If there's one lifestyle tool that's ubiquitous, from American cities to remote villages of the developing world, it's the mobile phone.
Can they also be deadly?
The frustratingly unresolved debate erupted again this week with the release of a $24 million U.N. study spanning a decade and covering 13 nations that suggests frequent cell phone use may increase the chances of developing rare but deadly form of brain cancer.
Worryingly, since glioma has a potential latency period of a quarter century — longer than cell phones have been in widespread use — even the study's authors say there is no way yet to tell how big the risk is, if there is one.
Experts were nearly unanimous in saying the results of the study are inconclusive. But the fact that it turned up even some evidence of a cancer risk may have profound consequences for a device that people have become accustomed to seeing as extensions of themselves.
From farmers in Africa who rely on cell phones to check crop reports to hedge fund traders obsessively checking Blackberries at trendy restaurants to suburban American kids spending hours calling their friends — people around the world have come to rely on mobile phones as never before.
From farmers in Africa who rely on cell phones to check crop reports to hedge fund traders obsessively checking Blackberries at trendy restaurants to suburban American kids spending hours calling their friends — people around the world have come to rely on mobile phones as never before.
Cell phones send out radioactive energy in a form that's similar to the one used in microwave ovens, but at very low levels. There is no accepted theory to explain how or if these weak radio waves can affect the body, beyond heating it to a very small degree.
All the same, U.S. and European regulators already limit the energy cell phones can project into the body and today's digital phones radiate less power than the analog phones that dominated in the early '90s. Common advice for those concerned about the radiation is to use a Bluetooth headset, since these emit even less power.
The survey conducted from 2000 to 2010 of almost 13,000 participants — the biggest ever of its kind — found a 40 percent higher incidence of glioma among the top 10 percent of people who used their mobile phone most.
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