While studies in humans have neither concluded about the safety of cell phones nor about their dangers, yet there are sufficient reasons to believe that we should reduce our exposure to them.
Cell phones emit electromagnetic radiations which penetrate the brain and cause damage. The fact that these electromagnetic fields are a forceful human health risk has been vetted by an international expert panel of pathologists, oncologists and public health specialists.
Many countries which include France, Germany and India have issued guidelines to limit the use of cell phones. Since electromagnetic radiations penetrate more deeply in the brain of children due to smaller sized brain and soft brain tissue, as compared to adults, the guidelines almost prohibit teenagers and young children to use cell phones.
Cell phones use frequency bands between 800–2200 MHz. Living tissue is very vulnerable to electromagnetic fields within these frequency bands and there is an increased production of stress proteins. These proteins are the precipitating factors for benign tumours, acoustic neuromas and brain cancerdefine on the side the phone is used more often.
Nevertheless, the human epidemiological studies conducted on the subject till date have not been very convincing due to absence of authoritative evidence about the carcinogenic effects of electromagnetic radiations.
Still, it is only wise to exercise some precautions formulated with intent to trim down cell phone electromagnetic radiationdefine exposure.
These safety measures are listed below and have been appraised by various national and international experts in neuro-oncology, epidemiology, neurosurgery and the center for environmental oncology.
• Dissuade children from using cell phones except in case of dire emergency as the budding organs of children are more sensitive to this exposure.
• Keep the cell phone as away from the body as you can to reduce the strength of the electromagnetic fields. The amplitude of the electromagnetic field is one fourth the strength at a distance of two inches and fifty times lower at three feet.
• Whenever possible use the speaker phone mode or a blue tooth headset. This will reduce the emissions to 1/100th of the electromagnetic emission of a normal cell phone.
• Evade the use of cell phones in public places in order to avoid passive exposure of fellow human beings.
• Do not keep the cell phone on your bedside at night; if inevitable keep it in offline mode wherein the electromagnetic emissions are nil.
• Pregnant women should avoid use of cell phones to prevent damage to the developing foetal organs.
• While carrying your cell phone ensure that the keypad is positioned towards your body and the back is positioned toward the outside so that the transmitted electromagnetic fields move away from your rather than through you.
• Keep you conversations as short as possible because the biological effects are directly proportional to the time of exposure.
• Keep switching sides while communicating on the cell phone in order to distribute the radiations.
• Bring your cell phone close to your ear once the other side has picked up the phone so as to limit the power of the electromagnetic field emitted near your ear and the duration of your exposure.
• Do not use your cell phone when the signal strength is weak or in a moving vehicle because during this time the cell phone automatically increases its power to a maximum as it repeatedly attempts to connect to a new relay antenna.
• Use text messaging whenever possible.
• Choose a cell phone with the lowest possible Specific Absorption Rate, which is a measure of the strength of the magnetic field absorbed by the body.
The cell phone is an outstanding and indispensable invention of the modern times, however, there is need to take precautions to adapt to it judiciously and optimize its utility without having to face its flip side consequences.
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