Mobile phone radiation inhibits Vigna radiata (mung bean) root growth by inducing oxidative stress.
Sharma VP, Singh HP, Kohli RK, Batish DR · 2009
View Original AbstractCell phone radiation at typical exposure levels triggered oxidative stress that stunted plant growth within just one hour of exposure.
Plain English Summary
Researchers exposed mung bean sprouts to 900 MHz cell phone radiation and found it significantly stunted root growth and seed germination within just one to two hours. The radiation caused oxidative stress, demonstrating that radio frequency signals can disrupt basic biological processes in living organisms.
Why This Matters
This research provides compelling evidence that RF radiation causes measurable biological harm through oxidative stress, one of the most well-documented mechanisms of cellular damage. The power density used (8.55 microW/cm²) falls within the range of typical cell phone exposures, making these findings directly relevant to human health concerns. What makes this study particularly significant is that it shows clear dose-response effects - longer exposures caused progressively more damage, and the plants' antioxidant systems couldn't keep up with the radiation-induced stress. While plants aren't humans, the oxidative stress pathway is universal across living organisms, and hundreds of studies have documented similar effects in human and animal cells exposed to RF radiation.
Exposure Details
- Power Density
- 0.00855 µW/m²
- Source/Device
- 900 MHz
- Exposure Duration
- 0.5 h, 1 h, 2 hr, 4 h
Exposure Context
This study used 0.00855 µW/m² for radio frequency:
- 855Kx above the Building Biology guideline of 0.1 μW/m²
- 14.3Kx above the BioInitiative Report recommendation of 0.0006 μW/cm²
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
During the last couple of decades, there has been a tremendous increase in the use of cell phones. It has significantly added to the rapidly increasing EMF smog, an unprecedented type of pollution consisting of radiation in the environment, thereby prompting the scientists to study the effects on humans. However, not many studies have been conducted to explore the effects of cell phone EMFr on growth and biochemical changes in plants. We investigated whether EMFr from cell phones inhibit growth of Vigna radiata (mung bean) through induction of conventional stress responses.
Effects of cell phone EMFr (power density: 8.55 microW cm(-2); 900 MHz band width; for 1/2, 1, 2, an...
Our results showed that cell phone EMFr significantly inhibited the germination (at > or =2 h), and ...
The study concluded that cell phone EMFr inhibit root growth of mung bean by inducing ROS-generated oxidative stress despite increased activities of antioxidant enzymes.
Show BibTeX
@article{vp_2009_mobile_phone_radiation_inhibits_1327,
author = {Sharma VP and Singh HP and Kohli RK and Batish DR},
title = {Mobile phone radiation inhibits Vigna radiata (mung bean) root growth by inducing oxidative stress.},
year = {2009},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19682728/},
}