New Findings: Mobile Phone Use and Increased Risk of Cardiovascular Diseases

A new study has found that regular mobile phone use was positively associated with incident cardiovascular disease risk, especially in current smokers and individuals with diabetes. In addition, this association was partly attributed to poor sleep, psychological distress, and neuroticism. The article in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology details the results of this large-scale prospective cohort study.

The study included 444,027 individuals from the UK Biobank without a history of cardiovascular diseases who self-reported the frequency of their mobile phone use from 2006 to 2010. Regular mobile phone use was defined as at least one call per week. Using linked hospital and mortality records, the composite outcome of incident stroke, coronary heart disease, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure was ascertained over a median followup time of 12.3 years. Researchers also investigated the role of sleep patterns, psychological distress, and neuroticism.

An editorial that comes with the study helps explain its results in a broader context. It points out that the study was done between 2006 and 2010, a time when smartphones weren't as common as they are now. Back then, people mainly used mobile phones for calls and texts, not for things like social media or streaming videos. Because of this, we need to be cautious when applying these results to today's situation, where smartphones are used in many more ways. The findings might not fully reflect the risks associated with the way people use phones now.

Reference: Canadian Journal of Cardiology. (2024). Regular mobile phone use and incident cardiovascular diseases: Mediating effects of sleep patterns, psychological distress, and neuroticism. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cjca.2024.06.006