Effect of acute exposure to microwave from mobile phone on DNA damage and repair of cultured human lens epithelial cells in vitro
Sun LX, Yao K, He JL, Lu DQ, Wang KJ, Li HW. · 2006
View Original AbstractMobile phone radiation caused irreversible DNA damage to human eye cells at 4 W/kg SAR, just 2.5 times current legal limits.
Plain English Summary
Researchers exposed human eye lens cells to mobile phone radiation at different power levels for 2 hours. Lower exposures caused repairable DNA damage, but higher levels (4 W/kg) created permanent breaks cells couldn't fix, suggesting phone radiation may overwhelm the eye's natural repair systems.
Why This Matters
This study provides crucial evidence that mobile phone radiation can cause irreversible DNA damage to eye cells at exposure levels that aren't far above what phones are legally allowed to emit. The 4 W/kg SAR level that caused permanent damage is only twice the current U.S. legal limit of 1.6 W/kg for phones. What makes this particularly concerning is that the eye lens has limited blood flow and reduced ability to repair damage compared to other tissues. The researchers found a clear threshold effect where cells could handle moderate exposure but failed catastrophically at higher levels. This suggests that current safety standards, which assume all biological effects are reversible, may not adequately protect one of our most vulnerable organs from EMF exposure.
Exposure Details
- SAR
- 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 W/kg
- Source/Device
- 1.8 GHz mobile phone (217 Hz modulated)
- Exposure Duration
- 2h
Exposure Context
This study used 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 W/kg for SAR (device absorption):
- 2.5x 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
To investigate the DNA damage of human lens epithelial cells (LECs) caused by acute exposure to low-power 217 Hz modulated 1.8 GHz microwave radiation and DNA repair.
Cultured LECs were exposed to 217 Hz modulated 1.8 GHz microwave radiation at SAR (specific absorpti...
The difference in DNA-breaks between the exposure and sham exposure groups induced by 1 and 2 W/kg i...
No or repairable DNA damage was observed after 2 hour irradiation of 1.8 GHz microwave on LECs when SAR < or = 3 W/kg. The DNA damages caused by 4 W/kg irradiation were irreversible.
Show BibTeX
@article{lx_2006_effect_of_acute_exposure_28,
author = {Sun LX and Yao K and He JL and Lu DQ and Wang KJ and Li HW.},
title = {Effect of acute exposure to microwave from mobile phone on DNA damage and repair of cultured human lens epithelial cells in vitro},
year = {2006},
url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16978512},
}