Nowadays, wireless earphones have become an essential part of our daily lives. Be it making calls in the office, listening to music or using social media, people wear them for hours. This situation has given rise to an important question: Is the radiation emitted from Bluetooth earphones harmful to health, and can it increase the risk of cancer? There are many claims being made on the internet that using them is like having a microwave near your head. Let us understand the truth of these claims.
To dispel this misconception, Dr. J. Jagannathan, a neurosurgeon from the Michigan Neurosurgery Institute of America, recently clarified the situation based on scientific facts in a video. In this video shared on Instagram on October 13, 2025, he responded to a viral clip that compared wearing AirPods to being exposed to a microwave. According to Dr. Jagannathan, this comparison is completely misleading. He explained that the radiation emitted from wireless earphones is “non-ionizing”, unable to damage DNA. Therefore, there is no concrete evidence directly linking it to cancer.
Dr. Jagannathan says that the radiation emitted from Bluetooth earphones is much less than that of mobile phones. According to statistics, the radiation emitted from devices such as AirPods can be about 10 to 400 times less than that of mobile phones. So, if there is no solid evidence of cancer risk from mobile phone use, the risk is even lower in the case of earphones.
The research most often cited in the context of cancer claims is the National Toxicology Program (NTP) study. In this study, rats were exposed to radiofrequency radiation for a long period of time. It showed a slight increase in certain types of heart cancer in male rats, while no such apparent effect was found in female rats. Dr. Jagannathan explains that this study was later reviewed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA clearly stated that this research does not prove a direct link between cancer and radiation in humans. It is also important to note that the amount of radiation given to the rats in the study was under different conditions than radiation exposure from mobile phones or earphones in real life. According to experts, based on the existing scientific evidence it would be wrong to say that wireless earphones cause cancer.
