Research Finds Effects of GSM Signals on Sleep

An anonymous reader writes "The effects of mobile phone radiation on sleep were studied in Sweden in a laboratory experiment where subjects were exposed either to 884 MHz GSM radiation or placebo. The study finds that compared to placebo, in the radiation-exposed subjects there was a prolonged latency to reach the first cycle of deep sleep (stage 3). The amount of stage 4 sleep was also decreased. Moreover, participants that otherwise have no self-reported symptoms related to mobile phone use, appear to have more headaches during actual radiofrequency exposure as compared to sham exposure."

What placebo?

where subjects were exposed either to 884 MHz GSM radiation or placebo.

Did they give them one of those plastic phones filled with Pez candies?

Re:What placebo?

where subjects were exposed either to 884 MHz GSM radiation or placebo.

Did they give them one of those plastic phones filled with Pez candies?

No, an iPhone. *ducks*

Already knew this...

Well to an extent I did. I've been out in the middle of nowhere to the extent that you couldn't get a cell phone signal if your life depended on it (and sometimes it does!) and there is an odd sense of quiet.

I know it sounds nuts but on a windy night even with the trees moving it still seems more quiet but in an almost impossible to define way. Like there is something that you can't put your finger on NOT there.

I always thought it might be either radio singles or high pitch EM radiation from all the fun toys I have around it (yes, including a Wireless Router). So I'm not complaining, and I can sleep fine, but at the same time this study doesn't shock me at all.

Re:Already knew this...

Actually you're "missing" background noise that you're otherwise used to hearing and don't notice.

For example, I live fairly close to a major highway and have for nearly the past 10 years. In the middle of that I spent a couple months living with my parents who are a mile or two from a highway that's not quite as busy (we're still in lower NY so "busy" is relative). The first morning I got up and tip-toed to the bathroom because it was SOOO quiet there.

My point: You were "missing" the noise of a zillion cars, airplanes, garbage trucks, air conditioners, trains, computer fans and hard drives, and what have you. The brain gets used to it and if that noise disappears you feel like something is missing or wrong. I highly doubt this has anything to do with RF waves in your case.

Re:Already knew this...

There are *plenty* of solutions to this barking dog problem that do not involve subjecting yourself to such ongoing discomfort.

Obviously, he should set the dog on fire.

Re:Already knew this...

Maybe it is quiet because there is nothing around. Since there is nothing around, why waste money on cell coverage in an area that will see, at most, minimal use? It isn't the gadgets so much as the millions of cars and jets around every major city. I live a few miles away from a city of 100,000 and I can actually hear the rumble of the city.

Experiment looks doubtful.

They exposed the subjects to 1.4W/kg? What the **** does that mean? Do they have any idea how deep GSM band signals penetrate human flesh and bone? Did they take out and weigh the left hemisphere of the subjects? Did they use the body weight instead? Did they offer some subjects a tiger-team-style $100 if they could tell the difference between RF and no RF on? Was this a double-blind experiment? People are really clever at catching on to subtle clues like experimenter's face, little clicks, dimming lights, etc. The literature is replete with poorly designed experiments.

These are just a few of the questions that pop up in any thorough analysis of this experiment.

Re:Experiment looks doubtful.

"people are really clever at catching on to subtle clues like experimenter's face"

They must be REALLY clever to be able to do that in their sleep.

Re:Experiment looks doubtful.

The full research article [mit.edu] (PDF) is only 3 pages long. The experimental description and discussion of results are so terse that they are barely informative. There are not enough details to know whether they handled the experiment properly or not.

In addition to the problems you mentioned, I'm worried by the fact that they don't describe in detail what they mean by "placebo." For instance, they mention "two separate rooms" in their experimental section, but don't explain why they have two rooms; if one was "real" and the other "placebo" then the variability could easily be ascribed to minor variations in the rooms (lighting, ambient sound, odor, etc.). The RF transmitter is placed immediately beside the person's head (there is a photo in the article), which worries me because they never mention measuring or accounting for audio effects: a high-pitched whine from a running device could easily explain the differences (it wouldn't even have to be consciously audible to influence the subjects).

