Dr. Kay Durairaj 0:00 You. Well, hello. Hello, guys. You're listening to beauty bites with Dr K secrets of a plastic surgeon, and today's podcast is going to be a great one. We are going to talk about EMF Nicholas Bono. He's also known as the EMF guy. He's a best selling author and investigative health journalist, and he is the leading voice talking all about safer technology. He's author of the non tinfoil guide to EMFs. And this really helps demystify the science behind electromagnetic fields. I think EMFs are a huge issue. They're affecting all of us, and I'm really excited to learn more about it. So Nick, welcome to the podcast.

Unknown Speaker 0:55 Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Yeah,

Dr. Kay Durairaj 0:57 so you have a huge background in journalism. What made you decide to learn about the impact of wireless radiation from all of our smartphones, Wi Fi routers, everything around us.

Speaker 1 1:07 You know, I started looking at the environmental toxins that barely anyone talked about 15 years ago. I was shocked at the presence of, you know, BPA in our food, especially if you, you know, use a lot of microwavable plastics and foods or reheat, you know, your leftovers. We know that this leeches certain types of plastic ingredients in your food. And I was shocked to understand that these are endocrine disruptors, right? They mess around with your hormones because the body confuses BPA with certain hormones. They kind of look the same to ourselves. And it can impact testosterone in men. It can impact the cycle, and you know, weight gain or weight loss in women. And of course, it has everything to do with graceful aging. Many, many people these days have disrupted hormones, and that was 15 years ago when I realized that all these environmental toxins from it's not just the plastics, it's heavy metals and pesticides and everything that can end up entering our body when it shouldn't impact us, but the wireless radiation piece was really missing for me. Back in 2016 I barely understood the topic, and I started diving deep into it when my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer. And I started looking into the possible causes of cancer, which are many. Unfortunately, these days, there are many different types of carcinogens or suspected carcinogens, and one of them that came to my attention was very surprising to me. It was, you know, my phone, my Wi Fi router, my laptop. And it was a controversial topic, even back then, 10 years ago, that you know, this type of wireless radiation called radio frequency radiation, which is really what everyone uses these days to communicate the cell tower connects to your phone, your laptop connects to your Wi Fi router, and we have, of course, Bluetooth, everything nowadays that connect to devices. All of these signals are called radio frequency radiation. And the prevailing thought that everything is safe, and that, you know, our body basically ignores these exposures was simply untrue when I looked at the data, and I discovered why. Well, this is not only is this a serious topic that deserves a lot of attention, but of course, by every year that goes by, we expose ourselves more and more, while with plastics and some other environmental toxins, I saw many people in the public start being acknowledged these dangers and therefore preventatively reduce their exposure, which is the right thing to do, except with wireless, it was the opposite. So that kept me going, and that led me to writing my book, trying to help people understand the risks and maybe benefits of using wireless, of course, it's convenient, but many people don't recognize that it can impact our body negatively, and to this day, it's still prone to a lot of you know, scientific controversy. But one thing is sure, our safety limits that are set, especially in North America, where I am in Canada, and where you probably are in the US are among the most permissive in the world, so we are the most exposed to this agent around the entire planet, and our safety limits do not protect us against these health impacts. So that's really my journey in a few minutes here,

Dr. Kay Durairaj 4:37 there have been some studies done that show that EMF may make people more prone to certain types of tumors or cancers, and especially when you have a phone in close proximity to your ear, your brain. What? What if those studies shown for the listeners? So in 2011

