Mobile phone use and cancer: Does dose really matter?

Abstract

The past decades have witnessed rapid evolution of telecommunication technology and wireless devices. Due to these rapid advances, cell phone usage has remarkably increased the level of human exposure to radiofrequency-electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs). In the past, it was widely believed that, RF-EMF, in contrast to ionizing radiation, does not have enough energy for ionizing atoms and hence does not cause DNA damage which can lead to cancer. However, substantial evidence now indicates that RF-EMFs increase the reactive oxygen species production and DNA damages which play an important role in the initiation and progression of cancer. Currently, there is no widely accepted answer to this question whether there is a relationship between exposure to RF-EMFs from cell phones and cancer incidence and mortality. Although it seems that this issue is a long-term unsolved problem, new studies have raised new concerns over the safety of mobile phones. Mortazavi have previously studied the health effects of cellular phones, mobile base stations, and Wi-Fi. They have also reviewed reports claiming no link between exposure to RF and brain cancer. They found that in many cases there were large errors and/or major shortcomings in these articles. They have also reported that current controversies may be caused by the key parameter of the large difference in the magnitude of exposures to RF-EMFs in different studies. In this light, in a similar pattern with ionizing radiation, a nonlinear J-shaped dose–response relationship for the carcinogenesis of nonionizing RF-EMF is introduced.

Keywords

• Cancer
• electromagnetic fields
• mobile phone
• radiofrequency