Rediff

Tokyo, Feb 6: Cell phones don't trigger cancer -- this new study comes from Tokyo, Japan, the technological capital of the world.

Researchers at the Tokyo Women's Medical University have carried out the study and found that mobile phone users have no greater risk of developing brain tumours than people who have never used them, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.

The researchers came to the conclusion after they questioned more than 1,000 people, 322 of whom were diagnosed with brain tumours, about their phone usage -- they found no link between cancer and the length of time the respondents had owned a mobile phone or the amount they used it.

They measured radiation levels from four different types of mobile phone and calculated how much radiation each part of the brain was exposed to when they were used.

The researchers found that radiation levels in the tumour were lower than 0.1W per kilogram, far below the safety limit of 2W per kilogram as set by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation.

"There was no increase in tumours in the parts of the brain that received the most radiation. Their history of mobile phone usage was compared with 683 healthy volunteers whose age, gender and lifestyles were found to match patients.

"There was no consistent increase in the risk of brain cancer among regular mobile phone users, nor did the risk increase for people who owned phones longer, or spent more time on them," according to lead researcher Naohito Yamaguchi.

The results of the study have been published in the British Journal of Cancer.