6 ms·
Left-sided Cancer: Blame your bed and TV? (2010)
- joezydeco 3y agoIf you need a startup idea, Faraday cage mattress covers might be a hot thing in a year or two.
- 542458 3y agoI think it would probably just be simpler to use a mattress with no springs, of which there are many on the market today.
- joezydeco 3y agoA 100 MHz wave is 3 meters long. What part of a bedframe/coilspring is 3 meters in length?
- tinus_hn 3y agoIt could be a thin metal foil that comes in rolls and alternatively would be usable to create a protective hat!
- eropple 3y agoIt'll never catch on unless it's got other uses. Consider the kitchen--
- kstrauser 3y agoMy darn moral compass has prevented me from being rich in so many ways, including this one. Sigh.
- joezydeco 3y agoNo kidding.
- leoedin 3y agoThis is 13 years old. Has there been any development since? It sounds a lot like nonsense. It seems the proposed mechanism is completely testable. How much stronger are RF signals just above a bed than in free air? I would have thought that if these cancers were more likely due to higher strength RF fields, there would be a very strong correlation between distance to transmission tower and cancer incidence. RF power drops off with the inverse square of distance - there's only so much an antenna (intentional or otherwise) can do to increase power density. You'd expect a similar effect from living a bit closer to the transmitter. Did they ever study that? Edit: I found a paper by the original author. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3730314/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3730314/ It looks like nonsense. They're making a very broad correlation between cancer incidences and the number of FM transmitters, and then deciding that it must be the cause. There's no actual evidence that mattresses amplify radio signals and no measurement of power density. They also seemingly attribute lung cancer incidence to the same cause - despite the very well documented rise of smoking in the mid to late 20th century. There's some real gems in the conclusion: > "the main conclusion is that the melanoma epidemic is a result of the modern man-made environment that forces us to live and sleep in invisible but still unhealthy electromagnetic smog." > "stand up to the strong economic interests that rather want us to continue buying expensive spring beds, " > "One is to make an enquiry among still smoking and still healthy elderly (80+) about their use of metal spring mattresses to compare that with standard beds among lung cancer patients." I wonder if the author smokes and doesn't want to quit?
- 542458 3y agoThe other thing that doesn’t make sense to me here is Japan’s ISDB-T broadcasts are on 470-710 MHz, which seems like it would map even better to the length of mattress coils and bed frame parts than the longer wavelengths used in America.
- baerrie 3y agoThey don’t use metal frames or parts in their beds in JP
- willmacdonald 3y agoCouldn't this be related the side of the car you drive on? In Sweden & America your left arm would be more exposed to sun. Here is an example: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trucker-accumulates-skin-damage-on-left-side-of-his-face-after-28-years-on-the-road/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trucker-accumulates-skin-damage...
- andrelaszlo 3y agoI guess the UK would be an important control then.
- Angostura 3y agoAustralia. We don't have sun in the UK
- andrelaszlo 3y agoBut then you'd have to account for the Coriolis effect...
- JohnBooty 3y agoFrom the article: Stranger still, melanoma most commonly affects the hip, thighs and trunk, which are areas of the body protected from the sun. Could increased sun exposure to one's left arm result in an increase in other parts of your left side besides the arm? Also, given the colder climate, how many Swedish drivers drive with their bare arms hanging out of the window?
- noja 3y ago> bare arms hanging out of the window? The article says damage is caused by UVB (not UVA which is blocked by glass) Edit: I am wrong! UVB is blocked by glass
- anonuser123456 3y ago
- Arubis 3y agoWhile still not citing sources, I'd seen hypotheses that the leftward bias in USians may be due to driving on the left and consequently getting more rads through open windows on the left side. That seems at least less ridiculous than the proposed mechanism here.
- tomxor 3y agoI agree, for melanoma that seems more plausible, and UV imaging of drivers faces commonly reveals large difference in UV skin damage on the driver side, although this doesn't do much to explain the higher occurrence on the "trunk", unless either more people than I think like to drive naked, or melanoma is part localised to source of damage and part not? They also mention the UK at one point, and we drive on the opposite side, with the opposite side of the driver exposed. It's not clear from the article which countries are and are not included in the left side bias, I cannot find their sources. They also annoyingly skip over whether or not Japanese commonly sleep on their sides, because I suspect that could have a larger affect than any miniscule electromagnetic standing waves on some springs. If you've ever slept on a futon, you will know they are far less squishy, they are plenty comfortable, but do not deform as much, so you are more likely to end up sleeping on your back. Sleeping on your side could cause increased compression of soft tissue due to less equally distributed weight, especially on the hips and arms, which affects blood circulation, which can cause tissue damage, which can cause cancer (especially when the damage is chronic). ... but that's just a tiny seed of a theory, there are so many co factors with cancer, and comparing accross entirely different cultures it's basically impossible to tell anything from some correlation. Another huge area that massively affects cancer and pretty much all disease is diet, and the common western diet is far from healthy compared to Asian diets.
