Recently, I interviewed Nicolas Pineault, and we talked about the sources of electromagnetic pollution, the effect of EMFs on sleep, fertility, and thyroid conditions, the need for reducing our exposure, whether you should be using shielding, the potential link between EMFs and thyroid cancer, the importance of proactive measures in the home, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.
Dr. Eric Osansky:
I am super excited to chat with Nicolas Pineault, as we are going to be chatting about EMF hazards, of course tying them into thyroid health. It will be an awesome conversation here.
Let me dive into Nick’s impressive bio. Nick “The EMF Guy” Pineault is the #1 best-selling author of The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs and an advocate for safe technologies. Through his unconventional approach blending humor, science, and common sense, he has become a leading voice on the topic of electromagnetic pollution and how it affects our health. For the last few years, Nick has been interviewing some of the best minds on health and technology and facilitating the curation of courses and educational materials to raise awareness on this very important issue. You can find more about Nick at TheEMFGuy.com.
Thank you so much for joining us, Nick.
Nicolas Pineault:
Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.
Dr. Eric:
This is a fascinating topic, something that affects everyone. I want to start a little bit with your background. How did you start focusing on helping others become more aware of the problem with electronic pollution?
Nicolas:
My journey started in 2010 when I got into nutrition but quickly diverted into environmental toxins. Yes, I discovered that many people can argue online about what is the best diet, but we can all agree that if you add glyphosate or other pesticides/herbicides or heavy metals in your food, that’s not good.
Also, some people realized by then that there is plenty of scientific research that shows we are impacted by these toxins at variable levels. It also showed me and made me a little bit blasé about the current state of regulatory agencies. I realized that these substances are not properly regulated in a sense that the public is not completely protected against these health hazards, especially when they are cumulative and act in synergy.
Another toxin I came across later in my career as a citizen journalist is electropollution. That was new for me because I had heard a little bit about the dangers of putting a phone to your head and maybe the risks of a brain tumor, but I had no idea that hundreds of independent scientists, who had very prestigious careers in other types of pollution, were pretty much saying the same thing: We need more research. We are under-funded. Systematically defunded, in fact. The more you find negative health effects linking cell phones to poor health, the less you get funding, which it should be the opposite. Urgent funding, additional funding from the government or health agencies.
I was very alarmed by the fact that we should be studying this technology more, but we are doing it less and less. At the same time, we are increasing our exposure.
This led me to write my book in 2017, The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs. I chose that title and that angle because I realized, my god, among many skeptics, even those in functional medicine who understand environmental toxins, a lot of them did not take EMFs seriously.
Part of the reason is there is a lot of confusion online. Some of it is straight-up incorrect. A lot of it is fearmongering. Then you get the opposite side of the coin that there is no effect. This is non-ionizing radiation. It does nothing to the human body. It will not interfere with your sleep. It will not give you a brain tumor. There is nothing to see here.
I think these two positions that are at the extremes are completely incorrect. I tried to make sense of what are these scientists actually saying? What can we safely say about these dangers? How can we communicate them? There is not a lot of certainty around EMFs. People are looking for certainty. “How dangerous are these, Nick? How long should I use my phone safely? What is the difference between cell phones, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth?” The topic is very complicated to communicate on a scientific basis because most of these questions are left unanswered to this day, due to the lack of funding and the systematic defunding of the entire topic.
Dr. Eric:
I think more people, including practitioners, are becoming more open to EMFs. Still, we have a long way to go.
Now, you mentioned brain tumors. I think it’s safe to say, and you would probably agree, that in most people, EMFs are not going to cause brain tumors. They could do that potentially, but it goes beyond that. Some people might hear “brain tumor” and dismiss it. I actually listened to some of your past interviews, talking about some of the effects, like sleep disruption. Even that alone could be a big reason to try to minimize your exposure. Or conditions like tinnitus.
