A new study suggests that exposure to electric fields can increase the risk of depression and suicide in electricity workers. The study of almost 140,000 male electricity workers exposed to extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF).

The data provide evidence for an association between occupational electromagnetic fields and suicide that warrants further evaluation. Controversy continues over the link between electromagnetic fields and cancer. One key issue in any such argument is whether there is a plausible biological mechanism whereby illness could be caused.

The study, which seeks to correct deficiencies in previous studies linking EMF exposure to suicide, shows that electricity workers exposed to EMF are at an increased risk of suicide, with electricians and line workers being at greater risk than power plant operators.

This discrepancy in results could be partially explained by a variation in exposure to levels or patterns of EMFs between those groups.

The researchers found that younger workers were at greatest risk, as were those who were exposed recently.

Exposure to EMFs may alter melatonin secretion within days or weeks, a finding supported by studies of users of electric blankets and railway and electric utility workers, they write. Consequently, depressive symptoms and related problems may develop in the months between recent exposure and suicide

However the inability in this study to control for the main known predictors of suicide, such as drug use, mental illness, and family and social stresses, and especially the inability to measure depression and its onset severely limit the ability to define the role of electromagnetic exposure in the causal pathway of suicide.”

Magnetic field exposure is unlikely to be either a necessary or sufficient cause of depression or suicide although EMF may interact with other predictors of suicide and calls for workers exposed to EMF and their physicians to be alert to the signs of depression.

- By Rolf Roy