RIYADH: A renowned professor of King Saud University (KSU) here has warned of radiation danger from cell phone towers, saying that the radiation emissions from towers can cause many health hazards because of their dense installations and unscientific proliferation.

In a new study, Prof. Sultan Ayoub Meo, a professor at KSU’s College of Medicine, has for the first time proved that the radiation from towers also causes diabetes mellitus.

Sultan, whose research findings on radiation from mobile phone base station towers (MPBST) has been published in the “International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health”, a reputable Swiss science journal, said that “this is the first study added in the global science literature about radiation and its link with type 2 diabetes mellitus.”

The study is based on the effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Filed Radiation (RF-EMFR) generated by MPBSTs on hemoglobin.

Sultan’s new study has also raised a question mark over the safety of cell phone towers in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East countries. It is interesting to note here that the use of mobile phones has markedly increased among both gender and all age groups in the Kingdom and across the world during the last two decades. He said that “there are about 7.3 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, and this figure is more than the world’s population.” Spelling out the main findings of his study, Sultan told Arab News in an exclusive interview that “radiation generated by mobile phones and their base stations towers ranges between 400 MHz and 3 GHz.”

Mobile phone companies, Sultan said, installed towers in residential and commercial areas including on/near school buildings, which has stirred up widespread public concern about the hazards of RF-EMF radiation.

He also said that the radiation emanating from towers causes many other health hazards like headache, depression, high blood pressure and sleep disorders besides damaging nervous, cardio-vascular as well as reproductive systems.



The KSU professor said that about 382 million people globally are suffering from diabetes mellitus, and this number is expected to surge to 592 million by 2035 as per the data shared by the International Diabetic Federation. “In 2014 alone, a total of 4.9 million people died due to the complications of diabetes mellitus,” said Sultan, adding that this deadly disease took the life of one individual every seven seconds.

In this new research study, which for the first time discovered the link between cell tower radiation and diabetes; Sultan and his colleagues selected two different elementary schools in Riyadh region.

The team led by Sultan selected 159 apparently healthy students (96 from one school and 63 from another school) of the same age, gender, nationality, regional, cultural and socio-economic status.

Blood samples were collected from all the students and the HbA1c was analyzed. The team found that the students, who were exposed to high RF-EMF generated by MPBS had significantly higher HbA1c than the students who were exposed to low RF-EMF.