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10 May 2019

Thyroid Cancer & Mobile Phone Use

Thyroid Cancer & Mobile Phone Use
saferemr.com, 9 May 2019



From: Carlberg et al. 2016 (see abstract below).


A new review of the research has found that cell phone radiation adversely affects cells in the thyroid gland and thyroid hormones. The study was published in the journal, Environmental Science and Pollution Research International by Jafar Asl and colleagues.

The findings from this study support the findings from two recent human studies. Ermioni Tsarna and colleagues recently found in a cohort study that cell phone use during pregnancy increased the risk of preterm birth, and Jiajun Luo and colleagues (see below) found in a case-control study that heavy cell phone use increases the risk of thyroid cancer.

The figure above is from the following open access paper: Carlberg M, Hedendahl L, Ahonen, Koppel T, Hardell L. Increasing incidence of thyroid cancer in the Nordic countries with main focus on Swedish data. BMC Cancer. 16:246. 2016.https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12885-016-2429-4

Adverse Effects of Cell Phone Radiation on the Thyroid Gland: Research Review

Asl JF, Larijani B, Zakerkish M, Rahim F, Shirbandi K, Akbari R. The possible global hazard of cell phone radiation on thyroid cells and hormones: a systematic review of evidences. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. Published online May 6, 2019. doi: 10.1007/s11356-019-05096-z.

Abstract

The aim of this review was to investigate the effects of possible harmful waves from either cell phone use or being within the range of the cell phone from 450 to 3800 MHz on the thyroid cells and hormones. Eight electronic datasets were systematically searched using MeSH terms, including "cell phone," "mobile phone," "GSM," "radio frequency," "smartphone," "triiodothyronine," "thyroxin," "thyroid-stimulating hormone," "T3," "T4," "TSH," and "morphological" and all possible combinations, to identify relevant studies published up to Dec 2018. We also manually searched the reference lists of potentially selected studies to identify further relevant publications. About 161 relevant studies were initially found. After screening titles and abstracts, 139 studies were excluded, and finally 22 studies (comprising 7182 cases) were included in the qualitative synthesis.

Of the 22 included studies, 11 studies reported changes in T3 and T4 levels (six reported a decrease in T3 levels and one reported increase in it); moreover, five found decreased T4 levels and two studies an increased level. In other 10 studies, TSH alteration was reported. Of these, two studies reported a decrease in TSH level and one reported an increase in the hormone levels, while in the remaining studies non-significant changes were reported. Finally, seven studies examined histological changes in the thyroid gland follicles and showed that the volume of these cells was reduced.

Based on the evidence discussed above, the reduction in diameter of thyroid follicles is potentially linked with cell phone radiation. Exposure may negatively influence the iodine uptake in the thyroid gland or increases temperature effect on the thyroid gland. However, further research are needed in order to show that the level of TSH and thyroid hormone suppression by microwave.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31062236

Excerpts

The range of SAR [Specific Absorption Rate] reported in this study was 0.082–4.6 W/kg. Silva et al. stated that RFE [radio frequency energy] exposure conditions have no potential carcinogenic effect on thyroid cells with 0.082–0.170 (W/kg) SAR (Silva et al. 2016). It is expected that reducing this factor will reduce the risk of cell phone waves, but Bhargav et al. show that thyroid gland hormones are significantly lesser after RF-EMF with 0.54 W/kg SAR exposure compared to sham (Bergamaschi et al. 2004), and other studies show contradictory results about the role of SAR and hormonal effects. Despite the fact that SAR is a very important criterion for judging the highest energy of a radio signal released from a source of a particular model of a mobile phone, it alone cannot provide enough information to compare the amount of radio signal released by different phones to users.

... epidemiological evidences have revealed that even a relatively slight decrease in T4 levels during pregnancy may lead to decrease of cognitive functions in offspring (Haddow et al. 1999; Pop et al. 2003). In this regard, Eşmekaya et al. stated that cell phone has the potential to cause pathological consequences in the thyroid gland via changing organ structure, as well as increasing the activity of caspase-dependent pathways related to apoptosis (Esmekaya et al. 2010). Silva et al. show the exposure to RFE seems to have no possible oncogenic consequence on human thyroid cells (Silva et al. 2016). Nonetheless, it is quite difficult to perform a study exploring the impacts of EMFs on a fetus or child due to ethical concerns (Sangun et al. 2015).

Conclusions and future perspective

Tissue heating may be usually linked to nonspecific stress reaction induced by microwave exposure. Exposure negatively influences the iodine uptake in the thyroid gland, or may influence with increased temperature effect on the thyroid gland. However, with the advent of new generations of communications like the 5 G, further research are needed in order to show the level of TSH and thyroid hormone suppression by microwave.

Continue reading:
https://www.saferemr.com/2014/07/is-mobile-phone-use-contributing-to.html

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