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RadioMD Presents:Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: February 23, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD

It’s time to Ask Dr. Mike. Do you have a question about your health? Dr. Mike can answer your questions. Just email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call now: 877-711-5211. The lines are open.

Once again, that’s This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Your email questions can be long, they can be short, you can put your name, you can be anonymous. I enjoy this part of the program.

I want to start with a question about bee pollen. Maybe you’ve been seeing, I guess, commercials and stuff more and more for pollen extracts and so, the question is, “Is bee pollen all hype?” That’s all they had. “Is bee pollen all hype?”

No. It’s not. So, let me back up. I guess it kind of maybe depends on what we’re talking about, okay? Now, pollen itself comes from the flowering plants, right? So, you can take the plant kingdom and break it up into two broad categories: ones that flower and ones that don’t. If they flower, they make pollen. So, you can get pollen even from grasses and stuff because those are technically part of the flowering plants. So, it’s not really bee pollen. Pollen comes from the plant itself, the bee just harvests it. There are other insects that do that as well. So, you know, I did a quick little Google search, by the way. I went on and I just put in “pollen” and I just kind of skimmed through some of the results that I came across. I think this is one of the areas where I get a little frustrated with the supplement industry. I think we get a little excited about something and we maybe get a little ahead of the game. I found claims from multiple different sites. “It’s an energy enhancer”. That was one. “It’s good for skin, the respiratory system. It can treat allergies. It’s an immune booster. It can help with addictions.” The list went on and on and on and some of them are supported in laboratory studies and clinical trials and animal models and some of these claims aren’t. So doing the research, what I found was that pollen, when it comes to helping the prostate gland in men, there is some good research. Specifically in prostatitis—and inflamed prostate--and then, the BPH, the benign enlarged prostate. There’s some good research in using pollen in improving urination and prostate function. So, that’s well-supported. Other well-supported benefits of pollen? The allergies. There are a few small studies showing that nasal symptoms improve with allergies—at least the seasonal allergies. So, there was some there. But, the rest of these, I think more research is needed. You know, there were some people talking about the benefits to the cardiovascular system. I didn’t really see a lot of hardcore science there. Of course, if one of my listeners has that, please send it to me and I’d like to review it. Right now, pollen is beneficial in prostatitis, enlarged prostate, allergies, maybe it can even be used in conjunction with like Vitamin D and Vitamin C and just boosting the immune system. That seems to be supported at this point.

So, it’s not all hype at all. There’s some good research on pollen and I think there’s going to be more as we learn more about the constituents of pollen. What makes pollen interesting is, it has everything. I mean, pollen has everything that is necessary to begin life. It does. They’ve done some good studies where they’ve broken down the constituents of pollen. You have amino acids. By the way, all of the amino acids. It has carbohydrates. It has good protein. It has vitamins and antioxidants. I mean, it’s loaded with everything that’s needed to fertilize and begin life in another plant. And so, I think the question becomes, what’s the balance of those things and then just using these in clinical trials and seeing beyond the prostate, beyond allergies, where it leads us. But it does look promising, so it’s not all hype and there you go. That’s bee pollen.

Alright. Next question. “I’m hearing a lot about EMFs.” That’s electromagnetic frequencies or electromagnetic radiation, mainly, like from cell phones. I’m assuming that’s the concern here. And, the question is, “Should I be concerned?” So, “I’m hearing a lot about EMFs. Should I be concerned?”

Yeah. This is a big question. I mean, I could spend a lot of time on what EMFs are, what some of the theories are of how they disrupt certain metabolic functions in the body and, of course, at what dose? At what level do you have to be exposed to see these kinds of things? And, those kinds of questions aren’t perfectly worked out. We know, as of today, that EMFs from any electrical device—and it’s not just cell phones—it’s any electrical device. And we are surrounded by electrical devices. So, any device, any EMF, there’s some good evidence showing that there could be some bone issues, specifically what is known as “calcium efflux” which is calcium coming out of the bone and into the blood supply causing something called “calcinosis” where calcium becomes deposited in other tissues, like the arteries, for instance. So, we’ve seen that. We’ve seen EMFs cause calcium efflux. Now, what does that mean clinically? What does that mean to you right now as a cell phone user or someone who’s on a laptop all the time or whatever? I don’t know yet. I’m not sure what that means clinically, but it’s been shown in laboratory studies to cause calcium efflux. So, again, more research is needed. We’re going to have to see where that goes. So, it is a concern. I know a lot of people are mostly concerned about the potential cancer risk with EMFs, but that’s not conclusive at all at this point. I think it is something, again, that needs to be studied more and it is a concern, but there’s no conclusions there yet. So, we know that we have calcium issues. There may be some cancer risk. Of course, the question becomes what type of EMFs? How close you have to be to the source? How long does the exposure have to be? Those are questions we don’t have answers to yet.

And then there’s the flipside of this. I’ve talked about this term before. Hormesis. Hormesis is the study of stressors in the benefit to life, in the benefit to health. A little bit of EMF might not be so bad. A little bit of, you know, free radical attacking your body might not be so bad. A little bit of a virus in your body is not so bad. I mean, these little stressors kind of prime your systems, prime your immune system, prime your antioxidant systems, your defense systems, to work better. So, I mean, that’s another side of the equation that we don’t talk about that much—hormesis. So, at this point, I am concerned about EMFs. I think we are exposed to them at some high levels. Right now, we know, as I mentioned, that can cause some calcium issues and there’s the worry that it’s going to increase cancer risk and I think it definitely warrants further study without a doubt. We have really changed our environment, haven’t we today? I mean, look at all the electronics. I mean, it’s just everywhere. And to think that that’s not affecting us in some way or some form I think is a little silly. I think it is affecting us. Now, again, to what degree? I don’t have an answer for that yet, but it is a concern for me and I think it should be for all of us. Enough to where we put some money behind it, you know, at the NIH and we do some unbiased, straightforward EMF studies. That’s the only way that we’re going to get answers on this and then also to study the hormesis part of this. How much EMF might actually be beneficial or is any beneficial?

So, a lot of questions. It’s a concern. At this point, calcium efflux and potential risk. Yeah. These things need to be studied.

This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD. I’m Dr. Mike. Stay well.