Australian scientists have shown that the infrasound generated by wind turbines does not make people dizzy or nauseous, does not affect heart health or mental health, or affect sleep.

Scientists recreated the infrasound of wind turbines and played them through speakers to 37 volunteers in a sleep laboratory. Others were subjected to “sham infrasound”, by sleeping near the same speakers as they emitted no infrasound.

The sleep volunteers were also exposed to normal overnight ambient noises, such that from traffic and trains.

The researchers from the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, which specialises in studying sleeping disorders, monitored the subjects as they slept and ran tests after they woke.

“We detected no effect of three days of infrasound exposure on all the health variables that we measure – sleep, blood pressure, balance, hearing, that sort of thing,” said the study’s lead researcher, Professor Ron Grunstein.

“The study questions the existence of wind turbine syndrome in a medical sense,” he said.

The research has been published in one of the world’s leading journals in the field, Environmental Health Perspectives, published by the United States National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

The study was commissioned by National Health and Medicine Research Council which had been directed by the government of Tony Abbott to explore health complaints made by some people living near wind farms.