For those who are brand new to EMFs, can you first talk about what EMFs are? Then maybe we lead into the conversation of some of the concerns, like potentially cancer, sleep disruption, and others.
Nicolas:
Sure. There are many different types of EMFs. Of course, the electromagnetic spectrum is very large. It encompasses everything from the Schumann resonance, which is the natural magnetism emitted by the planet Earth, which we actually need from a biological standpoint, up to microwave radiation, which is your cell phone. We also have visible light. Then we go at the extreme in nuclear radiation. All of these exposures have different dosages that are compatible with the body.
One thing is generally true. Natural exposures tend to be more compatible with our biology. The sun, visible light, we do have a certain dose of sunlight that we can get safely. Then we can get risks or even skin burning or other things that aren’t pleasant if we get too much sun. It’s understood that these exposures are not only beneficial, but they are in fact needed for good health.
With the Vitamin D research that is exploding in the last decade, it shows us that our health is intertwined with the sun cycle, not just on a Circadian rhythm level, but also Vitamin D production and overall immunity. Researchers think of Vitamin D as a hormone, not even as a vitamin per se. It’s even more profound than that.
We are closely linked with natural EMFs. There are all the reasons to think that if you temper with the EMF environment by creating new EMFs in the form of cell phones, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cell phone towers, smart meters, everything that emits these signals that were essentially never seen in nature in these forms, intensities, and specific frequencies, then you might get into trouble.
The entire topic of EMF needs to be understood by understanding first that we are bioelectrical beings. There are many components of our bodies that need electricity or produce electricity or have censors that read electricity around the cell or the mitochondria. If we understand that, and we recognize that we are bioelectrical beings, it makes it at least plausible that if you have a bunch of different random signals around you, that might create confusion on these bioelectrical censors of the human body.
We are really talking about electromagnetic biointerference, which is not a topic that is often discussed. Engineers are very well aware of electromagnetic interference. If your cell phone and neighbor’s cell phone talk to each other, and it causes disruption, and you both drop the call, or you hear each other when you shouldn’t, engineers are going to step in there and say, “There is something unacceptable going on. We have poor connectivity, or we have crosstalk. We will solve it.” In the case of biointerference, not so much.
Our safety guidelines are simply based on the wrong assumptions. These engineers do not have the obligation to minimize the amount of radiation that your devices emit. To the contrary, at the moment, it’s almost anything goes. The threshold levels of EMFs that are accepted, especially in the U.S, Canada, Australia, and most of the Western nations, is so permissive that these engineers go for the maximum amount of emissions. Why would they choose that? It’s not to harm people; it’s just for better connectivity. They are not trying to minimize the potential harm or risks.
This is really the situation here. We are talking about how to more safely use these devices, considering that our safety guidelines are anything but safe at the moment.
Dr. Eric:
Those are great points. There is research out there, but they are not paying attention to the research. Now we have 5G, which is even more powerful. I don’t know if 6G is coming in the near future. Is it?
Nicolas:
Yeah. It never stops. Part of the discussion we need to have is it’s not just what we’re exposed to right now; it’s what we have been exposed to before. Previous technologies were also unsafe. Many people focus on 5G. They hear 5G and read things. “Oh, 5G is dangerous.” They are reading these 5G articles on the web on their 4G phone and maybe are under the impression that they are doing well.
I wrote my book in 2017. Way before that, you had scientists in the 1980s emitting concerns over the first Nokia phones, the big bricks. In reality, this topic has always been prone to controversy. We need to understand that all past technologies, and for the moment, all future versions of this technology, will be equally unsafe because we are not basing these safety standards on the right thing, which should be how much disruption are these causing? Instead, they are focused on how much heating are these devices generating on the body, which is the wrong thing to look at.
Dr. Eric:
Let’s talk about how much disruption they cause, at least according to what you’ve read and the research that you’ve done. How harmful can they be?
