Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

telegraph.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 185 posts

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#161

Post by jstarfish »

dghughes wrote: post #101

I'd also be interested to see how many more people just text or IM not talk compared to ten or twenty years ago. If there is a risk from cellphone EM radiation so it must also depend on phone usage and also modern phones emit less EM radiation? For me my main concern is I use my phone as an alarm clock and it's 30cm (1 foot) from my head all night. I also leave it there since it's my main phone so I keep it close to…

> For me my main concern is I use my phone as an alarm clock and it's 30cm (1 foot) from my head all night. I also leave it there since it's my main phone so I keep it close to me. Hopefully the inverse square law is on my side.

The danger comes from when you are actively making calls using voice; my understanding is that transmitting voice data really cranks up the EM radiation. When making phone calls you are safest using a hands-free headset. When the phone is idle at night this is all mostly irrelevant unless you're getting poor signal (for which it cranks up EM to compensate).

So, don't sleep with your phone next to your head if you get poor signal. If not, there likely isn't much to worry about.

> I'd be curious to see if any studies showed butt cancer was a thing. I'm sure many people keep their phones in their pockets and seems it would exposure people more EM radiation for longer compared to holding the phone and talking into it.

When the phone is idle the EM radiation is relatively low. Plus, if it's resting against your thigh there isn't anything critical there to irradiate, compared to having it within two inches of your brain. If anything we might see more skin cancer in the future from this (and some say EM from pocket storage may contribute to infertility), but it beats brain cancer.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#162

Post by jacquesm »

michaelmrose wrote: post #159
jacquesm wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more along the lines of: electromagnetic radiation causes tissue to warm up, warmer tissue can lead to trouble. The problem is that todays cell phones output extremely low amounts of EM but at very high frequencies. And that makes it a very hard problem to determine whether or not there is an actual risk.

Absent evidence of harm AND a plausible mechanism for harm there is no reason to assume harm. All we have at the moment is an uptick in a particular kind of cancer without a plausible mechanism how do we assign that to cell phones? Why don't we see a similar uptick everywhere for example instead of just in england?

> Absent evidence of harm

That's what the article is about.

> a plausible mechanism for harm

The plausible mechanism is that EM radiation causes tissue to warm up, which can damage it. This is well documented, and will happen already at frequencies far below what a mobile phone uses.

> All we have at the moment is an uptick in a particular kind of cancer without a plausible mechanism how do we assign that to cell phones?

Because of the location of the tumors.

> Why don't we see a similar uptick everywhere for example instead of just in england?

Because that's where this research was done.

Look, no matter what this is a very subtle affair. The only thing that this research has done - according to me - is to move the needle from 'instant dismiss' to 'maybe more and more careful research should be done' to determine the exact magnitude of the effect.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#163

Post by unit91 »

zhengyi13 wrote: post #149
unit91 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Also not accounted for is the UK's huge immigration surge (more than doubling the foreign-born UK populace of the mid-90s). [1] Different ancestries carry with them different genetic predispositions. It might be that the GBM rise is due to phenotypes not phones. [1] http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings...

My little brother died of a GBM about 3 years ago. The research I did at the time indicated that there are essentially no known predictors of GBMs; there appears to be a very slight correlation with being white, male, and ~30-50, all which matched for him.

I'm really sorry to hear about your brother. Thanks for sharing what you learned though!

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#164

Post by nabla9 »

tonmoy wrote: post #21

> cases of GBM in England have increased from around 1,250 a year in 1995 to just under 3,000. Not only the population of UK has increased in this time, it has also gotten older on average. Moreover is 0.002% of population getting GBM per year even significant enough to blame mobile phones (that is used by everyone)?

> Not only the population of UK has increased in this time, it has also gotten older on average.

Every study that measures disease or death rates takes this into account. They use standard populations (standard millions) to create age-adjusted statistics. In this case it was European Standard Population (ESP–2013) they used.

The article reports increase in all age groups. The article is not making any link between brain cancer and mobile phones. There is just little speculation to crate headlines.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#165

Post by graeme »

Spooky23 wrote: post #111
dbatten wrote: post #16

"They analysed 79,241 malignant brain tumours over 21 years, finding that cases of GBM in England have increased from around 1,250 a year in 1995 to just under 3,000." ~2000 new cases per year in a country with 53 million people? I'll take my chances. I'm fascinated how people obsess over the unproven and ultimately minuscule health risks associated with using a cell phone or drinking a glass of wine or eating chocol…

I'm fascinated about casual dismissal of actual problems justified by the fact that other problems exist. I'm not panicked by this issue, but I think there's something there. I play cards with a bunch of neurosurgeons - every one of them has professional concerns about cellular and bluetooth usage, and 4/6 expressed those concerns to me individually about my AirPods.

Why airpods? I thought bluetooth emits much less radiation than a phone does.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#166

Post by kpozin »

parvenu74 wrote: post #61

I've never been a fan of holding an active transmitter (cell phone) against the side of my head, preferring to use either speakerphone or a corded headset of some type. But I wonder: how much danger does a Bluetooth wireless headset present compared to the phone itself?

What if you're using Bluetooth headphones for 8-10 hours per day for music / blocking out noise?

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#167

Post by FooBarWidget »

bhouston wrote: post #2

It is curious. I wonder why non-ionizing radiation causes cancer? Given we are constantly bathing in wifi signals and cellphone signals, I wonder what the effects will be?

A recent study[1] found that blue light from smartphones are linked to some cancers. The cancers are not caused directly by blue light, but are caused by the fact that melatonine is surpressed by certain light temperatures, and disrupting melatonine and thus the circadian rythm can increase cancer risk.

I'm guessing that the mechanism found in this HN submission's story also uses some non-obvious, indirect mechanism. Biology is messy and complex.

[1] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/04/27/235230/blue-lig...

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#168

Post by jhayward »

pdpi wrote: post #132
jhayward wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be linked to age, just a yearly probability summed over more years. Then you can start adding in the things that make people live longer, like less heart disease per year of life, etc., and you get the same effect they are charting.

If the effect isn't related to age, then what you're describing is captured by population.

True.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#170

Post by mr_toad »

> Responding to the new resaerch, Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics at The Open University, said the significance of the trend may be less clear cut than the research group claim.

It’s not unusual for such small proportions to have large variation.

Post reply on HN