French skin-cell study reveals new insights on EMF effects
June 6, 2025
Can everyday levels of electromagnetic fields make us feel sick?
A new study from France suggests that they can.
Laurène Sonzogni and team were interested in determining whether exposure could cause symptoms of ill health, otherwise known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). Whereas many EHS studies to date have looked at how exposure affects people’s behaviour, Sonogni’s team was more interested in how it affects cells. Cells, unlike people, are unaffected by beliefs.
The study investigated 26 volunteers with self-diagnosed EHS who answered questions and provided skin samples to the researchers.
With the information from the questionnaire, the researchers were able to determine just how severe the volunteers’ symptoms were. The symptoms they assessed were: ‘eye pathologies, pain in muscles and cartilages, cardiac system pathologies, digestive system pathologies, fatigue and sleep disorders, mood instability, and nervousness, slowing down of intellectual activity, headaches, and tinnitus, skin pathologies, genito-urinary pathologies.’
The results showed that the severity of the symptoms ranged from zero (no reaction) to five (extreme pain and discomfort). According to the authors, ‘The highest self-assessed intensities of discomfort were obtained for cerebral features like headaches, tinnitus, slowing down of intellectual activity, fatigue, and sleep disorders.’
Interestingly, the researchers found that the volunteers could be broadly divided into two separate groups, each of which reacted differently to exposure.
Group 1 (LBHR)
- Volunteers in this group experienced low levels of symptoms and discomfort from exposures below UHF, but higher levels of symptoms and discomfort from exposures to Ultra High Frequencies (UHF; 300 MHz to 3 GHz).
- This group ’was particularly associated with impairment of cardiac and digestive systems, mood instability, nervousness, headaches, tinnitus and skin reactions.’
- Fibroblast skin cells had ‘limited amounts of spontaneous DSB [double-strand DNA breaks] and MN [micronuclei – signs of chromosome instability], like cells from patients showing moderate radiosensitivity.’
- ‘The LBHR phenotype was associated with an early formation of radiation-induced MRE11 foci and high cancer risk’.
Group 2 (HBLR)
- Volunteers in this group experienced high levels of symptoms and discomfort from exposures below UHF but lower symptoms and discomfort from exposure to UHF.
- This group ‘was particularly associated with fatigue, sleep disorders, and the decrease of intellectual capacity’.
- Fibroblast skin cells showed ‘very high amounts of spontaneous DSB and MN, like those of the most hyper-radiosensitive cell lines’.
- ‘[T]he HBLR phenotype was associated with both spontaneous formation of perinuclear pATM crowns and late formation of radiation-induced MRE11, common features of high risk of accelerated aging.’
From their observations, the authors concluded that ‘EHS may be related to the management of SSB and/or DSB [single- and/or double-strand DNA breaks].’
Sonzogni L, Al-Choboq J, Combemale P, Massardier-Pilonchéry A, Bouchet A, May P, Doré JF, Debouzy JC, Bourguignon M, Dréan YL, Foray N. Skin Fibroblasts from Individuals Self-Diagnosed as Electrosensitive Reveal Two Distinct Subsets with Delayed Nucleoshuttling of the ATM Protein in Common. Int J Mol Sci. 2025 May 16;26(10):4792. doi: 10.3390/ijms26104792. PMID: 40429933; PMCID: PMC12112057.
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