Research indicates that talking on mobile phones for at least half an hour each week for at least six months increases high blood pressure risk by 12% compared to conversations lasting under half an hour.
Studies suggest that it’s the amount of minutes spent talking on mobile devices that has an effect on heart health, with longer conversations increasing risks of high blood pressure. Relying on hands-free systems had no bearing on this issue.
Approximate three quarters of people over 10 worldwide own mobile phones, and approximately 1.3 billion individuals aged 30-79 years worldwide have high blood pressure – an important risk factor for stroke, heart attack and premature mortality.
Mobile phone devices emit low radiofrequency energy levels that have been linked to increased blood pressure after exposure over short time periods. Studies that investigated this correlation may have produced inconsistent findings due to including gaming or texting as potential variables in research designs.
This study examined the association between receiving cell phone calls and new-onset hypertension, using data from the UK Biobank. A total of 212,046 individuals between 37-73 years who did not already have high blood pressure were included.
Information on mobile phone usage for making and receiving calls was collected using a self-reported questionnaire at baseline, consisting of hours per week used, years used, speakerphone/hands-free device use, etc. Individuals who utilized their mobile phones at least once every week either for making or receiving calls were identified as users of mobile phones.
After controlling for several factors such as gender, age, race, body mass index (BMI), family history of hypertension, deprivation status smoking status education kidney function blood lipids blood pressure blood glucose inflammation use of drugs to decrease cholesterol or glucose levels was the relationship analyzed between using mobile phones and new-onset hypertension examined.
Individuals were on average 54 years old; 62% were women and 88% used mobile phones; during an average follow-up of 12 years on average 13,984 individuals developed high blood pressure; mobile phone users had a risk of hypertension 7% higher than non-users.
Individuals who communicated on mobile phones for half an hour or more per week were at an increased risk for new-onset hypertension – this finding applied equally to men and women.
Examining these results more closely, individuals who made or received mobile phone calls for at least 5 minutes each week had an 8%, 13%, 16% and 25% increased risk of hypertension compared to those using their phones for 30-60 minutes, one or three hours, four and six hours and more than six hours respectively per week. While years of use or using speakerphone/hands-free devices weren’t associated with an increased high blood pressure risk.
Researchers examined the correlation between usage time of less than half an hour or more and new-onset hypertension depending on individuals’ genetic hypertension risk levels (low, intermediate or high; data from UK Biobank was used for this).
Analysis revealed that those at high genetic risk who spoke on mobile phones for at least 30 minutes per week were 33% more likely to develop hypertension compared with individuals at low genetic risk who spoke for less than half an hour each week on their phones.
