89: The Silent Risk Hiding in Your Pocket with Nick Pineault

Foreign.

Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Jen Simmons, a breast cancer surgeon turned integrative oncologist on a groundbreaking mission to transform the conversation around breast health. If you're seeking to redefine the way that you think about breast health, you're in the right place. Breast health isn't just an aspect of well being. It is health, integral and indispensable. Here on the Keeping Abreast podcast, we delve deep into the innovative ways to diagnose, treat, screen for, and prevent breast cancer. But it's more than that. It's about having the crucial conversations that empower, enlighten, and drive us all to a healthier place. As someone who has navigated the front lines of breast cancer treatment and now champions an integrative approach, I bring a unique perspective to these discussions with blending rigorous science with holistic health principles. Health is a journey, not a destination, and I am truly honored to accompany you on this path. Each episode aims to provide you with actionable insights and cutting edge strategies to take charge of your breast health and your overall well being. So whether you're here to learn about the latest in medical advancements or seeking tips on lifestyle changes that foster real health, they the Keeping Abreast podcast is your go to resource. Let's embark on this journey together. Because when we talk health, every conversation matters. And now, stay tuned for this week's episode.

So if you are wondering if your cell phone is trying to kill you, you are not alone. And we live in a world where we are literally drowning in radiation. There are WI fi routers in every room. We are glued to our phones. They're in our hands with them constantly. We have smart devices tracking our every move. And no one is asking, what is all this EMF exposure actually doing to our health? And more importantly, what is it doing to our breasts? So today I have the honor and privilege of having Nick Pinall, the EMF guy, on the show, one of the world's leading experts in the electromagnetic field. There are hidden risks and how we can protect ourselves. So we are diving into the MFS and what. What implications that they have for breast cancer, breast cancer rates, and the shocking link between cell phones and breast tumors. And we are going to talk about the emfs as an environmental toxin and what you can do today to reduce your exposure and protect your body. So, Nick, welcome.

Thanks for having me. What an intro to have you. Thank you, thank you.

So let's start off with how did you become the EMF guy?

Yeah, good question. Why EMFs, right? I don't know exactly. I felt, just doing a few interviews in the last few days, I just thought about the last eight years and it flew by very, very fast for me. You know, I started looking into many different types of toxins in our environment in 2009, just as a young, you know, citizen journalist, if you will, blogger. At the time, I guess it was, it was, you know, I was just publishing on different topics. Glyphosate, tap water and why you should filter it, what's in our food, what I found through things like, you know, Dr. Mercola's newsletter or Consumer Reports, who were doing at the time, very pioneering work in a sense, because now I see a lot of people, I see that getting into the mainstream, but they were already testing things like protein powders to find, okay, is there contamination with heavy metals like lead or mercury and cadmium. So while it's good to have, you know, a shake after a workout, it turns out that, you know, if you have it every day or every other day over a lifetime, maybe you're in trouble because you start accumulating these environmental toxins. And it really shocked me because I had no idea how prevalent these things were. And, you know, I learned about the, you know, the clean 15 and how to eat more organic. And that was really, you know, this really opened my eyes and I started gathering a following, talking more about nutrition and also different health modalities that I discovered at the time. But in 2016, it's, you know, this is, I guess, the perfect, the perfect podcast to talk about that story. My mom got diagnosed at the beginning of the year with early stage three breast cancer.

So it was a big shock.

It was around, I think April or February, and my wife and I were really traveling around the world. We decided to, to put an end to our travels. I think we were there in Montreal during the holidays and just go live with my mom to help her recover. And I used everything I had learned the six, seven years prior to be able to not treat her. Of course, I'm not a doctor, but to let her know, look, I know you want to make your own decisions and I respect that. But please see someone who maybe has, you know, some sort of holistic or integrative background when it comes to treating breast cancer in particular. And we're very, very happy to find Dr. Danielle Crisafi from Montreal, who is really, you know, respected in Europe, giving conferences in Europe and the French speaking world, in Switzerland and Belgium and France of, but very little known in Quebec, because the prevalent thinking is really conventional Oncology. And they don't really believe in nutritional advice or supplementation advice for breast cancer patients. So what happened was cancer patients. Yep.

Yeah, I mean it is very standard of care there. Very standard of care there is very conventional. Um, it's not traditional because we know traditional medicine is ayurvedic medicine, it's Chinese medicine, but there it is very standard conventional medicine. And it's. It's slim pickings to find someone who is doing something outside of the box there.

A hundred percent. And you had the credentials so much that, you know, Dr. Chris, a fee, the only thing he was citing when we were sitting with him and my mom and trying to understand, he was like, well, I'm going to give you black garlic extract. And here's a study from a little known university called Harvard, the Harvard Medical School. And you can see that study on breast cancer participants. And I was like, I was blown away by his knowledge and the fact that, geez, this is, you know, this is not me, this is not my own research. It's not, you know, googling around. It's really a medical expert with decades of experience treating women with breast cancer. So I felt very good, you know, letting him do the talking and many of the things I had read about. But when it's a question of life or death, especially, you know, early stage three, our hopes were very high. But you never know. And you don't want, you know, that responsibility as a son to have given the wrong advice to your mom. And I really, I. It was a very stressful time for everyone. But she recovered, you know, in eight weeks she had almost complete recuperation. The oncologists of course, were baffled and they said, you know, we don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it. And of course she was tackling everything, right? So she did have, you know, chemo and she did have surgery. And after that she had a little bit of radiation. And she was also at, after that on certain medications and supplements. But all that plus supplementation and diet and so many other things, it completely turned her life around. And now she's since then in full recovery. We're 20, 25. You know, it's been nine years. And she, I would argue she's healthier than nine years ago now, in her almost 70s at this point. And she's really, really well.

And that experience really made me look.

