Health & Wellness
Strange how hard it is to remember a time before cellphones. Mobile phones have changed the way we spend our leisure time, the way we work and how we consume everything from groceries to news stories. Some countries even set up centers to treat those "addicted" to iPhones or BlackBerrys. But, as a new book shows, cellphones may actually be doing damage to far more than our attention spans -- and could, in fact, be killing us.
In Disconnect, Devra Davis, a scientist and National Book Award finalist for When Smoke Ran Like Water, looks at the connection between cellphones and health problems, with some disturbing results. Recent studies have tied cellphone use to rises in brain damage, cheek cancer and malfunctioning sperm. She reveals the unsettling fact that many new cellphones now come with the small-print warning that they are to be kept at least one-inch from the ear (presumably for safety reasons) and many insurance companies refuse to insure cellphone companies against health-related claims. Most troubling of all, science has shown that children and teenagers are particularly susceptible to cellphone radiation, raising questions about its effects on coming generations.
Salon spoke to Davis, via land line, about the real dangers of cellphone use, the industry's coverup and what we can do to protect ourselves and our children.

Denise Rednour of Long Beach, Mississippi, has been sick with chemical poisoning since July
Investigation by Al Jazeera online correspondent finds toxic illnesses linked to BP oil dispersants along Gulf coast.
Two-year-old Gavin Tillman of Pass Christian, Mississippi, has been diagnosed with severe upper respiratory, sinus, and viral infections. His temperature has reached more than 39 degrees since September 15, yet his sicknesses continue to worsen.
His parents, some doctors, and environmental consultants believe the child's ailments are linked to exposure to chemicals spilt by BP during its Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
Gavin's father, mother, and cousin, Shayleigh, are also facing serious health problems. Their symptoms are being experienced by many others living along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

This discovery turns the conventional wisdom that swelling must be controlled in order to encourage healing and prevent pain
For years, people have been told to freeze torn, bruised or sprained muscles to reduce the swelling.
But now for the first time, researchers have found that it could slow down the healing as it prevents the release of a key repair hormone.
This discovery turns the conventional wisdom that swelling must be controlled in order to encourage healing and prevent pain.
It could also lead to new therapies for acute muscle injuries that lead to inflammation.
The study, published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology journal, suggests muscle inflammation after acute injury is essential to repair.
Professor Lan Zhou and colleagues at the Neuroinflammation Research Centre at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio discovered inflamed cells produce a high level of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) which significantly increases the rate of muscle regeneration.
Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, told a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health that such little oversight means that children in the United States are virtual "guinea pigs in an uncontrolled experiment."
"Our current law does not allow EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] scientists to draw the bright line between chemicals that are safe and those that are toxic," the senator said in the hearing, which was held at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in his home state.
Lautenberg has introduced legislation that would require chemical manufacturers to prove the safety of their products before they're released into the market. He said the current law - the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 - is too lax, resulting in the banning of five chemicals in the past 34 years.
"This is the first scientific study showing that a laptop computer connected by WiFi may damage DNA and decrease sperm motility," Conrado Avendano, Research Director at the Nascentis Reproductive Medical Center in Argentina, stated in a news release Wednesday.
Comment: The health of sperm is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the dangers of microwave radiation. This article has more information.
Scientific research now shows that little-known proteins called lectins could be behind your uncomfortable... embarrassing... even painful intestinal issues. And if you're eating a traditional American diet your body is probably loaded with lectins found in...
* Nightshade plants such as tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant
* Wheat, rye, oats and barley malt
* Legumes
* All beans including soy and peanut
* Eggs
* All milk products, cheese, yogurt and kefir
Three letters lie at the heart of our modern world: BPA. Short for bisphenol A, a synthetic oestrogen, a staggering 3 billion kilograms of the stuff is produced annually, with an estimated value of $500,000 per hour to the global economy.
BPA is used in the production of a hard and transparent form of polycarbonate plastic used to create food and drink containers and other consumer goods. It is also used in the epoxy resins that line metal food cans, and as an ingredient in dental sealants.
In fact, we are so consistently exposed to BPA that over 90 per cent of us excrete BPA metabolites in our urine at any given time. How exactly BPA enters the human body is not yet clear, although eating food kept in BPA-containing packaging, breathing household dust and handling plastics that contain BPA may all contribute to our daily exposure. Currently, BPA is not listed on food or drink labels so millions of people have no way of knowing their daily exposure.
BPA was first reported in the scientific literature in the 1930s as a synthetic oestrogen, and it is this property that has led to most of the subsequent controversy. Laboratory studies show that, at the right dose, BPA can act as a hormone mimic, binding not only to oestrogen receptors but to other related receptors, too. However, this "active" dose has been furiously contested in what has become an intense scientific dispute.
Women with low libidos have a different mental response to intimate situations than those with a 'normal' sex drive, researchers have found.
MRI scans show that women diagnosed with what is termed hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) - defined as a distressing lack of sexual desire - have different patterns of brain activity.
Certain areas of the brain that normally light up when thinking about sex fail to do so in women with HSDD, found medics at Wayne State University in Detroit, US, while other areas that don't normally light up, do.
Dr Michael Diamond, of the university's department of obstetrics and gynaecology, described the finding as potentially the first "significant evidence" that the controversial condition does exist as a physiological disorder.
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