Nicolas:
There is a vast amount of research on EMFs. The thing that is very concerning to me is a large traction of the public, including engineers and intellectuals, think there is no studies. I have even been told on Facebook- Of course, the Facebook comment section is not the most intelligent place for discussions. An electrical engineer told me, “This research that you are proposing is BS.” They weren’t so kind because they thought I was some sort of snake oil salesman or scam artist trying to create some elaborate scheme to extract money out of people by creating fearmongering around EMFs. They said, “Nick, there are zero studies showing that this radiation is harmful.” This is bizarre. If you just go on PubMed, you will find at least several thousand.
We can say that some studies show no effect, and some do show effects. At least you can say to be fair that there is a mixed kind of literature.
Scientists are trying to pull together these studies on different topics such as, for example, cancer and cell phones. Is there a link between talking on a phone on the ear and different types of cancer of the head and neck, including thyroid cancer, which is increasingly being studied as we speak? It depends on which scientist you ask this question.
You have groups of scientists, including top-educated etiologists who are recognized as great etiologists, such as Dr. Anthony Miller, who had great success in his scientific career around environmental pollutants. He said in 2018 that the data we have was sufficient to reclassify this agent called “radiofrequency radiation.” Radiofrequency is cell phones, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. He said it should be reclassified as a class 1 carcinogen. Six years ago, he said that it should be next to asbestos and cigarette smoking.
If it were reclassified, I think the public perception around these risks would change. Of course, like you said very perfectly, it’s not like the entire population will die of a brain tumor. However, since we have nearly every single human being on the planet using a phone, if you change a small fraction of a percentage in brain tumors, you’re killing a bunch of people.
The more the population is exposed to an agent, the greater the risks if we get it wrong. It’s part of the precautionary principle. If a technology is rolled out to the entire population, how much we assess the risk. The quality of our science needs to go way up compared to an agent that is used occasionally or in certain industries. Now we are talking about exposures to every single human being. Even more than that, we are talking about exposures to everything biological on the planet since we are rolling out these cell towers and global satellites around the planet, which is another rabbit hole.
As far as what kind of science we have besides cancer, there is good reason to think that our fertility is impaired by these things. Not only might it affect the thyroid hormones, but also, if you have a phone in your pocket, you might impact how much, for example, the tests will be producing testosterone. That plus maybe the quality of sperm can go down. It’s still being argued by different scientists.
Some of them are quite convinced that there is a direct link between keeping a phone in your pocket and a reduction in fertility and testosterone. There are men out there who always laugh at this. “Perfect, I don’t want any more kids,” but they do want their testosterone and their longevity as well. Don’t disregard these risks.
As far as the thyroid goes, there are links between even just the presence of cell towers and thyroid dysfunction in certain studies. One of them found that you’re more likely to get hypothyroidism—which is very rampant these days, as I’m sure you’re talking about all the time—if you live within 300 feet (100m) of a cell phone station. The problem is these days, it’s becoming extremely likely that if you live in a city, you will be within this distance of a cell phone station because they’re everywhere.
Now, with 5G, one of the big problems is the proximity of these antennas to the population. Even if you turn off your own phone, well, if you’re exposed to the cell towers, you might get these negative health effects as well.
I was just looking at a review from 2019 called “The Possible Global Hazard of Cell Phone Radiation on Thyroid Cells and Hormones.” They said that more research is needed. It tends to be in every study you find on EMFs these days. More research is needed. It’s slow and tedious. Most of these lines of research will take a few decades to become strong enough. With enough studies of high quality and independent studies, we have a conclusion.
However, the research has already said we think exposure by cell phones may negatively influence the iodine uptake in the thyroid gland or increases temperature effect on the thyroid gland. They also said that their reduction in diameter of thyroid follicles is potentially linked with cell phone radiation.
Many of these researchers don’t talk about public policy. Does it mean cell phones are safe or unsafe? They just put the research out there and hope that WHO or a large governmental body will pick up these studies and do something with them. But many of them recommend against holding a phone to the head.
