Research

Effects of electromagnetic fields of low frequency and low intensity on rat metabolism

Gabriele Gerardi¹, Antonella De Ninno², Marco Prosdocimi³, Vanni Ferrari¹, Filippo Barbaro³, Sandro Mazzariol⁴, Daniele Bernardini¹ and Getullio Talpo^{3^}

¹  Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, University of Padua, Agripolis, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Padua, Italy

²  ENEA, CR Frascati, Dept. FIM, Via E. Fermi, 27 00044, Frascati, Rome, Italy

³  PROMETEO S.r.l., Via Marostica 2, 35100, Padua, Italy

⁴  Department of Public Health, Comparative Pathology, and Veterinary Hygiene, University of Padua, Italy

BioMagnetic Research and Technology 2008, 6:3doi:10.1186/1477-044X-6-3

Published:	1 April 2008

Abstract

A series of experiments on rats have been performed, to study the effects of long time (50 days) exposure to electromagnetic fields of extremely low frequency (ELF, i.e. less than 100 Hz) and amplitude (non thermal), testing whether the metabolic processes would be affected. The background lies on recent observations on the behaviour of isolated enzymes in vitro exposed to EFL fields. In these experiments, the cyclotron (or Larmor) frequency of the metallic ion has been used to "stimulate" the metalloproteins redox-active site, thus obtaining a clear variation of the enzyme functionality. In this paper we have extended for the first time the check to more complex animal metabolism. The novelty of this approach implies that a large amount of data had to be analyzed since it was not possible, in principle, to select only a few parameters among all the potential effects. Several biochemical parameters have been evaluated by comparing their values during the periods of exposure (field ON) and non exposure (field OFF). The evidence that long term exposure to electromagnetic fields with a well defined frequency may have relevant effects on parameters such as body weight, blood glucose and fatty acid metabolism has been obtained.