Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-use-roses-like-everyone dept.

Impact of Cleaning Products on Women's Lungs as Damaging as 20-a-Day Cigarette Habit: Study

Regular use of cleaning sprays can have as much of an impact on health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, according to a new study. Scientists at Norway's University of Bergen tracked 6,000 people, with an average age of 34 at the time of enrolement in the study, who used the products over a period of two decades, according to the research published in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine [open, DOI: 10.1164/rccm.201706-1311OC] [DX].

They found that lung function decline in women regularly using the products, such as cleaners, was equivalent over the period to those with a 20 cigarettes a day smoking habit. [...] The experts attribute the decline in lung function to the damage that cleaning agents cause to the mucous membranes lining the airways, resulting over time in persistent changes.

The results follow a study by French scientists in September 2017 that found nurses who used disinfectants to clean surfaces at least once a week had a 24 percent to 32 percent increased risk of developing lung disease.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:35PM (6 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday February 20 2018, @02:35PM (#640643) Journal

    You smell something:

    Is it food? No.
    Is it natural? No.
    Is it a cleaner, gasoline, sawdust, smoke, other particulate, or any manmade chemical? Yes.

    Congratulations, it's now causing lung damage and/or cancer.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:04PM (4 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:04PM (#640656)

    It seems logical to me that if I'm smelling the cleaner because it evaporated away its not actually cleaning my kitchen table, so I prefer the "stream mode" sprays vs the "spray mode" sprays. Guys have an instinctual ability to aim streams of liquid anyway. Women claim not so much, but I assure you a drop here or there is a pretty excellent percentage overall compared to if we had an aerosol sprayer mounted on the end.

    Ditto with paint, sometimes I gotta spray and not brush but I always feel its just capitalist ripoff to sell more paint given that most of the paint ends up wasted or breathed in. I can breathe brake cleaner all day, but its not going to clean my brake disks as well as a nice well aimed stream.

    I used an airless sprayer to paint the inside of my well ventilated garage and wore a mask and the filters kept clogging up and I felt bad about the filters until I realized I was better off clogging the filters rather than my lungs. Which is a round about way to point out that nurses kinda understand the whole "wear a mask" thing WRT influenza and coughs and operating rooms, so merely masking up when spraying stuff all over should drop the long disease rates back to normal.

    Finally WRT google results of "lung disease rates per profession" it seems to be a first world problem not quite on the level of black lung disease rates for miners. I thought it was interesting that Mesothelioma profession listed hospital on 4% of death certificates, hospitals get into weird stuff in general, including apparently asbestos. Another oddity I found in the google data is the rates have dropped to about a fifth what they once were over my lifetime (wha?) and the rates vary dramatically by employee age and by geographic state. Just saying the data has a smell of funnyness such that you rerun run statistical tests until you get the result you want, in this case matching a very reasonable and plausible theory, that none the less might have no relationship with reality, although if I were a nurse, I'd think about wearing a mask...

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:23PM (#640664)

      No need to become a nurse, just wear the mask. You scare children and small animals every time you come out of the basement. Just wear the mask, alright?

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by Kawumpa on Tuesday February 20 2018, @04:10PM (2 children)

      by Kawumpa (1187) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @04:10PM (#640701)

      Guys have an instinctual ability to aim streams of liquid anyway.

      FTFY: "Guys have an instinctual ability to aim streams of liquid everywhere."

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:51AM (1 child)

        by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:51AM (#640985) Journal

        So you *meant* to hit the window, sink, and floor?

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
        • (Score: 1) by mmarujo on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:50AM

          by mmarujo (347) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:50AM (#644568)

          Of course, that's an extra 75 points!

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by ledow on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:18PM

    by ledow (5567) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:18PM (#640663) Homepage

    Yup. Smoke (barbecues, open fires, burnt food). Talcum powder. Anything visible in the way of fogging materials (natural fog = plain water, artificial fog is often scented, coloured, etc.), engine exhausts (already proven a lot more dangerous than we ever knew).

    Smell is chemical detection of particulates in the air that you've already inhaled.

    Like all things "cancer", it doesn't guarantee it, it just increases the risk with increases more with severity, frequency and length of exposure. Normal use and not being an idiot, probably fine for most people. OCD-cleaning or working in the cleaning industry? You need to worry. Same as air-stewardesses and radiation exposure - air travel is the way that you'll be exposed to the highest radiation for the longest duration over the course of your life. So long as you're just travelling normally, you'll be fine. Frequent flyers and stewardesses? Significantly higher rates of some cancers.

    Part of my general rules of life - if it smells bads, chokes you, tastes bad, you need to "acclimatise" or "acquire the taste", doesn't feel "nice" (e.g. pain from trying to "sit up straight"), etc. then it's probably bad for you. Now I'm being shown to be right about that (hint: A slightly slouched seating position... better for your back!).