Combined with the very large standard-deviations on their results, I'm hesitant to ascribe any significance to this finding just yet. More details, and corroborating independent verification, are definitely necessary before raising any public alarms.

Re:Experiment looks doubtful.

The experimental description and discussion of results are so terse that they are barely informative. There are not enough details to know whether they handled the experiment properly or not.

There are almost never enough details in any experimental scientific paper to know whether the experimenters handled the experiment properly or not.

I'm hesitant to ascribe any significance to this finding just yet

Of course, this result needs to be reproduced and strengthened; that's often the case with results like this.

However, your specific objections against this paper are unwarranted: you're basically accusing the researchers of either gross incompetence or scientific fraud, and there is no justification for that.

RTFA

These are just a few of the questions that pop up in any thorough analysis of this experiment.

A "thorough analysis" of an experiment begins with actually reading the paper!

The original paper is linked to at the top of the page, in PDF format. You'll find your questions answered there. Basically, the study is carefully controlled.

If you have some ideological dislike of the results (as you seem to), perhaps you should try to repeat the experiment yourself and present your results. See, reproducing experimental result is another cornerstone of science.

Re:RTFA

None of those things need to be in the paper; the presumption in scientific papers is that the authors are familiar with the basic tools and methods of their research area. Unless you have a specific cause to doubt that, you have no justification for questioning their results because they did not include those details.

As a practicing scientist, I can honestly say that this isn't how it works.

Obviously there are innumerable details with respect to running any experiment, so not every detail can be included in a scientific paper. In particular, "common practice" in the field can usually be described in short hand by using the proper terms (and referencing previous work as needed).

However, no scientist will read a paper and glibly assume that the experimenters "did everything properly" without evidence that this is so (where "evidence" is a combination of reputation, details of procedure, showing raw data, and demonstration that one understands pertinent issues). It is expected (nay, required, for high-quality science) to mention precautions taken, alternate explanations for results, shortcomings in methodology, and so forth. Omitting a critical self-analysis and details of one's procedure makes a paper very suspect. It is the job of the publishing author to convince the community that they are right, and so they must present sufficient evidence (and sufficient experimental detail) to make their case adequately. To do otherwise makes for bad science.

So, in short, while much knowledge can be presumed when writing technical papers, it is never the overriding presumption in science that everyone is doing science properly. We attack each other's work precisely to keep quality high: and if a paper does not provide sufficient detail to back up their claims, the paper is ignored until such time that further credible evidence is brought into the debate.

Re:Experiment looks doubtful.

There's also the publishing effect - namely, articles reporting the effect of cell phone radiation upon some biological system X is so popular now that many, many researchers are examining it. If 20 people perform a study, and 1 finds a result that's statistically significant at the 95% confidence interval, the 1 study gets published...even though 1 such study out of 20 would find that result from a random system.

In the end, as a scientist I'm extremely leery of statistical correlation with no mechanism. What is the specific mechanism by which the specified radiation has the claimed effect? This is especially so with the cell phone/cancer studies, which have the very difficult job of claiming that non-ionizing radiation causes cancer. Because I've seen such bad science, I'm very skeptical of the cell phone studies in general.

Banana Phone

Whoever applied that tag needs to die. I hate you. Can't get it out of my HEAD.

Ok, GSM...

But what about us CDMA users?

I don't think we sleep well because we're mostly on Verizon...

An average of 1.4 W/kg

In the abstract, it mentions that they were exposed to an average of 1.4 W/kg. That's several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything you'd encounter outside the laboratory, which is less than 1W total. Unless you have a kilowatt tower on your nightstand, you have nothing to worry about.

Info on SAR (Watts/kg)

Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

FCC Page [fcc.gov]

1.4 W/kg is close to the FCC limit of 1.6 W/kg. The EU limit is 2.0 W/kg.

Silly Question

I have 2 dogs & I was buying a large bag of Pal at Big W and standing inline at the check out.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Pal Diet again although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IV's in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Pal nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry & that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her.

