On the Health Effects of Electromagnetic Radiation

We've all seen or heard people who claim that electromagnetic radiation has negative health effects. I decided to look into the scientific literature to see whether the claims are true and if yes what health effects one could expect. The search is a preliminary one so it will not be particularly structured.

As a start, Wikipedia makes an interesting claim on the non-ionizing radiation page. The article writes that:

Non-ionizing (or non-ionising) radiation refers to any type of electromagnetic radiation that does not carry enough energy per quantum (photon energy) to ionize atoms or molecules—that is, to completely remove an electron from an atom or molecule.

It then continues by writing that non-ionising can only excite electrons but not completely remove them, suggesting that there would be zero effects, but then continues by:

Non-ionizing radiation is not a significant health risk except in circumstances of prolonged exposure to higher frequency non-ionizing radiation or high power densities as may occur in laboratories and industrial workplaces.

So far, I'm surprised that the critics of 5G seem to be backed by Wikipedia because 5G uses higher frequencies and with that could be more harmful. For example, 5G in Europe uses the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz, and 26 GHz bands, whereas 4G in the Netherlands uses 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz, and 2.6 GHz. Interestingly enough, I also always thought mobile data frequencies were well below those of microwave ovens, but in reality it's roughly the same frequency since microwave ovens operate between 2.4 and 2.5 GHz (Soltysiak et al., 2011). Of course, the microwaves inside a microwave oven bounce around due to the oven being a Faraday cage whereas the waves from radio towers bounce around much less.

One interesting experiment links 900 MHz radiation from mobile phones to oxidative stress in rats (Awad & Hassan, 2008). Oxidative stress is defined as having more free radicals in the body than there are antioxidants to neutralize them. Free radicals are oxygen-containing molecules with unpaired electrons, which allows these molecules to interact with other molecules. These reactions are called oxidation. Antioxidants are molecules that can neutralize free radicals by donating an electron to a free radical. For example, vitamins A, C, and E are antioxidants. Oxidative stress "can damage cellular macromolecules such as lipids, DNA, RNA, and proteins, driving the pathogenesis of diseases and aging through the progressive deterioration of physiological functions and cellular structures. Therefore, the body’s ability to manage oxidative stress and maintain it at optimal levels is essential for overall health." (Krishnamurthy et al., 2024). More specifically, oxidative stress, or more precisely oxidative damage which may follow on oxidative stress, is linked to all kinds of diseases like cancer (Halliwell, 2007), Parkinson's disease (Hwang, 2013), and heart failure (Singh et al., 1995).

At this point, we have to deal with a contradiction. According to logic, when there is a contradiction, defined as two pieces of evidence which can not be true at the same time, then we know that one of the pieces of information must be wrong.

According to one set of sources, frequencies below roughly 300 GHz are considered non-ionising radiation (for example, ECC, 2003), and an educational book declares anything with a wavelength greater than 100 nm (lower than 2997 teraherz) to be non-ionizing, and lists radiofrequency in the non-ionising radiation range (CRC Press, 2025).

According to another set of sources, electromagnetic radiation in the radiofrequency range is associated with oxidative stress. As mentioned before, it is experimentally shown in rats with 900 MHz (Awad & Hassan, 2008). But also in rats with a GSM base transceiver station at 945 MHz (Yurekli et al., 2009), at 900/1800 MHz (Mojez et al., 2021), and at 1.8 GHz (Avci et al., 2012). As a side-note, it has also been found that being close to a base station was associated with a reduction in the number of flowers and cones in pine trees (Ozel et al., 2021), that house sparrows seem to avoid GSM base stations (Everaert & Bauwens, 2009), and that electromagnetic radiation negatively affects the navigation capacity of various birds including sparrows, pigeons, parrots and swans (Surendran et al., 2020). For many more studies relating man-made electromagnetic radiation to oxidative stress, see Chapter 3 - Oxidative Stress Induced by Wireless Communication Electromagnetic Fields by Yakymenko and Tsybulin in the book Electromagnetic Fields of Wirelss Communications: Biological and Health Effects (Panagopoulos, 2022).

These sets of sources cannot be true at the same time which means that either one of the sets of sources must be false. Either radiowaves should not be classified as "non-ionizing radiation" since they are actually ionizing, or the experiments listed in the previous paragraph are flawed. Figuring out what to believe is left as an exercise to the reader.

To answer the question stated in the introduction. Assuming the reader believes that radiowaves are non-ionizing, then there is no evidence that radiowaves have negative health effects.

If the reader assumes that radiowaves are ionizing, then there is evidence that radiowaves have negative health effects since oxidative stress is associated with cancer, Parkinson's, and many other diseases. How strong the effect is is not clear from this preliminary search, but under this assumption it could be beneficial to reduce exposure and also to ensure eating antioxidating foods. More specifically, foods with a high oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC). Examples include fruits, vegetables, nuts, and spices. Some foods and their ORAC values are listed in the table below: