15  Jul 2011

Mobile Phone–Cancer Link Still Elusive, Story Not Concluded

Posted by Olivia Brooks | Tags: Link, Phone–cancer Link

Despite having been declared a by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, studies on the link between . As we reported last week, scientists analyzing the long-running Interphone study concluded that not enough evidence exists to know whether , and a few days ago, another group of scientists from Denmark published a new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology showing no conclusive links between mobile phones and another form of auditory tumor.

In the new study, the researchers analyzed the health records of nearly 3 million people to see how many developed something called vestibular schwannomas, a slow-growing benign tumor that grows in the inner ear. They typically grow in the region of the brain that absorbs most of the energy from mobile-phone-generated radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. After comparing tumor rates to frequency of mobile phone use, the authors found no link between phones and development of the tumors.

However, as with most of the studies that have been conducted on the mobile phone–cancer link, this study only followed the participants for 10 to 15 years, and most tumors take 30 years to develop, Diana Zuckerman, PhD, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families and its Cancer Prevention and Treatment Fund, told Rodale.com in a previous interview. “Most smokers start smoking by age 15, but not even heavy smokers are diagnosed with lung cancer at age 35,” she said. “In fact, most are not diagnosed till they are in their 50s—35 years later!” Even the authors of the study conceded that the short time frame wasn’t long enough to gauge the occurrence of this particular slow-growing tumor.

The lack of a clear relationship between cellphone use and cancer after 10 years is expected, Zuckerman added. “It doesn’t mean there is no cancer risk from cellphones.”

To learn more about how to protect yourself against the potential risks associated with mobile phones, see:

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