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Long mobile phone use raises brain tumour risk
The use of mobile phones over a long period of time can raise the risk of brain tumours, according to a Swedish study, contradicting the conclusions of other researchers.
The Dutch Health Council, in an overview of research from around the world, found no evidence that radiation from mobile phones and TV towers was harmful.
A four year British survey in January also showed no link between regular, long-term use of cell phones and the most common type of tumour.
But researchers at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life looked at mobile phone use of 2,200 cancer patients and an equal number of healthy control cases.
Of the cancer patients, aged between twenty and eighty, 905 had a malignant brain tumour, about a tenth of them were also heavy users of mobile phones.
''Of these 905 cases, 85 were so-called high users of mobile phones, that is they began early to use mobile or wireless telephones and used them a lot,'' said the authors of the study in a statement issued by the Institute.
Published in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health on Friday,the study defines heavy use as 2,000 plus hours, which ''corresponds to 10 years' use in the work place for one hour per day''.
Early use was defined as having begun to use a mobile phone before the age of twenty.
There was also shown to be a marked increase in the risk of tumour on the side of the head where the telephone was generally used, said the study, which took into account factors such as smoking habits, working history and exposure to other agents.
Kjell Mild, who led the study, said the figures meant that heavy users of mobile phones had a 240 per cent increased risk of a malignant tumour on the side of the head the phone is used.
Kiel Mild told the News agency that the way to get the risk down is to use handsfree.
Mild further reiterated that his study was the biggest yet to look at long-term users of the wireless phone, which has been around in Sweden in a portable form since 1984, longer than in many other countries.

Green tea may protect aging brain
NEW YORK: People who regularly drink green tea may have a lesser risk of mental decline as they grow older, researchers have found.
Their study, of more than 1,000 Japanese adults in their 70s and beyond, found that the more green tea men and women drank, the lower their odds of having cognitive impairment. The findings build on evidence from lab experiments showing that certain compounds in green tea may protect brain cells from the damaging processes that mark conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
But while those studies were carried out in animals and test tubes, the new research appears to be the first to find a lower risk of mental decline among green-tea drinkers, according to the study authors.
They speculate that the possible protective effects of green tea may help explain Japan’s lower rate of dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, compared with Europe and North America.
Dr Shinichi Kuriyama and colleagues at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine report the findings in the current issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study included 1,003 adults age 70 and older who completed detailed questionnaires on their diets over the previous month, as well as their overall physical health and lifestyle habits. They also completed a standard test of cognitive functions such as memory, attention and language use.
The researchers found that older adults who drank two or more cups of green tea per day were about half as likely to show cognitive impairment as those who drank three cups or less each week. Men and women who averaged one cup per day fell somewhere in between.
The connection between green tea and mental function persisted when the researchers accounted for overall diet and factors such as smoking and exercise habits. However, the findings cannot demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship.
The study was observational, not a controlled experiment, and there may be something about green-tea drinkers that explains the link between the beverage and sharper mental function, Kuriyama told Reuters Health. For example, healthier, more active individuals may simply drink more green tea-which, in Japan, is often consumed in social settings.
"We think that the potential protective effects of green tea should be confirmed in further studies," Kuriyama said. Given the high prevalence and heavy burden of dementia, the researchers conclude, any benefit of drinking green tea could have a "considerable" public health impact.