Into causes of cancer because for me I was like, how is it possible that she got cancer in the first place? And of course I knew about many types of Carcinogens, there's, you know, the most known ones that are obvious is smoking or, you know, exposure to asbestos. But then you get into certain environmental toxins. And I came across smartphones and wi Fi and Bluetooth. These things emit radiation that's invisible. Most people don't feel it and, you know, they're part of life. So a lot of people consider, well, you know, if they're part of life and no one really gives me a warning, then it means they're perfectly safe. But many scientists in the last decades warn that, look, it looks like they also can be carcinogenic to some degree. And you had indications left and right at the International Agency for Research on cancer in 2011, they, they did flag this type of radiation called radio frequency radiation, and as a Class 2B carcinogen. So it was the lowest level of classification. But they said, you know, we lack the animal studies to be able to raise this to 2A, which is a probable carcinogen, which is more serious and comes also with, you know, usually the regulators or public health experts would say, well, if It's a Class 2A carcinogen, we don't know yet if it's a definite carcinogen, but we should take great care. And so far that classification has not been changed. Even though the animal data came out, it was so Strong that in 2018, some cancer epidemiologists said that we need to urgently reclassify radiofrequency radiation as a Class 1 carcinogen next to tobacco smoke. That was in 2018. And so far it's been complete silence. In fact, the IARC committee was supposed to look at the data, I think, in 2019, and it's been postponed twice now. And now they're talking about, I cannot Recall if it's 2026, 2028, 8. As if it's not urgent. Why it's urgent is that the population right now, including most people listening to this, are not aware of these risks, so therefore they don't do anything about it. Right. If you're aware that there might be something, maybe you're more prudent toward your exposure. And that really made me go deeper and deeper in the topic. I published a book in 2017 and then the rest is history so far. You know, EMF awareness is growing, but. But so is exposure, which is mad to me. It's completely crazy. Oh, you do have my book. I didn't recall that. That's amazing. Thank you. So the Non Tin foil guide to EMS in 2017, you know, a lot of people laughed at the title because.

I was trying to.

I love the title.

Yeah, well, you know, I was just trying to be cheeky with it and say, guys, this is not Tinfoil Hatter stuff. It's not, you know, extraterrestrials. It is an environmental toxin that we've taken for granted and it was a mistake. And the regulators are sleeping on the job. And also, of course, there's industry involvement in these decisions, and they don't want to have their product flagged with, you know, an image of someone with a brain tumor on a cell phone. They don't want anything to do with it. It would completely kill business in their mind at least. It would tarnish the reputation of the operators like Verizon or AT&T, and of course Apple or Samsung. These great electronics company, they make things that are pretty, that are modern. They don't want to talk about the fact that this might be dangerous. So they've been fighting tooth and nail to avoid the reclassification of their product. And they've been denying any health impact, including cancer, of course, and other health impacts we can talk about together today.

Yeah, of course. And you understand that that is almost certainly the delay is that there's going to be so much pushback in putting that data out there. So much pushback.

It's already happened.

So it's the regulators that are at.

The fcc, for example, Federal Communication Commission, it's essentially one of the most captured agencies in the U.S. they're supposed to look at health impacts. In 2021. They were supposed to take submissions from the public. It was an open docket where people can add documents to add the FCC and say, we want you to look at these health impacts. And you had all sorts of scientists, tens of thousands of doctors around the world send documents. They had tens of thousands of pages of stages studies. And the FCC said, yeah, we'll just reaffirm our completely permissive guidelines. So essentially, there's nothing to see, there's nothing to say, we have no comment. And our guidelines are fine as they are, which are 1996 guidelines based on 1980s data on five monkeys and eight rats is really what. The foundation of this safety.

That's what astounded me the most, is that, yeah, we, we're, we're dealing with a minuscule sample size and animal studies.

Exactly.

There, there has to be data out there. There has to be data. And I think maybe we're purposely not looking at it. Right. Like I. Is this a situation of we're, we're ostriches putting our heads in the ground.

Well, pretty much. If you look at the 2018 study, it was the largest study ever funded in the US If I recall correctly. Modern version of that by the National Toxicology Program. It's a branch of the nih and they're looking at carcinogens. This is really their job. These are experts at doing the animal testing. Of course, you're not going to, you know, put children and women and men in a room and blast them with radiation and watch what happens. Right? You test on animals, on rats and mice, and they, they did that. It took a total of around 20 years to complete the entire project. It was way too long. And in 2018, they released the results. And the results were as follow. Clear evidence that this is a carcinogen. Clear evidence. This is the highest level of certainty they can offer. And this was after a three day peer review period and committee where people from the industry and engineers were included.

So they had pushback.

And even with that in mind, they couldn't, you know, completely disregard the impact. What happened after that is that the results came out and the FDA said, well, you know, animal studies don't apply to humans. This is what they said, which is completely nonsensical. Some people from the public got, I think, bamboozled by such a statement. But in the end, yes, you have to look at population level studies like epidemiology, and we have that. You have to look at animal studies, you have to look at the mechanisms on cells and on, you know, on bacteria and different. So there are different sets of evidence that need to get her to paint a picture. But the fact is we already had the rest and we needed the animal studies and the animal studies did, came out with very negative outcomes that should have concerned everyone. In fact, in 2018, when this came out, many people were convinced this is it, this is game over. And yet again, an FDA that has no medical expertise and all the regulatory capture possible, said nothing, did nothing with it. And even the FCC that was supposed to review those safety rules in 2021 got sued, lost in court. And the judges said, well, look, there's all these, this data. So they, they said, well, the fcc, no, you are in, in disregard of the law. You have to go back to the drawing board and look at your safety limits. They don't make sense according to the data that was presented. And so far what happened is this. Nothing. Nothing has happened since that decision. In fact, now they're just waiting it.

Out and I hoping everyone will forget.

Yeah, well, exactly. I Talked to attorneys and I said, well, you know, how is it possible? How can you act and you know, a disregard of the law. Well, you know, if you wait it.

Out, then it's going to be an.

Another administration and maybe they will be blamed instead of you. And you know, bureaucrats are very happy to wait it out and say, well, sue us. So now, you know, you have a governmental agency that is waiting it, but in the meantime you have an agent that is there. Everyone think it's safe and it's surely not. At the minimum, we could say there's concerns.

Right.

We should be cautious towards our exposure.

For most people, this is the opposite.

Of what they're doing because again, they're kept in the dark.

Yeah. What do you think the biggest offenders are in terms of what our exposures are? I would say biggest offenders?

Smartphones or anything touching your body directly for extended periods of time. Of course, when it comes to breast cancer, the biggest offender is really smartphones kept close to the breast tissue. That's very common, let me tell you.

My mother in law used to, God rest her soul, used to carry her phone around in her bra.

Yeah, it's so common, it's crazy. And it's not like everyone's going to develop breast cancer. But it was enough for One Californian doctor, Dr. John G. West, looking at what he called, you know, rare cases of breast cancer that might have been caused by extended, you know, carrying a phone in the bra. And the reason he was especially surprised is that you had these breast tumors in a very weird spot compared to most other tumors. If I recall correctly, it was the, the upper outer quadrant of the breast, which is unusual. And it did match where the antenna of the phone was for years and years and years. And when you look at the mechanisms, it's not that surprising because you have a strong link with brain tumor if you talk on a phone. So again, the biggest danger is talking on the phone every day for years on end and you have an increase of, especially if I want to give the worst example possible, is developing glioblastoma and likely dying from it or being permanently brain damaged. And then some people have parotid gland tumors or thyroid gland tumors. So if it's causing a tumor, if.

You put it across your face.

Exactly. So if you can get tumors of the head, is it plausible it could cause tumor of the breast? Of course it's disruptive to that tissue, very close to it, and that's a lot of radiation. But then there are even concerns nowadays that are novel where you have younger people, young adult and teenagers, where we see a vast increase in colon cancer, ovarian cancer, urinary tract cancer. And then we look at a prostate cancer, you know, a testicular cancer, and we say, okay, wait a minute. What has changed in the environment? One thing that is overlooked for sure, and one of the factors is keeping a phone in the pocket.

Right.

Because.

Yeah.

Well, you know, instead of causing a tumor to your head or to your breast tissue, now you're. You're moving the agent to another place. So it has to be investigated further. We don't have good data. And this is, in the end, what's alarming.

Yeah. And I see that all the time, people carrying their phones around in their pocket, on their body, on their person, talking with it, you know, next to their face, next to their head. So people really struggle with understanding the damage that comes from radiation. And this is a fight that I fight every single day because I advocate against getting screening mammograms, because we're talking about the screening population. This is the normal, healthy population. And I don't think it's ethical to expose healthy breast tissue, because if you're screening, we have no reason to believe that you have the disease. Different than diagnostic.

Yeah.

And I think it's unethical to expose normal, healthy breast tissue to radiation. And people really struggle with this, first of all because they've been told that mammograms save lives. And second of all, because I don't think that it's such an intangible, and I think that this whole EMF thing falls inside of that intangible for people. So can you explain what is happening?

Why.

Why is it damaging the tissue? How is it damaging the tissue? And how does that translate to cancer?

100%. We know that, you know, X rays at one point were used in shoe stores to just verify if the shoe fits.

You know, isn't that crazy?

That's not so long ago. That's not so long ago. That's just, you know, two generations down the road. And maybe some people listening have even experienced this in their youth if they're old enough. I don't know when these stop, but now we kind of laugh at it. But the reality is that X rays were considered. You know, they're. They don't do anything.

Right.

It was a thought. Yeah. Harmless.

So why not? You know, it's.

It's funny.

You know, you see your hand and.

You see, like, you see your bones. Oh, I can see my body.

Yeah, exactly.

It's almost, you Know, a parlor trick, but we realize.

Like a Homer Simpson trick, right?

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

So the, the, this is the ionizing spectrum. So we know that this type of radiation causes direct DNA damage. It can break the bonds between molecules and this is why it causes downstream effects, including DNA damage, oxidative stress, and it will increase through many different types of mechanisms. It will increase your long term cancer risk. We also know that the dose matters, which is why at least some part of medicine has, you know, minimized the use of X rays. I know that when I go to my dentist, and to be fair, he's a holistic dentist, so a little bit more careful than most. But even conventional dentists, at least here in Montreal would say, do we really need an X ray? We're going to try to minimize it. So there's some sort of respect that we know there's a cumulative dose of damage that is, I think many researchers would agree, is lifetime. So it's your cumulative dose in a lifetime that will over time cause damage in your body. When you have cell phone radiation, you have another part of the spectrum that is said to be non ionizing. And this is really the big mistake. And some would say, you know, the big lie from the industry is that, oh, non ionizing means completely safe. All it means is that it's impossible to cause direct breakage of the DNA because there's not enough energy at that frequency. That being said, we know that there could be indirect impact and the studies are so clear on that. You have the vast majority of studies on oxidative stress, for example, that ask the question, is it possible to cause oxidative stress and yet, you know, not have ionizing radiation, just non ionizing radiation, cell phone radiation. Is it possible? Yes. So if there is more oxidative stress, the long term cancer risks increase. Is it possible to disrupt apoptosis induced cell death? So your ability to clean up your, let's say the cells that need to be killed, that need to be cleaned up for your body. Yes, it can hinder disability. Then also studies on DNA damage say, is it possible to break DNA with something that is non ionizing? The answer is also yes, but through indirect means. So it's the oxidative stress that can break DNA and can also impair DNA repair. And that's all the biophysics that have.

Been explained by, you know, people that.

Are in biophysics of EMFs and their research goes completely against the thought that this is perfectly safe. In fact, if you look at the data, it's very clear that at A minimum, the data is mixed. You have some studies that show impact, some studies that show no impact. But in that situation, what the scientists have been arguing for decades, even starting in the 1980s, and even if you look at military research, it was closer to the 60s and 70s, they said if we have uncertainty, but we're going to roll out this population wide technology and everyone's going to be using it so much in the future, we should follow the precautionary principle which states if you have scientific uncertainty, but you have indications that there might be harm, even if it's not proven, we should start telling people to take precautions. And this is really the whole point of that entire story. There's many lines of research that have been abandoned or underfunded and we're left with more questions than answers.

But that's the point.

If we have uncertainty and there's, and even you know, the best studies like the NTP study, I told you about $30 million of taxpayers money and it's swept under a rug. So I mean, if that's the kind of attitude that regulators are taking, it should be extremely important for people to start reducing their exposure now and not in, you know, 42 years where when I'm in my 80s and I say I told you so guys, it was super dangerous in the first place.

I don't want us to reach that.

Point and for the public to be kept in the dark all this time because of course the, the, in the meantime, you're going to expose yourself to a lifelong dosage of emfs that could lead to more cancer.

Yeah.

Are you ready for a breast cancer screening revolution? Well, I'm thrilled to introduce to you a breast cancer screening tool that I have only recently learned about, but I have universally adopted. This is the ARIA test. This groundbreaking at home breast cancer screening test is one that I believe will completely change the game. So imagine a screening test that's as simple as shedding a tear. Cause that's aria. It's a non invasive, convenient and perfect for all bodies and all breasts. Dense breasts, implants, no problem. ARIA makes it clear for everyone, even women as young as 30. Aria is backed by over a decade of clinical trials, thousands of samples and it's developed alongside top breast health experts. Here's how it works. You collect a tear sample at home and then ARIA then analyzes it for protein biomarkers that can signal early breast cancer. And the best part, you get a consultation with a breast health specialist to review your results. Now, ARIA isn't replacing breast imaging. I am Using it alongside qt, it's complementing it and giving you a fuller picture of your breast health. Knowledge is power and ARIA is putting that power back in your hands. It's time to take control of your breast health and ARIA is another way of doing it. Go to Aria Care a u r I a care and use my code, Dr. Jen 20 in Capitals d r j e n n 20 to get 20% off.

Back to our show.

Foreign.

Hello my beautiful listeners. I'm taking a quick break here to share something truly transformative with you today. If you're ready to take control of your breast health journey, then you need to get your hands on a copy of my book, the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer. I wrote this book to make a massive impact in the world of breast cancer, empowering women everywhere to make informed choices and educated decisions. You have so much more power and control over your health than you might think and this book, this is a roadmap to harnessing that power. Inside, you'll uncover the truth about conventional treatments. They're often overestimated benefits and underestimated, under explained and under disclosed long term side effects. But more importantly, you'll discover the true drivers of health and how the choices you make at home every day can lead you to the best health, the breast health of your life, even after a breast cancer diagnosis. Whether you're looking to prevent a diagnosis, avoid recurrence, or simply live your healthiest life, this book is for you. Join me on this journey to empowerment and health. Grab your copy of the Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer today and let's revolutionize the way that we approach breast health together.

So I want to ask you specifically because your mother had breast cancer. And so I know that you have looked into this and I talk a lot about breast cancer in my course. I talk a lot about the EMF and the effect that it's having on us. Do you think that there is something specific about breast tissue? Do you think breast tissue is more sensitive than most to environmental toxins and that maybe EMFs act as a special form of toxin exposure that could be disrupting the cellular health in the breast?

Well, I know, I think what is unique to breast cancer, and you tell me, is that there's a percentage of breast cancers that are, you know, led by hormonal dysfunction. At least that's, that's what the oncologist told me. So you correct me if that's not correct. But you know what a lot of people recognize in the scientific data is that A lot of people think about these things called endocrine disruptors in our environment and they hear about, okay, don't leave your plastic bottle in your car in the sunshine, and now you're drinking a bunch of BPAs and PFAs and all these things, all these things do matter and these will negatively impact your, your ability to have normal hormones and therefore indirectly impact your, your breast cancer risks, especially those that are, I think, is it estrogen dependent? Is a term I think. Is that, is that correct?

Yes, but it's, it's a little bit of a misnomer, but let's call them like estrogen positive.

Estrogen positive. There you go. So in either, either case, the goal, the, the goal here, my point is that there are other endocrine disruptors that are equally invisible, but we don't think about them.

It turns out radio frequency radiation has.

Been called in scientific studies, you know, for decades, a classic endocrine disruptor in the sense that it has all the same characteristics as plastics in its ability to disrupt normal functioning, especially if you keep it in your pocket and keep it close to, you know, hormone producing organs. It could be your thyroid, right? It could be also your ovaries, it could be your testicles. And the reality is that the best data we have is how it can disrupt fertility or testosterone production in men when you keep a phone in your pocket. And the data on this is very, very clear. And in fact, neuroscientist Andrew Uberman really surprised me two years ago when he reviewed the data of all people. And I, you know, I knew he was skeptical of all this, but he said the data on cell phone radiation causing a reduction in fertility is more convincing that the data on BPA causing.

A reduction in fertility.

And it really blew my mind because, you know, is, he comes at it from a skeptic angle. But of course the data is very, very good on cell phones in pocket. What's not that good is the data on cell phones in pocket and the long term impact for women. Because studying egg damage is very complicated. Studying sperm damage is very easy for obvious reasons. And then of course, the damage for women is lifelong, whereas the damage for men is relatively healable.

You know, you can renew your, your.

Sperm within about two months. So the reality is that we have a hole in the scientific data, but probably for a population that is even more likely to get long term impacts from this endocrine disruptor. So I think this is really why I'm concerned about the impact of cell phones for breast cancer or for Women in particular when it comes to their long term risks, their fertility and also hormonal profile. And if I look in the population, I, I will be hard pressed to find, you know, women that can raise their hand and say, I have perfect hormones and I'm doing nothing. Yeah, I don't know.

Those are few and far between.

