Some are saying that Sen. John McCains brain cancer, glioblastoma, was the result of long-term cellphone usage. We had a dear friend, Dennis, who died of the same brain cancer, but I doubt that he ever once used a cellphone.

Where is the truth about the dangers of using your cellphone? Answer: Nobody really knows, but there are indications that caution is advised.

What is glioblastoma?

Glia comes from the same word in Greek that means glue. Glia refers to several cell types that are not neurons, but which, since their discovery in 1856, have been commonly thought of as the glue that holds your nervous system together. This is true in a sense, but glial cells do more than that.

Its true that glial cells surround neurons everywhere in your body and hold them in place like glue. They are also rich in blood vessels, and so they provide nutrients and oxygen to your neurons. In addition, glial cells form the myelin sheath that surrounds your neurons, insulating one neuron from another and also getting rid of pathogens and dead neurons.

The -oma ending in medical jargon frequently refers to a type of cancer, where cells begin to grow out of control. Blast refers to cells that are precursors to other cells. That is to say that before a particular glial cell comes to be, it is preceded by an undifferentiated cell called a blast. Blastomas begin in blasts.

In the case of glioblastoma, it usually begins in cells that have the potential to differentiate into the type of glial cell called an astrocyte. There are other types of cancer that begin with astrocytes, all called astrocytomas, but glioblastomas account for over half of them.

Glioblastomas are the most invasive of brain tumors in that they grow very rapidly and spread readily to surrounding tissues, making them difficult to remove surgically. They may contain more than one type of cell, so that treating and killing one type of cancerous cell may leave another type to continue growing.

Incidentally, there is also relatively recent research showing that various dysfunctions in your astrocytes may play a role in psychiatric disorders like autism and schizophrenia.

Its about radiation.

Radiation is all around you. Your voice radiates sound waves. A lighted match radiates heat and light waves. The X-ray machine radiates X-radiation. And more.

All of the atoms and molecules in the universe are constantly moving around, jiggling, bumping into things. Heat is the energy that something has because of this movement, and the faster this happens, the more heat is involved. For example, you see water boil because the molecules are moving around and bumping into each other so fast that the original space isnt big enough to contain them.

Sound waves are waves that physically displace air in certain patterns. You hear because of the pattern of the waves of air that enter your ear; without air, there is no sound. The faster the waves arrive at your ear, their frequency, the higher is the pitch you hear. The greater the top-to-bottom height of the waves, the amplitude, the louder is the sound.

Light is an example of electromagnetic radiation, which doesnt require air and is very different from sound and heat, although EMR may cause heat. Rather, EMR consists of perpendicular waves of electricity and magnetism that always travel at the same speed in a vacuum, the speed of light. EMR also behaves as though it were a string of particles, which are called photons. That is, EMR is both immaterial and material simultaneously.

EMR carries a certain amount of energy that is dependent on the frequency of the waves. Low frequency is low energy, and high frequency is high energy. The spectrum of EMR is conventionally divided into segments from low to high energy called radio waves (RF), microwaves, infrared (IR), visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. A single gamma photon may have 100,000 times as much energy as a red light photon.

Dangers of EMR

Remember that your cells are chock full of DNA, the material that contains your genes, and genes are the biological computer programs that affect much of whats happening in you. A healthy life is critically dependent on your DNA genetic structure having integrity in itself.

As it happens, with exposure to high-energy EMR, like X-rays and gamma rays, a photon can knock an electron off a DNA molecule, ionize it, which can lead to cancer. At lower frequencies, such as RF and microwaves, there is generally not enough energy to disrupt the DNA in that way; the photons are not ionizing.

However, the lower-energy EMR does affect living tissue by generating heat as you may have experienced through sunburn. And youve probably cooked some food using the heat generated by EMR in a microwave oven.

How can your cellphone hurt you?

EMR is all around you: broadcasting radio and TV, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, microwave cooking, cordless phones, cellphones and towers, satellite phones, and many more.

The problem with the RF and microwave EMR is that they can cause production of compounds called peroxynitrites in your cells. These are derived chemically from nitric oxide, which is an important contributor to your health under normal circumstances. When overactivated by RF radiation, however, NO is a major player in a complex chemical process that results in peroxynitrite damage to your mitochondria.

Mitochondria are those energy producing factors found in most of your cells, and their health is critical to preventing cancer. The most dense concentration of mitochondria you have is in your brain. So while talking on your cellphone, or cordless phone, you are directly applying RF radiation to a most RF-sensitive area of your body.

It was long thought that genetic mutation was the primary cause of cancer. However, research has shown that while genetic mutation is often causative, its only a secondary cause of cancer. The primary cause lies with your mitochondria. That is, mitochondrial damage happens first, and then triggers genetic mutations that may lead to cancer. For more information, see my June 17, 2016, column, The prevention and treatment of cancer.

Research: inconclusive, but suggestive

There has been research into the effects of RF radiation on human health, and especially cancer. Much of the research has been limited and of poor quality, and so its difficult to conclude definitely that cellphone usage will cause cancer.

While not conclusive, however, there is enough credible evidence suggesting a link between cellphones and cancer that the International Agency for Research on Cancer says that RF radiation is a possible human carcinogen. There is a growing body of evidence supporting that link, and urging caution.

How to be cautious

It seems extremely unlikely that we will stop using cell or cordless phones in the foreseeable future. There are, however, several things you can do to minimize your risk of disease from RF radiation.

First, if you must hold the phone to your head, keep your conversations short.

Better yet is to keep the phone away from your body by using its speaker phone feature or by sending text messages instead of having a conversation.

Limit the use of your phone when the reception is weak, three bars or less. The reason is that a weak signal forces your phone to increase the power of its RF signal in order to communicate with the cell tower.

Carry your phone away from your body in a purse or backpack if you can. Separation even as little as an inch between you and the phone antenna can make a big difference in the amount of RF radiation youre receiving.

Its a question mark.

Did McCains cellphone usage cause his brain cancer? We cant know that, and we cant know if your pattern of cellphone and cordless phone usage will damage your health. We do know that there are real risks associated with the use of these phones, and its a simple matter to minimize them.

Bob Keller maintains a holistic pain management practice in Newburyport. His book, Making Sense of Medicine: Medical Matters Made Simple, is available locally or online. He can be reached at 978-465-5111 or bob@myokineast.com.

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Making Sense of Medicine: Is your cellphone killing you? - The Daily News of Newburyport