K, so, for whatever reason, this decade has been popular for articles from seemingly scientific sources saying that geomagnetic storms are causing negative health effects on the body, through magnetic field fluctuations. I looked it up…and during the most extreme geomagnetic storms, Earth’s magnetic field fluctuates at a rate of about 500 nanotesla per minute. Is that rate of change enough to induce enough of a current that it acts as a cellular stressor?
edit: I was reading through a Reddit thread earlier where ER staff mentioned how during geomagnetic storms the ER is unusually busy and how their hospital is considering installing magnetic field detecting devices so they can plan accordingly…?
My bullshit alarm is going off. MRI machines use very powerful magnets for imaging: usually around 1.5 Teslas, but some go up to 10 T, and there are concepts for machines up to 14 T. That is a billion times stronger than a 500 nanotesla fluctuation. And MRIs are completely safe. If a 500 nanotesla fluctuation was a cellular stressor, I could only imagine that a 10 T MRI would cause very obvious damage.
Not completely safe, you do for example have to take care there are no chunks of metal in you or attached to you.
Mine did, too, then I looked into it and it does seem there’s a lot of research concluding that fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field during geomagnetic storms is causing more heart attacks, nervous system dysregulation, etc. https://magneticstorms.co/health/heart but I’m not as well versed in science compared to many of the people on Lemmy.
Correlation. No causal agent has been identified
That’s pretty interesting, honestly. It’s a good sign that the site cites specific research and gives names, at least. So that beats my speculation. I’m not qualified to interpret any of the research though. I get the impression this phenomenon needs more research before regular folks can draw any of their own conclusions.