Yeah, exactly. So I know, I mean, I'm just taking the example of my wife. She had so many issues with hormones in their entire life. It's crazy. Part of it was, you know, the pill and then coming off the pill and going with Novaring and having hot flashes at age 23 and it caused all sorts of havoc in our couple. It was like, it's like, you know, I've been with her almost 16 years at this point and her entire adult life was hormonal disruption and talking with her friends. And it's pretty standard. It's women, you know, in this day and age are exposed to things and.

Just have a more.

They're easily disrupted by the environment, I would argue more than men because of the vast complexity of women hormonal status and their ability to conceive and the monthly cycle that is more intricate, I would argue. I don't know, you know, I don't know if that's accurate, but that's the way I perceive it. Maybe more easily disruptible, far more complex.

Than the male cycle. And the truth is that the more complex it is, the more potential for disruption.

Exactly. 100%.

Our Earth that we are living on is riddled with toxins. And we're not living on our grandmother's earth. We're not even living on our mother's earth. And the Earth that we're living on today is exponentially more toxic than anything ever before. And it's only getting worse. What does 5G mean?

Yeah, 5G is the fifth generation of cellular network. A lot of people are getting into this EMF, you know, danger, knowledge or awareness because of 5G. And it's good because, you know, when they started rolling out 5G, a lot of people said, wait a minute, they're installing all these new antennas so close to people's bedroom. It cannot be good. So all of a sudden it was in the news, it was in. People were passing the information around. What has been almost a detriment to EMF awareness is that a lot of people were so hyper focused on 5G that they thought 4G was safe. But you know, the studies I told you about, the NTP study was rats and mice exposed to 2G and 3G radiation. Radiation, which is the stuff we had in the 1990s and early 2000. So things go so fast, right? It's like you're trying to, you're trying to test whether the iPhone 15 is safe or not. And by the time you're done with the testing and setting up the studies, you look around and people have iPhone 20s and you're like, wait a minute. So does that mean that our studies apply to the new tech? And it becomes almost, you know, a race you can never win? It is a race we can never win at the moment. So that's really why with 5G, it was alarming because the industry was so adamant on rolling out this new technology, and it really meant a multiplication of the number of antennas and also multiplication of the power. And in many cities you saw levels of, again, human made EMF that just went up and up and up, Unsurprisingly so. And the same scientists that were sounding the alarm previously 20 years ago said, geez. One scientist put it this way, he said, this is, this has to be the stupid, stupidest idea I ever heard. And he said, we're running as fast as we can in the wrong direction. So in other words, we have the early warnings, we have the data that says, geez, we should reduce this agent. And instead we're busy, you know, increasing our exposure by many fold every couple of years. So this is really why 5G was a bad idea. It still is. And at the moment it's still being rolled out. And I think many people are realizing that, you know, we are fine with current technologies. We should make technology safer, including your phone, including WI fi and Bluetooth thingies. And we don't need 5G and we don't need the 6G that they've been working on since 2018. And we, we don't need all these extra exposures. And it's not even consumer demands that is creating the demand. It's not even consumers that say, oh, I think we need something. I need a better phone. I need like a thousand times the speed. Is the industry that comes up with new ideas because their business model, just like the iPhone business model is, well, we've got a new iPhone in six months. Why? Because your new one will be broken by then. Right? It's like, you know, program obsolescence, follow the money. But then the operators have the same. Yeah, exactly. This is. The operators have the same mindset. They say, okay, well we're almost done rolling out the 5G antenna. What's next? Well, maybe we could Invent new stuff that would go even faster. And now everything's going to be connected. And you'd ask around the average citizen, they would say, what, what is this? Like, I don't really need that. So it's, it's really. The entire industry is built on the illusion of innovation and progress and you know, oh, we're in the future and everything is hyper connected. But even the average person doesn't care that much about that. So they're manufacturing demand. And of course the public is kind of following along because the devices are cool and are convenient and because they think that devices are safe. Or else maybe they would say, wait a minute, I don't think I'm going to buy the next phone. And this is, you know, a lot of people who follow me I think have in the end lost a lot of money for Apple and Samsung because they tell me, nick, I've kept my phone for six years since following you because I don't care about upgrading. I'm trying to keep my old device and I don't buy a lot of things that have Bluetooth. And I'm more prudent and that's my goal. You know, it's just to have people be a little bit more prudent towards these exposures.

So how do we reconcile that with this age where people want to know everything about themselves? They want to measure their sleep, they want to measure their activity, they want to know their heart mass, they. I mean like everyone's talking about biohacking and measuring everything. So how do we reconcile that with, we need less radiation exposure.

Yeah, it's a matter of reinventing how things connect with another one. Another.

I have a OURA ring that's just.

You know, that it could be, it could be really any ring. But the reason I'm mentioning the company is that with Aura, you, it is a ring that tracks your data, that tracks your sleep quality, your hrv, my heart rate during the night. And I can identify things like, oh, I'm getting sick because obviously I have a mild fever. That's cool. But I would not have purchased a product if it had. It would have been emitting Bluetooth right next to my face because I think I sleep like that like a baby still, you know, at 37. And most people do and they have, they would have this ring very close to their face. And this ring, if it would be emitting Bluetooth, could disrupt your sleep because that's another thing that this radiation can do. It can interfere with proper sleep. So what it does differently is that you can keep it on airplane mode. And the data during the night is stored inside the ring while the ring is not emitting. And in the morning, I remove the ring, put it on the charger, and it will connect wirelessly to my phone, dump the data, and then on my phone I say, oh, I slept good, I need recovery, I'm sick, blah, blah, blah. And I put it back on my ring, on, on my middle finger, and now I'm in on airplane mode. So really, the way to better engineer these biohacking devices is to have local storage on the device and only use the minimal amount possible of radiation when you need to. And that's really what could be engineered in wearables. It could be engineered in different machines you use for. To track your sleep. It could all keep the data in the machine somewhere. And these chips are so. I mean, I don't even know how they put a hard drive on there. You know, it's like a microchip.

But I'm not an ring for that reason.

Well, exactly. And so this is really where the industry of biohacking could really do things differently. And I know some people are listening. Aura was really a pioneer in making that change. Some rings that I see on the market that are competitors do not have the storage. And what you need to do just to be able to use the ring is to always have your phone nearby. So your phone needs to be connected to the ring, and that's how the data will record on your phone. But imagine if Nick tells you, well, I want you to turn off your phone during the night. Now you're not, you're not even storing the data. So it makes the thing unusual, unusable really, or, you know, you don't have the proper data. So I would say all these companies need to clean up their act. And I think that a lot of engineers or business owners do not believe EMF is a problem, but they're gonna wake up and realize that in a few years, it's going to be a competitive advantage for them to make sure that they emit the lowest amount possible of radiation.

Yeah. We started off this conversation by my asking if our cell phones are killing us. Now I'm going to ask, are our homes killing us? Like, what is going on there? That is further interfering with our health because our homes are really riddled with things that are emitting some heavy duty EMFs. I'll tell you, as the mother of two teenage boys, that Xbox, I'm afraid, is a killer.

It's all the signals are very Strong. So that's the first. The first thing is, again, if engineers for your iPhone have no incentive to lower radiation or to emit the minimal amount possible, what's happening in the industry is the maximum amount possible. They will go to great lengths to make sure that my device that is wireless is screaming louder than this other device. So the smart TVs, dishwashers nowadays, Roku or Apple TV, the wireless controllers, everything will be, you know, wireless. And the dosage of wireless is not minimal. It's maximal. And really the problem with that, of course, is the everyday exposure can be.

Quite high in the average home.

What most people don't realize is that these devices like the Xbox or, you know, and if it's not Xbox, it could be PlayStation. I don't have anything. I have a Xbox.

At picking on Xbox.

No, not. They're all bad in a sense, because all of them now have a wireless chip. And what you can do to avoid.

Problems in your home is just to.

Completely unplug these machines when not in use. And it's a habit to develop. But for example, if you're, if you have a smart TV, some smart TVs, even if you turn it off using the remote controller and you say, well, the TV is off, there's no way that, you know, the Bluetooth chip that makes a TV connect to, I don't know, my phone or my workstation, there's no way that it's active. And yet, yes, you would find with an EMF detector that somehow the engineers have decided that, you know, we're going to keep the TV connecting. In reality, what it does is simply cost you a few dollars per year in wasted electricity. All that for extra exposure, that is extra stressful for you and your family. So again, it's just nonsensical how these things are designed. But the easy fix to that is to simply have, you know, the video game consoles and Apple TV and everything, and including your smart TV on a power strip with the button and you turn it off. And when you need to open everything, you turn it on. So you need to make sure that.

Everything is turned off by default, or.

Else you have these exposures that are 24,7 and that are completely needless. Another big source would be your WI FI router. Of course, a lot of people have WI FI at home. I don't anymore. Which makes me, you know, almost a fringe section of the population where you come into my home and I invite you for a nice meal and you ask me the WI FI password, and then I start Lecturing you about EMS and you say, my God, Nick, come on, come on, man. I thought we would have a good time. But in reality, no, I don't blame anyone for it, but I would give them, you know, cables where they can plug their devices with cables and they will look at me like, what is this, like 2003 or something? You know. But the reality is that you can still connect your devices with wires, with Ethernet cables. And this is what can be done if you want to go, you know, the safest route possible. But if you still use wifi at a minimum, turn it off when it's not in use. And for some people it would be simply at night, in the middle of the night. Maybe it's, you know, 11:00pm to 5:00am when people start waking up. Whatever your schedule is, you can set it and forget it when, when, when it comes to turning off your WI fi at night simply by using something like an outlet timer, the same type you would use for Christmas lights. And that's, you know, a simple strategy that might look almost silly because you really, it makes a difference if you turn off your own WI fi. What about the 150 wi fi's in.

Your, in my neighborhood.

Right, that's, that's fair. Well, you're detecting 150 wifi because the ability of your, of your chip, of your WI fi chip on your laptop that, where you're detecting all these networks and is very precise. You can find things that maybe are at like 500ft of distance, but your own WI fi is, you know, 50ft from your body. So normally your own WI fi is the worst, especially if you're, if you're not in a condo apartment like me. In my case, it might be a neighbor also. But what can I do about my.

Neighbor right at the moment?

Even as the EMF guy, I haven't gone door to door to blame my neighbors about the radiation they're sending my way, you know, because I, you know, eventually they're going to call the police and they're going to arrest me, not them, you know, so it doesn't work at the moment because of course the police would say, well, you know, it's written here, it's safe, so what can you do against it? It's very difficult if you want to never be exposed by, by your neighbors. You have to live in the woods and just have, you know, your own.

Property and you don't have neighbors. And that's one way to do it.

Even as the MF guy, I'm in Montreal. I am exposed. But I know that my priority is to deal with everyday devices in my home. So one thing that I've done, for example, just to give you an example of why a wire could be an exciting possibility. And I know that's a far fetched for a lot of people, but for me, when I arrived in this condo, it was around seven years ago, before my, my son was born. And the connectivity, when I was trying to do interviews like these, especially now.

We'Re using a tool called Riverside.

If you have poor WI fi, it's very bad. It gives you a warning, warning your connection is poor. It's horrible. And I had problems doing interviews, doing my professional work. So very frustrated with this situation. I told myself, okay, one of two things. I can either get a stronger router because the router is way over there and it can have three or five antennas, these sort of super powerful gaming type routers. But then it's going to expose my entire family and my entire condo to more radiation. Right? This is what good coverage is. Good coverage is more radiation is good radiation in every room. So instead I said, okay, well I think we're going to try to go the ethernet cable route. And we have cables that go from the router to your computer to the router to a corner of my living room. So that way I can plug in my phone. And all you need to do is to find a converter between whatever port you have on your computer, like usb, C to Ethernet. And that's a simple plug in, you know, $20 on Amazon and then you plug in your computer and you turn off WI fi on your computer. So that's something, why it's exciting for me is that the connectivity is way better than WI fi. In fact, it's probably a good 10,000 times faster when it comes to download speeds.

