms. At any given point in time one of the hydrogen atoms may be primarilly bonded to either an oxygen atom on the water molecule, or to an oxygen (or other) atom on the DNA backbone. The fluctuating character of these shared and exchanged bonds is enhanced by temperature and by the dynamics induced by microwaves. Although the amount of oxygen radicals which may be produced by this process cannot presently be determined, the production of some number of oxygen radicals is inevitable in these circumstances. It must be noted here though, that most of the oxygen radicals produced in this manner would exist only briefly, as they would almost immediately bond to the nearest available site. If this site is an oxygen atom on the DNA backbone, we get a covalent bond break, albeit probably only a brief one. Although DNA tends to repair itself naturally, the simultaneous breakage of a sufficient number of covalent bonds would lead to a catastrophic failure of the entire DNA molecule. Due to the exceedingly large number of bonds involved, the matter boils down to a reproducible function of pure probabilities. In other words, after a set and reproducible amount of time determined by probability functions, you would expect to see DNA disintegration. And so, what we have is a two-stage process of DNA covalent bond breakage resulting from oxygen radicals generated by microwave irradiation. That is the theory, and it awaits experimental verification.

reply to post by The X


Thank you very much for sharing the citations for all of this research so that I can go look it up myself. I doubt I can find half of this stuff, but maybe I can find it on microfilm in one of the libraries around here or have them order a copy of it? I will see what I can come up with.

I am very interested in the subject and would like to learn more, and I agree that it is very difficult to determine what information is bias or not.

Also I am very pleased with you specifically because unlike some other posters, you have provided substance and promoted healthy discussion. Most people will just deny everything, spout a few cliches, and then run off laughing about it, without providing any serious research to review. Which I find very displeasing and disappointing.

I have no problem with someone providing contrary information that argues against the information discussed because I believe it is good to look over everything and find what works. So I am always happy to see any research or documentation pro or con on this very touchy controversy *or any other for that matter*.

That doesn't mean I won't argue with it after I review it though.

Thanks again for actually giving me substance to work with, and increasing the value and facilitating the educational and fact finding purposes of this thread. I commend your efforts.

I seem to remember the small panic that arose from the OP's info many years ago prompting people to ditch their old microwave ovens for new.
Never been a massive fan of them myself. For what little I do with mine (like someone else said, reheating coffee and the odd defrost) the damn thing just takes up space. Yes the food tastes like muck after it's been in too.
More likely people are feeling ill from all the god awful 4 minute dinger meals than we are the actual microwaving process.

One a side note, I wonder how long it will take someone to present a scare over the new fangled halogen oven that seem's all the rage lately?

reply to post by Suspiria


My parents use a halogen oven, and have for a number of years, they swear by it.
it cooks chicken to perfection and makes exceptional crackling on a pork joint,i enjoy the food that comes out of it.
We do have a microwave in the house, i refuse to eat anything that comes out of it.
When i was younger i was always cooking mini pizzas in the microwave, later i found out that mini pizzas in particular produced a myriad of hazardous substances, after so much risk exposure and no noticeable health problems from that (i think), i thought best to stop using it and end my risk exposure from that particular avenue.

Life is all about managing risk as best we can, but if you are not provided with a fair and honest appraisal of the risk from microwave exposure, and there is contention, best to treat it as toxic until you know for sure it is safe, personally i find this is the best risk management precept.

reply to post by muzzleflash


Microwave ovens are NOT banned in Russia at all:

wiki.answers.com...

skeptoid.com...

and if you hear microwave ovens are also banned in Germany.......thats also a lie!

Well, I have no idea why microwave ovens were singled out in this thread as a uniquely dangerous environmental hazard. Oh wait, I do have an idea -- they operate in apparently magical way, heating food in seconds without any visible source of heat. And this brings out the primordial fear of all things "magic".

Look, ordinary and traditional cooking techniques often produce chemicals that are harmful to humans.

Confer:
en.wikipedia.org...

The lower temperature of cooking (the boiling point of water) is a significant safety benefit compared to baking in the oven or frying, because it eliminates the formation of tars and char, which are carcinogenic. Microwave radiation also penetrates deeper than direct heat, so that the food is heated by its own internal water content. In contrast, direct heat can fry the surface while the inside is still cold. Pre-heating the food in a microwave oven before putting it into the grill or pan reduces the time needed to heat up the food and reduces the formation of carcinogenic char. Unlike frying and baking, microwaving does not produce acrylamide in potatoes

Seems to me like the OP never wanted to believe microwave ovens were safe. It's all good, I never want to believe life is more than a dream.

Originally posted by The X
reply to post by Suspiria

 

best to treat it as toxic until you know for sure it is safe, personally i find this is the best risk management precept.

Well it's fair to say you and I and anybody in this thread is far more likely to die from being in a car than using a microwave, better safe than sorry, right?

Great

I drink 2 sometimes 3, 20 oz cups of coffee per day useing water boiled inside a "microwave safe" plastic container from the microwave.

