Experts disagree over just how worried you should be about smartphone health risks
If you’re like the average American, you probably sleep with your smartphone within arm’s reach. A 2015 Bank of America report
found that 71 percent of people sleep with or near their phones — and
that includes the 13 percent who said they slept with their phones in
their beds.
Maybe
you’ve wondered whether keeping your phone nearby is a bad
idea — perhaps it’s zapping your brain with radio waves or otherwise
screwing with your health. It would be comforting if researchers firmly
and finally quashed any notions that our devices can cause negative
health effects. No such luck.
This past November, the U.S. government’s National Toxicology Program wrapped up a 10-year, $30 million study
on the health effects of cellphone radiation exposure. In essence, the
government scientists blasted rats with different levels of
radiofrequency radiation (RFR) for varying lengths of time and then
watched to see what would happen.
“Our
studies showed that radiofrequency radiation at the frequencies and
modulations used in cellular telecommunications and under the exposure
conditions we used can produce adverse biological effects,” says John
Bucher, one of the study’s authors and a senior scientist with the
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Specifically,
Bucher’s study found “clear evidence” of tumors in the hearts of male
rats exposed to RFR, as well as “some evidence” of tumors in the brains
and adrenal glands of male rats. They found “equivocal” evidence of
adverse effects in female rats, meaning it wasn’t clear if the tumors
that turned up were caused by RFR exposure.
What to make of these findings? Depends on who you ask.
Bucher
says his study was never intended to be the final word on the issue of
cellphone radiation and human health. “We’re using this to put together
follow-up research programs,” he says.
Even
so, Bucher says there may be some “low” risk when a phone is held
against the head or body — like if you’re on a call or keeping the phone
in your pocket while using some kind of hands-free setup. He says these
risks could go up with “prolonged and persistent use,” though at this
point, defining each of these terms is guesswork.
“If
there is a risk, I think it’s minimal,” says Larry Junck, MD, a
neuro-oncologist and professor of neurology at the University of
Michigan. “We haven’t seen an increase in brain tumors since mobile
phone use has become widespread.” Moreover, Junck says the research
showing any mechanistic link between cellphone radiation and brain
tumors is inconsistent and “methodologically flawed.”
Others
look at the existing research with great concern. “I think there’s
compelling evidence that electromagnetic radiation exposure is indeed
harmful,” says Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and
Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He reels off
the findings of a dozen recent studies, including a 2017 review
from China that found heavy mobile phone users were at significantly
increased risk of glioma — a type of malignant tumor in the brain and
spinal cord.
A 2018 U.K. study
found rates of glioblastoma — another cancerous brain tumor — more than
doubled in England between 1995 and 2015. Specifically, frontal and
temporal lobe tumors — locations that correspond with where we rest our
phones during calls — showed some of the steepest increases. In a
follow-up letter to the journal’s editor, the authors of that U.K. study
say
they looked closely at the U.S. data on glioblastoma rates. After
adjusting for post-2000 population changes — changes they say are not
factored into the U.S. Central Brain Tumor Registry and other databases
that track tumors — they turned up glioblastoma increases similar to the
ones they tracked in England.
Brain
tumors aren’t the only worry for cellphone users. “If you look at
modern smartphones, the antennas are in the corners — both upper and
lower,” Moskowitz says. But the bulk of the cellular signal is now
directed down through the lower antennas, “which would make the most
significant exposures in the neck area,” he says. He mentions tumors of
the neck and thyroid as particularly concerning. And there again, some
data suggest rates are rising. Rates of thyroid cancer have tripled in
the past three decades and are increasing more rapidly than any other
type of cancer, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).
But
none of these findings constitute proof that cellphones are to blame.
For example, the ACS says the increased use of tumor-detecting thyroid
ultrasounds could explain the uptick in rates of those cancers.
“If there is a risk, I think it’s minimal.”
Why
is it so hard to pin down the potential health effects of our devices?
One gigantic hurdle is that the technologies these devices employ are
constantly evolving, and the research on their health effects is often
running a decade or two behind. “Most of the epidemiological studies
looking at brain tumor risk collected data in the early to mid-2000s
from users who used the old candy bar or flip phones, which were
primarily using 1G or 2G cellular technology,” Moskowitz says.
Meanwhile,
the telecom industry is now moving forward with 5G technologies, even
though health experts still hardly have any data on 4G, he says. (More
than 200 scientists and medical doctors have called for a moratorium on the rollout of 5G until its safety can be assured.)
Since
this might keep you up at night, let’s get back to the question of
sleeping next to your phone. Moskowitz says tumor risks don’t top his
list of concerns, because a sleeper’s phone isn’t steadily transmitting
the way it does during a call. But he says it’s likely that low-level
nightime radiation exposures could disrupt sleep and cause other
neurological effects. He points to a small 2016 study
from Germany that found exposing men to cellphone radiation seemed to
change the structure of their sleep — increasing or decreasing REM and
other sleep parameters — though the health ramifications of these shifts
aren’t clear.
Whatever
risks may exist could be heightened in kids. “I personally believe that
children should be dissuaded from sleeping with a phone under their
pillow, as RFR is thought to penetrate farther into their tissues than
in adults,” Bucher says.
The
obvious advice is to keep your phone out of the bedroom. Or, if you use
it as an alarm clock, you could switch it into airplane mode, which
stops it from sending or receiving signals, Moskowitz says. He also
repeats the longstanding advice to use a wired hands-free device when
making calls and to keep your phone away from your body.
Start with all that and hope that the cellphone-radiation Pollyannas turn out to be right.
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