And it never drops off.

And it's fantastic in that sense. Right, so, so just for work, for even, you know, for, for, for, even for video game consoles, you know, if your kids, if your kids are teenagers, are excited about, you know, playing video games and not having any, any delay in their game, you know, it's called lag. I'm 37, so you know, my gaming years are not that far behind.

No, they still call it lag.

Yeah, they still call it lag. Exactly. So if things are lagging, it means that you're trying to do something in a video game and all of a sudden it freezes and then you lose and you're super frustrated at that lag. Well, something lag free well, exactly, exactly. So something that never lags is a cable. Right. So there's, you can find these arguments for your family that are not about.

Safety but that are powerful.

Like, well, you know, now your, your video game console is going to be hardwired with a cable and there's no radiation, but also it's faster. Oh, okay, really?

Now they're interested.

So there are ways to get people in. And sometimes it's not just about safety. It can be about, you know, the fact that your computer is going to be faster, your download speeds are going to be faster. So, you know, I'm just trying to find other arguments because sometimes I, I know very well that not all family members will be excited about the perspective of what you want us to go with cables now?

Crazy.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So I talk a lot about sleep and the importance of sleep because really, sleep is where the healing happens. And so when we talk about the EMFs in relationship to sleep, first of all, the EMFs alone can be disruptive.

Yes.

So how do we set ourself up for better sleep, for nourishing sleep, and to not get interference with our sleep a hundred percent.

Maybe we should have even, you know, started with that part. Hopefully people are, are still able to digest the info. But the most important part of this entire, you know, EMF hygiene story is to clean up the bedroom because people that do so experience better sleep and, you know, more restful sleep. They don't wake up as much in the middle of the night or they just feel like they have deeper sleep. And that's just by turning off your phone at night or sending it in airplane mode. But a lot of people nowadays, what I tell them is try to set your phone in a different room because they tell me if they have, you know, teenagers like you do, no, I'm not going to have my phone on airplane mode because now, you know, my son is going to a friend until 11 midnight. I don't know what's going on. I want to be able to be available if there's something that happens. Of course. And many people tell me on top of that, I was trying to get a corded landline. It turns out that in my city.

Is not even available anymore.

And that's true in many markets in the US And Canada. Yes, yes, they're, they're rolling out, they're, they're dismantling the corded landlines, the good old landlines. And many people say that it's a bad idea on many levels because these landlines used to work in even if you didn't have electricity now, if there's a big problem, like, I don't know, snowstorms, hurricanes, and that can happen. We saw even in the US this.

Year and the year prior, there were.

A lot of different cataclysmic events like wildfires. Yeah, just incredible weather. And in these situations, the corded line lines were especially good, but if the cellular network goes down now, were more.

In trouble than before, which.

Which is kind of silly. So anyway, that's just the reality of it is that the corded landlines are not necessarily available. So in that, in that way, just charge your phone, you know, as far away from your pillow as possible is what I tell people. If you need a different alarm clock, something like an alarm clock that emits next to no light, if you're able to find one, and that is battery.

Powered, would be preferable.

Or you can still use your phone, your phone as an alarm clock, like I do. But I make sure that the phone is in airplane mode because proximity really matters here. Even if you're able to move your.

Phone a few feet away from your.

Pillow, you're already dropping out in the intensity of that exposure. So it might not seem like much, but it really makes a difference if you have, you know, as much distance as possible from your pillow.

And then I know we talk about the closer the device is, the more harmful it is, the further the device is, the less. Yes, but what do you think about any electronics in the bedroom? I mean, is the TV disrupting your sleep? What else are we worried about? I know that there are people who are bringing their iPads to bed, their laptops to bed. What about reading? What about a Kindle? Talk to me about those things.

You know, I think you, you need to handle all of them carefully. All of them could have wireless in there. Some people would keep the laptop open so that they're, I don't know, downloading a series for the next day or something like that, in which case you will have another source of exposure. You leave your Kindle by your nightstand and you don't realize your Kindle has wireless in there. You didn't turn off the wireless. It's exposing you. So all of those things could also be sources that are just as bad as your phone, in a sense. So I would turn all of them off, including TVs. A lot of people have, you know, the TV and they say, oh, yeah, I also have another Roku and I also have another video game console. And I also. So all of these things could be emitters. So, you know, in some bedrooms, in one home. My colleague, Brian Hoyer is an EMF mitigation specialist. So he does, you know, EMF surveys in person, EMF surveys with his team throughout the U.S. he told me about a home where he found, I think, over 150 different wireless devices in a home. So that's an example of someone who.

You know, wants a smart home.

And that's kind of a misnomer. Of course, smart means wireless nowadays, and it's where every light bulb is connected to the Internet. Every, every sensor, everything that you can imagine is connected to the Internet. This would be the opposite of my recommendations. And I know that this is tempting, but I will tell you this. I did hear from a colleague who's in Germany, and he also wants a smart home, but is EMF aware. So there are companies now that exist. Sometimes it is a niche market because almost no one cares about not having auralist. But some companies will do everything wired. So you could have every light bulb connected to your phone in the end, but the light bulb itself would not have a wireless chip. It would be cabled in to your central system. So everything could be engineered like a.

Smart home, except no wireless use.

And this is a much safer way to do it, by the way, for cybersecurity reasons. I don't know if people are following the developments. They're probably not because it's so crazy what is happening in the last decades. But there's this. I always come back to this example because it's so stupid. A casino in the US was hacked, and I don't know if the T's were able to get money, but someone got in their central system trying to steal money because they got in through a Bluetooth sensor measuring something like the ph of an aquarium. So you can hack things and get into Bluetooth sensors. So imagine now if Your home has 150 Bluetooth sensors. You know, if you don't want someone to be able to take control of your home, flash the lights or steal your information, it you. The wireless story here is it's, it's very bad for cybersecurity, for privacy also. So that's another layer to the problem. I do have one of my friends whose job is to isa, you know, a white hat hacker. So he's a cybersecurity expert who will try to hack the central servers of some company to find security breaches. So he tells me, you know, don't use wi fi. He almost laughs. He's like, look, it's wide Open. I can do anything with it. And he. I. I don't think most things he can do, it doesn't tell me. But the reality is that, you know, all this stuff is very, very insecure when it comes to, you know, cyber security.

