Effects of magnetic fields on the accumulation of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances induced by iron salt and H2O2 in mouse brain homogenates or phosphotidylcholine

In this study, we examined the effects of magnetic fields (MFs) on the generation of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) in the mouse brain homogenates or phosphotidylcholine (PC) solution, incubated with FeCl₃ and/or H₂O₂. Active oxygen species were generated and lipid peroxidation was induced in mouse brain homogenates by incubation with iron ions, resulting in the accumulation of TBARS. Lipid peroxidation was induced in PC by incubation with iron ions and H₂O₂. Exposure to sinusoidal MFs (60 Hz, 0.2–1.2 mT), symmetric sawtooth-waveform MFs (50 Hz, 25–600 mT/s), rectangular MFs (1/0.4–1/16 Hz, 3.3 mT) and static MFs (1, 5–300 mT) had no effect on the accumulation of TBARS in brain homogenates induced by FeCl₃. In contrast, when the homogenates were incubated with FeCl₃ in static MFs (2–4 mT), the accumulation of TBARS was decreased. However, this inhibitory effect disappeared when EDTA was added to the homogenate and incubated with H₂O₂. The accumulation of TBARS in PC solution incubated with FeCl₃ and H₂O₂ was also inhibited by the static MF. These results indicate that only static MFs had an inhibitory effect on iron-induced lipid peroxidation and the effectiveness of this magnetic field on iron ion-induced active oxygen species generation is restricted to a so called ‘window’ of field intensity of 2–4 mT.