WASHINGTON - Long suspected of causing brain tumours, mobile phones are now being eyed as key allies in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, United States researchers said on Wednesday in a study.
Researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) found, to their surprise, that 96 mice they zapped twice daily for an hour each time with electromagnetic waves similar to those generated by mobile phones benefited from the exposure.
Older mice saw deposits of beta amyloid - a protein fragment that accumulates in the brain of Alzheimer's sufferers to form the disease's signature their plaques - wiped out and memories improved after long-term exposure to mobile phones, the study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease showed.
Young adult mice with no apparent signs of memory impairment were protected against Alzheimer's disease after several months' exposure to the phone waves, and the memories of normal mice with no genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's disease were boosted after exposure to the electromagnetic waves.
The mice and their cages were arranged around an antenna that generated a mobile phone signal.
No one was more surprised by the results than the researchers themselves, who had embarked on the tests several years ago, convinced they would show "that the electromagnetic fields from a cell phone would be deleterious to Alzheimer's mice," lead author Gary Arendash, a USF professor told AFP.
It took several months of exposure before the benefits were seen in mice, and that would be the equivalent of many years in humans, he said.
But William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, said the study was "very preliminary and warned against self-medicating by over-using a cell phone. AFP