A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

De-Kun Li: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

June 3, 2019

Colorectal Cancer Soaring in Young Adults; Are Smartphones in the Mix?

De-Kun Li wants to change the conversation on cell phones and cancer. Li, a senior epidemiologist and veteran EMF researcher, believes that brain tumors have been getting too much attention at the expense of other types of cancer, notably colorectal cancer.

Efforts to reduce colon and rectal cancers have been a striking success story for those over 50 years old. Incidence among older Americans declined 32% between 2000 and 2013, due largely to better screening. But the story for young adults is very different. Those born around 1990 now face four times the risk of developing rectal cancer and twice the risk of colon cancer in their 20s, compared to those born around 1950, according to the American Cancer Society.

“No one can explain this apparent contradiction,” Li told Microwave News. Known risk factors for colorectal cancer include obesity, an unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity, but Li doesn’t think they can resolve the paradox.

December 18, 2017

EMFs and Miscarriages:The Evidence Mounts

Magnetic fields at levels commonly found in homes, offices and the urban environment have once again been found to increase the risk of pregnancy loss. The latest study —from Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA— shows that power-frequency fields can triple the risk of miscarriages.

“This study provides fresh evidence, directly from a human population, that magnetic field exposure in daily life could have adverse health impacts,” De-Kun Li, the lead author of the Kaiser study, told Microwave News. These findings “should bring attention to this potentially important environmental hazard to pregnant women,” Li urges.

There are now at least seven studies linking miscarriages to prenatal exposure to electromagnetic fields, according to Li.

July 27, 2012

EMF Exposures in the Womb Can Lead to Childhood Obesity

De-Kun Li is the last man standing. Not long ago, many of the leading environmental epidemiologists in the U.S. were working on EMFs of one kind or another. They've all moved on —all except De-Kun Li, and he continues to break new ground in one study after another.

Li, a senior researcher at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA, has now shown that EMF exposures in the womb are linked to an increased risk of childhood obesity.

"Maternal exposure to high [magnetic fields] during pregnancy may be a new and previously unknown factor contributing to the world-wide epidemic of childhood obesity/overweight," Li writes in a paper posted today by Scientific Reports, a peer-reviewed, open access journal owned by the group that publishes Nature.

August 17, 2011

More on EMFs and Asthma

After we ran our story on De-Kun Li's study showing a higher risk of asthma among children whose mothers were exposed to we heard from Ivan Beale in Australia. Beale reminded us of a paper...

August 2, 2011

David Savitz Says There’s “Probably No” Leukemia Risk

De-Kun Li's new study, published yesterday, got quite a bit of news coverage with comments from all over. One of the most surprising, at least to us, was from David Savitz , who some 25 years ago was the first...

August 1, 2011

Prenatal Exposure to Weak Magnetic Fields Leads to Childhood Asthma

A mother's exposure to weak power-frequency magnetic fields during pregnancy substantially increases the chances her child will develop asthma, according to a new study by De-Kun Li and coworkers at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA. An average magnetic field exposure of just 2 mG (0.2 µT) during pregnancy more than triples the child's risk of getting asthma by the age of 13, they report in a paper released today by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a publication of the American Medical Association (AMA).

November 6, 2009

Very Weak Magnetic Fields Lower Sperm Quality

De-Kun Li's new epidemiological study showing that extended exposure to weak magnetic fields as low as 1.6 mG (0.16 µT) can have negative effects on sperm quality was published today by Reproductive Toxicology.

"This is the first demonstration of a link between EMF exposure and the decline of semen quality," Li told Microwave News. The study, which was carried out in Shanghai, has important implications for overall fertility because approximately 40% of the Shanghai population is exposed to more than 1.6 mG for 2.4 hours on a daily basis.

July 3, 2008

Low Levels of EMFs Affect Semen

Exposures to ambient magnetic fields may affect the quality of human sperm and may well explain its well-documented decline over the last few decades. De-Kun Li, an epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA, has found that daily exposures of only 1.6 mG or higher for at least two-and-a-half hours were associated with significantly poorer semen quality. Men who were exposed to over 1.6 mG for over six hours a day were four times more likely to have substandard sperm.