cell phones and canser

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A pilot study, to be conducted next week, will expose a small area of

skin on volunteers' arms to cellphone radiation for the duration of a

long phone call, or for one hour, research professor Dariusz

Leszczynski said on Friday.Researchers will then take a skin sample

to study and compare with one taken before the radiation exposure, he

told Reuters.Cell samples used in previous laboratory tests by the

Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority were all from women, and to

keep consistency in the data, 10 female volunteers will be used in

the new study -- all of them employees at the watchdog.In previous

tests, Leszczynski's group found evidence of mobile phone radiation

causing cell-level changes such as shrinkage, but he said it was

still impossible to say if that had significant health effects. " Cells

function in a different way when they are in the body than in

laboratory surroundings. Now we want to confirm whether radiation

causes cell level changes in humans as well, " he said.The results of

the study are due by the end of the year,and Leszczynski's team hopes

to show if radiation has any impact on the body's natural barrier

that prevents toxins and other dangerous proteins that might be in

the bloodstream from reaching brain cells.Some researchers suspect

brain cancer has become more common as a result of cellphone use, but

there is no clear evidence to support that, Leszczynski said. " If

harmful proteins get through to the brain, it could have an indirect

link with cancer, but this is pure speculation, " he added.