If you are among those who spend more than 30 minutes per day or more every week talking on the phone then, beware. A team of researchers have flagged that such a habit of talking long on the phone can leave the user prone to high blood pressure or hypertension.
In their study published in the European Heart Journal - Digital Health, the scientists from the Southern Medical University in China, investigated if there was a link between making and receiving phone calls and a new diagnosis of high blood pressure, also known as hypertension.
Almost three-quarters of the global population aged 10 and over own a mobile phone. Mobile phones emit low levels of radiofrequency energy, which has been linked with rises in blood pressure after short-term exposure, the study said. Hypertension is a major risk factor for heart attack and stroke and a leading cause of premature death globally.
“It’s the number of minutes people spend talking on a mobile that matters for heart health, with more minutes meaning greater risk,” said study author Xianhui Qin of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Using data from the UK Biobank to examine the relationship between talking over phone calls and new-onset hypertension, a total of 212,046 adults aged 37 to 73 years without hypertension were engaged in this study.
Over a median follow up of 12 years, 13,984 (7 per cent) participants developed hypertension. Mobile phone users, who for the purposes of this study used a mobile phone at least once a week for making and taking phone calls, were found to have a 7 per cent higher risk of hypertension compared with non-users.
Weekly usage time of 30-59 minutes, 1-3 hours, 4-6 hours and more than 6 hours was associated with an 8 per cent, 13 per cent, 16 per cent and 25 per cent increased risk of high blood pressure, respectively.