Dr Arendash of the University of South Florida published a study in January 2010 in the Journal of Alzheimer's disease which came to the conclusion that cell phone radiation where exposed to laboratory mice for about two hours a day over a period of about nine months appeared to improve their cognitive function and reversed the depositions of the amyloid protein. The media interpretation of all this has been that using a cell phone will protect you from Alzheimer's disease.
This is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a good while. I've heard some pretty crazy things!
You see the evidence to date supporting the detrimental effects on human health of cell phone use is quite overwhelming. The vast majority of studies on both rats and mice exposed to chronic levels of electromagnetic radiation from cellphones have found that it causes deficits in learning and memory. Dr Eberhardts 2008 study on laboratory rats found that a two-hour daily exposure to cell phone radiation over a period of a few weeks damaged the brains protective blood brain barrier and led to an increased number of damaged neurons. Dr Sokolovics study published in the Journal of radiation research found that chronic exposure to cell phone radiation caused significant damage to brain tissue.
Dr Hallberg in Sweden in 2005 also studied the question of Alzheimer's disease and cell phone use. But he did not conclude that cell phones protect you from Alzheimer's disease either. He found a dramatic increase in the rates of Alzheimer's disease was statistically in correlation with the increase of use of cell phones in these areas. So this was only a correlation, but by stretch of the imagination we cannot say that the findings of the Swedish study in any way tie in with those of the Arendash study.
I'm not suggesting for one minute that we should completely disregard the findings of Dr Arendash but let's just keep them in perspective. Of all the many studies carried out on the health effects of cell phone use this is one of the very few to give cell phones a thumbs up.
I'm obviously biased on this subject, but to me it's a bit like the cigarette phenomena. We now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that cigarettes kill, that they cause lung cancer and that they are one of the leading causes of heart disease. And yet for how many years were we led to believe that smoking cigarettes was beneficial to your health? How many studies came out that showed that cigarettes induced positive health effects, reduced stress, improved short term memory, helped relaxation and general well-being etc.
For years the tobacco industry schemed and manipulated to keep truth from us about what cigarettes were doing to our health, and I'm afraid to say that the cell phone industry is now doing the same thing with cell phones. I'm not saying that Dr Arendash cheated in his conclusions. What I am saying is that time will almost certainly prove his work to be a rogue study, an isolated case. The real culprit is not Dr Arendash but rather the press at large for leading us to believe in some way that we should continue to use a cell phone to protect yourself from Alzheimer's.
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