Study: Are Cell Phones a Remedy for Alzheimer's?

(Jan. 7) -- The words "cell phones" and "health benefits" are rarely, if ever, likely to be found in the same sentence.

But a study that surprised even the scientists who carried it out has concluded that long-term exposure to the radiation emitted by cell phones might protect, and even reverse, Alzheimer's disease.

The study was made on 96 mice, most of them genetically modified to develop memory problems and other traits mimicking Alzheimer's, including a sticky brain plaque known as beta-amyloid produced by a harmful protein that is a hallmark of the disease. Some of the mice were non-demented.

"It surprised us to find that cell phone exposure, begun in early adulthood, protects the memory of mice otherwise destined to develop Alzheimer's symptoms," the study's lead author, Gary Arendash, said in a news release from the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, based at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

"It was even more astonishing," the research professor added, "that the electromagnetic waves generated by cell phones actually reversed memory impairment in old Alzheimer's mice."

All the mice were exposed to the electromagnetic field generated by standard cell phone use for two one-hour periods each day for seven to nine months.

Their cages were arranged at the same distance around a centrally located antenna generating the phone signal.

What the scientists found was that if the genetically modified mice were exposed to the electromagnetic signals when they were young, before memory impairment had appeared, their cognitive ability was protected.

If older Alzheimer's mice already showing symptoms were exposed to the same waves, their memory impairment disappeared. The benefits took months to show up, suggesting that a similar effect in humans would take years to develop, the Florida center reported.

Based on these results, the researchers concluded that electromagnetic wave exposure could be an effective and drug-free way to prevent and treat Alzheimer's. Further tests are now being carried out to see whether different frequencies and strengths could provide even quicker and better results.

Chuanhai Cao, the study's other major author, said the technology they used could be quickly translated to a human benefit against Alzheimer's.

"Since production and aggregation of beta-amyloid occurs in traumatic brain injury, particularly in soldiers during war, the therapeutic impact of our findings may extend beyond Alzheimer's disease," he said.

Arendash was the author of a previous study that said the caffeine in coffee could protect against Alzheimer's.

"It will take some time to determine the exact mechanisms involved in these beneficial memory effects," he said. "One thing is clear, however: The cognitive benefits of long-term electromagnetic exposure are real, because we saw them in both protection and treatment-based experiments involving Alzheimer's mice, as well as in normal mice."

The university researchers began investigating the effects of cell phone use on Alzheimer's several years ago, and they acknowledge that there has been recent controversy about whether electromagnetic waves from cell phones cause brain cancer.

Some researchers say the risk of developing brain tumors doubles after 10 or more years of cell phone use, the center said. Others, however, argue that since the overall lifetime risk of developing a brain tumor is less than 1 percent, any doubling of the risk would still be very low.

According to the center, the findings of whose study were published online by the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, groups such as the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health have all concluded that scientific evidence to date does not support any adverse health risks associated with cell phone use.