Credits: Social Media
Regular cell phone calls could increase heart disease risk by 21%, study finds
As if we werent already becoming too isolated, too atomized, in the era of social media, instant messaging, the gig economy, pod hotels, streaming services, and food deliveries, research now suggests that making regular, long calls to a friend on the telephone increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) by a whopping 21%.
To be clear, having a natter here and there doesnt increase the risk by a substantial amount. Dont take this as an instruction to never pick up the phone again! Feeling lonely on a semi-regular basis is enough to bump up your risk of dying, according to research completed elsewhere. Hobbies can help. So can talking to a friend. The contradictory advice is enough to give you a headache. I know. The best we can do is know it all and see what fits.
Talking on the phone for 6 or more hours per week is associated with a higher risk of CVD
If that seems like a lot of hours, it might be a generational thing.
Compared to people who spend 5 minutes or less each week on the phone, people making and receiving calls for 6 or more hours per week had a 21% higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The percentage climbed steadily from 3% for those who spent up to half an hour per week on the phone, through 13% for those who spend 1-3 hours on the phone, to 21%, which was for the uppermost bracket the researchers looked at.
Not everyone is picking up the telephone to call a friend, either. According to the paper, 11.5% of the association is due to psychological distress. This suggests that the people spending the most time on the phone �and suffering a higher risk of CVD at the same time are taking calls theyre not happy to be taking.
These calls could be to employment or immigration services, mortgage providers, loan sharks, or clients. Stress is bad for the body. Ironically, calling a friend can help relieve stress. So in this way, the antidotal instrument becomes its opposite: the thing associated with the risk.
Sleep quality and neuroticism explained 5% and 2% of the relationship between cell phone usage and cardiovascular disease respectively, according to the researchers.
Understanding the relationship between cell phones and heart disease
The first thing to note is that this study was observational. It included 444,000 individuals from the UK Biobank, who self-reported their cell phone usage time over 3 months. There was a follow-up check about 12 years later, and the researchers compared the self-reported cell phone usage times with the number of participants who developed CVD.
At no point do the researchers attempt to establish a causal relationship between cell phone usage and CVD. It is simply an association.
However, as one cardiologist explained to Medical News Today, the results suggest that some of the effects might be related to phone usage effects on mental health and sleep.
There are multiple factors at play, which interconnect in all sorts of interesting ways. For example, the study found that increased mobile phone usage was more common in current smokers and people with diabetes, he said.
It may be that the increased risk of cardiovascular disease reported was due to the increased risk brought on by smoking and diabetes, rather than the mobile phone usage.
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