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Comment by rcme | Hacker News Reader

They proposed RF-EMF as the mechanism of action, but they didn't provide any evidence that RF-EMF was the cause of the hypertension.

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Competing theory. External life events which are correlated with stress are also correlated with increased number of phone calls.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say my theory is more plausible on its face.

Yeah, it seems highly unlikely. Having to talk a lot on the phone gives me stress. It's odd they don't even mention the most probably reason for their finding, and invent some unproven theory about emf affecting blood pressure. The only study I can find is this:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

It's a 7 person study, and it looks like they didn't correct for multiple comparisons. i.e. nothing to see here.

The evidence is that increased mobile use means increased RF-EMF dosage. It's not solid, but it's not bad for a survey.

Sure, but, like the drop outs, all human behavior is correlated with a million other things. Myself and others have mentioned stress as a possible factor, but there are likely random things you wouldn't even think of like: people who use the phone more are more likely to talk to telemarketers, and talking to telemarketers is correlated with lower intelligence, and lower intelligence is correlated with eating more salt. I'm not suggesting that as a possible cause, just illustrating how complicated the true causal relationship could be. I think it's really a stretch to treat this study as establishing a causal relationship. There are also some open questions like why other types of phone usage don't seem to trigger this effect (the author mentions other studies purely on smartphone use have been inconsistent).

If the authors really believe RF-EMF can cause hypertension, then this study is a fine first step. But they really should find a way to test the mechanism of action before saying they've found a causal relationship.

I think this goes a long way towards making an argument that RF-EMF is a plausible risk factor for hypertension. I'd ideally like to see some follow up studies. Some rat model studies. Some humans with other increased RF-EMF exposure also having higher risks. There is a long distance between providing "any" evidence and "found a casual relationship", so I feel a bit like the goalpost is moving.

Even if RF-EMF isn't the cause, the effect is large enough that it begs the question "Why", which is where the other possible factors suggested come in.

It begs the question "Why", but I think there's already a few very plausible possibilities (more plausible than RF-EMF in my opinion).

In my mind, increased calls are linked with increased cases of emergencies (because much communication is done through text chat and equivalents), so calls are for when that's not sufficient or for when people are away from their normal groups for extended periods. Both of those tend to induce stress. Does stress increasing hypertension account for this?

It’s much worse than not solid, it’s terrible.

They’re beating the drum for an RF/EMF mechanism based on self reported usage.

Is the RF/EMF hypothesis disproven? I haven't looked too deep into it, but to me the biggest objection I have to it is "I don't want it to be true"

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