Permanent magnetic fields: influence on oxygen-substrate interactions and possible mechanisms of several biomagnetic effects.

Abstract

An account is given of the "oxygen theory" of biomagnetic effects, whereby molecular oxygen is the primary, elementary, and fundamental material affected by the influence of a permanent magnetic field (PMF). The ability of a PMF to alter inductively the motion of paramagnetic O2 dissolved in a fluid, and to uncouple it from other substances which participate in oxidative processes leads, first of all, to a disturbance of O2 transport and to a disturbance of cellular bioenergetic processes. A series of biomagnetic effects are explainable on the basis of the suggested mechanism. Experimental data regarding changes in pO2 in tumor tissue under the influence of a PMF, and data concerning the inhibition of growth of reinoculated tumors (Pliss' lymphosarcoma and RS-1) under the combined influence of PMF and hypothermia, are given as indirect support of the oxygen mechanism of PMF effects and the oxygen-peroxide mechanism of carcinogenesis.