More and more of us are coming to rely on our mobile phones. It's become common to see people walking down the street with their phones clamped to their ears, and for some people, that phone just never stops ringing. It's disturbing to think, then, as some have suggested, that mobile phones might actually be hazardous to are health. Is this threat for real, or is it just scaremongering?

Critics of mobile phones point out that they transmit signals using microwaves, just like the ones that are used in microwave ovens. To talk into the handsets and hear the reply, you have to hold them right next to your head. Would you put your head in a microwave?

In reality, it's a little more complicated than that. The amount of radiation phones can emit is limited by law, and is tiny compared to a microwave oven. Still, it has been suggested that even this small amount of radiation, building up over time, could cause cancer tumours, or even mutate your DNA.

While there is a lot of debate on this issue, the reality is that we just don't know. People haven't been using mobile phones for long enough for us to do the kind of long-term studies that would be needed to confirm whether the dangers exist. At the same time, it's worth considering that the situation now as regards mobiles is very similar to the way things were with smoking about 50 years ago, and just look how that turned out.

If you want to be sure, the best thing to do is to limit your exposure to mobile phone radiation. If you don't want to give up using your phone, you could get a hands-free kit, which is a set of earphones that avoids you having to put the phone right up against your head.