Mobile phone use can worsen heart disease in smokers, diabetics: Study

New Delhi, Sep 04: Frequent mobile phone use was positively linked with increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, particularly in those who currently smoke and have diabetes. Furthermore, poor sleep, psychological distress, and neuroticism were identified as contributing factors to this connection, a study found on Wednesday.

Poor sleep, psychological distress, and neuroticism were identified as contributing factors.

A paper in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology describes the outcomes of this extensive prospective cohort study.

"Mobile phone use is a ubiquitous exposure in modern society, so exploring its impact on health has significant public health value. However, whether mobile phone use is associated with the risk of cardiovascular diseases, remains uncertain," Yanjun Zhang, MD, Division of Nephrology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China, explained.

In this study, 444,027 people from the UK Biobank who self-reported their frequency of mobile phone use between 2006 and 2010 and had no history of cardiovascular illness, were included.

At least one call per week was considered regular usage of a mobile phone. The composite outcome of acute stroke, coronary heart disease, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure was determined over a median follow-up period of 12.3 years using linked hospital and mortality information.

Additionally, sleep patterns, psychological discomfort, and neuroticism were examined by researchers.

"We found that sleep patterns, psychological distress, and neuroticism may be potential mechanisms of the association between mobile phone use and cardiovascular diseases. In addition, chronic exposure to radiation emitted from mobile phones could lead to oxidative stress and inflammatory response. Therefore, chronic radiation exposure from mobile phones in combination with smoking and diabetes may increase the incidence of increasing cardiovascular disease risk,” Xianhui Qin of Nanfang Hospital concluded. Further studies on this subject can help provide concrete evidence.