Mobile Phones: Heavy use can cause cancer of the salivary gland

Heavy mobile phone use may increase the risk of cancer, a new study has found.  People who use a mobile for several hours a day are 50 per cent more likely to develop a salivary gland tumour.

The new findings fly in the face of many other studies that have failed to find a link between mobile phone use and cancer.  Researchers from Tel Aviv University, who carried out the latest study, believe this is because other researchers have tended to look for evidence of a link to brain tumours only, and haven’t looked at people who have used a mobile phone for a long period.

Research team leader Dr Siegal Sadetzki says Israel is an ideal market to use as a test because mobile phone usage in the country is heavier than almost anywhere else in the world, and researchers can more easily see any effects from cumulative use.

“Compared to other studies, the amount of exposure to radiofrequency radiation we saw here was much higher.  If you like, you’re seeing what could happen elsewhere ‘speeded up’ in Israel,” he has told journalists.

(Source: American Journal of Epidemiology, 2008; 167: 457-67).