Abstract: Over the last two decades residential exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF MF) has been associated with childhood leukaemia relatively consistently in epidemiological studies, though causality is still under investigation. We aimed to estimate the cases of childhood leukaemia that might be attributable to exposure to ELF MF in the European Union (EU27), if the associations seen in epidemiological studies were causal. We estimated distributions of ELF MF exposure using studies identified in the existing literature. Individual distributions of exposure were integrated using a probabilistic mixture distribution approach. Exposure-response functions were estimated from the most recently published pooled analysis of epidemiological data. Probabilistic simulation was used to estimate population attributable fractions (AFP) and attributable cases of childhood leukaemia in the EU27. By assigning the literature review-based exposure distribution to all EU27 countries, we estimated the total annual number of cases of leukaemia attributable to ELF MF at between ~50 (95% CIs: -14, 132) and ~60 (95% CIs: -9, 610), depending on whether exposure-response was modelled categorically or continuously, respectively, for a non-threshold effect. This corresponds to between ~1.5% and ~2.0% of all incident cases of childhood leukaemia occurring annually in the EU27. Considerable uncertainties are due to scarce data on exposure and the choice of exposure-response model, demonstrating the importance of further research into better understanding mechanisms of the potential association between ELF MF exposure and childhood leukaemia and the need for improved monitoring of residential exposures to ELF MF in Europe.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: The effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) on reproduction systems have been widely debated. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether low frequency EMF could ameliorate the in vitro fertilization success rate in Naval medical research institute (NMRI) Mice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this randomized comparative animal study, ten NMRI mice were randomly divided into 2 equal groups (control and experimental). 10 IU of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) was injected intraperitoneally to both groups in order to stimulate ovulating, and ovums were then aspirated and kept in KSOM (modified version of sequential simplex optimization medium with a higher K(+) concentration) culture medium. Metaphase II ovums were separated, and sperms obtained by “swim out” method were added to metaphase II ovums in the culture medium. The experimental group was exposed to 1.3 millitesla pulsed electromagnetic field at 4 kilohertz frequency for 5 hours. To assess the efficacy, we considered the identification of two-pronuclear zygote (2PN) under microscope as fertilizing criterion. RESULTS: Total number of collected ovums in the control and experimental groups was 191 and 173, respectively, from which 58 (30.05%) and 52 (30.36%) ovums were collected from metaphase II, respectively. In vitro fertilization (IVF) success rate was 77% in extremely low frequency- pulsed electromagnetic field (ELFPEMF) for exposed group (experimental), whereas the rate was 68% for control group. CONCLUSION: Despite increased percentile of IVF success rate in exposed group, there was no statistically significant difference between 2 groups, but this hypothesis has still been stated as a question. Further studies with larger sample sizes and different EMF designs are suggested.