Calculation of change in brain temperatures due to exposure to a mobile phone.
Van Leeuwen GM, Lagendijk JJ, Van Leersum BJ, Zwamborn AP, Hornsleth SN, Kotte AN · 1999
View Original AbstractMobile phones cause minimal brain heating (0.11°C), but this thermal-focused study ignores non-thermal biological effects documented in thousands of studies.
Plain English Summary
Computer modeling showed mobile phone radiation heats brain tissue by only 0.11 degrees Celsius during continuous use. While radiation levels exceeded some proposed safety standards, researchers concluded these tiny temperature increases are far too small to cause lasting biological harm.
Why This Matters
This 1999 study represents an important early attempt to quantify thermal effects from mobile phone radiation using sophisticated modeling techniques. The finding of minimal brain heating (0.11°C) supports the prevailing regulatory view that thermal effects are the primary concern for RF radiation safety. However, this thermal-only perspective has significant limitations. The study's SAR level of 1.6 W/kg matches current safety limits, but thousands of peer-reviewed studies since 1999 have documented biological effects at power levels far below those needed to cause measurable heating. Put simply, focusing solely on temperature rise misses the broader picture of how electromagnetic fields interact with living tissue through non-thermal mechanisms like cellular stress responses and disrupted ion channels.
Exposure Details
- SAR
- 1.6 W/kg
Exposure Context
This study used 1.6 W/kg for SAR (device absorption):
- 4x above the Building Biology guideline of 0.4 W/kg
Building Biology guidelines are practitioner-based limits from real-world assessments. BioInitiative Report recommendations are based on peer-reviewed science. Check Your Exposure to compare your own measurements.
Where This Falls on the Concern Scale
Study Details
In this study we evaluated for a realistic head model the 3D temperature rise induced by a mobile phone.
This was done numerically with the consecutive use of an FDTD model to predict the absorbed electrom...
Maximum temperature rise is at the skin. The power distributions were characterized by a maximum ave...
Show BibTeX
@article{gm_1999_calculation_of_change_in_1404,
author = {Van Leeuwen GM and Lagendijk JJ and Van Leersum BJ and Zwamborn AP and Hornsleth SN and Kotte AN},
title = {Calculation of change in brain temperatures due to exposure to a mobile phone.},
year = {1999},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10533916/},
}