Microwave ovens .... and cancer risk

Originally posted by kyred
Aw, crap!

I was so against microwave ovens for many years. People told me I was a loony for that!

So finally, I begin to use these microwave ovens, and now I find out my first impression was right!!!!!!

When will I ever learn to heed that which is within me?

Exactly this ^

I didn't have one until 2003 as I was so against them, finally my American husband convinced me I was paranoid and that his family have used them for years, so I caved and we bought one.... Only use it for baked beans and re heating leftovers for people not here at dinner but still!

Remember the Levit woman who died because her blood was warmed in a microwave... there was discussion of it changing the electrochemical stability of the blood but then the news trail went quiet so not sure what happened in the end.

*stares at Microwave* I think our might have an accident while hubby is away next week....

I don't know about some of the claims here, but I have heard that microwaving anything in a styrofoam container (like a drinking cup) is a big no-no, because the styrofoam will leech nasty stuff into your drink.

en.wikipedia.org...

The use of high-frequency electric fields for heating dielectric materials had been proposed in the 1930s, for example US patent 2,147,689 (application by Bell Telephone Laboratories, dated 1937) states "This invention relates to heating systems for dielectric materials and the object of the invention is to heat such materials uniformly and substantially simultaneously throughout their mass. ... It has been proposed therefore to heat such materials simultaneously throughout their mass by means of the dielectric loss produced in them when they are subjected to a high voltage, high frequency field."

The heating effect of microwaves was discovered accidentally in 1945. Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer from Howland, Maine, was building magnetrons for radar sets with the American company Raytheon. He was working on an active radar set when he noticed that a peanut chocolate bar he had in his pocket started to melt. The radar had melted his chocolate bar with microwaves. The first food to be deliberately cooked with Spencer's microwave was popcorn, and the second was an egg, which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters.[1][2] To verify his finding, Spencer created a high density electromagnetic field by feeding microwave power into a metal box from which it had no way to escape. When food was placed in the box with the microwave energy, the temperature of the food rose rapidly.

The OP is rich with with fallacies and lies, methinks.

Nazis? Invented by the Nazis? Reductio ad Hitlerum in an attempt to cast a lunatic shade over a viable tech.

I haven't seen anything to indicate eating microwaved food is any more dangerous than eating food cooked through other methods.

I see this thread says that microwave cooking causes carcinogens, and I also see it is recommended by people in this thread to use a toaster oven... bad news for you guys, toaster ovens cause carcinogens, too. Matter of fact, more acrylamide (a carcinogen) is found in foods cooked at temperatures above 120 degrees Celsius.

Last I knew microwaves worked by emitting the resonant frequency of water, thus only affecting the water molecules and leaving any DNA untouched - and DNA damage is what cancer comes from.

Yes there is going to be some microwave energy leaked from it as the video shows but so does your WIFI modem, some cordless phones and many more things that operate at microwave frequencies.

Just because a meter is able to pick up a reading off of it doesn't say much. That video doesn't show if there is food in the microwave to absorb the energy. If it were empty then there would be a higher chance of microwave leakage. Also they are not telling you what that number means. That meter may be on its most sensitive setting as far as the viewer knows.

You could take a field strength meter like that to just about any radio transmitter device and pick up some signal even in a well built Faraday cage like microwave ovens use to protect the user.
Even at that it doesn't matter if small amounts of microwave energy leaks. Non-ionizing frequencies like those of microwaves have not been proven to cause cancer or any other ailments besides possible tissue heating which you would feel if it were strong enough to affect you. Yes skin tissue damage could happen at hot enough temperatures but so could sticking your hand too close to a fire.
The fact that you are not able to feel any heat when standing next to the microwave oven is evidence enough that it's not harmful for even that reason.

Look up the facts. As I have said before, people will be scared of the unknown. If you want to believe microwave ovens were invented by nazis and turn your food into toxic waste and being to close to it when cooking will give you brain tumors then go right on ahead. Deny ignorance

Originally posted by darklife
The fact that you are not able to feel any heat when standing next to the microwave oven is evidence enough that it's not harmful for even that reason.

Look up the facts.

Microwaves can cause cataracts (notice I said microwaves, NOT microwave ovens, there's a difference), the cornea of the eye is about the only body tissue I know of that's sensitive to them. This doctor claims microwave ovens cause cataracts but I've not seen the studies that show that, it's possible if there's leakage around the door and you press your nose up against the glass:

www.visionworksusa.com...

