A new study conducted by Ashok Agarwal, the Director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and his team, found that keeping a cell phone on talk mode in your pocket might destroy your sperm.
"We believe that these devices are used because we consider them very safe, but it could cause harmful effects due to the proximity of the phones and the exposure that they are causing to the gonads," Ashok Agarwal commented.
The experiment was conducted on 32 volunteers who were split into two groups. The first group was placed 2.5 centimeters from an 850 MHz cell phone in talk mode for 1 hour. The other group was a control group that was kept in same temperature and conditions but without cell phone exposure.
850 MHz is the most commonly used frequency used in mobile communications and the 2.5 cm distance was chosen to mimic the distance between the trouser pocket and the testis. When using the hands free headset, most users keep their cellular phones in their pockets.
Damaged sperm can lead to birth defects and higher incidences of various disabilities, as seen among the children of older fathers.
The study didn't find an explanation for the mobile effect on sperm quality yet. "Perhaps the cell phone radiation is able to affect the gonads through a thermal effect thereby increasing the temperature of the testes and causing damaging effects in the sperm cell", Ashok Agawal mused.