Dear Science,

I am totally addicted to my iPhone and use it constantly: on the toilet, in bed (before and after sex), on the bus, at work, at dinner, at breakfast. Is it killing me? When I'm really churning on the data network, I can hear the buzzing in my earphones. Certainly, all that radiation cannot be doing good things to my body and my brain. Science, are we all going to die of gigantic brain tumors before our two-year contracts are up with AT&T?

Glowing iPhone User

First, the good news: Despite quite a bit of study now completed on the subject, no clear connection has been drawn between cell-phone use and tumors, specifically brain tumors, in end users. Enough studies have been done to confidently rule out cell phones causing lots of common brain tumors. The small question of whether cell phones make incredibly rare brain tumors slightly less rare in those exposed remains, but the risk of outright cancer from using a cell phone seems quite low and most likely nonexistent.

But cell-phone radiation has potential effects on the body beyond cancer. To understand these potential effects, and why this kind of radiation is unlikely to cause cancer, we need a little bit of physics. The radio waves generated by your phone are a form of radiation that is nonionizing. Unlike X-rays, gamma rays, and other ionizing forms of radiation, these waves of electromagnetic energy cannot rip electrons off atoms. At most, these waves can jiggle the electrons around a bit, warming up the atoms. X-rays increase cancer risk by this electron ripping on DNA molecules; radio waves made by your phone are too gentle to do that.

What these radio waves can do is induce a small amount of electrical current in the tissues of the body. (This is how they transmit information—by inducing current in the antennas. Your brain and body can act as a poor, but functional, antenna.) The frequencies used by cell phones are close to some of those used by the body. A recent study by a National Institute on Drug Abuse group, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked for changes in brain-tissue activity when exposed to cell-phone radiation. It found that regions of the brain closest to the antenna showed higher activity levels (consuming more glucose) as compared to the opposite side or an unexposed brain. The result is clean and definite: Exposure of the brain to cell-phone radiation has some effect. What's not clear is if the effect is good or bad.

So Science feels confident in saying your iPhone probably won't give you brain cancer. It's undoubtedly having an effect on your brain, but the radio waves might be the least of your problems with your iPhone.

Refractorily Yours,

Science

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