Microwave Health Harm: Scientific Evidence and Mythbusting

You can often hear the ques­tion, is a microwave oven harm­ful to health? To which you always get a dif­fer­ent answer. Let’s talk about each point of view sep­a­rate­ly.

Principle of operation

The myth or not that food from the microwave is harm­ful can only be found out after con­sid­er­ing the prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion of the device.

The house­hold appli­ance heats food with microwaves. Under their action, the mol­e­cules begin to oscil­late, and the food heats up. In this case, fluc­tu­a­tions occur in the ele­ments of water, which is con­tained in all food prod­ucts. This action results in heat­ing. The fre­quen­cy of microwave radio waves is 2540 MHz.

Evidence of Microwave Harm

“Microwave: good or bad?” Peo­ple have been argu­ing for a long time. Pro­po­nents that the device is harm­ful and only put for­ward sev­er­al evi­dence:

1. Research sci­en­tists.

Researchers of the USSR at one time said that the stove was direct­ly harm­ful to the human body.

In 1976, based on their with­draw­al, the gov­ern­ment even banned the pro­duc­tion and use of microwave devices. The harm of the microwave for them was unam­bigu­ous. It was­n’t until 1990 that the microwave oven per­mit came into effect.

Schol­ars of that time cit­ed the fol­low­ing series of evi­dence:

• under microwave expo­sure, the struc­ture of food dis­in­te­grates;
• when heat­ed, car­cino­genic sub­stances are pro­duced that are dan­ger­ous;
• the altered com­po­si­tion caus­es diges­tive dis­or­ders;
• after eat­ing microwave food, onco­log­i­cal cells begin to man­i­fest them­selves (growth pro­gress­es);
• microwaves pro­voke tumors in the gas­troin­testi­nal tract;
• con­tribute to the decom­po­si­tion of the diges­tive sys­tem and excre­to­ry sys­tems;
• under their action, the body los­es the abil­i­ty to absorb min­er­als, lipotrop­ics, vit­a­mins;
• it is unsafe to be near a house­hold, microwave appli­ance;
• chem­i­cal process­es in food under the influ­ence of elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves pro­ceed incor­rect­ly. The use of such food leads to malig­nant tumors, to mal­func­tions in the lymph sys­tem and to a decrease in the func­tions of pro­tec­tion against the occur­rence of seri­ous patholo­gies.

In those years, sci­en­tists put an end to the ques­tion: is food from the microwave harm­ful or use­ful.

2. The harm of a microwave oven to human health is due to radi­a­tion from the device. They say it can come out.

Elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves pen­e­trate the walls of a microwave device and adverse­ly affect a per­son.

3. When heat­ed in the device, food los­es its ben­e­fi­cial prop­er­ties for the body.

Is it safe to heat food in the oven for chil­dren? Harm­ful and dan­ger­ous. If you give a baby milk from the device, then his ner­vous sys­tem will be dis­turbed. Amino acids of milk and infant for­mu­la under the influ­ence of microwave radi­a­tion are con­vert­ed into iso­mers. These sub­stances are high­ly tox­ic. They cause dis­tur­bances in the prop­er func­tion­ing of the ner­vous sys­tem. Also, iso­mers become espe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous for the kid­neys. If chil­dren receive milk from arti­fi­cial mix­tures, then after microwave radi­a­tion it will cer­tain­ly become tox­ic.

4. The microwave is radioac­tive.

5. Explo­sion may occur due to met­al objects inside, which will hurt the user of the device. It turns out that the device can cause phys­i­cal harm to a per­son.

Scientific evidence of harm

1992 — the begin­ning of research in the Unit­ed States on the top­ic of cook­ing in the “ene­my” oven. Sci­en­tists tried to find out whether the device is harm­ful or ben­e­fi­cial. The find­ings of the researchers said that oven microwaves can do more harm than good. Food “comes out” from the device con­tain­ing microwave ener­gy. This unnec­es­sary ener­gy remains in the mol­e­cules. It is absent in prod­ucts sub­ject to con­ven­tion­al ther­mal heat­ing. As a result, a con­clu­sion was obtained: in peo­ple who ate food from the microwave, cho­les­terol jumped up and hemo­glo­bin dropped. The harm of the microwave has been proven.

