Low-intensity electric fields can disrupt the division of cancer cells and slow the growth of brain tumors, suggest laboratory experiments and a small human trial, raising hopes that electric fields will become a new weapon for stalling the progression of cancer.
Alternating electric fields affect tumor cells by slowing their division time from under one hour to more than three hours. The fields also disintegrate cells in the later stages of cell division.
In the studies, the research team uses alternating electric fields that jiggle electrically charged particles in cells back and forth hundreds of thousands of times per second. The electric fields have an intensity of only one or two volts per centimeter. Such low-intensity alternating electric fields were once believed to do nothing significant other than heat cells. However, in several years’ worth of experiments, the researchers have shown that the fields disrupt cell division in tumor cells.
Further trials will combine electric-field therapy with low dose chemotherapy.
Someone still funds long-term low-impact testing? Shock and amazement!
Decades ago, I worked in a research lab that routinely performed stress-corrosion tests on structural metal alloys. Some of those tests had been in place for 20 years when I went to work there.
Cool way to market electricity. First, we cause cancer clusters with electric fields, then we treat the cancer with electric fields. This has to be a marketing ploy by the electric companies. OK, I’m just kidding … mostly.
#2, LOL. I remember when electromagnetic fields near hydro towers was thought to CAUSE cancer.
This process, if produced at a large scale, is also a form of time travel. I have come back in time just to say this.
*Bmmmmmph!!!*
Hey Tim,
No fair coming back in time to put your post in ahead of mine!
Why not some light therapy when we’re at it.
I think the key statement is “can disrupt the division of cancer cells”.
This pegs my B.S. meter; I find it difficult to believe! It seems reasonable this may disrupt or impact cell division, it just hard to believe this heretofore cancer causing method, is selective to cancer cells only and not healthy cells.
Not only that, “one or two volts per centimeter” is not at all low-intensity.
B.S. ALERT, B.S. ALERT
That is why Americans spend 12 hours a day watching tv
Not for the relaxation but for the electric pulse and grid for their health
I admit, when I first heard about this I was skeptical. However, they have several papers published in reputable peer-reviewed journals on the subject. After reading their work, I’m convinced these researchers might be on to something. Appearanlty it works by using the shape that cancer cells assume when they divide as a sort of antenna for concentrating RF energy. They have done extensive tests in petri dishes, and rats, and now a FDA phase III clinical trial is in progress. It certainly looks legit – we’ll just have to see how the trial goes.