Mobile Phone Radiation Deflects Brain Energy Homeostasis and Prompts Human Food Ingestion.

Ewelina Wardzinski,Kerstin Oltmanns,Sarah Haars,Uwe Melchert,Harald Scholand-Engler,Kamila Jauch-Chara

doi:10.3390/nu14020339

Abstract

Obesity and mobile phone usage have simultaneously spread worldwide. Radio frequency-modulated electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) emitted by mobile phones are largely absorbed by the head of the user, influence cerebral glucose metabolism, and modulate neuronal excitability. Body weight adjustment, in turn, is one of the main brain functions as food intake behavior and appetite perception underlie hypothalamic regulation. Against this background, we questioned if mobile phone radiation and food intake may be related. In a single-blind, sham-controlled, randomized crossover comparison, 15 normal-weight young men (23.47 ± 0.68 years) were exposed to 25 min of RF-EMFs emitted by two different mobile phone types vs. sham radiation under fasting conditions. Spontaneous food intake was assessed by an ad libitum standard buffet test and cerebral energy homeostasis was monitored by 31phosphorus-magnetic resonance spectroscopy measurements. Exposure to both mobile phones strikingly increased overall caloric intake by 22–27% compared with the sham condition. Differential analyses of macronutrient ingestion revealed that higher calorie consumption was mainly due to enhanced carbohydrate intake. Measurements of the cerebral energy content, i.e., adenosine triphosphate and phosphocreatine ratios to inorganic phosphate, displayed an increase upon mobile phone radiation. Our results identify RF-EMFs as a potential contributing factor to overeating, which underlies the obesity epidemic. Beyond that, the observed RF-EMFs-induced alterations of the brain energy homeostasis may put our data into a broader context because a balanced brain energy homeostasis is of fundamental importance for all brain functions. Potential disturbances by electromagnetic fields may therefore exert some generalized neurobiological effects, which are not yet foreseeable.

Highlights

Mobile phone usage is an essential part of day-to-day communication in modern society
We found that exposure to both transmitting mobile phones considerably increased total calorie consumption by 22% and 27% compared with the sham condition, respectively
In former studies, we found that obese individuals generally display reduced cerebral levels of the high-energy phosphates Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and PCr [39,40], the neuroenergetic status negatively correlates with food intake behavior [25], and the brain’s high-energy phosphate content even predicts the amount of subsequently consumed calories [25]

Summary

Introduction

Mobile phone usage is an essential part of day-to-day communication in modern society. One in five children and adolescents worldwide are overweight [4], and mobile phone usage is strongly associated with overweight in children [5]. At first sight a simultaneous increase in mobile phone usage and body weight gain appears to be pure coincidence, the idea that they may be related is not as far-fetched as it seems [6]. A recent comprehensive study by Birks and co-workers demonstrated that mobile phone calls on 2G networks are the main determinants of brain dose [15] and respective radiation is absorbed more in the child’s brain compared with adults [16,17].

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