Mobile Phone use more dangerous in rural areas

[Guest guest]

17 May 2005

 

 

 

 

 

Using a mobile phone in rural areas seems to pose a greater risk of

developing brain tumours than it does in urban areas, suggests a

Swedish study in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

 

The findings are based on a sample of over 1400 adults aged between

20 and 80, living in the centre of Sweden. All of them had been

diagnosed with a malignant or benign brain tumour between January

1997 and June 2000.

 

The group were compared with a similar number of healthy adults,

matched for age and sex, and living in the same geographical area.

 

Daily mobile and cordless phone use was assessed, via questionnaire,

which included a complete employment history.

 

How long users spent on the phone had little impact on the

probability of being diagnosed with a brain tumour. But where they

lived did make a difference for all phone types, and especially for

mobile digital phones.

 

Residents of rural areas, who had been using a mobile digital phone

for more than three years, were over three times as likely to be

diagnosed with a brain tumour as those living in urban areas.

 

And digital mobile phone use for five years or more in a rural area

quadrupled the risk compared with residency in urban areas.

 

For malignant brain tumours, the risk was eight times as high for

those living in a rural area, but the numbers were small, caution the

authors. No such effect was seen for analogue or cordless phones.

 

The authors reiterate that there is a difference in power output

between mobile phones in urban and rural areas. This is because base

stations tend to be much further apart in rural areas, requiring a

higher signal intensity to compensate.

 

The compensatory system, known as the adaptive power control or APC,

is used for mobile phone (GSM) networks.

 

[use of cellular telephones and brain tumour risk in urban and rural

areas Occup Environ Med 2005; 62: 390-4]

Click here to view the paper in full:

press.psprings.co.uk/oem/june/390_om17434.pdf

 

 

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