Has Electromagnetic Energy in the Band 0.1–100 GHz Useful Medical Applications? A Review of Mechanisms and Biological Database Offers Dim Prospects

We now have a history of more than 50 years of searching for low-level nonthermal radio frequency (RF) effects on biological systems. An analysis of this database and an evaluation of the proposed mechanism of interactions suggest that the probability of finding such effects between the frequencies of 100 MHz and 150 GHz is vanishingly small and that most likely, such effects do not exist between 10 MHz and 200 GHz. However, studies using low-frequency fields with amplitude on the order of or exceeding endogenous fields, the development of terahertz spectroscopy, and medical imaging at terahertz frequencies and RF fields that can cause temperature elevation have proven and are proving to be fruitful areas of research.