Mobiles 'make you senile'

[Guest guest]

Mobiles 'make you senile'

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor.

14 September 2003

 

 

Mobile phones and the new wireless technology could cause a " whole

generation " of today's teenagers to go senile in the prime of their

lives, new research suggests

 

The study - which warns specifically against " the intense use of

mobile phones by youngsters " - comes as research on their health

effects is being scaled down, due to industry pressure. It is likely

to galvanise concern about the almost universal exposure to

microwaves in Western countries, by revealing a new way in which they

may seriously damage health.

 

Professor Leif Salford, who headed the research at Sweden's

prestigious Lund University, says " the voluntary exposure of the

brain to microwaves from hand-held mobile phones " is " the largest

human biological experiment ever " . And he is concerned that, as new

wireless technology spreads, people may " drown in a sea of

microwaves " .

 

The study - financed by the Swedish Council for Work Life Research,

and published by the US government's National Institute of

Environmental Health Sciences - breaks new ground by looking at how

low levels of microwaves cause proteins to leak across the

blood-brain barrier.

 

Previous concerns about mobile phones have concentrated on the

possibility that the devices may heat the brain, or cause cancer. But

the heating is thought to be too minor to have an effect and hundreds

of cancer studies have been inconclusive.

 

As a result, the US mobile phone industry has succeeded in cutting

research into the health effects, and the World Health Organisation

is unlikely to continue its studies.

 

Mays Swicord, a scientific adviser to Motorola told New Scientist

magazine that governments and industry should " stop wasting money " by

looking for health damage.

 

But Professor Salford and his team have spent 15 years investigating

a different threat. Their previous studies proved radiation could

open the blood-brain barrier, allowing a protein called albumin to

pass into the brain. Their latest work goes a step further, by

showing the process is linked to serious brain damage. Professor

Salford said the long-term effects were not proven, and that it was

possible the neurons would repair themselves in time. But, he said,

neurons that would normally not become " senile " until people reached

their 60s may now do so when they were in their 30s.

 

He says he deliberately refrained from publicising his work to avoid

alarm, and acknowledges that mobile phones can save lives.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=443248