A study published on the MIT PIERS Web site showed prolonged (three hours) of exposure to 884 MHz GSM wireless communications signals adversely affected “components of sleep, believed to be important for recovery from daily wear and tear.”
It also found that participants that “otherwise have no self-reported symptoms related to mobile phone use appear to have more headaches during actual radio frequency exposure as compared to sham exposure.”
Testing exposed the left hemisphere of the head to 884 MHz at an average level of 1.4 Watts per kilogram, which the study said was consistent with “worst case exposure occurring in real-life situations, but with extended duration.” Each exposure session lasted three hours. Exposure sessions were randomly selected for real and sham RF exposure. In addition to a series of performance and memory tests during the sessions, EEG (electroencephalogram) recordings were made as subjects slept in a sleep laboratory. The following morning additional tests were performed before they left the lab.
A total of 71 subjects were studied, ranging in age from 18 to 45. Subjects reported using their cell phones from five minutes to more than three hours daily. They were divided into two groups: one with subjects reporting symptoms they specifically related to cell phone use and the other with individuals reporting no cell phone-related systems. One interesting finding from the study was that neither group could differentiate real RF exposure conditions from sham exposures more often than predicted by chance alone.
The study, The Effects of 884 MHz GSM Wireless Communications Signals on Self-reported System and Sleep (EEG)—An Experimental Provocation Study by Bengt B. Arnetz, Torbjorn Akerstedt, Lena Hillert, Arne Lowden, Niels Kuster, and Clairy Wiholm is available through PIERS Online.
