I have no data on this.
So many people put their laptop right on their stomach while using it.
When I measure the energy coming off of my laptop, the different types of electrical energy, it’s somewhat high. I almost always put it on a pillow before putting it on my stomach. I know many devices are FCC approved, but I don’t know if the FCC takes hours of use on a stomach into account.
Have researchers ruled out this as a possible cause of the increased rate of colorectal cancers?
(Also is the flouride in my water making me see conspiracies that don’t really exist?)
I’ve just been wondering about this recently and there are so many smart people on lemmy I figured someone here would have a smart opinion on this. I know the prevailing theory is colorectal cancers are possibly due to more ultra-processed foods, but has anyone thought about laptops? Is this illogical as a possible cause? It may be that the energy levels aren’t high enough to be a cause or that the colon is too far away from a laptop on a stomach to impact anything.
No, but the microplastics inside everyone are probably another story.
The energy you’re reading is non-ionizing, can’t cause cancer.
If an energy source is high enough frequency, and strong enough, it can knock electrons out of their orbit, creating ions. Hence the name. Ultraviolet rays from the sun can knock your DNA around, cause cancer. Radio waves simply cannot. Get the idea?
Nothing coming out of a laptop is energetic enough to even begin stripping electrons from the atoms in your cells.
I could probably tell a little more if you can say how and what “energy” you’re measuring.
As an ignoramus: From what little I understand, if you cranked a CB radio up to 1,000,000 watts you still couldn’t get ionizing radiation, right?
Same with WiFi, cellphone radio, etc. You gotta get up over ultraviolet before you could cause cancer even if you wanted to.
A radio spitting 1MW of anything on your stomach is going to give you a pretty nasty burn from waste heat, but wifi range - 2.4Ghz is gonna cook your water molecules real good. Still no ionizing happening.
Key thing here is your talking about power, and individual atoms don’t care about that sort of thing. They care about the individual quanta they’re interacting with.
1000 radio frequency photons will never have the individual energy to bump an electron. 1 UV (and shorter wavelengths) photon can bump an electron
What increased rates are you referring to? According to the National Cancer Institute, colorectal cancer rates in the past five years have declined by 1% for men and 0.7% for women.
While I agree with the fact that no it has barely an effect and the FDA says the EMF from devices are well below levels to cause any concern, I found this article and skimmed through it found that:
“Why is colon cancer on the rise? Researchers are still trying to get the answers they need, but several theories have evolved. Some research suggests the increased CRC cases may be caused by exposure to environmental pollutants (9) like nickel, arsenic, benzene, and cadmium. They believe the exposure may be due to EMF (Electromagnetic frequencies) emitted by phones, laptops, and other electronic devices. Previous studies revealed EMF can lead to failing health.”
However, I had to go through many pages of Google for this answer while others said otherwise. Also, it may be biased as this is a service for radiation related testing etc. there are some citations in the article that seem credible but they are just stating possible theories and testing. No peer reviewed paper found with anything linking the two.
Tl;Dr: it’s okay to use a laptop on your stomach, many of us do. EMF levels too low to do anything. Studies are still early in their development and there is no concern ATM.
“Safesleevecases.com”. I think they’re selling you something as opposed to reporting news.
Yes that is why I mentioned it is a radiation testing service. But the article cites some ‘credible-looking’ sources, it is just to show anyone can support a claim by searching enough through Google and finding something that seems credible to spread misinformation. I am thinking OP may have heard something on the media claiming this citing something similar, that is why I was determined to find something that tried to link the two. Most of the results said it was completely safe.
In a word: no.
The frequency isn’t in the right range to cause cancer, no matter how much power you put into it.
Ah, there’s the key part that keeps confusing people: “Energy” when they are thinking of “Power.”
Energy is a property of a thing. Power is the amount of energy (property of thing) transported over time.
It’s impossible to list all the energies you interact with from a laptop, but here’s a few:
- Various photons from the screen. A photon’s energy is based on its wavelength. A higher energy photon has shorter wavelengths.
- The mass of the keyboard is an energy equivalent. A property of the laptop.
- The photons transmitted by Wifi, Bluetooth, or other radio sources - these are actually all a lower energy than the ones from a screen.
Power just means more of those flowing. An infinite number of Wifi photons can hit Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen (most commonly in DNA) and they will never knock an electron off. Same with the photos from your screen. That doesn’t mean there will be no effect.
Wi-Fi photons in the 2.4Ghz range do transfer energy into water molecules and increase their total kinetic energy (since they can’t “gain mass” this means velocity). Increased Kinect energy really means increased heat. Enough heat, leads to burns.
What about laptops would cause cancer?
