Article: Warning: Your Cell Phone or Wi-Fi router May Be Hazardous to Your Health

rpm said:

Ever worry that that gadget you spend hours holding next to your head might be damaging your brain? Well, the evidence is starting to pour in, and it's not pretty. So why isn't anyone doing anything about it?

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psichron said:

What exactly do you want to do about it? Ban cell phones, wireless networks (Wifi/Wimax/Bluetooth/Zigbee/etc), radio, tv, cordless phones, walkie-talkies, garage door openers, wireless mice, wireless keyboards, wii's, xboxes, car trackers, wireless microphones, wireless headphones, RC cars and helicopters, and wireless interkom CCTV systems or just some of them?

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sn3rd said:

Well put.

Most things today cause adverse effects to the environment and/or humans.

Are the adverse effects significant, and if so, are we willing to do without the product?

The world would be worse off without telecommunications.

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psichron said:

I'm not saying the effects of EM radiation (RF from communications / IR and visible light from the sun) is harmless, however it is silly to get worked up about properly regulated wireless transmissions like we have now. The amount of health complications reported due to wireless is so utterly insignificant that it does not even make a blip on the metaphorical radar of health issues. There are so many other things that we are exposed to every single day that is harmful to our health that you should be far more concerned about, the sun being one of the worst. People tanning on the beach expose themselves to billions of times more EM radiation in far more harmful bands (UV) than any man made wireless transmission.
In fact the most dangerous thing about a cell phone is probably the heat it generates in your pocket in close proximity to your scrotum.

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LancelotSA said:

So I ask again... why to these companies making these huge profits not put a whack of it towards research to prove how minimal the long term dangers are once and for all? Surely they'd want to show this? as stated by Killa, the results worry them.

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psichron said:

I'm not saying the effects of EM radiation (RF from communications / IR and visible light from the sun) is harmless, however it is silly to get worked up about properly regulated wireless transmissions like we have now. The amount of health complications reported due to wireless is so utterly insignificant that it does not even make a blip on the metaphorical radar of health issues. There are so many other things that we are exposed to every single day that is harmful to our health that you should be far more concerned about, the sun being one of the worst. People tanning on the beach expose themselves to billions of times more EM radiation in far more harmful bands (UV) than any man made wireless transmission.
In fact the most dangerous thing about a cell phone is probably the heat it generates in your pocket in close proximity to your scrotum.

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Garyvdh said:

you mean apart from all the other countless sources of radiation? Which one exactly is going to kill me? What happens if I avoid all radiation and move to a small tropical island and a solar flare kills me? To be honest i'd rather die at a moderate age than live to be 95. I saw my grandpa die old... and it wasn't pretty.

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Korn1 said:

My Gran died this morning Yup it not pretty

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Cellphone radiation is good for Alzheimer's mice

12:16 07 January 2010 by Jessica Hamzelou

Despite years of demonisation, mobile phones might actually do us more good than harm. Regular exposure to an electromagnetic field identical to the ones produced by mobile phones seems to improve memory in mice with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

Mobile phones have long been vilified by those who claim the gadgets give off radiation that harms the brain. Alzheimer's disease researcher Gary Arendash, a neuroscientist at the University of South Florida in Tampa, was gazing out of his window at people nattering on their phones when it occurred to him the radiation might have a specific, negative effect on the brains of people with Alzheimer's.

To investigate further, he and his colleagues turned to two-month-old mice that had been genetically engineered to develop symptoms similar to those caused by Alzheimer's as they aged, and similarly transgenic four-month-old mice that had already developed the symptoms.

Maze learning

The team placed an antenna that generated electromagnetic waves of the same wavelength as those produced by mobile phones in the centre of a room, and the mice in cages around it. This was designed to give the mice a similar dose of radiation as a person talking on a mobile phone. The group also placed normal, healthy mice in cages in the same room.

To mimic human phone use, the researchers turned on the antenna for 1 hour twice a day for nine months. Over this period, they regularly tested the mice's memory using a maze task in which the mice had to remember an escape route.

To the researchers' surprise, the memory of both normal and transgenic mice exposed to the electromagnetic field (EMF) seemed better by the end of the experiment than that of a control group of mice that were not irradiated.

Arendash speculates that radiation might increase the electrical activity of neurons, which could in turn improve the brain's ability to form memories. An experiment in 2000 found that if people were exposed to an EMF equivalent to mobile-phone radiation before they went to bed, their brain activity during sleep increased.

Plaque reduction

But the EMF also seemed to have a unique effect on the mice with Alzheimer's symptoms. At the end of the experiment, Arendash's team examined the brains of the mice for plaques made of beta-amyloid protein, which are characteristic of the disease.

They found that the brains of transgenic mice that had been exposed to the EMF from two months old did not contain as many plaques as transgenic control mice of the same age that had not been exposed to the EMF.

What's more, in the older transgenic mice, which had already developed brain plaques before the experiment began, the EMF exposure seemed to have broken up and shrunken the plaques. Arendash say he doesn't know how the EMF could do this.

Aside from the brain benefits, Arendash's group couldn't find any other effects of the EMF on the mice. "There was no effect on their behaviour, no damage to their DNA and no sign of any tumours or organ damage," says Arendash.

Replication required

John Hardy, a neuroscientist at University College London, agrees that it's difficult to work out what could be causing the effect. He says that the results must be replicated before firm conclusions are drawn.

Arendash says he expects to see positive effects in people with Alzheimer's disease who use mobile phones over a long period. Because people tend to use the same ear whenever they listen to their phone, he reckons we might even see differences in plaque formation in different sides of the brain in people with Alzheimer's who also use mobile phones. "No one's ever looked before," he says.

Susan Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society in London, thinks it may be too soon to translate the findings to humans. "A lot more work is needed before we can say anything about the possible preventative or treatment effects of this type of radiation on people with Alzheimer's disease," she says. But she admits that the results are "exciting".

The group now hope to fine-tune the exact wavelength and duration of the EMF in order to squeeze out the maximum benefit to the brain.

Arendash says that exposure to an EMF might become part of treatments given to people with Alzheimer's or other types of brain problem. "It might also be useful in traumatic brain injury, which is also characterised by plaques, or just to improve cognitive performance," he says.

Journal reference: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, DOI: 10.3233/jad-2009-1228

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realbigdreamer said:

Sorry to hear about your granny.

I think death can never be pretty. It will always be ugly and nobody can escape it (at least not what I know of ).

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