Speaking on a mobile phone for more than half an hour a day could up your risk of brain cancer by 40 percent, according to a major new study.
The 10-year, $25 million Interphone project found cause for concern for so-called “heavy users” but the evidence was inconclusive as to whether normal use increased the risk of tumours at all, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported.
More research is being called for as the results are based on a relatively small time period since the large-scale uptake of mobile phones, and long-term health effects might not be appearing yet.
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“We can’t just conclude that there is no effect,” said Elisabeth Cardis from the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona, Spain, who led the study.
“There are indications of a possible increase. We’re not sure that it is correct. It could be due to bias, but the indications are sufficiently strong … to be concerned.”
The study was launched by the UN’s World Health Organization in 1998 to investigate the levels of radiation that people were exposing their brains to while using mobile phones and whether this could be linked to three types of brain tumours.
In a four-year period from 2000, researchers interviewed tumour patients and healthy volunteers (12,800 in total) to see if there were any clear differences in their mobile phone use.
However, no clear correlation was noticeable. There has also been no increase in the overall number of brain tumours since the advent of mobile phones.
That said, for heavy users, those who had spoken on the phone for 1640 hours in the last 10 years (just over 30 minutes a day), there was a 40 percent increase for glioma, the most common type of brain tumour, and a 15 percent increase for other kinds.
One British scientist involved in the study played down the risks, though.
“Overall this research has not shown evidence of an increased risk of developing a brain tumour as a result of using a mobile phone,” Professor Patricia McKinney, an epidemiologist at Leeds University and a co-author of the study, told the Daily Telegraph.
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