Cell phone brain risk higher outside city

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Swedish study has determined the risk of brain tumors among cell phone users is much higher in rural areas than in cities.

 

Professor Lennart Hardell of the University Hospital in Orebro said more than 1,400 adults aged between 20 and 80 living in the center of Sweden and diagnosed with brain tumors between January 1997 and June 2000 were asked to complete questionnaires on their phone usage.

 

The study, published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, said how long users spent on the phone had little impact on the probability of being diagnosed with a brain tumor. However, 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 tumor as those living in urban areas.

 

For malignant brain tumors, the risk was eight times higher for those living in a rural area.

 

The authors said it was likely because base stations are much farther apart in rural areas, the telephones generate a higher signal intensity to compensate.