I also eat a breakfast (nearly) everday that comes out of the freezer, goes into the microwave for 3 minutes, then straight into my mouth.

I guess I'm a microwave junky.

I can tell you for one thing. Since I've been doing this (for say the last 10 or so years) I have been feeling like complete garbage. No energy, ever. Sleep alot, depression, anxiety, all that good stuff that comes from being in bad health.

I'm sure its been mentioned before in this thread but Microwave Radiation is NOT Ionizing Radiation and therefor can't make things radioactive. The only thing that microwave radiation does to food is that it excites the water molecules (because of the size of the wavelength) causing the food to heat up.

reply to post by Dystopiaphiliac


Actually i choose to drive a car with a 5 star ncap safety rating, i dont drink and drive or drive tired or drug drive or smoke and drive or drive using a mobile phone or eat or drink while driving.
When it comes to managing the risk of getting from a to b its very different from managing the risk from ingesting toxic carcinogens on a regular basis, one is dangerous and it is possible to have pretty much all the unadulterated facts with which to make a decision, and the other with no loss of "quality" of life i can live without.

And of course, if you trust your microwave so much, put wheels on it and drive that to work.

And why does my belief that reducing my toxic risk by not using a microwave, have anything to do with the altogether different risk of driving a car?.

Prove to me that i as an individual with my particular genetic make up, reaction times, abilities. have more risk from dying in a car accident than from the compound effects of long term continual exposure to toxins and irreparably damaged DNA (which will be making expressions of itself, regularly) in the average lifetime.

Driving is a calculated risk based on a large number of factors, some of which are beyond your control and you accept that because it is beyond your control and an act of fate in waiting, for instance as a learner driver with my parents in the car i came round a bend to find someone coming head on at me doing 60+ mph overtaking on the wrong side of the road, i was doing around 45mph, closure rate of 100+mph distance to collision around 150-180feet, i sped up slightly and managed to get to a bus stop that i swung the car into and braked hard, and pulled back onto the road. closest we came was around 5-8 feet away head on, im a learner driver and the first thing my mum said was "Thank god you were driving i would have panicked". i also had checked my rear view mirror i dont know what i would have done if another car was right behind me, could you move out of an oncoming cars way to let the car behind you get hit?. (that's another story)

Calculated risks based on all the information you have available, i feel i do not have all the information required for me to make a safe informed decision, i do not have a mobile phone either and i use the electrical circuitry in my house for Ethernet to my router, rather than the N band dongle and wireless capability because i do not trust the information available as being unbiased, based on personal experience.
It will be a number of years before the incidences of brain cancer can be qualified to see whether there are negative health affects involved with microwave technology.

To be honest here are some things i noticed before when i was using a mobile phone for extended periods, the side of the head that you naturally favour after a while had a numb/dull feeling around the ear that extended into the skull sometimes this was coupled with an elevated/excitable state for no good reason.

When using wi-fi and being close to a Microwave EM transmitter for long periods after a few days i would experience a brain fog, joint aches and pains, headaches, disturbed sleep, a feeling of being very thirsty during the night so much so that it would wake me up, this also caused a listless and disturbed nights sleep that was not recuperative or restful.
This was those nights when the WIFi had been left on all night and forgotten to be switched off.
Sometimes flu like symptoms, runny eyes, bunged up head, a lack of motivation, irritability.
They were the symptoms that followed me around day into day varying in intensity, the headaches were the worst and often left you wondering why you were experiencing so many of them.

I am not kidding when i say that almost immediately after stopping using WiFi i noticed improvements, not just in myself but also those around me, i have had maybe two or three headaches in the last six weeks whereas i would suffer that many a week that would require some sort of treatment.
My mum for as long as i can remember had the "Tuesday" headache, she put it down to a drug called humira that she takes, but after turning off the wifi the tuesday headache no longer occurs.
I noticed that the members of my family did improve in mental functioning and their mood improved due to better health, im very good at noticing things, a lot of the time its things others do not see, trust me when i say if you are suffering any of the symptoms i outlined above, try to rearrange your equipment to turn off the wifi, even as a test for a few days/week.

The plug socket ethernet adapters are great and not expensive and well worth the health benefits you achieve as a return.
I think we all develop an EM sensitivity over time that only limiting your exposure to can make better, do our cells begin to hold a higher charge or have a lower inductance threshold? something changes.

reply to post by The X
I don't use any of that stuff, not even a cell phone. And I am working in the industry (public service area).

Regardless of whatever health risks there may or may not be, I've always felt that microwaved food isn't "hot" like oven-baked food is. It cools down a LOT faster than if it were from the oven.

Originally posted by SG-17
I'm sure its been mentioned before in this thread but Microwave Radiation is NOT Ionizing Radiation and therefor can't make things radioactive. The only thing that microwave radiation does to food is that it excites the water molecules (because of the size of the wavelength) causing the food to heat up.

I starred your post because you hit the nail on its head, dude.

This thread is a circle jerk of people who don't know physics. Peace.

reply to post by Nola213


Trust me as somebody that gave up the microwave for a few years now. If your energy sources comes from whole and natural foods, you will feel SO much better!

