Study links cellphone usage and ADHD in Children

It might not be such a great idea to allow your young child to operate a handset. According to researcher Yoon Hwan Byun, of the Department of Medicine at Dankook University College of Medicine in Korea, children making voice calls on cellphones have an increased risk of developing ADHD. This is valid only if the children are also exposed to large levels of lead. Also at risk for developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were those children who play video games on cellphones at a young age. Again, those with lead in their blood stream appear to be the most at risk.

Children with ADHD have trouble focusing and are easily distracted. They are also impulsive, talkative and can't sit still. Earlier studies have suggested that the amount of pre-natal exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) can cause behavioral problems in kids. In addition, children with exposure to RF fields seem to have higher levels of lead in their blood stream. The testing was conducted on 2,400 elementary school students who were evaluated for ADHD while the parents gave up information on cellphone use by their children. After two years, the researchers found a correlation between cellphone use by kids, high levels of lead in the blood, and ADHD.

The good news is that those children who stopped using cellphones during the testing period had a huge decline in symptoms compared to the children who continued to use the handsets. But before placing the blame squarely on the use of cellphones, Byun cautioned that there could be reverse causality. Instead of kids becoming hyperactive because of cellphone use, the researcher says that children's hyperactivity could cause them to seek out a device like a cellphone to play video games to help counter the lack of focus. More research needs to be done, but for now it seems that there is a link between a child's cellphone usage and the amount of RF and lead exposure he or she is subject to. Work needs to be done on what this exposure means to the kids.

source: PsychCentral  via textually.org