It’s interesting because this is not what we hear from the governments at all. One of the only governments in the world that has been forced by its Supreme Court to communicate these dangers is the Italian government. A few years ago. That was after the Supreme Court found that a man was killed by a brain tumor, and they found causality between the tumor and his cell phone. They slapped the wrist of the government, saying you will be forced by your own justice to communicate these risks to the population.
Let them know you can use your phone more safely by using speakerphone or headphones instead of putting it next to your thyroid and parathyroid gland and auditory nerves and all these delicate structures around your head and neck. If you don’t do that, then you’re avoiding most of the risks.
Right there, you have many scientists who studied the topic argue: Why aren’t we erring on the side of safety while we’re waiting for these studies to become conclusive? What I see online and what I see from skeptics is, “No, I want definitive proof of harm. Then I’ll do something.” This is backwards thinking. It doesn’t work in public policy.
We have done that plenty with different agents. Agents are rolled out, and we say, “Oh, you know, we don’t see big dangers with lead.” 10 years later, we say, “Well, we think that we’re overexposed.” Every 10 years, the level of lead that is considered safe goes down. Eventually, I think most scientists agree that there is no level of lead that is acceptable in the body. Yet we do have occasional exposures.
The same with cell phone radiation. We are really far from that. Instead of preventatively lowering exposures from phones and maybe putting the cell phone towers a little bit further away from the population in case these effects exist, we are doing the opposite: bringing the cell phones to the population, making the phones stronger. It’s really where we’re doing it massively wrong with this entire story of health effects.
Dr. Eric:
That was a great analogy with lead and other agents in the past. As you mentioned, why not just err on the side of caution and be safe rather than take the risks, even if it is controversial? Like you said, it’s backwards thinking.
It could affect thyroid hormones, fertility, including testosterone, potentially also cause thyroid cancer. Is there any evidence that EMFs can play a role in autoimmunity, like compromised immune system and increased susceptibility?
Nicolas:
There are several papers showing different effects on immunity. It’s difficult because in many situations, certain exposures, especially when you are studying mice or rats or animal models or even just cell cultures, at certain exposure levels, you find effects like increasing immunity, but in certain other conditions, a decrease in immunity.
It looks like in certain situations, we can adapt to the exposure. Maybe even the stress of this radiofrequency could make us stronger, act like a sort of hermetic stressor, like heat exposure or cold plunges or exercise. In other situations, when it’s chronic exposure, you see a depression, a downregulation of the immune system at many levels.
As far as autoimmunity, there is not a lot of evidence, but we have certain researchers such as Dr. Trevor Marshall, who is a professor in California at the Autoimmunity Research Foundation, if I recall correctly. He basically ran a study with participants that had various conditions that are autoimmune, including lupus and other autoimmune conditions. I am not familiar with all of them.
He basically shielded them against this electro smog at night. 90% of them said that they slept much better and started seeing their symptoms of different autoimmune conditions go down. He concluded himself that this is bizarre because if we believe the statistics, there should be around 3-5% of individuals who are electrosensitive that might be helped by these shielding strategies. He makes the case that people with autoimmunity are that much more likely to be electrosensitive and feel these effects.
Also, he said that in the future, an important component of autoimmune protocol to get better would be to shield against these external radiation stressors. That is something very radical to say, but he’s been studying the topic for over a decade now. He is considered an expert in autoimmunity. I don’t think many of his colleagues would necessarily agree because that is a fringe topic to study. I think it makes sense.
Anecdotally, there are many functional medicine doctors who I connect with on a regular basis who see these patients come in, and they are affected by multiple things. Sometimes, they have autoimmune conditions. Some of them have multiple infections. They have low thyroid or hyperthyroid. Sometimes, they have 10 different things going on.
One of them that holds true for all patients is that when they start reducing EMF exposure, everything seems to work better. Is it because you’re improving sleep and therefore overall healing? It might be one thing. It might be because you’re decreasing stress. There are different reasons.
