Talking on a mobile phone could be good for you, because the electromagnetic waves emitted by the devices could protect against and even reverse Alzheimer's disease, a study shows.

Researchers at the University of South Florida exposed 96 mice, most of whom had been genetically altered to develop the Alzheimer's disease as they aged, to electromagnetic waves generated by US mobile (mobileular) phones.

The mice were zapped with 918-megaHerz of frequency twice a day for one hour each time over a period of seven to nine months - the equivalent of several decades in humans.

In older mice with Alzheimer's, long-term exposure to the electromagnetic fields caused deposits in the brain of beta-amyloid, a protein fragment that accumulates in the brain of Alzheimer's sufferers to form the disease's signature plaques, to be erased.

Memory impairment in the older mice disappeared, too, the study showed.