Speaker 1 4:57 IARC, it's a branch of the WA the. Who called International Agency for Research on Cancer classified radio frequency radiation, especially when it comes to phone exposed to the head as a class 2b carcinogen. That's the lowest level of classification, but by 2018 again, that's years ago, we already had better animal data that came out, two major studies that reconfirmed this link. And the only reason right now, some scientists are saying, the only reason that we're we're not acknowledging that radio frequency radiation is sort of the new smoking and should be declared a carcinogen, is that there was no meeting by IARC to look at the agent, and it's been pushed and pushed and pushed. And you know, the bureaucracy of it all is is kind of sad and very frustrating for me, because in the meantime, the public is vastly unaware. Of course, if who said this is a carcinogen, doesn't mean everyone would stop using their phone, but maybe they would be more prudent. So this, there's really an increased risk if you use a phone next to your head, but the questions that are still left in unanswered, which are in my mind, more concerning than brain cancer, because a lot of younger generations don't call on the phone, right? Even you know calling your friends on the phone is almost rude. You should text them first to see if they're available. So so all that to say that the behavior of putting a phone to the head is not that common, but now it's been replaced with other habits, such as, you know, using a Bluetooth earpiece, which is not initially a good replacement, you're replacing one bad thing with another bad equivalent, which which is also a source of radio frequency radiation. So there are definite concerns for the younger generations, and also because they keep phones in the pocket, and we don't know what the impacts are, we know that it can impair fertility and cause hormonal disruption, and that alone is very concerning, because a lot of people have a hard time conceiving these days, even young, healthy couples, many of them have a hard time procreating. And that's a, you know, a huge issue for the next generations to come. But also, we don't know what it's doing when it comes to the risk of developing tumors in other areas besides the head. There's a bit of data around breast cancer, indicating you probably shouldn't talk a phone in your in your bra either. But many people still do it right. Many women still do it, and if they don't do that, they're gonna tuck it in, you know, a pants pocket or right next to their, you know, their ovaries right there in a yoga pant man, most men I know, even my friends, I've been, you know, blasting their minds with this topic for 10 years, and I most of them still have a phone in their pocket. It's a very bad habit, and we don't know what it's doing to not only to fertility, but to risks of testicular cancer or ovarian cancer or even colon cancer, and many of these cancer types are increasing in our youth, including my generation. I'm 37 including the younger generation of my son, for example, who's seven years old. But you know, teenagers these days are starting to develop these tumors younger than any time before in history. And of course, there are less you know, these are kind of the scary implications of having a phone but I wanted to also pinpoint that there are other ways that the same radio frequency radiation can impair just your ability to age gracefully or to just feel good. One of them is how it impacts sleep, and not a lot of people realize. Of course, many people realize, if you have notifications on in the evening or in the middle of the night, it wakes you up, it's an obvious detriment to your sleep. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that even if you don't get notifications or don't even see the light emitted by your phone, just the fact that it's close to your pillow will emit radio frequency radiation every few seconds to connect to a tower, and that alone has been shown to change the way your brain waves behave. And why does it matter? Well, because it means your sleep architecture is not the same, which means you're trying to get, you know, your your sleep in and you're trying to have a literally, some people call it, you know, beauty sleep. That's where you heal, that's where you rejuvenate yourself from a from from your everyday stressors that your body goes through. And if you cannot have the best sleep quality possible, well, you're in my mind, you're in trouble. So one very easy thing to do is to simply put that phone away, or set it on airplane mode or turn it off at night. But many people sleep with literally their phone under their pillow as they fall asleep. As they fall asleep, they will tuck it in, or they will even. And, you know, have it plugged in to charge it at night, but very close to their heads, which can impair their sleep quality.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 10:08 That's interesting. I just this weekend, dropped my phone in the swimming pool. My phone is so dead, and I feel like extremely paralyzed without it. However, I do have a sense of peace, of like, not everyone's not trying to bug me and reach me. And also, what you said about like, not, maybe not having the phone at the bedside. Maybe I did sleep better the last two nights, but it is really something that I think it's so important to get into a better regimen, to have your phone charging at your in your office, in your kitchen, and your desk away from your bed. I see everyone, including my four children, using air pods all day long. All day long, it's almost even become like a comfort sensation that it's, you know, just sound blocking, even if there's no audio going in their head. But can you talk a little bit about why that direct EMF should not be a place so close to your temporal bone and brain?

