A pilot study on long term effects of mobile phone usage on heart rate variability in healthy young adult males

Introduction and Objectives: The electromagnetic fields which are emitted by cellular telephones may influence the autonomic tone which modifies the functioning of the circulatory system. The present research work was taken up to study the long term impact of mobile phone usage on the heart rate variability (HRV) in healthy, young, adult males. Methods: A total of 37 healthy, volunteered males (18 -24 years) were included in the study and they were grouped in to mobile users who had been using the mobile phones for more than one year (n=21) and non-mobile users (n=16). The HRV was analyzed both by the time domain and the frequency domain methods during normal breathing. Statistical analysis was done by using the Students unpaired t-test. A two tailed p value less than 0.05 was considered to be significant. The present study was completed in two months. Results: In the time domain analysis, the HRV showed no statistically significant difference in between the two groups. But in the frequency domain analysis, the total power (TP), the very low density frequency (VLF) power and the low frequency (LF) power were found to be statistically significantly high in the mobile users. The high frequency normalized unit (HF nu) was low and the LF normalized unit (LF nu) and the LF: HF ratio were high in the mobile users. Conclusion: The present study showed that the mobile users had a higher sympathetic tone and a lower parasympathetic tone as compared to the mobile non users.