That crazy guy on the street who likes to yell about how cellphones are going to kill us all has some new ammunition! Or, rather, if read the right way a new study from the National Institute of Health shows that there may in fact be some risks involved in long-term cellphone use so maybe crazy guy has a point? Expect a phone call from your mother telling you to use a headset or speakerphone in five, four, three...
Anyway, here's how the study worked: in 2009 the NIH and the Brookhaven National Laboratory had 47 volunteers from the community come and hang out. Each volunteer had a phone placed on their left and right ears. "Positron emission tomography with (18F)fluorodeoxyglucose injection was used to measure brain glucose metabolism twice, once with the right cell phone activated (sound muted) for 50 minutes (“on” condition) and once with both cell phones deactivated (“off” condition)." And what did they find? While the metabolism of the whole brain didn't show much change between the "on" and "off" conditions, "metabolism in the region closest to the antenna (orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole) was significantly higher for on than off conditions."
So, uh, what does that mean? It means that if you have your phone on and next to your ear (even if you aren't talking) for 50 minutes your brain's glucose metabolism in the region closest to the antenna goes up. How much? "The increase in brain activity in those regions was comparable to the increase in level of glucose metabolism used by the visual cortex when someone talks—about 8% to 10%." But before you freak out, in the words of the study, "this finding is of unknown clinical significance."
"You could get confused very rapidly and think this finding is equated with a health hazard," Dr. Mitchel Berger, a neuro-oncologist who wasn't involved in the study told the WSJ. "What it tells us is at the frequencies these phones currently generate, there are [brain] regions that are hyperactive."
Still, if you want to play it safe and start using headphones or (sigh) speakerphone we guess we won't blame you. But no speakerphone on mass transit, ok?