Speaker 1 11:02 Yeah, there is a lot of reasons. There is concerning data around hearing loss and the use of Bluetooth. It's still very early. You know, it might be related to the fact that we listen to sounds that are too noisy, that are too loud. That's one angle sure it can damage hearing. However, radio frame with your radiation in itself, even if you don't have sound on, it emits radiation very close to the brain. And of course, those bones inside the inner ear are very, very, very small, so they are prone to damage. And there's, there's a certain indication that in our youth is causing premature hearing loss compared to other generations. So there's that, there's also ability to concentrate and headaches, there is decent data on some people having headaches or migraines with specifically Bluetooth exposure, because obviously younger generations are not really seen again talking on the phone, but they would have instead Bluetooth earpieces or, you know, AirPods on almost 24/7 I talked to doctors regularly. And some doctors see younger patients in their teenage years, and they can directly pinpoint that they either have headaches or tinnitus, a sort of, you know, ringing in the ear that is triggered by the AirPods. And at a minimum, if you are experiencing something weird, you should suspect the AirPods, because some people are developing these symptoms while other people might not feel anything right. Doesn't mean it's it's not real. It's just that some people are more reactive to these types of exposures.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 12:45 Yeah, I think also even the incidence of meningiomas and brain tumors on the side of cell phone use, definitely, there's some studies that show that there's an increase in that, as well as like facial parotid tumors for cell phone users,

Speaker 1 13:02 thyroid cancers also. So yes, and it's, you know what concerns me the most? You know, I've been doing this eight years, and many people think that a lack of data is a lack of evidence, or a lack of danger, a lack of beta if you don't know if it's causing a certain tumor type. The only reason we don't know is that there's not enough people who died from that tumor where we could look at epidemiology, right, studying the past, or one scientist who was a little bit, I think, I don't know if it was, you know, blase or or a little bit, you know, disillusioned towards his work, but he said, epidemiology is counting the body bags. You're studying the past. You're studying people who died from a certain tumor, let's say Tarot tumors, and then you say, Okay, is there a correlation between people who use their phone a lot on that side and then the Tarot tumors that were on the same side? But if we don't have enough data, but we do have data in other tumor types, this is sufficient to be careful. And what I see a lot of people doing is really the opposite of being careful right now, which you know, being careful doesn't mean completely freaking out or never using technology again, but it just means things like, Well, if you're not using your air pods, put them somewhere else, right, instead of keeping them in your ear, something, something that I told many parents in my latest online summit that was really focused on the dangers of EMS for children and teens. I said, Well, you know, try to tell your teenagers if they're studying or if they're, you know, stationary, you don't have to use air pods if you're moving around. Maybe there's, you know, a reason to do it, because they're convenient. But when you're not moving around and you're stationary, maybe you can have also a wired pair, and you alternate the the less you use. Use the technology and expose yourself, the better off you have you are really so in not a lot of people realize something I wanted to address, because I kind of prepared for this interview and looked at specific devices that emit radiofrequency radiation. I know that in skincare, there are some devices that you talked about that use radio frequency radiation to rejuvenate the skin, and these are higher exposures, but they're also used for short amounts of time with specific protocols for skin care, which is completely different than a phone or Wi Fi router or Bluetooth headset that uses lower dosage, but essentially 24/7, for life, for a lifetime. So really, the problem with some people would would think, well, you know, if we're using radio frequency radiation for for skin care, for beauty, it probably means that my phone is safe, right? Well, that's kind of comparing apples to oranges, right? Because there's one that is using radio frequency radiation for to bring benefits. That is a medical device, if you will, that brings, you know, therapeutic frequencies at it with a certain protocol. And the second one doesn't care about therapy or about beauty, it's a phone, and the only thing has been built for is connectivity. And it it. And basically our safety limits say, well, nothing is happening. And, you know, go, go look somewhere else if you want to find health effects. But in reality, what we do know is that even at low levels of exposure, that where you don't, you don't necessarily feel the impact right away, but over decades, then you have a problem, because it's a source of oxidative stress. And something that is interesting for people following you, I'm sure, is that, you know, I was looking at a review, scientific review oxidative stress and its impact on skin, scalp and hair, and they said oxidative stress may be the currency by which an unhealthy scalp leads to deleterious consequences to the hair. So they talked about premature hair loss, for example, that might be caused by too much oxidative stress. What you're doing, if you have, you know, EMFs around you all the time, is adding more oxidative stress, and not the type of oxidative stress that could be beneficial and the one that is chronic and that causes long term damage. So this is really why I said that. You know, there are scientists that say literally, what we're doing with our current use of EMS is aging ourselves prematurely. We're introducing an agent that causes oxidative stress and that we we don't stop the exposure to recuperate. We don't have that recovery phase like we would have with medical devices, for example.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 18:06 Now I noticed you're using wired headphones. I bought those for all my kids this summer, for Christmas last year, but nobody wanted to use them. But I think that's some easy, easy solutions for people to block and reduce and mitigate the amount of EMF that they're exposed to. One would be get wired headphones instead of for