Radiation leakage from microwave ovens are a direct cause of cataracts, so avoid constant peeking into the open door window while you cook.

This source does a better job of reflecting my research:
miosh.net...

The lens of the eye is particularly sensitive to intense heat, and exposure to high levels of microwaves can cause cataracts. The glass front panels of microwave ovens contain metal mesh screens or fine wires which reflect microwaves back into the oven compartment. Manufacturers generally recommend that children not be permitted to stand near microwave doors for long periods. However, no cases of cataracts have ever been traced to microwave oven exposure, and experiments have shown that exposure to low-level microwaves does not cause cataracts in rabbits.

If there's no leakage then you should be ok but just the same, I don't watch my food cook with my nose pressed up against the glass and I see that others don't also. I don't recommend it. It's just a safety precaution, the door on mine isn't quite as snug as when it was brand new.

Originally posted by radarloveguy
The last thread on this topic was back in 2008 , so I thought it might be
timely to revisit the subject ....

The research was done toward the 80s in collaboration between the private laboratory Environmental–Biological Research and Consulting, Wattenwil, Switzerland, Dr. Hans U. Hertel and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Lausanne, Switzerland, Prof. Dr. Bernard H. Blanc.

There's actually a lot of doubt that the 'research' was done at all, apparently Hertel and Blanc cooked the whole thing up, so to speak

The results of the research showed changes in the blood of test–persons, who participated in the investigation voluntarily, even after the intake of one single irradiated meal, indicative of an early pathogenic process, similar to the actual start of cancer

There's often a lot of confusion amongst the layfolk about the word "radiation", and this info at this link shows the author is not an exception. Like many, he can't or doesn't draw a distinction between ionizing, non-ionizing, and energetic particle radiation.

Carcinogens were formed in virtually all foods tested.

Most foods are filled with carcinogens anyway, naturally. However, heating food by ANY means causes others to form as well.

- Microwaving prepared meats sufficiently to insure sanitary ingestion caused formation of
d-Nitrosodienthanolamines, a well-known carcinogen.
- Microwaving milk and cereal grains converted some of their amino acids into carcinogens.
- Thawing frozen fruits converted their glucoside and galactoside containing fractions into carcinogenic substances.
- Extremely short exposure of raw, cooked or frozen vegetables converted their plant alkaloids into carcinogens.
- Carcinogenic free radicals were formed in microwaved plants, especially root vegetables.
- Decrease in nutritional value

And these are all examples. If you'd heated the foods on your sup-r-greenie solar mirror cooker, you'd get the same changes.

1). Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes long term - permanent - brain damage by "shorting out" electrical impulses in the brain [de-polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue].

Not at all. Your brain tissue isn't "magnetized" anyway. And the way that your neurons send messages is BY de-polarization.

2). The human body cannot metabolize [break down] the unknown by-products created in microwaved food.

If they're unknown, how do you know they can't be broken down?

3). Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered by continually eating microwaved foods.

A lie. Citation please.

4). The effects of microwaved food by-products are residual [long term, permanent] within the human body.

Also not true.

5). Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food is reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit , or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken down.

The nature of heating foods is that it does change the food. This is going to be true no matter how you contrive to heat it. The minerals do not cease to exist, so that's a lie. The vitamins can be broken down by heat, some of them. Some nutrients become more available, some less. Again, it's the nature of heating food by ANY means that these things occur.

6). The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free radicals when cooked in microwave ovens.

Not at all. Minerals per se are generally NOT free radicals anyway. Most free radicals are non-persistent, if any were in fact formed, and would be gone in fractions of a second. You generally see free radical formation with ionizing radiation, not microwaves, and again, the original author (I'm assuming it's not you) is confusing ionizing and non-ionizing radiation.

7). Microwaved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growths [tumors]. This may explain the rapidly increased rate of colon cancer in America.

8). The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells to increase in human blood.

9). Continual ingestion of microwaved food causes immune system deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.

10). Eating microwaved food causes loss of memory, concentration, emotional instability, and a decrease of intelligence.

I don't believe so. Do you have statistics that demonstrate this from any acceptable refereed journals? Preferably not "frontiers in science" or "educate yourself"? Something more like Lancet, or AMAJ?

Have you tossed out your microwave oven yet ?

