The Thyroid – a New Critical Body for Impacting Electromagnetic Fields Mobile Communications: Assessment of Possible Effects for Children and Adolescents
This publication provides an analysis of the studies of Russian and foreign scientists dealing with the problem of studying the effect of electromagnetic fields on the state of the thyroid gland as a new critical organ directly experiencing this type of exposure when using a new generation of mobile communications – smartphones. The review includes an introduction, five sections, and a conclusion. In the section “Distribution of absorbed doses when using mobile phones” studies of the distribution and level of absorption of electromagnetic fields when using mobile communications, including the thyroid gland, are presented. The issues of modelling taking into account the size of the head and the properties of the tissues of children are discussed. “Epidemiological and statistical assessments of thyroid dysfunction” – this section summarizes the data on the incidence of the thyroid gland among the child population in Russia for the period 1990 – 2019. The section “Experimental studies” presents the experimental data of domestic and foreign scientists on morphological and hormonal changes in the thyroid gland of experimental animals when exposed to electromagnetic fields of cellular communication. Biomedical studies of the effects of their impact are described in the section “Changes in the functioning of the thyroid gland in mobile users”. The review is completed by the section “Possible long-term consequences of prolonged exposure to electromagnetic fields on the thyroid gland in mobile communication users”.