Speaker 1 18:25 sure, for for even younger children, you know what? What I've done for my seven year old, of course, it at seven. I still have a little bit of control. I think that control will be gone by next year or so. I understand what it's like. I can only imagine with teenagers is it's a very difficult situation for many parents, and I advise them, you know, to be gentle and and you you have to think about your relationship with your kids while also thinking about the exposure. So I understand it's a it's an uphill battle. But for younger kids, including toddlers, and, you know, very, very young children, you can pre download content on many devices, including movies, including, you know, audio or music, many apps, including, you know, Spotify, Disney, plus Netflix lets you download that content. Then you can simply remove the Wi Fi, turn off Wi Fi and have the child listen to the tablet, but everything is be pre downloaded, so you're not streaming and exposing the child to all this radiation very close to the body, because many of them hold the tablet in their hands. So that's another example of just being a little bit smarter or more strategic towards these exposures, and you can reduce their cumulative dose of EMFs that they're getting by a very large margin.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 19:47 Are you aware of any other useful tools for mitigating the amount of EMF you're getting, like shielding, devices or clothing?

Speaker 1 19:57 There are certain you know EMF. Blocking clothes that are available. I, you know, there's no, really not a lot of science around those. I think for people seeking good fertility, they might be a good idea. And some people think, you know, the idea of wearing EMF blocking boxers is kind of a dystopian or even, you know, a funny, funny thing to consider. And yet, you know, we know that cell phone radiation will disrupt, you know, sperm motility and sperm count. So you know, if there, if you're trying to conceive, you have a hard time and your fertility. Doc tells you, Well, we're going to look at a bunch of things, and maybe pharmaceuticals. And why not, you know, but they are expensive, so it's not my the primary route that I would take, I would, I would say, you know, instead of having, you know, email blocking clothing, you can probably try to develop a healthier habit of putting your phone on airplane mode whenever you carry it. But you have to think about it. That's something that you have to change. Or you can use EMF locking cases that are on the market that you know can be worn where your phone will be worn more safely on the body. One such brands that I think is among the best is called RF safe. But there are many good cases out there that at least will mitigate part of the radiation, because, of course, on airplane mode, you will not be reachable. So depending on your job, I know that. You know, my dad is a realtor. He will not listen to my advice. He'll say, Well, you know, I'll miss calls, important calls from clients, and we're closing it. We're closing in on this house deal. And okay, I understand, but he do, he does have a case? Does he use it all the time? I suspect not, but at least, I think part of the time is mitigating things. And what he did at home, though, and that's something everyone can do, is to turn off the Wi Fi at night. You know, you don't have to have Wi Fi in the middle of the night. If anything, it encourages certain people, including, you know, of course, teenagers that might wake up in the middle of the night check notifications and really bad habits that we can develop that make that can make us really neurotic around, you know, internet usage. So at least you you can set it on something like Christmas light timer or an outlet timer, so that way your Wi Fi will automatically shut down at a certain point. 10pm 11pm whatever the the Wi Fi curfew you want you want to be in your household. And for some parents, they told me, this is a good way to be disciplined, even for themselves, to not look at emails or social media past nine, for example, so it can help you also, you know, keep a better relationship with how you use tech, because a lot of us don't have the proper guardrails, and kind of have a love hate relationship with the tech part of it, because we use it too much and too often,

Dr. Kay Durairaj 23:01 that's very true. Do you think that with the rise of 5g that we're getting more exposure than ever, and Are we safer with the old school phones? Or does it

