Can Mobiles Really Damage your Health?

Mobile phones and mobile phone masts are being blamed for all manner of serious health problems but is it just groundless scaremongering or can mobiles really damage your health?

The Damage to Your Health

By regularly speaking on your mobile phone you are putting yourself at risk of a brain tumour, leukaemia, as well as severe headaches, memory loss, extreme fatigue and a catalogue of other complaints. If you try to avoid it by opting for hands-free then mobile in your belt case will expose your liver and kidney areas to harmful radiation. At least this is if you believe the various studies that have been conducted over the last decade.

As people slowly wean themselves off last century’s major threat to the nation’s health, the cigarette, many believe millions of us are already dangerously addicted the 21st century equivalent – the mobile phone.

It is believed that low-level exposure to the radio frequency (RF) waves emitted by mobiles when holding the phone close to the head, or by local mobile phone masts, may cause biological problems and even seriously harm the brain. But if that’s the case, where are the health warnings, where is the massive health crisis, why are mobiles as possible as ever – isn’t anybody worried?

No Evidence for Health Risks

The truth of the matter is that despite the regular stream of news stories, there is yet to be concrete proof that mobiles are unsafe. Well known for their cynicism and suspicion of hype and scaremongering, Brits are waiting for some direct evidence before they are convinced.

The problem faced by scientists is that it is currently hard to research the danger of mobiles because as the technology is relatively new, the effects might have yet to surface. For instance it takes a minimum of 10 years for cancer to develop.

Are You Willing to Take the Risk?

When a six-year Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) study commissioned by the government and the mobile phone industry – the largest such study in the UK - found mobiles to harmless, only admitting a ‘very faint hint’ of a link between long-term mobile use and brain tumours, it was criticised for failing to fully investigate those people who had used their phones for over a decade.

More recently, a group of scientists found there to be a much stronger link between mobile use and risk of brain tumour than the report suggested. After surveying the results of 11 different studies, the scientists concluded that those who have used their mobile for a decade are twice as likely to develop a tumour on a nerve linking the ear to the brain.

There may not yet be a definite answer to the question of mobile phone health risks, but with many experts nevertheless inclined to support the theory that there are long-term dangers, are you willing to take the chance they are wrong?

Risking the Health of Your Children

Perhaps an even more pertinent question is, are you willing to risk the health of your children by allowing them to use mobiles? This is an even more worrying concern because research has shown that, as children have thinner skulls and nervous systems that are still developing, they are three times as vulnerable to radiation as adults. A professor at Orbero University in Sweden, who conducted research into the subject, said that children should not be allowed to use mobiles.