Yeah, that's a shame, because I think most people don't realize that at all. And this is very much like the rest of our lives, where we have really sacrificed our health for the purposes of conven. And so many things we are doing in an unknowing way. Right. We're just kind of going along, and there is an inherent assumption that Big Brother is watching and taking care of us, and it's just simply not true. Like, there's really no one looking out and safeguarding our health. And the primary concern is, is industry happy? That's really what's happening. Is. Is industry happy. So I would love to leave people with some, like, quick things that they can do today or tomorrow to really start to materially improve their health by eliminating or safeguarding against the electromagnetic field. We, of course, want to hear all the things that you do to protect yourself. We know that you're hardwired, and then you have a program coming up to help people with this. So I want to hear all about that, for sure.

So, you know, the first thing I would say is pick up one tip that seems feasible that you heard in. In this presentation so far, and that.

Won'T, you know, ruffle too many feathers.

Start with something soft at home so that way, you know, you don't have to fight right away with everyone who hasn't listened to this podcast and is unaware. It is an initial shock when you come to the family members and say, you know, now we're going to permanently turn off WI Fi. It doesn't bode well for you, to be honest. No, so. So instead, it could be something like, hey, I heard that WI Fi exposure can interrupt our sleep or can lower our sleep quality. What do you think if we. Or maybe you don't ask permission. I'm gonna run a quick experiment in the next few nights. We're gonna simply turn it off during the night when no one is using it anyway. Something like that, you know, that's like, oh, well, okay. Well, I guess it doesn't make a difference. And then if you have family members that feel like they slept better, it might pique their curiosity, because this is one way to get them in is, well, do you feel a difference? Some do, some don't. But I've heard, you know, almost miracle stories where, oh, my husband slept for the first time through the night, you know, in 30 years. And all we did is turn off our phones and turn off the wifi. So this is, this is really why I also have people start with something very simple and something that the entire family can get behind. That's really where I would want people to start. After this conversation, we do get into more details in the summit and I think the summit is exciting because this year the focus is on protecting the next generation. It's called EMF Hazards 2025 Safeguard Our Future. And we do have a focus this year on AirPods. What teenagers are exposed to tablets for children and also potential damage during pregnancy, for example. So this invitation is for either people who want to protect themselves and learn about these dangers for themselves, but also for their children or grandchildren. So we have, I expect, in fact, a majority of people listening in to be grandparents who just think about health. They, they have time to perfect their knowledge about health and come across EMFs and they want tools to be able to speak intelligently and in an informed matter to their family members and sometimes to their reluctant adult kids who, you know, their grand, their grandchildren are exposed to all sorts of EMF radiation and they don't know how to talk about it. Well, we share a lot of that in the summit with 18 of really the best EMF scientists and EMF aware doctors. And we share all about the health impacts and practical solutions that people can adapt in their life for the entire family and also for their grandchildren right away. And it's from April 10 to 15 and it's free of charge. You can simply, you know, register and watch as many talks as you want. You have 18 free presentations during those.

Six days and we will be sure to list how to sign up for that. The link to sign up for that in the show notes so that you can get registered and share that with someone that you know and love because it's really important. And this is one invisible toxin which is really hurting us and it's not woo woo. It's very real and the damage of radiation is very real. And we're seeing it all over the place. We're seeing it in hormonal dysfunction, in sleep disturbance, in infertility and in cancer. And these are really significant diseases that we can, we can lessen and make a real impact if we, if we become aware. And it's not that you have to eliminate all of these things, right? You can still be a biohacker, you can still track your sleep and your movement and Your, and your heart rate and heart rate variability. And you can still do all of these things. You can still play your video games. You just have to do it smart. And smart doesn't mean more.

Wire, wireless, a hundred percent.

And I would say, you know, it's. It's like sometimes I. People come across an EMF conversation, they feel overwhelmed. I tell them, look, what are you doing to minimize pesticides? And they say, well, you know, I buy my apples organic. Or maybe I read, you know, about the clean 15 and you know, I tried to buy those organic. Okay, Are you still exposed to pesticides? Yeah, I guess so. You know, I don't think about it too much. So do this. Try to minimize EMFs and not eliminate EMFs. What is the, you know, the dirty dozen of EMFs? We talked about those. Try to tackle those first. And you're doing great. You know, you don't have to get it perfect.

Yeah, yeah. Amazing. And you know, it's the same thing. I say we, we don't have to be perfect, we just have to be better. Yeah, right.

That's great, Nick.

It was so great to have you. So great to see you. I wish you lots of luck with your summit. Hopefully we will get lots of people to sign up for that. And I'm sure that we will be having another conversation sometime soon. But it was a pleasure to have you.

Thank you. Thank you so much for me too.

And it was a pleasure to see all of you today. And if you liked this, please let us know. Share it with someone who needs to hear it. Send us a comment and know that I will be back next week, same time, same thing, place. It's Dr. Jen. Bye for now.

Thank you for joining me on this.

Episode of the Keeping a breast podcast with Dr. Jen. I hope you found the discussion informative and empowering. Remember, breast health is health. So by staying informed and taking proactive steps, you have the power to optimize your well being. My team and I encourage you to apply the knowledge gained from today's episode to make positive changes in your life and share what you've learned with others. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback and support mean the world to us and help us to reach more people who can benefit from these conversations. Stay connected with me on social media where I share additional resources, advice, updates and announcements related to breast health. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Dr. Jensimmons. And remember, my Jen has two N's. So until next time, remember to stay proactive, informed and confident in your breast health journey. The key to your health is you.