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