If you need hot water for your coffee, you can have a water heater that keeps hot water all day long or cook it on the stove. Anything that is cold that I need heated I just throw it in the steamer, might take 5-10 minutes longer but its worth it

There is clinical evidence Microwaves are bad for you and it's in Medical Journals.

US Patent #7,713,463 "Method of Manufacturing Surgical Implants"


A Company called Nuvasive started making PEEK plastic spacers to throw in between patients vertebrae.
The above Patent they hold to throw those plastic spacers in a microwave to "cure" them faster.


Why's everyone dying of Acute Renal Failure who had those plastic spacers shoved in their spines?

The Microwave altered the PEEK plastic so it wasn't safe to put into patients anymore?

To make it worse....the FDA Medical Device people know this little secret. They were told to hush up so profits could still be made. People are expendable.

The human body has survived throughout all of evolution by adapting to new environmental hazards. The microwave oven is just another hazard to which our body must adapt. I live on aboard a sailboat off the grid using six 120 watt solar panels & two 400 watt wind generators, a 12 volt battery bank and one 3000 watt dc/ac power inverter to power everything on board including a microwave. We also have a toaster oven, electric cooktop burner and propane stove for cooking. Of everything we cook with, the microwave is fastest and uses solar power to run it so it gets used quite often.

Others have suggested the food tastes bad or doesn't have the same texture etc which means the microwave is doing something "mysterious". I don't agree. The cooking times in a microwave are just so much faster that you need to re-adjust your normal cooking time mentality. You must also use the right cooking utensils to achieve the normal results you would expect from an old fashioned oven. We have microwave crispers which make bacon, breads etc crispy instead of soggy. We use glass pots with lids to retain moisture in other things we cook.

So really the things you "cook with" can greatly change the texture and taste of foods to replicate the same thing you get when using the old fashioned electric ovens. I'm sure when the first person started cooking with fire others probably didn't think it seemed safe either, but look at us now - from Fire to MicrowAvE!

Is the microwave safe for your body? Well, I wouldn't stand closer to it than I would a fire and probably not any more than the suns rays, air quality, cell phone transmissions, televisions and thier broadcast waves etc, but don't take life too seriously - No one gets out alive. (Well not until I get done building my "Super-suit" which will keep the human body alive forever). Btw I'm accepting donations towards its development ) lol seriously ; )

Should microwave ovens be monitored, tested and improved as needed to ensure all possible safety for the public? Oh Hell yeah.

reply to post by muzzleflash


Interesting!
Except for the hypothesis that microwaves from the sun are different from man-made microwaves.
That is just plain wrong, microwaves are waves, as the name implies. A very small portion of solar radiation would be microwaves, and they would be the same as those from an oven.
Apart from that small blunder, it could well be true that microwaves do distort amino acids etc into toxic materials, but household 'mickeys' generally work by causing sympathetic vibrations in water & fat molecules.
The flourescent bacteria is scary, though.....

reply to post by The X


Glad you mentioned this.
It seems they missed it in the official survey they did over here
They were interested in heating effects of radiation on brain cells, i believe long term exposure & DNA breakdown didn't occur to them.
Interestingly, a (swiss?) brain tumor expert said he was astounded to find that most left brain tumors occurred in left handed people with mobile phones, he said it was the same for right side tumors in right handed people.
Most of these patients were executive types who had the damn thing glued to their ears most of the day
Coincidence?

I haven't trusted microwave food for several years so I don't use the microwave anymore. I heard that it changes water on a molecular level. Maybe the information was bogus, but government doesn't have the right to dictate my choices for me. Let the science speak for itself and let me make up my own mind. Government can't cure stupid, after all!

I often wonder if wireless routers and computers and monitors are bad for us too. I wouldn't be surprised. I still use a CRT. I try to keep the light levels low and stay at least 3 feet away from it.

I bet the sitting is more dangerous though. I try to move around as much as I can. I found out more than a decade ago during my Quake 2 sessions that my mind slows down after 2 hours of sitting. Nowadays, I really can't sit for more than a hour or two without a strong desire to get up and do something or move around. It really does feel good to get exercise.

And one more thing I wonder about is indoor air. It probably is polluted by things on the carpet and inside the walls and whatnot. Maybe things in the insulation. Is there less oxygen inside? For example, if I trap myself in a box, I'll exhaust the oxygen. Obviously, in a house the oxygen will get replenished from outside, but sometimes I still wonder if the transfer is sluggish.

And ofc, sunlight is another concern, but less of a concern for fair skinned people. Still need about 10-15 min of sunlight. Sunbathing naked (with a towel on your head to protect your face and preserve some of your youthful vanity) for 10 minutes be a great idea if we had privacy! The problem is that if you don't moderate you can get too much or too little - it's not always easy. And then there're darker skinned people that need even more than fair skinned people.

So much of this is indoors related. We migrated from outdoors to indoors. It really throws a wrench in the evolutionary machine. So much rapid change in the past 200 years.