Health cleansing causes similar lung damage as 20 cigarettes at one time

Cleaning products damage the lungs as much as intense smoking

Hardly anyone likes to clean. Anyone who presses before cleaning, apparently lives healthier. A recent study has shown that aggressive cleansers can damage the lungs of women who clean a lot in the long term. In men, no corresponding health effects were found. But they also do significantly less housework than women.

• Frequent cleaning according to the study as harmful as smoking
• Reduced lung function through cleaning chemicals
• Cleaners have higher asthma risk
• Health effects only found in women

Cleaning can endanger your health

Last year, a study from the University of Brussels provided evidence that cleaning should be a health hazard for men.

Norwegian researchers have found in a study that frequent cleaning with chemical cleaning agents can damage the lungs in the long term just as much as cigarettes. (Picture: Picture-Factory / fotolia.com)

The scientists said back then that the reason for this was that men use, for example, less frequent breathing masks and protective gloves and misjudge the mix of chemicals and due to this carelessness or ignorance have a higher risk, inter alia, for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer and pneumonia.

The fact that cleaning represents a danger to the lungs - and that of women - was also revealed in a study by Norwegian researchers. Accordingly, it affects the lung function as strong as years of heavy smoking.

Similar greatly reduced lung function as in smokers

As the scientists from the Norwegian University of Bergen report in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, frequent cleansing can be just as harmful to health as smoking.

"People who have been cleaning or cleaning their homes for 20 years have a similar reduction in lung function as smokers who consume 20 cigarettes a day," study principal author Øistein Svanes from the Department of Clinical Science at the University of Bergen said Message.

To get their results, the researchers analyzed data from 6,235 participants in a Europe-wide Health Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS for short)..

Subjects whose mean age at baseline was 34 years were followed for more than 20 years.

Higher asthma risk

"While the short-term effects of cleaning chemicals on asthma are becoming increasingly well documented, we lack the knowledge about the long-term effects," said Cecile Svanes, MD, PhD, professor at the University's Center for International Health, according to a report by the journal "EurekAlert!".

"We feared that by continuously damaging the airways day after day, year after year, such chemicals could accelerate the decline in lung function with age," said the researcher.

And indeed, the authors found that lung function worsened tremendously in women who worked as cleaners. Her lung scores are just as bad as those of people who smoked a pack of cigarettes daily for about 20 years.

The researchers also found that cleaners have a 40 percent higher risk of developing asthma than others.

Spraying chemicals especially dangerous

According to Øistein Svanes, this degree of pulmonary dysfunction is initially surprising, but: "If you imagine inhaling small particles of cleaning agents designed to cleanse the floor, not the lungs, that may not be that surprising."

Above all, means that are sprayed can be dangerous: "The small particles from the sprays can stay in the air for hours after cleaning. The small particles can reach deep into the lungs, causing infections and accelerating the aging of the lungs, "said Svanes.

In men, the researchers found no difference between hobby users, professional cleaners and cleaning people.

However, the authors of the study pointed out that there were only a few cleansing men among the subjects, which is why the significance is only slight.

"The key message of this study is that chemical cleansers are very likely to cause great damage to the lungs in the long run," Svanes concluded.

"I would recommend a bucket of soap and water when cleaning. You do not need a lot of chemicals to clean. Microfibre cloths can be just as effective, "says the expert. (Ad)