More time spent on mobile phone per week linked to higher risk of kidney disease

Whether frequent mobile phone use has an impact on health has always been a focus of attention. Recently, the National Clinical Research Center for Kidney Diseases of Nanfang Hospital of Southern Medical University published a study titled "Mobile Phone Use, Genetic Susceptibility and New-Onset Chronic Kidney Diseases" in Int J Public Health . The study shows that the longer the mobile phone is used per week, the higher the risk of chronic kidney disease .

Professor Qin Xianhui from the National Clinical Research Center for Kidney Diseases, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University is the corresponding author of the article, and Dr. Zhang Yuanyuan and Dr. Zhang Yanjun are the co-first authors.

In today's society, mobile phones have become an indispensable part of people's lives. Nearly three-quarters of the world's population aged 10 and over owns a mobile phone. Chronic kidney disease is mostly insidious, and rarely shows very obvious symptoms in the early stages, so it is often called the "silent killer." There are currently more than 850 million kidney disease patients in the world. Moreover, in the past nearly 30 years, while the mortality rate of other non-communicable chronic diseases has continued to decline, the mortality rate of chronic kidney disease has increased by 2.8%. Therefore, exploring more modifiable risk factors for chronic kidney disease and strengthening the primary prevention of chronic kidney disease have important clinical and public health value.

This study is a prospective cohort study based on the UK Biobank, which included 408,743 participants without chronic kidney disease at baseline. The primary endpoint of the study was chronic kidney disease. The average age of the study population was 56.3 years, 46.2% were male, and 85.3% of the subjects used mobile phones.

The study showed that compared with participants who talked on the phone for less than 30 minutes per week, participants who talked on the phone for at least 30 minutes per week had a significantly increased risk of chronic kidney disease by 12%, participants who talked on the phone for 4-6 hours per week had a significantly increased risk of chronic kidney disease by 15%, and participants who talked on the phone for more than 6 hours per week had a significantly increased risk of chronic kidney disease by 28%.

At the same time, this study divided the participants into three groups according to their genetic risk of chronic kidney disease: low, medium, and high. The results showed that participants with a higher genetic risk of chronic kidney disease had a higher risk of chronic kidney disease if they frequently used mobile phones (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Participants with a high frequency of mobile phone calls and a high genetic risk for kidney disease had the highest risk of developing chronic kidney disease.

Previous studies have also shown that the length of weekly phone calls is positively correlated with the risk of hypertension; an increase in daily phone call time is significantly associated with a decrease in sperm concentration and total sperm count, which may be due to increased oxidative stress, DNA breakage and cell apoptosis caused by radio frequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) radiation; the length of mobile phone calls is positively correlated with the severity of headaches; and mobile phone use significantly increases the risk of DNA damage.

Researchers believe that radiation during phone calls, as well as the poor sleep quality, mood disorders and increased stress caused by long phone calls, may be associated with an increased risk of chronic kidney disease.

The results of this study encourage people to maintain a moderate frequency of mobile phone calls to reduce the risk of chronic kidney disease.

References:

Zhang Y, Zhang Y, Ye Z, Yang S, Liu M, Wu Q, Zhou C, He P, Qin X. Mobile Phone Use, Genetic Susceptibility and New-Onset Chronic Kidney Diseases. Int J Public Health. 2023 Feb 16; 68: 1605358.

Editor | Zhang Yuanyuan, Zhang Yanjun, Huang Yu

Audit | Qin Xianhui

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