Note: This study found no significant biological effects under its experimental conditions. We include all studies for scientific completeness.
Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study.
Frei P, Poulsen AH, Johansen C, Olsen JH, Steding-Jessen M, Schüz J. · 2011
View Original AbstractThis 18-year Danish study of 58,000 mobile phone users found no increased brain tumor risk, even with over a decade of use.
Plain English Summary
Danish researchers tracked nearly 60,000 mobile phone subscribers for up to 18 years to see if they developed brain tumors at higher rates than non-subscribers. They found no increased risk of brain tumors, including gliomas and meningiomas, even among people who had used phones for 13 or more years. The study provides reassuring evidence that mobile phone use doesn't appear to cause brain cancer.
Why This Matters
This large-scale Danish study represents one of the most comprehensive long-term investigations into mobile phone use and brain cancer risk. The researchers followed subscribers for nearly two decades, providing crucial data on long-term exposure effects that earlier studies couldn't capture. What makes this research particularly valuable is its population-based approach - tracking actual subscribers rather than relying on self-reported usage, which eliminates recall bias that has plagued other studies. However, it's important to note that this study began tracking users from the early mobile phone era when devices emitted different radiation patterns and usage habits were quite different from today's smartphone-centric world. The absence of increased brain tumor risk in this cohort is reassuring, but the science demonstrates we still need research on modern devices and usage patterns to fully understand today's exposure landscape.
Study Details
To investigate the risk of tumours in the central nervous system among Danish mobile phone subscribers.
All Danes aged ≥30 and born in Denmark after 1925, subdivided into subscribers and non-subscribers o...
58 403 subscription holders accrued 3.8 million person years. In the follow-up period 1990-2007, the...
In this update of a large nationwide cohort study of mobile phone use, there were no increased risks of tumours of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association.
Show BibTeX
@article{p_2011_use_of_mobile_phones_3027,
author = {Frei P and Poulsen AH and Johansen C and Olsen JH and Steding-Jessen M and Schüz J.},
title = {Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study.},
year = {2011},
url = {https://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d6387},
}