Your Health Today

Tumors of the parotid (salivary) glands are significantly more common in people who use cellular phones over a relatively long period, according to a retrospective study of nearly 500 Israelis who contracted such benign or malignant growths compared to more than twice as many healthy controls. This is reportedly the first study of the possible effects of cellphone use by Israelis, who are known to utilize them for many minutes per day and start at young ages.

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Photo: Bloomberg [file]

The study, led by Sheba Medical Center physician and Tel Aviv University epidemiologist Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, was announced late last week on the Web site Science Daily (www.sciencedaily.com) and published recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Sadetzki, who has appeared several times at Knesset committees about the possible risk of cellular phone usage, said that while the results needed to be confirmed by additional and longer studies, in the meantime precautions should be taken. These include limiting the use of cellphones by children and both kids and adults using earphones and other means to distance the cellphone from the head whenever possible.

She conducted her study as part of the international Interphone Study, which aimed to discover if cellphone use and several kinds of brain and salivary gland tumors were linked.