Not at all. Grant you, I don't find them a really good way to cook because it produces sort of limp, soggy food, for the most part.

Originally posted by radarloveguy
reply to post by DirtyGirl

 

Yes water molecules are the most easily damaged .

Technically produced microwaves are based on the principle of alternating current. Atoms, molecules, and cells hit by this hard electromagnetic radiation are forced to reverse polarity 1-100 billion times a second. There are no atoms, molecules or cells of any organic system able to withstand such a violent, destructive power for any extended period of time, not even in the low energy range of milliwatts.

Of all the natural substances - which are polar - the oxygen of water molecules reacts most sensitively. This is how microwave cooking heat is generated - friction from this violence in water molecules. Structures of molecules are torn apart, molecules are forcefully deformed, called structural isomerism, and thus become impaired in quality
curezone.com...

Ah, yes, the stupid "AC microwave" quote. First, water molecules can't BE damaged - it's only three atoms, you know, and the structure is fixed by interatomic forces and electrostatic charges. The most you could do to it would be to remove a hydrogen, and then you'd get a couple of free radicals, only microwaves can't do this. You can do it with ionizing radiation - hence the name.

There's no "violence" - that's a subjective term that has nothing to do with physics - the water molecules are polar because the two hydrogens group on one side due to the hydrogen bond angle. That leaves you with a small dipolar electric field. The e-field from the microwaves rotates the water molecule's dipole, causing heat. This happens no matter WHAT the source of heat, though, microwaves or a lit match. Heat added to a material causes molecular motion. Rotation, scissoring, springing, you name it, if there's a low energy kinetic couple, it'll be happening when you heat the material. I'm assuming we're talking about the sorts of heat you use in preparing food, you get other things happening when you heat it to a plasma, for example. That generally only happens when I'm cooking bacon in the morning.

Next, any EM wave is "alternating current". The original source quote from whence all the AC microwaves comes is from a physician, and it shows her utter ignorance. There is no such thing as a "DC microwave". Or a microwave that's natural vs one that's unnatural. You won't find a microwave oven where the "polarity reverses!!" at 100 billion times a second (I like the term there - you always see "reversing polarity" in really execrable sci-fi, I guess the original author couldn't avoid tossing it in), they're all fixed at 2.45 billion times a second. Interestingly, the photon energy associated with 2.45GHz is really pretty low, so the statement that material can't withstand such battering is pretty foolish - the nice green color on the background of this page causes the little dye molecules in the cones of your eyes to "reverse polarity" 566 thousand billion times a second. AAAA!

And even that's not enough to rip electrons off of matter, which is what you get with ionizing radiation, which microwaves most definitely are not.

BTW, if you ever hear this sort of thing bandied about by someone with an MD, be aware that doctors only get one semester of calculus and one non-math based physics. They only get that calculus because semester 1's the place that you cover first-order differentials, which you use in statistics, it's also the math dealing with rates of reaction in organic chem and with epidemiology. MD's are NOT grounded in physics, math, or electrical engineering.

Originally posted by ozzy765
Everybody wonders about the danger of a microwave I encourage you to do this simple experiment: Take two healthy houseplants. Use rain water to water one plant for two weeks. Use cooled off microwaved water for other plant for two weeks.

A little girl used this in a local science fair to prove that their is a difference. The microwave watered plant died after week number two !

See even a child knows.

edit on 12-10-2010 by ozzy765 because: Fixed typo error.

This is a really great example of one of the worst experimental designs I've ever seen, and your citation of it shows that you don't understand how experiments in general should be performed. Not knocking you, most people don't. But the problem is, that you can't judge between a well-designed meaningful experiment, and a piece of dreck like the "school girl experiment", so anything you see that looks "experimenty" looks real.

This, too, is a badly designed experiment, but it gives the opposite result.

See? Even Snopes knows.

Originally posted by yzzyUK
Remember the Levit woman who died because her blood was warmed in a microwave... there was discussion of it changing the electrochemical stability of the blood but then the news trail went quiet so not sure what happened in the end

You can't microwave blood in a food oven because it causes hemolysis - the uneven heating can cause some of the red blood cells to rupture and dump their contents into the solution. If you get enough of that, it causes kidney damage first, and other tissue damage second - hemoglobin is toxic if it's not inside the red blood cell.

It doesn't have jack to do with "electrochemical stability" or "DNA damage" - red blood cells HAVE no DNA.