Robert O. Becker

Robert O. Becker
Born	May 31, 1923
Died	May 14, 2008
Nationality	American
Education	M.D., New York University
Occupation	Orthopedic surgeon, researcher
Known for	Bioelectricity and regeneration research; "current of injury"; warnings on electromagnetic pollution
Notable works	The Body Electric (1985, with Gary Selden) Cross Currents (1990)
Website

Robert O. Becker (May 31, 1923 - May 14, 2008) was an American orthopedic surgeon and researcher in electrophysiology and electromedicine. He is best known for his research into the electrical basis of tissue regeneration and healing, and for his warnings about the biological effects of electromagnetic field exposure.

Early life

Becker served in the US Army during World War II before completing his medical training, receiving his M.D. from New York University. He went on to specialize in orthopedic surgery.

Education and career

Becker was a professor at Upstate Medical Center, State University of New York, Syracuse, and served as Director of Orthopedic Surgery at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Syracuse. Working largely with salamanders and frogs, he studied the electrical properties of tissue during wound healing and limb regeneration. He found that the voltage at an amputation site shifts from around -10mV to +20mV or more within a day of injury, a phenomenon he termed the "current of injury," and demonstrated that imposing a weak external electrical field of the same polarity could accelerate healing and, in some experiments, stimulate regeneration not normally seen in the treated organism. In 1972 he warned the IEEE that continuous population-level exposure to human-made electromagnetic fields from power distribution systems could induce currents comparable to those his research showed were involved in the body's own control and repair mechanisms, and called for immediate study of the health effects. He became an early and prominent opponent of high-voltage power line proliferation on these grounds, and is credited with popularizing the term "electromagnetic pollution."

Notable/unique

Becker's 1985 book The Body Electric (co-written with Gary Selden) brought his regeneration and bioelectricity research to a general audience, opening with his findings on salamander limb regeneration before extending into wound healing, developmental biology, and the risks of electromagnetic pollution. His 1990 follow-up, Cross Currents: The Promise of Electromedicine, the Perils of Electropollution, focused specifically on the health risks of manufactured electromagnetic fields. He noted that in children (unlike adults) a severed fingertip can sometimes regenerate if left alone, but that active medical intervention (e.g. surgical closure) can prevent this regenerative capacity from expressing itself, a point Ray Peat repeated as an example of how the body's own repair capacities are often underestimated or actively suppressed by standard treatment.

Death

Robert O. Becker died on May 14, 2008, in Syracuse, New York, at age 84.

Connection to Ray Peat's Work

Ray Peat repeatedly cited Becker as a rare fellow traveler in viewing biological tissue and its electrical properties in energetic rather than purely biochemical terms.

I think Gilbert Ling might be the only person who would agree with me on this. Oh, and Robert Becker of Body Electric, absolutely in agreement with him.

— Ray Peat

Peat and Becker independently reached the same interpretation of tumors as bearing a positive electrical charge resembling an injury/inflammation signal, using the classical language of the "injury potential."

Robert Becker and my own measurements and many other people see a tumor or a cancer as an injury and inflammation. And the traditional language for this kind of electric charge is called the injury potential.

— Ray Peat

Peat also cited Becker's finding that organisms respond to extremely weak electromagnetic pulsations matching those of the Earth's own electromagnetic field, tracing this line of research back to earlier work in the 1940s-50s. Discussing his own early research (starting in 1968) on the sensitivity of the brain and reproductive system to weak electromagnetic fields, Peat pointed to The Body Electric as an important account of the effects of very weak fields on healing and sickness:

Yeah, there is a very important book by Robert Becker, The Body Electric, that shows the effects in healing or sickness of very weak fields. And that was some of my early research, starting in 1968. I went to Moscow to talk to Yuri Holodov, who had published some articles on the extreme sensitivity of the brain and the reproductive system to magnetic fields.

— Ray Peat

The Becker's book, The Body Electric, described his experiments showing that you could impose a weak electrical field and stimulate accelerated healing of a tissue by increasing the electrical field. The body normally is generating these fields, and when there's a wound...

— Ray Peat

Peat also endorsed Becker's caution about electromagnetic field exposure directly, agreeing that these fields are intrinsically involved in maintaining and repairing healthy tissue and so deserve more careful handling than they typically receive.

Published works

• The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life (1985, with Gary Selden)
• Cross Currents: The Promise of Electromedicine, the Perils of Electropollution (1990)