A lit­tle ear­li­er in 1989, Swiss sci­en­tists tried to find out whether the microwave is harm­ful to the body and how, in gen­er­al, it affects a per­son. There was no mon­ey to con­duct large-scale exer­cis­es, and the researchers decid­ed to take on a per­son who would be sub­ject­ed to an exper­i­ment that was impor­tant for peo­ple. Its essence was the order of eat­ing.

Then their opin­ion was refut­ed by the WHO (World Health Orga­ni­za­tion), which stat­ed that microwave radi­a­tion can­not affect humans and food. But WHO has noticed that pace­mak­ers implant­ed in a per­son can respond to microwaves. Such peo­ple should give up not only house­hold microwave ovens, but also cell phones.

Inter­est­ing arti­cles on the top­ic:

The microwave is not harmful! Destroying myths

Let’s try to prove that there is no harm to human health from a microwave oven. Let’s debunk the above myths. The microwave device has a use or ben­e­fit of use.

Microwave food harms chil­dren

Real­i­ty is dif­fer­ent. The famous pedi­a­tri­cian O.E. Komarovsky con­firms this in his pro­gram. The doc­tor claims that the microwave is absolute­ly safe for chil­dren. Below you can watch a video on the top­ic:

Microwave heat­ing caus­es loss of vit­a­mins and essen­tial sub­stances.

The sec­ond myth has not been sub­stan­ti­at­ed either. Rebut­tal: heat­ing, as a process, will nec­es­sar­i­ly lead to a loss in the val­ue of prod­ucts. There­fore, the harm from the microwave in this case is absolute­ly equal to the harm from the stove and oven.

For­ma­tion of car­cino­gens under the influ­ence of microwave radi­a­tion.

It is also an inven­tion. The real­i­ty is that car­cino­gens and trans fats appear in food after heat­ing it in oil. Rapid heat­ing, on the con­trary, kills var­i­ous microor­gan­isms (for exam­ple, E. coli), because they do not tol­er­ate such high-speed heat­ing. Food after the house­hold appli­ance gets the effect of ster­il­iza­tion.

We con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion on the top­ic “microwave oven: ben­e­fit or harm”.

The struc­ture of the prod­ucts falls apart

Sci­ence has con­firmed that microwave ener­gy is sim­ply not capa­ble of mak­ing the mol­e­c­u­lar dis­in­te­gra­tion of mol­e­cules. For this rea­son, there can be no harm from a microwave either.

Being near a microwave oven is unsafe due to radi­a­tion

Not true! The share of radi­a­tion from the device is neg­li­gi­ble. Its size is equal to the radi­a­tion from cell phones and med­ical devices. It can­not do any harm. The devices are equipped with good pro­tec­tive screens. There is no dan­ger if the appli­ance is not used with the door open.

Explo­sion due to met­al objects

This is a false opin­ion. Because the cause of any explo­sion is the rapid expan­sion of the gas. In our case, met­al objects in the microwave will only give sparks. And the result­ing sparks will dam­age the main ele­ment of the mag­netron device. By the way, it is not rec­om­mend­ed to heat food in met­al objects.

The device caus­es var­i­ous dis­eases

To date, there is no evi­dence of this fact. Not a sin­gle per­son died due to the microwave oven.

Recommendations

The ben­e­fits and harms of a microwave oven are a rather con­tro­ver­sial issue. It is impos­si­ble to answer unequiv­o­cal­ly to use it or not.

But if you use it, then fol­low these rec­om­men­da­tions:

1. Fol­low all require­ments for prop­er instal­la­tion.
2. Do not block ven­ti­la­tion open­ings.
3. Do not turn on the device at idle.
4. Try to warm up at least 200 grams of food.
5. Do not put food­stuffs that can explode (e.g. eggs) inside.
6. Do not put met­al uten­sils inside.
7. Choose the right dish­es for heat­ing: heat-resis­tant plas­tic or thick glass.
8. If there is anoth­er method of heat­ing (stove, toast­er), use them. Min­i­mize the pres­ence of a microwave oven in every­day life.
9. Do not use the microwave if it is out of order.

As we found out, the device can­not bring harm and neg­a­tive impact. What can? Microwaves can pro­vide the fol­low­ing ben­e­fits:

• you can cook food with­out fats and oils;
• Much less time spent on cook­ing
• You can quick­ly defrost and reheat food.

Let’s sum­ma­rize. What is char­ac­ter­is­tic of a microwave oven: ben­e­fit or harm? Let every­one decide for him­self.