Speaker 1 23:12 even a little bit it's difficult because, you know, with the phones essentially designed to be obsolete after a few years, some of my readers have been, you know, keeping their iphone four, and they have a broken screen and it barely charges anymore. But I tell them, you know, eventually you're going to be obligated to to upgrade, because it shuts down. The battery is not good anymore. And the reality is that the the model of phone that you own, that you use isn't as important as how you use it. So really, you know, if you have a 5g enabled phone and the latest phone, and, you know, I don't know how many cameras on there, 12 cameras and whatever, if you have the latest model, still turn it off at night or put it on airplane mode. Be, you know, mindful of not using it to the head, you can use speakerphone or wired solutions instead. So these are the same rules that apply. So I prefer to tell people to change their habits, and not necessarily over stress about their phone model with veg, though, what is concerning is just that we're still moving in the wrong direction when it comes to installing new cell phone towers. So 5g is an infrastructure that requires even more cell phone towers. And there are good indications that the more towers we have in an area, there are certain people that's that start seeing a negative impact on their sleep. And of course, you know the cell towers there's, at the moment, there's part of a law in the 1996 Telecom Act, Section 704, that says you cannot complain or oppose the installation of a cell phone tower in the USA because of health impacts, which is very surprising. Rising to many people, but essentially, the telecoms have sought a sort of liability immunity where you cannot complain over it, you cannot sue, you cannot do anything. So we're among with many other activists. I'm trying to spread the message that we should change the law. Because, of course, if we like, in many other countries where they have more stringent laws for the placement of cell towers, if we discover that, you know, this family is not feeling well, and they're right next to the tower. Literally, the towers are installed in even here in Montreal, in places you wouldn't believe, you can almost touch it. And for this is too intense of an exposure for most people, and they can feel very unwell in these environments. So the law should be changed, and in the meantime, we at least need to be aware that this is a big societal problem that is getting worse, that question of not only our personal devices, but also the electro pollution in the environment that we don't see with our eyes, but that our bodies are perceiving as an increasingly stressful environment.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 26:06 I think it's so stressful, I think people don't realize the impact that all this is having. I think there's perhaps even some inflammation and autoimmune triggers that can be started by EMF and even neurologic issues. Can you give us a little more info on potentially those organ systems and how they can be effective? For

Speaker 1 26:29 sure, they you know, this is if EMFs can literally just increase the amount of oxidative stress that we have. This can, this can be the root cause of any, any disease and anything. So if you have more stress from environmental toxins, your risks of dementia or Alzheimer's could go up. Your risk of autoimmunity could go up. There are good reviews on the fact that the more the closer to a city you are and to a high level of electric pollution, we do see a reduction in immunity. One thing that we see is simply a reduction in antioxidant levels in people who live closer to cell phone towers or who use their devices more. So you know, these are internal reserves of antioxidants. It's not just the foods you eat, but also the antioxidants that you produce internally, such as glutathione or catalase or superoxide dismutase, but you know, all these big words, but it just means that these are your inner shields against whatever life throws at you, including EMS and including things like, you know, glyphosate and pesticides and The plastics I talked about all these things do not work in isolation. They work in a sort of toxic synergy. So of course, this is really the big, big, big concern that many scientists have. Some of them hypothesize that the big rise in Alzheimer's and dementia is partially linked back to EMFs. Personally, I have no doubt that virtually every chronic disease that is on the rise, it can be partially blamed on EMFs, but also, obviously, on all the other environmental toxins that we are exposed to. So it's not a question of just blaming EMFs. However, I have to kind of talk about the the elephant in the room is that, yes, a lot of people recognize that, you know, the outer toxins are bad, but not a lot of people are willing to consider that the EMFs are also a problem. So it's sort of the, you know, again, the tin foil, you know, idea on my in in my book title is that a lot of people don't think it's serious. Oh, no. You know this is something. This is a conspiratorial topic, and only people who talk about UFOs during the weekend talk about EMFs. No, it's a it, not only is it a critical, credible topic, I'm talking about almost 300 active scientists that have been sounding the alarm for decades now, and meeting the opposition from a very, very large industry that is the tech industry and telecoms, and then also meeting a position from the public, in a sense, because we love technology, a lot of people who hear the message, well, you have to lower EMF exposure. They think I'm going to tell them to never use the phone again. Live in the woods of the grid, you know, grow a large beard. You know, this is not true. I live here in Montreal. I am exposed to some of this stuff. But for example, what I decided to do a year prior to my my son being born, eight years ago, was we don't even have Wi Fi at home. So when we have guests over, we they ask us for the Wi Fi password. There's none. There's no Wi Fi. And, you know, people get over it. But for sure, it's something radical to do. And how we connect our computers is through a cable, a good old Ethernet cable that you would still see in some businesses or, you know, places like servers, or, you know, professional workplaces, they have these ethernet cables. But many people at home go the easier route and have Wi Fi. I tried to walk my talk. So we did. We uninstalled Wi Fi, enrolled back to the older technologies of having good old cables here, and that's one of the ways that I'm trying to minimize exposure in this office right here, because I spend most of my work week right here at this computer. So you know, all these changes that I propose that people make, they only make a difference if you really tackle where you spend a lot of time. For many people, it will be their individual devices in their bedroom or their office space, for example. And it's not by, you know, over stressing about certain occasional exposures that will really move the needle. It needs to be really where you spend a lot of time, the devices that you use a lot, and start thinking about those first, be before, you know, sent. Send some people send me emails like, oh, I have this vacation home, and I go there two days per year, and there's a cell tower nearby. What should I do? And I tell them, stop worrying about it. You know, it's two days, right? So instead, focus on what actually matters.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 31:28 Yeah. Well, this has been so fascinating. I think people can all take a couple grid messages from this, like, like, you said, use your Wi Fi when you're mobile, and then, like, really focus down on where can you be wired connections, whether it's headphone or the wall, that's so important, and then just keeping your device off your body, whether it's on a I'm definitely going to get an EMF case. I didn't even know that those existed, so I'll have to do that for sure. And I think just mindfulness, as you said, those reactive oxygen species, they trigger cancers and transformations and DNA. And not just, you know, for the face, where you're going to have oxidative damage on your skin and wrinkles and but, like, much more serious. So I think this generation is the test generation, literally, the first generation to have this toxin and exposure. And we're going to, we're going to pay the price if we don't actually look a little more closely,