It looks like EMFs can worsen almost any condition out there, just like eating a diet of McDonald’s or Wendy’s will also do the same. In that sense, these man-made EMFs are almost the junk food of signals or frequencies if you will.
Dr. Eric:
Did I hear you correctly, that 3-5% of people are electrosensitive?
Nicolas:
It depends. Different scientists will have different assessments. I’d say 3% is very common among scientists. 3% are hypersensitive. That would be those who have a very hard time with EMFs. Normally, these people can pinpoint that certain exposures are causing them massive symptoms. Almost like a Celiac person knows they’re Celiac and eats bread; they can pinpoint that, “I ate my bread, and now I feel horrible for days on end.”
Same thing can be said for 1-3%, some say 3-5%. Other scientists say there might be a third of the population who has mild to moderate symptoms, including a reduction in sleep. Maybe they feel more depressed, or they have different neuropsychiatric effects such as depression, anxiety, OCD-type behavior. That would be a third of all adults.
Something I talked about in my 2024 summit on electrosensitivity, these two researchers on electrosensitivity had predicted that 50% of the population would be sensitive, based on the last studies, all the surveys they did in different countries. The curve was going up and up like in a hockey stick graphic.
They asked the question in 2006, “Will we all become electrosensitive and be sickened by this technology?” I don’t know the answer to that. However, many doctors and even average laypeople who are fairly healthy changed their habits around technology and started feeling better.
There is this difficulty to assess how much EMFs have contributed to my own health challenges, or even is preventing me from reaching my full potential. If I feel very well right now, do I feel 80%? In reality, I’m missing this extra 20% because of these exposures. If you cut down on EMFs, turn off Wi-Fi at night, turn off your phone, some of them realize, “I sleep much better. I thought I had reached the peak of my health, but it turns out that some of these gadgets around me were keeping me down. Now I have my full potential.”
Same thing is seen in many professional athletes who know about the topic. I think increasingly, they will be interested in the topic although it’s tough because some of them are using censors and a lot of EMF things to perform better. It’s all a balance, especially not necessarily having these things with you at night. In the future, we’ll see EMFs being part of the discussion about the factors that we need to at least control in our environment.
Dr. Eric:
I’m glad you mentioned turning off devices before going to bed. If someone is having sleep issues, that’s something I definitely bring up. We are so quick to take supplements like melatonin and others to help with sleep. A lot of people overlook the impact of going on the computer an hour before going to bed or being on their cell phone and keeping their Wi-Fi plugged in at night. Those are simple changes. Unplugging the Wi-Fi every night, or having a switch, like a timer, to automatically turn it off and turn it back on in the morning.
Would you say ideally a couple of hours before going to bed, people should stop being on devices?
Nicolas:
There are many aspects to this. Variations of radiation that connects your phone to a cell tower, not only is this impacting your melatonin possibly and shifting your brain waves in a way that is not conductive to great sleep. In fact, it will cause sleep onset delay. You are trying to go to sleep, but you toss and turn. Your brain is not going in the right type of brain waves that it needs to go in order to fall into your first sleep cycle and go into deep sleep and REM and cycle through these different cycles throughout the night.
I would say not only is radiofrequency a problem, but also the visible EMFs that are emitted by devices. Two hours before bed is good. I personally advocate for the use of blue-blocking glasses that help mitigate some of the problems with light.
In the scope of my work, especially during sleep is when you want to absolutely make sure that your cell phone is not emitting 4G/LTE/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, all these signals under your pillow. The reality is you have 75% of the population in some studies that have a cell phone near their pillow.
Those that use airplane mode, in one study I saw from a few years ago, was 20%. It’s still not that popular. 2/10 people made me a little bit happy, I must say. I thought it might have been 3%, something very depressing, to be honest. But 20% is not enough.
We know that it can impact sleep. We also know that for some people, it’s not just a small impact on sleep. It might be a huge impact. There are genetic differences, and there are also health status differences in different people.