Horrified, she asked if I'd ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned. I told her no; it was because I'd been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.

I thought one guy was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard as he staggered out the door.

Stupid b*tch...why else would I buy dog food??

Re:Silly Question

I think you have encountered a phenomenon that some people find very mysterious. It is usually referred to, by those who profess to understand its meaning, as a "conversation starter".

Hey! Psuedoscience?

Why is this tagged psuedoscience?

Here's a layman's synopsis:

1. 36 women and 35 men were selected for a study, and were checked by physicians to make sure that they didn't have any /other/ conditions that would, well, cause them to have trouble sleeping.

2. They were then classified into two groups. One, that said they could "detect" the effects of RF radiation, and another that said they could not.

3. The group as a whole was divided into two groups, both to be strapped into the "RF Machine", however, the machine would only be on for the "RF" group, not the placebo group.

4. The study reveals a statistically significant reduction in the time that it takes for one to reach deep sleep (1/3 of an hour for those exposed, 1/4 hour for those not exposed), and that Stage 4 sleep time is also reduced (37.2 min vs 45.5 mins respectively).

5. The study also says that /preliminary/ results show that those who SAID they could detect symptoms of RF exposure had increased headaches during exposure than those that did NOT say they could detect the symptoms of RF exposure. However, it does not give a statistical analysis.

Remember, this is labelled a "provocation study" that is "We're trying to narrow this down, now pick us apart." It even says that in the Discussion!

Re:RF placebo?

No, it means more than "exposed to nothing"; it means "exposed to nothing, but the subject can't tell".

Re:RF placebo?

It was double-blind. According to the full article, the change in sleep onset went from 0.27 hours (sham) to 0.37 hours (actual RF). And the duration dropped from 45.5 minutes (sham) to 37.2 minutes (actual RF). No idea why they changed units, but I was always taught to ignore effects smaller than 2:1 in small sample sizes. Most likely a candidate for the JIR.

Re:they might be on to something here...

You "have occasionally slept with my phone under my pillow to use as an alarm" and "did NOT sleep as well."

I've noticed I don't sleep as well when I have a small brick under my pillow. Especially if I think it might ring.

Re:they might be on to something here...

There could be any of a dozen causes keeping you up:

• If you don't normally use an alarm clock but a specific need for one to wake up for a specific event, you were possibly preoccupied with the next day's event.
• You may have had an uncomfortably strange lump under your pillow.
• Were you at home, or on the road or in a hotel? Most people sleep "differently" when not in their own bed.
• Does your phone emit an ultrasonic whine?
• You might subconsciously be worried about the RF you believe you are exposing yourself to.
• If you had a hand beneath the pillow while you slept, it might have made contact with the unfamiliar texture of the phone.

There are a lot of very plausible reasons that don't involve a two-second-handshake-pulse-every-9-minutes, emitting a maximum of 600mW of RF energy near your head.

You could try your own experiment -- have someone randomly set your phone to either "airplane mode" or "regular mode" while you continue to use it as an alarm clock. In the morning they'd have to restore your phone to regular mode so you wouldn't know which way you slept with it. They would record their settings while you recorded your sleep patterns. After a month or so, correlate the two and figure out if RF made any difference in your sleep.

Re:i'm safe from this effect

a microwave oven emits less radiation density then the amounts used in this study

Er, I think you lost a decimal place (or three) there, friend.

Figure a 1000 watt microwave oven with 1 kg (about 2 pounds) of ground beef defrosting. The bulk of the microwaves emitted are absorbed by the food, giving a SAR (specific absorption rate) of 1000 watts per kilogram (W/kg). The average mass of a human head, meanwhile, is about 5 kg [danny.oz.au]; that makes an SAR of 200 W/kg.

The SAR used in this study was an average of 1.4 W/kg. This low level results in minimal local heating, particularly in a well-perfused part of the body like the brain (lots of blood flowing through equals lots of capacity to draw off excess heat to the rest of the body.) On the other hand, if you were to stick your head in the microwave (after jimmying the safety interlocks) I guarantee that you would find the level of local heating to be...uncomfortable.