Chromosome damage in human cells induced by UMTS mobile telephony radiation

Abstract

Environmental exposure to modern microwave telecommunication electromagnetic fields (EMFs) has increased to unprecedented levels with consequent health complaints and concerns. Many studies have already reported genotoxic effects on a variety of organisms and cell/tissue types. Human peripheral blood lymphocytes from six healthy donors were stimulated for mitosis and exposed to microwave EMF of Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) or third generation (3G) Mobile Telephony (MT) EMF/radiation emitted by a commercially available mobile phone handset. Lymphocytes exposed during the G 2 phase of the cell division cycle and observed at metaphase, exhibited chromatid-type aberrations (gaps and breaks) at highly significant percentages-up to 275%-compared to the control (sham-exposed) samples. Each subject exhibited a different sensitivity to the microwave exposure. Moreover, the percentages of aberrations in the control samples among subjects were different due to genetic and environmental factors. The MT EMF exposure induced mainly achromatic lesions (gaps), and secondarily terminal deletions (breaks) in a smaller degree. In conclusion, the present study shows that microwave 3G MT EMF/radiation-within the current exposure limits-has significant genotoxic action on human cells, and human exposure to this EMF/radiation should be kept at levels as low as possible.

[Comment] Health risks from radiofrequency radiation, including 5G, should be assessed by experts with no conflicts of interest

“…The only mechanism considered by ICNIRP is temperature rise, which may also occur with 5G exposure, apart from the established non-thermal biological/health effects ( 42 , 43 ). It is well known among experts in the EMF-bioeffects field that the recorded cellular effects, such as DNA damage, protein damage, chromosome damage and reproductive declines, and the vast majority of biological/health effects are not accompanied by any significant temperature rise in tissues ( 44 – 47 ). The ion forced-oscillation mechanism ( 48 ) should be referred to as a plausible non-thermal mechanism of irregular gating of electrosensitive ion channels on cell membranes, resulting in disruption of the cell electrochemical balance and initiating free radical release and oxidative stress in the cells, which in turn causes genetic damage ( 15 , 49 ).…”

Comparing chromosome damage induced by mobile telephony radiation and a high caffeine dose: Effect of combination and exposure duration

“…All microwave telecommunications EMFs always combine Radio-Frequency (RF)/microwave carrier waves (on the order of GHz) with Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) (up to 3000 Hz) pulsing and modulation in order to increase the amount and speed of transmitted information (speech, text, images, video, Internet, etc. ) (Panagopoulos 2011(Panagopoulos , 2017(Panagopoulos , 2019a(Panagopoulos , 2019b. Both RF and ELF EMFs have been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as possibly carcinogenic to humans (group 2B) under the weight of the accumulating scientific evidence (IARC 2002(IARC , 2013Baan et al 2011).…”

“…Based on additional scientific evidence after the 2011 IARC classification for RF EMFs, several studies have suggested that RF (including MT) EMFs should be re-evaluated and classified as probably carcinogenic (group 2A) or carcinogenic (group 1) to humans (Hardell et al 2013;Carlberg and Hardell 2017;Hardell 2017Hardell , 2019Miller et al 2018;Panagopoulos 2019b;Hardell and Carlberg 2020;Hardell and Nyberg 2020). Moreover it is shown that the majority of studies performed with simulated/invariable microwave EMFs emitted by generators (following IARC's guidelines) grossly underestimate the biological activity of real-life highly variable exposures by commercially available devices (Panagopoulos et al 2015a;Panagopoulos 2017Panagopoulos , 2019aPanagopoulos , 2019bKostoff et al 2020).…”

“…This involves an even higher carrier frequency (up to 100 GHz) in order to be able to transmit higher amounts of data per second, and a much denser network of base antennas of possibly increased power in order to compensate the energy scattering loss due to the higher carrier frequency (Sauter 2011;Singh et al 2017;Hardell and Carlberg 2020;Hardell and Nyberg 2020;Kostoff et al 2020). A part of the scientific community has expressed strong objections to 5G installation with concerns of highly increased health risk (McClelland and Jaboin 2018;Miller et al 2018Miller et al , 2019Pall 2018;Panagopoulos 2019aPanagopoulos , 2019bHardell and Carlberg 2020;Hardell and Nyberg 2020;Kostoff et al 2020).…”

“…(IAEA 2011). Before my previous experimental report (Panagopoulos 2019a) several other studies had already been conducted to search the effects of MT EMFs on human peripheral blood lymphocytes in vitro (Zeni et al 2003(Zeni et al , 2012Baohong et al 2005Baohong et al , 2007Belyaev et al 2005Belyaev et al , 2009Markova et al 2005;Stronati et al 2006;Manti et al 2008;Schwarz et al 2008;El-Abd and Eltoweissy 2012). The majority of these studies have found genotoxic effects induced by the MT EMFs alone or in combination with other genotoxic agents (see Panagopoulos 2019a).…”