Speaker 1 32:22 I agree 100% and I would say, you know, not only can you, or should you, avoid the, you know, human made EMFs like these that are stressful, but also expose yourself to more natural EMFs, right? All the frequencies in nature, it kind of sounds woo, woo. But, you know, sun exposure is an example, going to a park, walking barefoot, all of it is part of, you know, this other counterbalance that nature offers us. So I know that a lot of people in large cities have a kind of struggle to find, you know, a little patch of grass. But I was in New York for vacation last month, and, you know, going through Central Park, and are areas where you can actually go on the grass, I think at a certain time like or just being there, is very beneficial, even in an environment like New York that is very hectic, and I found it very hectic compared to Montreal. I was glad to come home in the end. But even here in Montreal, I find the local park. Go there, I get a run in and, you know, just getting exposed to Sunshine, it's all beneficial frequencies that are going to help you in the long run.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 33:30 I think that's great advice. Well, Nicholas, I can't thank you enough for taking time out of your busy day to teach us a little bit about EMF and the impact it has. You're such a leading voice like in this journey and crusade to get companies and business government and people to listen to us. So thank you for what you're doing. I know you've written an amazing book. Tell us the name of the book and where we can find it.

Speaker 1 33:56 Sure. It's called the non tin foil guide to EMS, and it's available. I have on my website, EMF book.com, but one of the most convenient ways to get it, the silk through all Amazon stores worldwide.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 34:10 That's easy for everyone. Yeah, and your Instagram. If people want to connect, what's

Speaker 1 34:16 your it's at the EMF guy. The

Dr. Kay Durairaj 34:19 EMF guy. Well, I found your page, and I found it very interesting. I hope everyone takes a deep dive and learns more and just starts to protect themselves, because we really don't need to be that connected. We're most happy as humans when we're

Speaker 1 34:31 disconnected. I think I agree. I found that for myself too. Yeah, from

Dr. Kay Durairaj 34:35 devices. Anyway, we got to be connected people and disconnected from devices. But exactly, I encourage you all drop your phones on the swimming pool. Gives you a holiday necessary reset. I've taken this it's such a timely podcast since this happened to me, like I just feel a lot of mental clarity this week. But that's it for now, guys, please check out Nicholas Pineau, the EMF. Guy on all his social handles. Don't forget to find me on my instagram. It's Beauty by Dr K, D, R, K, a, y, doing amazing things with people's faces. And our website is the same. It's Beauty by Dr k.com, that's it for now, guys, stay beautiful. You.

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