Like most guys I keep my cellphone in my pocket throughout the day. In fact, I keep my cellphone on my lap while I am driving in case the phone rings or I get an email or text message.

Like other wireless products that make our lives easier, cellphones contain microwaves that send out signals constantly to cell towers to retrieve your phone calls, messages and text messages.

Recently, I have been hearing rumblings from individuals who hypothesize that excessive cellphone use will cause cancers in their users. According to the National Cancer Institutes's website,

There are three main reasons why people are concerned that cellular telephones (also known as “wireless” or “mobile” telephones) may cause certain types of cancer.

1. Cellular telephones emit radiofrequency (RF) energy, a form of radiation, which is under investigation for its effects on the human body.
2. Cellular telephone technology is relatively new and is still changing, so there are no long-term studies of the effects of RF energy from cellular telephones on the human body.
3. The number of cellular telephone users is increasing rapidly. According to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), there are now more than 180 million subscribers to cellular telephone service in the United States. This has increased from 110 million users just 3 years ago. Experts estimate that by 2010, there will be 2.2 billion subscribers worldwide.

The website goes on to say that the parts of the body that some hypothesize could potentially be affected from RF energy include the brain and nervous system tissue in the head. This makes sense given that, while in use, the cellphone is right up against the callers' head.

If cellphones hypothetically could cause brain cancer due to their excessive use and close proximity to the brain, one would be right to assume that keeping that cellphone in ones' pocket while waiting for its' use -- and all along sending and receiving RF energy -- could potentially cause prostate cancer in men and uterine cancer in women.

The Cancer Institute says that the cellphone technology has not been around long enough to give us enough conclusive evidence as to the harmful results of cellphone use, if any. Scientists suggest that more research needs to be done before cellphones can be linked the cancers.

In a February article on MSNBC, Danish researchers published a finding in which they determined that cellphones do not cause cancer, or at least of the 420,000 Danish cellphone users that were tracked over a twenty year period (1982-2002), fewer than the 15,001 predicted from national cancer rates actually contracted cancer. But even head researchers doubts such studies will ever end the debate.

So, as we wait for science to come to an agreed decision on whether or not cellphones and their RF energy will cause cancer, we are posed with the question I asked in this blog title: Are We Killing Ourselves?