New findings on mobile phones and brain tumours
August 23, 2024
Do you hold your mobile phone against your head during calls?
Have you ever wondered if the radiation it emits could be contributing to a brain tumour?
Now there’s evidence showing how that could happen.
In the first study of its kind, scientists from Austria examined the effects of radiation from 3G smart phones using buccal cells of the cheek. Its findings are important because they suggest a possible mechanism by which mobile phone radiation could cause brain tumours.
The researchers recruited 41 volunteers and exposed them to mobile phone radiation for 2 hours a day for 5 days in laboratory conditions. Participants wore a special headset that exposed one cheek to defined amounts of mobile phone radiation.
Half of the participants were exposed to a low power (0.1 W/kg) exposure group and the others to a high power (1.6 W/kg) group.
The researchers collected buccal cells from the exposed and unexposed cheeks of volunteers three weeks before the exposure, during the exposure and three weeks after the exposure ended and examined them for damage.
The study found that exposure increased the numbers of anomalies in these cells.
The authors said, ‘[W]e found … clear evidence for induction of acute toxicity and disturbance of the cell cycle (cytokinesis) as a consequence of exposure to a high radiation dose (1.6 W/kg). It is possible that these effects cause inflammatory responses and/or release of ROS [free radicals]. … These processes may possibly lead to formation of neoplastic [tumour-forming] cells.’
They also pointed out that many people use their mobile phones for more than the two hours a day used to expose volunteers in this study.
‘[I]t cannot be excluded that these long exposure periods may cause more pronounced effects and genetic damage,’ they said.
Previous research has shown links between mobile phone radiation and brain tumours and the International Agency for Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency radiation as a Class 2B (possible) carcinogen.
Mobile phone specific radiation disturbs cytokinesis and causes cell death but not acute chromosomal damage in buccal cells: Results of a controlled human intervention stud, Kundi, Michael, Nersesyan, Armen, Schmid, Gernot, Hutter, Hans-Peter, Eibensteiner, Florian, Mišík, Miroslav, Knasmüller, Siegfried, Environmental Research, Vol 251, pt 1, June 2024, 118634, 0013-9351, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envr...
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