- JohnBooty 3y agoand UV imaging of drivers faces commonly reveals large difference in UV skin damage on the driver side Is this true for the general population, or just professional drivers who drive 8+ hours a day? Auto glass blocks a significant amount of UV radiation, and one certainly doesn't see people walking around with lopsided facial tans. It seems to me that for a significant amount of UV light to reach the side of a driver's face: - the sun would have to be rather low in the sky (at which point a significant portion of UV radiation is blocked by atmospheric scattering anyway) - the window would have to be rolled down - the car would need to be traveling in a specific heading (if the sun is low in the western sky, the driver would need to be traveling north in order to have significant exposure)
- scythe 3y agoI have a proposal for anyone who wants to go digging on Google. In order to simplify this whole nonionizing EM radiation cancer debate, it would be awfully nice if we could identify a subpopulation of people exposed to very high levels of nonionizing EM radiation at work. So if anyone can find a survey of cancer rates in MRI technologists, that would be helpful. Twenty seconds of Google exhausted my patience.
- Podgajski 3y agoMRIs do not admit the same kind of radiation that radio towers, TV, antennas, cell phones, and other devices do. MRIs admit magnetic fields. Magnetic fields alone. And The typical MRI worker is not commonly in the magnet room during scanning; therefore she is only occasionally exposed to gradient or radiofrequency fields. Plus, there are several regulations regarding exposure to fields from MRIs. So this is comparing apples to bumblebees as far as health risks go. https://mriquestions.com/personnel-exposure.html https://mriquestions.com/personnel-exposure.html
- billfor 3y agoAn MRI emits RF fields as well to snap back the magnetic field. That's the banging noise that you hear when you are inside an MRI. https://mriquestions.com/radiofrequency-waves.html https://mriquestions.com/radiofrequency-waves.html
- scythe 3y agoI am a medical physicist. I know how the MRI works. The goal of the MRI machine is to make the patient's body emit radio waves, which are then measured. Obviously there is some RF going on! (This corresponds to a spatial Fourier transform etc.) And while it might not seem "often" to you, it's worth considering that the RF levels in the room are enough that we care about tissue heating and sparks on nonmagnetic conductors. This is many thousands of times stronger than a TV signal. There are many cases where the patients require "assistance", which is used in roughly the same sense that cats require assistance in taking a shower. Then there are spectrometrists and so forth — not every MRI is like the one you get as an outpatient with a broken leg.
- unsupp0rted 3y agotldr; the springs in a mattress may be amplifying EM, people sleep on the right side so the left side gets double-exposure, causing a 10% higher incidence of cancer on the left side. Sounds like too many combined inference leaps to me.
- poultron 3y agoDont worry, that guest blog post actually read the research results completely wrong and its the opposite. The coils were supposedly attentuating the radiation waves, which is why your right side has a lower incidence. Furthermore, any scientist will tell you a non-powered set of unenergized coils cannot amplify anything. Amplification requires power. Bedsprings are not powered. Snopes has a solid write up on how badly that author fucked it up. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/coil-mattresses-cause-cancer-amplifying-radio-waves/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/coil-mattresses-cause-canc...
- jodrellblank 3y ago> "Furthermore, any scientist will tell you a non-powered set of unenergized coils cannot amplify anything. Amplification requires power. Bedsprings are not powered." You might wonder how a magnifying glass can ignite paper, why a satellite dish on the side of a house is a dish, how a solar cooker works, why a radio telescope works, or how a roof can turn trickles of rain water into a powerful stream coming out of a drain, all of them unpowered, all of them not needing powered amplifying to have an effect.
- alexdbird 3y agoYou’re confusing concentration with amplification, and you’re not explaining how you think bed springs could cause concentration despite having no similarity in form or action to your examples.
