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Cell Phone Radiation Could Hurt you in a few different of ways

So first, let’s go over the conventional argument that cell phones are safe…

So the radiation emitted by cell phones does not have enough energy to ionize atoms because its frequency is too low.

If the frequency of electromagnetic radiation is high enough, photons will have enough energy to ionize atoms … This becomes possible at a frequency just above that of visible light - ultraviolet light, and includes gamma radiation and x-rays. None of them are produced routinely by human technological gadgets.

Still you don’t have to disturb the brain at the atomic level to cause changes…

First of all, cell phones unquestionably heat up a small part of your brain - sort of similar to the way a microwave cooks via radiation. So what happens when you cook your brain a bit? As this site says

This thermal (heating) effect can cause headaches, fatigue, tissue swelling, tingling and other severe potential long-term damages.

Also, DNA can conduct electricity, and cell phones generate magnetic fields. So that might cause problems.

DNA damage (single- and double-strand breaks) was observed in the brain cells of rats exposed for two hours to a 60 Hz (cycles per second) magnetic field – the kind generated by household electric currents. This same type of DNA damage also occurred after a two-hour exposure to radiofrequency microwaves at power levels considered safe.

The researchers then found that this EMF-induced DNA damage could be blocked by treating the rats with antioxidants, including melatonin, immediately before and after exposure. Melatonin is a hormone secreted from the brain’s pineal gland. As a potent antioxidant, it effectively eliminates free radicals inside cells – suggesting that free radicals may play a role in the genetic damage caused by magnetic fields.

 

The effect of radiofrequency radiation on DNA could conceivably be more significant on neurons than on other cell types, because these nerve cells have a low capability for DNA repair, says Dr. Lai.

“Since nerve cells do not divide and are not likely to become cancerous, more likely consequences of DNA damage in nerve cells are changes in functions and cell death, which could either lead to or accelerate the development of neurodegenerative diseases.” (Glial cells, however, can become cancerous. These more numerous brain cells protect and support neurons.)[4]

He and Singh hypothesize that exposure to magnetic fields affects the balance of iron in brain cells, leading to an increase in free radicals.[5]

 any abnormal electromagnetic field produces a stress response. After prolonged exposure, the body’s stress response system can be exhausted and the immune system compromised. In such a state, animals and humans could become more susceptible to cancer and infectious diseases.

Dr. Becker refers to experiments conducted in the early 1980s by the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine that were reported in the September 1986 issue of Scientific American. Test animals were continuously exposed for long periods to microwaves at a power density twenty times lower than the safe thermal level. They developed a fourfold increase in cancers of the pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands – the primary organs through which the body mediates stress.

[The body gets easily stressed in response to magnetic fields.] …  preliminary results showed that “the energy required to induce stress proteins with low frequency EM fields is 14 orders of magnitude lower than required by temperature increase.[19]

 

Another pathway by which living organisms are influenced by radiofrequency radiation in a non-thermal way may be through an alteration in the activity of important enzymes. Enzymes are crucial because they act as catalysts to accelerate hundreds of thousands of metabolic reactions that would otherwise take place far too slowly to sustain life. Enzyme reaction rate is therefore a key factor in biochemical processes.

A well-studied example is ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), an enzyme involved in the regulation of cell growth. High ODC activity is characteristic of the unregulated growth of tumor cells, and ODC activity is sensitive to both extremely low frequency magnetic fields and to radiofrequency fields.[20,21]

Scientists are learning more and more about intracellular communication pathways. Signals originating at the cell membrane initiate a production sequence of enzyme “cascades” within the cell. These signaling pathways are proving to be sensitive to weak EMFs.[22,23]

There is indeed evidence that the parts brain are stressed. At this article points out, glucose metabolism increases in the part of the brain close to the cell phone while a cell phone is being used. The article links to this report.

Results Whole-brain metabolism did not differ between on and off conditions. In contrast, metabolism in the region closest to the antenna (orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole) was significantly higher for on than off conditions (35.7 vs 33.3 μmol/100 g per minute; mean difference, 2.4 [95% confidence interval, 0.67-4.2]; P = .004). The increases were significantly correlated with the estimated electromagnetic field amplitudes both for absolute metabolism (R = 0.95, P < .001) and normalized metabolism (R = 0.89; P < .001).

Conclusions  50-minute cell phone exposure was associated with increased brain glucose metabolism in the region closest to the antenna. 

So increased glucose metabolism is evidence that something funky is going on in the part of your brain right next to the cell phone. We just don’t know what that is. The increase in metabolism may be related to the increase in oxidative stress as mentioned above. Oxidative stress can lead to cancer.

oxidative stress activates inflammatory pathways leading to transformation of a normal cell to tumor cell, tumor cell survival, proliferation, chemoresistance, radioresistance, invasion, angiogenesis

Oxidative stress can activate a variety of transcription factors including NF-κB, AP-1, p53, HIF-1α, PPAR-γ, β-catenin/Wnt, and Nrf2. Activation of these transcription factors can lead to the expression of over 500 different genes, including those for growth factors, inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, cell cycle regulatory molecules, and anti-inflammatory molecules.

So all in all, taking everything together, it’s an argument that since it isn’t really that hard to use a cell phone hands free, it feels like a relatively good idea.