Electromagnetic radiation and human health

Abstract

Recent decades, researches have highly focused on health effects of electromagnetic fields on biological bodies, since the Earth is filled with electromagnetic waves not only from natural sources, but also from various human- made applications. The project has reviewed the previous researches of biological effects, and sorted them by frequencies. Electromagnetic fields could be classified into two types: ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. Generally, ionizing radiation is the EM waves that have enough energy to break a chemical bond, while non-ionizing radiation does not. Base on the temperature change in the biological body after exposure, non-ionizing radiation effect can be categorized into 3 types: thermal effects, athermal effects, and non-thermal effects. All these classifications and the biological effects have been discussed in this report. Other than the bio-effects caused by temperature changes, Melatonin suppression is also one of the possible health hazards of EMFs exposure. The project has also investigated the health effect of GSM communication system: why GSM uplink signals are more likely to cause headache than the CDMA communication system. Last but not least, the author suggests some potential applications of the EMFs.