When I was in middle school I used to sleep with my cellphone under my pillow so I could
text in the middle of the night.
But then I started to worry what that could be doing to my head?
I mean do cellphones cause brain tumors?
Hey Guys Julia here for DNews.
According to the Pew Research Center 91% of adults own a cellphone.
That’s up 26% from ten years ago.
And well, a 2011 World Health Organization report classifies radiofrequency electromagnetic
fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans, so are we all just giving ourselves brain
tumors?
Let’s take a look at what the science says.
A large study published in the British Medical Journal found no link between cell phone use
and brain tumors.
Researchers tracked nearly 360-thousand cell phone users over nearly two decades and found
no increase in brain tumor risk.
So what’s going on?
Whats at the crux of this issue are electromagnetic waves.
Which are well, all around us all the time.
This can come in different forms, like light or radio waves.
All electromagnetic waves across the spectrum are forms of radiant energy.
But some are on the higher energy side of the spectrum and are ionizing, like cosmic
rays, x-rays and some are on the lower energy end of the spectrum and are non-ionizing,
like radio waves.
Some forms of ionizing radiation do raise the risk of cancer.
Like sunlight, which can trigger certain forms of skin cancer.
Or Like x-rays for instance.
If you wanna learn more how those can be harmful, check out this DNews video (there’s a link
in the description as well).
Sometimes too much exposure to these forms of energy can damage the DNA.
So as your DNA makes more copies of itself, it copies an error, and sometimes this error
leads to uncontrollable growth, which is a what a tumor is.
Cellphones use electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range, which is in
the low energy end of the spectrum.
Just like other wireless stuff in your house like wifi.
And stuff at this lower end of the spectrum aren’t known to damage DNA.
And groups like the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society, and the National
Institutes of Health, all say no to the link between brain tumors and cell phones.
On a related note though, some studies show that cell phones can make your sperm suck.
Seriously.
One study published in the journal Environment International reviewed the findings from ten
studies, including around 15-hundred samples.
The researchers concluded that exposure to cell phones might reduce the motility of the
sperm, or its ability to move, by up to 8%.
But curiously, on the other hand, one study showed that maybe the electromagnetic energy
is a good thing.
One study found that it might even protect against Alzheimer’s.
The researchers exposed mice to cell phone radiation for two 1-hour periods each day
for seven to nine months.
Some mice were genetically designed to be predisposed to Alzheimer’s while others
were just a control.
At the end of the study, the researchers found that the predisposed mice’s memory and cognition
was protected by the cell phone signal.
And performed just as well on tests measuring memory and thinking skills as the non Alzheimer’s
mice.
Which is totally weird and I really hope they do more research.
But anyways back to the point, so scientists are pretty certain that cell phones don’t
cause brain tumors.
So go, call you mom for an hour.
She probably needs it and it won’t give you cancer.
But it might make you kind of lazy.
Find out more on that research in this video: