Does cell phone use cause cancer?Today, people all over the world are living surrounded by sources of radiation and bathe daily in radioactive rays. The significant cosmic rays are vital sources of radiation and also naturally occurring varied forms of carbon, radon and other elements found on the crust of earth that bombard people with radiation. But radiations are not always the same. Ionizing radiation is more powerful and has a great potential of damaging body cells. This radiation can easily strip atoms apart in addition to causing DNA disruption. This particular kind of radiation normally occurs in diagnostic x-rays and cosmic rays and this is the reason for wearing of lead overcoats by radiology technicians.

Types of radiations

Being exposed excessively to ionizing radiation is quite a bad idea even though such risk needs to be put in a perspective as it is not possible to entirely avoid it. For the purposes of comparison, just one chest x-ray can expose an adult to an equal amount of ionizing radiation which you can get if you living at sea level of the earth for three days. This doesn’t really sound to be so bad by having an abdominal CT scan is like being there for three years. Even though diagnostic radiology is such a wonderful tool, it is essential that it is used carefully.

The next type of radiation is the ‘non- ionizing’ radiation which we also swimming into. Any kind of light comes in the form of a non-ionizing radiation and this also includes microwaves and radio waves. However, high and intense exposures to this radiation can cause damages to the tissues. This damage is cause by the process of heat transfer rather than direct destruction of DNA and body molecules. In addition, only a thin layer of protection is required to protect the tissues from intensive non-ionizing radiation. Non- ionizing radiation can’t penetrate the tissues well and this is why it is considered to be safe generally.

The risk posed by cell phones

Cell phones make use of the non-ionizing waves when communicating with the towers. This radiation barely penetrates topmost skin layers. A recent research didn’t find any link between cancer and cell phone use even though deeper studies dealing with over ten years exposure to these radio waves hasn’t been done yet. Basically, if any risk does exist, it is very small as it would be easy to spot large risks effect in population and demographic trends and this risk is simply not there. Cell phone towers normally transmit microwaves and radio waves even though the microwaves have been directed in a way that they travel along site lines to nearby tower and do not point down to the ground. As such, no credible evidence exists showing that they can cause harm directly even though cell phones do kill through car wrecks where drivers are disrupted by cell phones.