Thermal Effects of Cell Phones on Epithelial Cell Health

The researchers investigated how the thermal effects of a cell phone in calling mode would impact the health of epithelial cells by measuring both cell viability and inflammation. The cell phone was placed between two culture plates of varying exposure duration. The cell phone was in calling mode to expose cells to radio waves and the thermal effects of the cell phone. An Alamar Blue Assay and Interleukin-8 (IL-8) ELISA were carried out on the epithelial cells after exposure. The cell viability was not significantly different between the exposure conditions and control indicating that apoptosis did not occur in response to the cell phone thermal effects. In contrast, the epithelial cells of both exposure conditions secreted significantly greater amounts of IL-8 as compared to the control cells. This indicates that the cells mounted an inflammatory response to the stimulus of the cell phone thermal effects. However, the 3-hour exposure condition was not significantly more inflamed than the 1-hour condition suggesting prolonged exposure does not further increase inflammation. While this data does provide evidence that cell phones can cause inflammation in epithelial cells, the experiment cannot be generalized to represent tissues such as the cheek.