like to suggest an explanation for the sensitivity to electromagnetic
radiation
(emr) that so many PWCs report, in terms of the partial methylation cycle
block. I don't know if this hypothesis is valid or
not, but I think it is consistent with observations and known science, and
I
have not heard any other explanations of this phenomenon so far.
First,
some background:
Our
environment contains increasing amounts of emr from a variety of sources,
including cell phones and other wireless communication devices. This emr
has a wide frequency spectrum and a
range of amplitudes and polarizations.
The human
body, being a conductor, acts as an antenna to emr, which means that the
emr
induces currents in it.
I think
it's likely that most of the induced current is normally carried by the
blood,
lymph, and intracellular fluid, since they constitute physically longer
effective conductors. The intracellular
fluid, on the other hand is confined inside phospholipid cell membranes,
which
act as electrical insulators. Generally
speaking, a conductor serves as a more efficient antenna if its length is
comparable to the wavelength of the emr, or to a fairly large fraction
(such as
half) of this wavelength. The wavelength
of emr with a frequency of one gigahertz (GHz) is about 1 foot, and the
wavelength varies inversely with the frequency of an em wave. Cell phones
operate either at about 0.8 GHz
or at
about 1.9 GHz, so their wavelengths are typically a few inches, which
matches well with the sizes of human body parts, so the coupling should be
pretty good.
Nerve
cells (neurons) are exceptional in that they can have fairly long axons, up
to
about three feet for some. So an
individual neuron might be able to act as a good antenna in this frequency
range. However, the neurons are normally
mostly electrically insulated by myelin, and they are imbedded in an
electrically conducting medium, i.e. the extracellular fluid, which is
effectively in parallel with them in an electrical sense, and which is also
outside them, so that it can produce a shielding effect by absorbing at
least
some of the emr that is coming from outside the body.
O.K., here
comes the methylation cycle block:
When that occurs, it becomes more difficult
for the nervous system to maintain the myelin in good condition. Like
other structures in the body, it
continuously degrades and needs to be repaired.
One of the important components of myelin is myelin basic protein. This
protein requires methylation for its
synthesis. When the methylation cycle
becomes partially blocked, the capacity to perform methylation reactions
decreases. We can expect that this will
inhibit the normal repair of myelin, so that it will become somewhat
degraded. We have evidence that suggests that this
occurs in CFS, in that the best proven brain-related feature of CFS is a
slowing of the processing speed of the brain.
It is known that the presence of myelin is what normally maintains the
high speed of transmission of nerve impulses in the axons of the neurons.
A myelin
sheath that is in disrepair would likely be electrically "leaky." I think
that one consequence of that would be
that larger currents would be induced by environmental emr in the axon of
the
neuron that it normally protects. I
suggest that this is the basis for the sensitivity to emr that many PWCs
report.
Rich Van Konynenburg, Ph.D.
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