- Fox News Tampa -
When using cell phones, we're exposed to electromagnetic waves, with the highest concentration in the area over our ears.
While some believe that radiation can be harmful, Dr. Gary Arendash of the University of South Florida says it may actually prevent and even reverse Alzheimer's disease.
After months of daily exposure to cell phone waves -- the same level we'd get from using our own phones -- Alzheimer's-impaired mice in Arendash's lab performed like normal mice, he says.
So why does it work? Memory loss in Alzheimer's is caused by sticky protein plaques in the brain called beta amyloid, which slowly smothers brain cells.
The cell phone waves act on the amyloid in two ways -- by making brain cells more active and keeping the beta amyloid from sticking.
"So you're getting more of the beta amyloid out of the cells because of increased brain cell activity, and it's not being able to aggregate. So we'd like to think it's being flushed out of the brain," Arendash explained. "So it's the one-two punch we'd like to think these electromagnetic waves are providing to the Alzheimer's."
Dr. Arendash then went one step further: Exposing healthy mice to cell phone waves.
"If you want to call it super normal memory, I guess you can. But they had superior memory due to the cell phone exposure of a number of months," he continued.
Although the results look promising, don't put your phones on speed dial yet.
"We're not saying everyone should be spending hours on their cell phone right now 24/7," Arendash warned. "What we are saying is the cell phone use is probably fairly safe, and if we use those or perhaps other frequencies of other electromagnetic fields, we could very well be getting some benefits that could include treatment of Alzheimer's disease and just making you a little bit brighter as you age."
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