Health News

Thais warned against sleeping with their cellphones on

Aug 4, 2011, 2:56 GMT

Bangkok - A consumer protection group has warned Thais to stop sleeping with their mobile phones switched on to lower the risk of developing brain cancer, news reports said Thursday.

Telecommunications Consumer Protection Institute director Prawit Leesathapornwongsa warned that Thais might be particularly prone to the risk of brain cancer because of their habit of sleeping with their cellphones, The Nation newspaper reported.

A survey conducted by the institute and the Abac polling institute earlier this year found that 64.5 per cent of Thai mobile phone users liked to sleep with their activated cellphones near their heads.

Prawait based his warning on a recent World Health Oganization study that found people using their cellphone for more than 1,640 hours over a period of 10 years faced a greater risk of developing gliomas, a type of tumour most commonly found in the brain.