Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Oct 1;48(5):1567-1579.
doi: 10.1093/ije/dyz127.

Headache, tinnitus and hearing loss in the international Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health (COSMOS) in Sweden and Finland

Collaborators, Affiliations

Headache, tinnitus and hearing loss in the international Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health (COSMOS) in Sweden and Finland

Anssi Auvinen et al. Int J Epidemiol. .

Abstract

Background: Mobile phone use and exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) from it have been associated with symptoms in some studies, but the studies have shortcomings and their findings are inconsistent. We conducted a prospective cohort study to assess the association between amount of mobile phone use at baseline and frequency of headache, tinnitus or hearing loss at 4-year follow-up.

Methods: The participants had mobile phone subscriptions with major mobile phone network operators in Sweden (n = 21 049) and Finland (n = 3120), gave consent for obtaining their mobile phone call data from operator records at baseline, and filled in both baseline and follow-up questionnaires on symptoms, potential confounders and further characteristics of their mobile phone use.

Results: The participants with the highest decile of recorded call-time (average call-time >276 min per week) at baseline showed a weak, suggestive increased frequency of weekly headaches at 4-year follow-up (adjusted odds ratio 1.13, 95% confidence interval 0.95-1.34). There was no obvious gradient of weekly headache with increasing call-time (P trend 0.06). The association of headache with call-time was stronger for the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network than older Global System for Mobile Telecommunications (GSM) technology, despite the latter involving higher exposure to RF-EMF. Tinnitus and hearing loss showed no association with call-time.

Conclusions: People using mobile phones most extensively for making or receiving calls at baseline reported weekly headaches slightly more frequently at follow-up than other users, but this finding largely disappeared after adjustment for confounders and was not related to call-time in GSM with higher RF-EMF exposure. Tinnitus and hearing loss were not associated with amount of call-time.

Keywords: Cohort studies; cell phones; headache; hearing loss; tinnitus.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of the COSMOS study data
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Distribution of weekly call-time (min) at baseline. (b) Distribution of weekly call-time (min) at baseline among participants with <500 min/week

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. AGNIR 2012. Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation. Health Effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140629102627/http://www.hpa.org.uk/webw/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1317133826368
    1. Non-Ionizing Radiation, Part 2. Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields. IARC Monograph 102. Lyon: International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2013.
    1. SCENIHR. Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks. Potential Health Effects of Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields. European Commission, 2015. http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/docs/scenihr_o... - PubMed
    1. Oftedal G, Straume A, Johnsson A, Stovner LJ.. Mobile phone headache: a double-blind sham-controlled provocation study. Cephalalgia 2007;27:447–55. - PubMed
    1. Eltiti S, Wallace D, Ridgewell A.. Does short-term exposure to mobile phone base station signals increase symptoms in individuals who report sensitivity to electromagnetic fields? Environ Health Perspect 2007;115:1608. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms