Effects of exposure to electromagnetic potential pulsed at the Schumann fundamental frequency on patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

Original Internist, Sept, 2003 by Guy E. Abraham, Christine L. Fagan, Peter B. Himmel

Materials and Methods

CFS patients were recruited from the private practice of one of us (PBH). All patients met the diagnostic criteria and exclusionary criteria proposed by the CDC in 1994. (7) There were 18 women and one man, all Caucasian. The age range was 28-58 years with a mean of 44.8 years. The mean duration of the disease was 6.5 years with a range from 1.5-8 years (Table I). Allergy was present in 14 of the 19 CFS patients.

After informed consent was obtained, a complete history, physical examination, blood chemistry, hematology, and urinalysis were performed and repeated every four weeks. Extensive evaluation of CFS symptomatology was performed prior to starting the research study and every two weeks thereafter. This presentation will focus on the following relevant parameters: overall well-being, pain, fatigue, brain fog, cognitive and physical impacts, the Romberg test, and tandem walking. Measures of overall well-being, pain, and fatigue were taken from the Modified Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire II; (24) measures of brain fog was abstracted from the scale of Zung; (25) measures of physical and cognitive performances were taken from Multi-dimensional Assessment of Fatigue Scale as developed by Gerber. (26) The neurological tests, tandem walking, and the Romberg test were used as described by DeJong. (27) Patients continued to take all medications used during the six months prior to the study, and no new medications or physical or psychological programs were introduced during the course of the study. At each session, patients were asked to comment upon any change in symptoms that they thought pertinent. Running commentary was recorded, and prominent statements made by each patient were included in the record.

Pilot studies of CFS patients exposed to the potential shield revealed that a power setting of 12 mW gave the best overall results when tests were done over a power range of 6-60 mW. The design used successfully in EMS (Unit I) was tested in 14 CFS patients in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study using EM field emitters as placebo, both set at 12 mW for an exposure duration of four weeks each. Although the results achieved statistical significance showing greater improvement of CFS patients exposed to EM potential emitters over placebo emitters (Table II), in our opinion, the difference was not large enough to be clinically relevant. We were mainly interested in clinical significance with obvious gain in functionality. Our goal was to induce normal cognitive and physical performances with the use of the potential shield in CFS patients in order to have convincing evidence for a causal relationship between EM pollution and CFS. The present open trial study was undertaken with that goal in mind. The 14 CFS patients who participated in the double-blind study were recruited after eight weeks of non-exposure to participate again in the open trial. Another five CFS patients were included for a total of 19 patients. Based on our previous experience with EM potential emitters in EMS, two different configurations of Unit I, namely Unit II and III were designed and manufactured. These three units were evaluated consecutively for a period of four weeks each. The power setting in all three configurations was 12mW. The CFS patients were told to keep the unit within three feet and to use it continuously. The effects of the three emitters on CFS symptomatology were evaluated and compared to each other by the Student's paired t test. In order to assess which parameters had the greatest impact on overall well-being, the Pearson correlation coefficient was the statistical tool used to correlate scores of overall well-being with those of the other parameters for both baseline values and also the scores obtained following 12 weeks of exposure to the EM potential emitters.