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  • do cellphones cause brain cancer?

  • That's good.

  • If you're on them a lot, Yes, it can't be good for you.

  • I didn't decide to stop putting the final, so I'm driving in my groin and start moving over there in case it's gonna cause testicular cancer.

  • My doctor advised you on this.

  • Now it doesn't seem to make sense that cell phones should cause cancer because the radiation they emit is non ionizing, which means it doesn't have enough energy to rip electrons off atoms or molecules and destroy D N A.

  • So how would cellphones cause this type of cancer in the pits?

  • That's black magic.

  • Today.

  • Radiation from cell phones is almost identical to the radiation inside a microwave.

  • The wavelengths are almost the same about 15 centimeters long, basically the same size as your phone.

  • When it was microwaves.

  • They've like hate food up in like that fry fry like living stuff, living organisms.

  • So maybe it would fry your brain barbecue.

  • My Brian slowly this'll ed to various Internet videos where cell phones were shown popping popcorn or cooking eggs.

  • Now that is obviously impossible because the amount of power in a microwave is over 1000 times the power of radiation of microwaves emitted from your cell phone.

  • Would you be concerned about living near a cellphone town?

  • Do you think that's worse than this?

  • Yeah, initially, right next to it.

  • Yeah, but the truth is this.

  • If you live in an area with better reception, that means your phone has to emit less microwaves.

  • In order to transmit to the tower, you're actually exposed toe lower levels of microwave radiation living near a tower than living far from it.

  • However, there have been some scientific studies that show very high level microwaves, like those from a mobile phone, can cause heat shock proteins to be released inside the body.

  • And it's thought that that could be related to the onset of cancer.

  • So perhaps there is a reason to study the biological effects of cell phones on people.

  • What would happen if a study came out saying that you were two or three times as likely developed a brain tumor if you used a mobile phone regularly with that change, absolutely use 2 to 3 times.

  • It's just massive, like I know it's a slim odds, but still the chances of you don't want that to happen to anyone, let alone yourself, so it definitely no use it as much.

  • What if I told you that a study has come out that says, over long periods of times there's a three fold increase in brain tumors?

  • A recently published Swedish study found that cell phone users were 30% more likely to develop glioma.

  • That's the most common form of malignant brain cancer, and it gets worse.

  • Those people who had used a cell phone for over 25 years had a three fold increase in this type of cancer.

  • Due to studies like that one and expert opinion, the World Health Organization actually classified cell phone radiation as possibly carcinogenic to humans.

  • But now consider that brain cancers are exceedingly rare.

  • In any given year, you have a three in 100,000 chance of developing a glioma.

  • Now, according to the Swedish study, long term cell phone use can increase that risk up to nine in 100,000 still a very small risk, but a significant increase now, given the scarcity of brain cancers.

  • How can they really quantify this risk?

  • The ideal way to do the experiment would be to perform a randomized control trial, which is where you get a group of people who don't use cellphones randomly give half of them cell phones and forced the other half toe live without.

  • Then follow them for 15 to 20 years and see how many in each group developed glioma.

  • Oh, and you would need hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people to take part because of just how rare brain tumors are.

  • And immediately you can spot the problem with this experimental design.

  • Virtually everyone already has a cell phone.

  • I mean, there are more mobile devices than there are people on Earth.

  • More people have access to a cell phone, then to a working toilet.

  • So the next best way to do the experiment would be to perform a prospective observational study in which you gather a group of people and follow them over a period of decades monitoring their cell phone use.

  • And then you find out how many developed glioma and correlate that with their cell phone usage.

  • The problem is, people who use their cell phones a lot may differ in other ways than just their cell phone use.

  • Plus, there's the problem of scale.

  • Even if you followed around 50,000 people for 10 years, you'd only expect to observe 20 gliomas, and that's not nearly enough to detect a difference between the groups.

  • So the third way to do the experiment is to perform a case control study, where you collect a group of people who have brain tumors.

  • Those are the cases, and you find a demographically very similar group who don't have brain tumors.

  • Those are the controls.

  • And then you ask them about their behaviors over the previous decade and see if they differ markedly between the groups.

  • For example, to the brain tumor cases use their phones a lot more than the controls.

  • The Swedish study was one of these large scale case control studies, but there is a question about whether this study was method a logically flawed.

  • In hindsight, if you get a brain tumor, you might remember using your phone Maur.

  • Then you did, and if you don't have a brain tumor, you might remember using it less.

  • Now.

  • There have been a few prospective studies completed, including one in Denmark, using almost the entire Danish population and records from their cell phone companies and they found no link between cell phone usage and incidents of brain cancer.

  • Another perspective study using almost one million women in the UK again found no link.

  • So what are we supposed to believe, then?

  • What are we supposed to believe?

  • This is where I think we really need to figure out the right methodology.

  • Look at it.

  • And here's a thing right over the last 15 to 20 years, almost everyone is used to mobile from mobile phone use has gone way up.

  • Everyone's going so you can look at the actual brain cancer rates on the overall population.

  • And if there is a link, you would expect that to be going up.

  • Is it?

  • It is not know.

  • If the results of the Swedish study were correct, then the rates of glioma would be more than 40% higher than they are.

  • So it is extremely unlikely that cell phones actually cause brain cancer.

  • And if they do, either the effects take decades to show, or the increase in risk is very, very small.

  • Hey, so if you're looking for more ways to use your smartphone, maybe you should try audiobooks.

  • Audible dot com is a leading provider of audio books with over 150,000 titles in all areas of literature, including fiction, nonfiction and periodicals.

  • Now, this week, I wanted to recommend a book which had an impact on my life.

  • It is called The E Myth by Michael E.

  • Gerber.

  • It's a business book about why a lot of small businesses fail.

  • It's because they have this myth At their core.

  • The e myth is the entrepreneurial myth that if you know how to do something, for example, make videos, then you know how to make a business that does that thing.

  • For example, make a video production business.

  • That is just not the case.

  • And I think the way that Michael Gerber approaches this subject from the myth forward, you know, very much emulates what I did with my PhD thesis and what I do now on YouTube in the way I teach.

  • And I found it also a very effective way to learn about making my own business.

  • So if you are thinking about starting your own business, then I would highly highly recommend this book, and in fact you can download it for free by going toe audible dot com slash Very tasi.

  • Um, or you can pick any other book of your choosing for a one month free trial.

  • So I really want to thank Audible for supporting me, and I want to thank you for watching.

do cellphones cause brain cancer?

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