It looks like the stability of your bioelectrical system also will change with your overall health. That’s just an overall systems-thinking perspective here. If you’re in better health, you’re better able to handle occasional things that make you weak, such as alcohol, junk food. Maybe you drink one night, and the next day, you’re fine to go jogging, whereas someone in extremely poor health or chronic fatigue might do one workout or have one glass of wine and feel very fatigued from that same exposure.
The same looks like it’s true for EMFs. Your ability to handle radiation might be way better if your overall health is better. That’s another reason if you already have autoimmune issues or thyroid issues, you should be more motivated to turn off the EMFs under your pillow.
One thing you can do is charge your phone in the next room. I know a lot of parents use their phone as their emergency line for their kids. Maybe they are getting older. They are going out at night for the first time. They don’t feel good about turning off their phone at night. They never listen to me. That’s fair. Put it in the bathroom or on the kitchen table, somewhere you’ll still hear it, but make sure it’s not right next to your pillow. You shouldn’t be able to reach out to your phone. It’s just a distraction. Also, the radiation it emits will negatively impact your sleep.
Dr. Eric:
You mentioned airplane mode. If it is in airplane mode but still nearby within arm’s reach, is there still concern of some radiation?
Nicolas:
It’s more complicated than that unfortunately. You can be on airplane mode and still have Wi-Fi on. You need not only to be on airplane mode, which turns off the cellular antenna, which is what connects to the towers. Also, make sure to turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. You need to be aware of these things, especially if you have the phone by your bedstand.
Some people use basic EMF meters, which can help. Double check your work. If you don’t know if your phone is emitting or under which conditions it is emitting radiation, if you have a meter that screens, it shows you that your phone is still emitting a signal. If you have Wi-Fi, it will sound almost like a rifle sound. If you have Bluetooth, you’ll hear a clicking. If you have these sound indications, or even visuals in certain meters that your phone is still emitting, it gives you an indication that you’re doing it wrong. You should go in the menu and turn everything off.
Something I can mention that is not for sleep. A lot of people work nowadays in front of a computer, including myself. I am in a new environment today, and I do have to use Wi-Fi. In many situations, I’m back home and use an internet cable to connect my computer to the router.
Regardless, if you have a Wi-Fi router or non-Wi-Fi router, which most people don’t have these days, the reality is that your computer is often much closer to your body and your thyroid for that matter compared to your router. Your router may be in a corner of your home or in the living room next to the TV, which is often the case. Your computer will emit a fair amount of radiation with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth all day every day for hours on end as you’re working on it.
Something that can be extremely positive if you want to reduce your cumulative dose of EMFs is to use these wires to connect your computer. Some people perceive it as a retrograde or old-school idea, but it’s still feasible. In reality, if you go in businesses, a lot of commercial buildings still use ethernet cables. It’s still a great technology to use for rapid data transfer and also cybersecurity. Much safer on many levels than Wi-Fi.
If you have a home office, and you don’t like your Wi-Fi and complain about it, hit two birds with one stone. Wire up your internet to your computer, and you can cut down on radiation and have a steady signal that never drops.
Dr. Eric:
I’m using ethernet. It’s not just to minimize Wi-Fi, but it’s a better signal. It’s more reliable.
Shielding, you mentioned blue blockers. Earlier, briefly, you spoke about shielding. If you can’t get your smart meter removed, it does sound like you’re a supporter of shielding for EMFs.
Nicolas:
Yes. Cutting down on emissions is way more effective than shielding. Partial shielding might dampen the signals. An example is something that’s sold that you can put over your Wi-Fi router, which will dampen the signal 90%. The problem with that is we currently don’t even know what is a safe dose of EMFs. When you have 90% reduction, is it a 90% reduction in biological effects? Is it a 90% reduction in risk? Not necessarily. Is it better than nothing? Likely, yes.
