Scientific American July 2, 2010 Obligatory Legal Disclaimer: This research information is provided for personal educational purposes only, and does not constitute a medical claim for any product of any nature whatsoever. Consult a qualified healthcare practitioner for the diagnosis and treatment of any disease, ailment or medical condition. These Statements have not been approved by the FDA.
Is your mattress a cancer-causing antenna?
The rate of breast cancer in Western countries is 10 percent higher in the left breast than in the right. This also is true for the skin cancer melanoma.
Researchers have suggested a surprising explanation for this -- and for the dramatic increase in rates of breast cancer and melanoma over the past three decades.
In Japan, there is no correlation between the rates of melanoma and breast cancer, and there is no left-side prevalence for either disease. The rate of breast cancer in Japan is also significantly lower than in the West.
This may be due to differences in sleeping habits in Japan and Western countries. Previous research has shown that people prefer to sleep on their right sides, possibly as a way of reducing weight stress on the heart.
This is most likely the same in both the East and the West, but the futons used for sleeping in Japan are mattresses placed directly on the bedroom floor, in contrast to the elevated box springs and mattress of beds used in the West.
According to Scientific American:
"... [A] 2007 study in Sweden conducted between 1989 and 1993 ... revealed a strong link between the incidence of melanoma and the number of FM and TV transmission towers covering the area where the individuals lived ...
Consider, however, that even a TV set cannot respond to broadcast transmissions unless the weak electromagnetic waves are captured and amplified by an appropriately designed antenna. Antennas are simply metal objects of appropriate length sized to match the wavelength of a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation."
Sources:
Scientific American explains this quite well:
"Antennas are simply metal objects of appropriate length sized to match the wavelength of a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation. Just as saxophones are made in different sizes to resonate with and amplify particular wavelengths of sound, electromagnetic waves are selectively amplified by metal objects that are the same, half or one quarter of the wavelength of an electromagnetic wave of a specific frequency.
Electromagnetic waves resonate on a half-wavelength antenna to create a standing wave with a peak at the middle of the antenna and a node at each end, just as when a string stretched between two points is plucked at the center.
In the U.S. bed frames and box springs are made of metal, and the length of a bed is exactly half the wavelength of FM and TV transmissions that have been broadcasting since the late 1940s.
… 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."
Could this explain why Japan has much lower rates of cancer compared to the US and Europe, and why the Japanese do not have higher rates of left- than right-sided breast cancer?