- jodrellblank 3y agoI'm not confusing them. The statement "any scientist will tell you a non-powered set of unenergized coils cannot amplify anything. Amplification requires power. Bedsprings are not powered." suggests that the only way there could be measured increase in radio wave strength at a point is if there is a powered amplifier, and so the lack of powered amplification proves there is no possible effect, case closed. This is a weak argument because it doesn't address concentration. I am not claiming that an effect does occur, I am saying that argument is not sufficient to show an effect cannot occur. > "despite having no similarity in form" When you get into bed, your weight curves the bed springs with you at the centre of a dish-shape. Is that not a similarity in form? If you want to go down that route, this image of bed pressure points[1] shows the most weight and curvature around the hips and thighs, areas the article claims are most affected by melanoma, and less curvature around the legs, neck, head. I am not making the claim that this is connected or significant, I am wondering how you can think that bedsprings don't curve around a person? [1] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1f/fd/bb/1ffdbbfebfd1f54804b95f31428d1ae2.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1f/fd/bb/1ffdbbfebfd1f54804b9...
- yourusername 3y agoIf the entire difference between Japan and Sweden can be attributed to this effect (33x difference in rates of cancer according to the article) then you would expect to see the same difference in people sleeping on for example a latex or foam matress on wood slats. Seems like this would be a huge discovery if a follow up study confirmed people sleeping on this kind of bed had 30 times lower rates of breast cancer. The fact there is no such follow up study makes me very skeptical of this claim.
- woleium 3y agoNo such study _yet_. I imagine it may be difficult to find funding and or an interested student for such research?
- Podgajski 3y agoWho’s going to fund this study? You? It’s amazing to me how little people know how difficult it is to get studies done and how expensive they actually are. And if the study has no profit outcome, you can make that 10 times as hard.
- atq2119 3y ago> Who’s going to fund this study? Foam mattress manufacturers?
- theGnuMe 3y agolatex foam wood slates are more recent?
- hindsightbias 3y agoMost US latex brands are pricey and still have coil layers for support. Many foam mattresses do too, as you get to the hipper/pricier brands.
- kshahkshah 3y agoSleeping on the left side reduces stomach acid
- reliablereason 3y agoA note on why people tend to sleep on the right. People likely sleep on the side that causes least muscular tension in their body. People tend to have a pelvis that is turned slightly to the left (something referred to as the "left aic, right bc pattern") this due to a combination of factors stemming from internal asymmetry, like the liver giving support to the diaphragm on one side, which effects how we use our muscles to breathe. With time many of our movement patterns become slightly asymmetric to make breathing more efficient. This asymmetry is likely the main contributing factor in the dominance of right side sleeping.
- mejutoco 3y agoI always thought it was because of the heart placement, but this is interesting.
- reliablereason 3y agoHeart placement is also a factor.
- lm28469 3y agoFor better digestion it's the opposite though, due to the same asymmetry issue
- Kbelicius 3y agoReally? I've noticed after a night out that as long as I lie on my right side I'm fine. If I want to make myself throw up I just turn to the left. Same thing with heartburn, on the right I'm fine, turn to the left and almost immediately (on the days that I've consumed stuff that would cause me heartburn) I can fell it coming and I just turn back to the right and everything is fine.
- polotics 3y agoOn any diagram showing the placement of organs, you will notice the stomach is assymetric, and when lying on your left side, its contents will have to fight gravity more to find their way back into your oesophagus.
- owlstuffing 3y agoMicrowave radiation levels the playing field.
- hn8305823 3y ago> Thus, as we sleep on our coil-spring mattresses, we are in effect sleeping on an antenna that amplifies the intensity of the broadcast FM/TV radiation. Asleep on these antennas, our bodies are exposed to the amplified electromagnetic radiation for a third of our life spans. As we slumber on a metal coil-spring mattress, a wave of electromagnetic radiation envelops our bodies so that the maximum strength of the field develops 75 centimeters above the mattress in the middle of our bodies. When sleeping on the right side, the body's left side will thereby be exposed to field strength about twice as strong as what the right side absorbs. Anyone have a link to the actual paper? I want to see the field strength readings they took above mattresses in real urban environments. If this were true then there would be an absolute epidemic of cancer within 1/2 mile of TV transmitters, where the field strength might actually be meaningful. Aside from that, this article/paper goes to tortuous lengths to avoid the most obvious difference between Japan and the west (especially US): Diet.
- kstrauser 3y agoWait, is that a real quote? If so, LOL. I’m not going to bother doing antenna math to check their hypothesis, but that’s idiotic. We’re all sleeping on inner coil mattresses, all experiencing the same background EMF, and all have the same coil size and geometry so that, what, we get a bright node of a standing wave hovering over our beds in the same place? That’s the dumbest thing I’ll have heard this month, unless my visiting family starts talking politics.
- karmakaze 3y agoI don't live in the US and I hope that I never get to be 1.5m wide. > 75 centimeters above the mattress in the middle of our bodies.