Authored By:
Kato I, Young A, Liu J, Abrams J, Bock C, Simon MThis is a prospective cohort study that assessed whether the exposure to extremely low frequency (ELF) electric and magnetic fields (EMF) from electric blankets is associated to thyroid cancer. The cohort comprised of 89,527 women aged 50-79, recruited at 40 clinical centers throughout the United States between 1993 and 1998. The information on the use of electric blankets was collected at the start of recruitment and the cohort was followed for over 12 years. No association was found between ever using electric blankets and thyroid cancer (Hazard ratio, HR = 0.98, 95% confidence interval, CI = 0.72-1.32). Using electric blankets more frequently did not increase the risk of thyroid cancer. The authors conclude that these results do not support that using electric blankets increases the risk of thyroid cancer.
Published In:
Women Health 2015: in pressThere is not a lot of epidemiological data on ELF EMF exposure and thyroid cancer to date. There have been several studies investigating ELF EMF and other hormone-sensitive cancers especially breast cancer. Several reviews including the World Health Organization (WHO) health risk assessment in 2007 on ELF fields concluded that there is no established evidence from experimental and epidemiological studies that ELF magnetic fields (MF) increase the risk of breast cancer (WHO, 2007).
