Note: This study found no significant biological effects under its experimental conditions. We include all studies for scientific completeness.
Effect of Bluetooth headset and mobile phone electromagnetic fields on the human auditory nerve.
Mandalà M, Colletti V, Sacchetto L, Manganotti P, Ramat S, Marcocci A, Colletti L · 2013
View Original AbstractBluetooth headsets produced no nerve effects while mobile phones caused significant auditory nerve deterioration under identical direct exposure conditions.
Plain English Summary
Researchers directly exposed the auditory nerves of 12 patients to electromagnetic fields from both mobile phones and Bluetooth headsets during surgery. While mobile phone EMFs caused significant deterioration in nerve function, Bluetooth devices produced no detectable effects on the auditory nerve. This suggests Bluetooth technology may be a safer alternative for wireless communication near the head.
Study Details
The possibility that long-term mobile phone use increases the incidence of astrocytoma, glioma and acoustic neuroma has been investigated in several studies. Recently, our group showed that direct exposure (in a surgical setting) to cell phone electromagnetic fields (EMFs) induces deterioration of auditory evoked cochlear nerve compound action potential (CNAP) in humans. To verify whether the use of Bluetooth devices reduces these effects, we conducted the present study with the same experimental protocol.
Twelve patients underwent retrosigmoid vestibular neurectomy to treat definite unilateral Ménière's ...
We found no short-term effects of Bluetooth EMFs on the auditory nervous structures, whereas direct ...
The outcomes of the present study show that, contrary to the finding that the latency and amplitude of CNAPs are very sensitive to EMFs produced by the tested mobile phone, the EMFs produced by a common Bluetooth device do not induce any significant change in cochlear nerve activity. The conditions of exposure, therefore, differ from those of everyday life, in which various biological tissues may reduce the EMF affecting the cochlear nerve. Nevertheless, these novel findings may have important safety implications.
Show BibTeX
@article{m_2013_effect_of_bluetooth_headset_3225,
author = {Mandalà M and Colletti V and Sacchetto L and Manganotti P and Ramat S and Marcocci A and Colletti L},
title = {Effect of Bluetooth headset and mobile phone electromagnetic fields on the human auditory nerve.},
year = {2013},
doi = {10.1002/lary.24103},
url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/lary.24103},
}