Over the past couple of years, reports have suggested that cellphones may cause cancer or claimed the opposite. However, the interesting thing about this latest study is that it’s sample size is the entire adult population of Denmark.
Researchers from Copenhagen’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health divided Danish adults (30 years of age and over) born after 1925 into subscribers and non-subscribers of mobile phones before 1995. The study found that occurrences of cancer among the two groups were nearly equal.
Furthermore, among mobile phone subscribers, the study didn’t find an increased number of occurrences of glioma in the temporal lobes of the brain, the part of the body most directly exposed to cellphone radiation.
The study, of course isn’t without flaws — one doesn’t need to have a subscription plan to use a cellphone. The authors of the study recognized this. “Subscription holders who are not using their phone will erroneously be classified as exposed and people without a subscription but still using a mobile phone will erroneously be classified as unexposed,” the study says.
This prompted the authors to do an additional analysis of the study’s results which reduced the number of cases but also minimized the possibility for misclassification, but the results were very similar.
“In this update of a nationwide study of mobile phone subscribers in Denmark we found no indication of an increased risk of tumours of the central nervous system,” the authors conclude. However, the authors warn that “a small to moderate increase in risk for subgroups of heavy (cellphone) users” cannot be ruled out, which calls for further studies on large populations.
While every study has its flaws and limitations, this appears to be the most convincing and exhaustive report indicating that cellphones do not cause cancer.