Even with that, I would turn off Wi-Fi at night. When it’s turned off, you know you’re doing good. When you’re starting to go into reduction of EMFs such as lower EMF technologies, some of it I perceive as EMF washing, just like brainwashing is the perception that your product is healthier for the environment when in reality, you’re playing with words.
It’s a bit tricky here to talk about how much these are contributing to lowering your exposure. There are shielding strategies that are more advanced that you can successfully use at home although they require a larger investment of time and money, such as shielding the bedroom. Increasingly so, certain environmental medicine doctors are recommending these strategies to their patients.
You can completely shield a room either with a bed canopy over the bed that is made oftentimes of cotton and copper or stainless steel or silver mesh. It doesn’t look like metal. It really looks like fabric that you put over your bed. It will cut down all the exposures that would have come from the outside.
This is especially important in patients who have this level of sickness, such as autoimmune conditions, or have these levels of exposures that are tremendously high because they live too close to cell phone towers for example. They don’t feel well in their home. Some people really swear by these different strategies that are applied and verified by biologists or EMF mitigation specialists.
One of these specialists is my colleague Brian Hoyer from Shielded Healing. There are plenty of specialists who can come to your home and do a survey. I recommend it for almost anyone who can afford it to be honest.
Many people tend to fear the towers so much and say, “I see this tower. It’s ugly. It’s very dangerous.” But they don’t recognize that all of the other things that they have installed inside their home sometimes can be worse than what the tower emits toward their home. It’s sometimes very difficult to assess what exposure is a priority for you if you don’t have the EMF meters and then the expertise to survey the home for these sources.
Dr. Eric:
What are your thoughts about pendants? There are some pendants that supposedly protect you from EMFs, which I’ve been skeptical of. It would be great to put on a pendant. I’m sure even they wouldn’t say it’s completely going to shield you. Do they have any benefit at all in your opinion?
Nicolas:
Some electrosensitivity sufferers seem to do very well on certain technologies. There is a question: Does it play on a reduction of symptoms, or is it protective? This is where you don’t really see scientists endorsing these as a magic bullet. I think many people are looking for a magic bullet that says, “This is tedious, turning off the Wi-Fi at night. Thinking about the cell phone towers and how much I’m exposed. Instead, I’ll wear something on my person and be completely invincible.” This is a nice thought. This is something that is very appealing to our psyche. It does sound too good to be true. It is too good to be true, in my opinion.
So far, I have seen different technologies seem to lower some of the biological effects of EMFs, such as, for example, certain technologies you can use in your bedroom to sleep better, even in a high EMF environment. Would that be beneficial? Yes. Are you also supposed to turn off the EMF sources in the first place? Yes. If you do both, you’re doing yourself a favor. If you rely solely on these different stickers on the phone and pyramids and solar energy devices, I think you’re under the illusion of protection. It’s a dangerous game to play.
Why I’m still taking this position is since we have indications that some people could be killed by this technology, that’s a big word to use. If you get a brain tumor and a glioblastoma and you die from your cell phone exposure, that’s extremely sad. In many cases, this has already happened throughout the world.
If you are under the illusion that you have a sticker on your phone, and you will never get brain cancer from these exposures, and yet in 10 years, you come back to me and say, “Nick, I think I’m going to die. I have a brain tumor,” I wouldn’t feel good about myself because we don’t know for sure if it removes any potentially carcinogenic potential of these emissions. We don’t know that.
Yes, these gizmos and EMF harmonization devices should be explored, especially for people who are electro-hypersensitive. But I have seen none of them offer the magic bullet that many people are looking for.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you for sharing that. Before we wrap things up, I definitely want you to talk about your upcoming EMF Hazard summit.
I also want to ask you about Oura rings or other devices like that. A lot of people use those at night to help them monitor their sleep and see their sleep quality. With Oura rings, you can turn off Bluetooth. I wanted to get your opinion, if you think there is also risk with those.
Nicolas:
What we know on shifting brain waves is concerning to me when you use wearables to track your sleep. The Bluetooth technology might be impairing your sleep. It’s a bit ironic in how these things are designed.
However, the Oura is one of the brands that I appreciate because you can keep it on airplane mode while you sleep. It will store the data locally inside the ring. I don’t know how, but the technology is becoming so small it’s almost ridiculous. It’s just a little bit of data about your HRV and body temperature that are picked up by the censors. Then in the morning, you can put it out of airplane mode and sync the data to your phone to visualize it and say, “How am I feeling right now? How does it corroborate with the data I have?” Then put it back on airplane mode.
My amount of exposure I am getting from the Oura is next to nothing. However, a lot of other types of wearables emit Bluetooth sometimes multiple times per second. I have a problem with that. I don’t think it’s well-designed. I think that if the technology can be designed in a way that it stores the data locally, and it just will sync the data once per day, or on demand, why aren’t all types of wearables built this way?
It’s just poor engineering. I would recommend against it. Maybe there are occasions where you want to track your sleep with certain sleep tracking devices that emit Bluetooth. You do it for a month. Then you discontinue the use. I wouldn’t be completely against it. Chronic, prolonged exposure would be a problem. I don’t think it’s going to serve you well.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you so much for sharing this information, Nick. Before we wrap things up, is there anything else I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? Anything else you wanted to summarize?
Nicolas:
If you want to summarize how to reduce exposure quickly, focus on the bedroom first. That is something I remind people.
There are two things we can talk about when it comes to exposures. If you start playing around with a meter, everything emits EMFs. It’s hard to think about your priority here. Living in the woods? Hiding in a cave? It doesn’t work for most people.
In reality, look at what is inside your bedroom that could be contributing to these exposures at night. Where are you spending most of your time during the day? Some people have a home office. My dad, for example, he’s a realtor, so it would be his car. He is in the car three hours per day minimum, sometimes more. For him, it may be turning off the Bluetooth function in his car and pre-downloading songs or podcasts on his cell phone. I don’t think he’s going to do it, but still, I have to keep trying to educate him.
Think about where you’re spending most of your time. Focus there. If you start to think about all EMF exposures, it’s like being concerned over all toxins. It doesn’t work. You have to prioritize. In that case, make sure you tackle the bedroom and then where you’re spending a lot of time. I think you’re going to be 90% of the way there.
Dr. Eric:
Wonderful advice. Thank you so much for sharing. Where can people find out more about you? Feel free to share your website. Also, if you could talk about your upcoming EMF Hazard summit.
Nicolas:
Sure. TheEMFGuy.com is my website. There is my book, courses, and whatnot.
The EMF Hazard Summit 2024 will be live from April 11-14. It is focused this year on what I call the hidden academic of electrosensitivity. We give people 20 different talks that are focused on electrosensitivity. We have presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as one of the headliners. We also have environmental medicine doctors who are specialized in treating EMF-sensitive patients. That is very rare that we can find these doctors who have the medical expertise to diagnose electrosensitivity and who have figured out how to get these people to a place where they feel better.
Of course, regardless of if you feel better or not, you should still lower EMFs. For some people, the level of EMF reduction that they require to feel well is completely unattainable in a city. They can’t actually live in society anymore. Their life choices are that much more reduced by their circumstances. How can they go back to good health and a good level of sensitivity, where they can still travel? They can take a car and go see a friend. Or maybe they can spend a few days in a city that they want to visit.
It’s for people who feel electrosensitive or don’t know if they are electrosensitive or not. April 11-14. I think it’s the best yet. I can’t wait to get your feedback.
Dr. Eric:
I am very excited as well. Thank you again so much, not only for this interview, but for the research you’ve done, the upcoming summit, the past summits you’ve done, spreading awareness. I think it’s such an important topic. Appreciate everything you do.
Nicolas:
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me and helping spread the word the way you’re doing it.
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