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 Women who used sprays or other cleaning products at least once per
week had a more accelerated decline than women who didn’t, the study
authors wrote.
“We’re cleaning in our houses every day and every week. It’s
important to have this discussion about cleaning and what we do in
our homes,” said lead study author Dr. Oistein Svanes of the
University of Bergen, Norway.
“This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t clean - of course we need to clean
our houses,” he told Reuters Health by phone. “But we need to
question what chemicals we’re using and how they affect us.”
Bergen and colleagues studied more than 6,200 participants in the
European Community Respiratory Health Survey. At 22 health centers
in nine countries in western Europe, participants had lung function
tests and filled out questionnaires three times over the course of
20 years.
On average, the survey takers were in their mid-30s when they
enrolled. About half were female. Eighty-five percent of the women
said they were the person cleaning at home.
Altogether, 8.9 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men said
cleaning was their occupation.
The survey used two measurements to assess lung function: forced
expiratory volume per second, which is the amount of air a person
can forcibly exhale in a second, and forced vital capacity, or the
total amount a person can exhale in a second.
According to the American Lung Association, lung function slowly
declines after about age 35.
Over the two decades of the study, women not working as cleaners and
not involved in cleaning at home showed the slowest declines in lung
function.
Compared to those women, women who used sprays or other cleaning
products at least once a week had a faster decline in lung function.
The decline was faster still for women who worked as cleaners.
Exposure to cleaning products wasn’t linked to a decline in lung
function for men. However, the authors admit, that may be because
there were so few professional male cleaners in the study.
Declines in lung function were not linked with a higher risk for
obstructive airway diseases like emphysema or asthma, however.
Still, the authors said, for women whose occupation was cleaning,
the effect of exposure to cleaning products was only “somewhat less”
than smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for 20 years.
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“The biggest surprise was that the results were quite consistent,”
Svanes said. “After following people for 20 years and taking lung
capacity measurements three times, the results still stood out, even
across a multi-center, multinational study.”
While the study wasn’t designed to prove that exposure to cleaning
products causes lung problems, the authors suggest that the findings
might be attributable to the irritation that cleaning chemicals
cause to the mucous membranes that line the airways.
In many cases, instead of chemicals, “lukewarm water and a
microfiber cloth would do it,” Svanes said. “Cleaning experts would
see that as perfectly fine for most purposes.”
Future studies should investigate the types of chemicals and
cleaning agents that cause the most harm, he added. Cleaning sprays,
in particular, may contribute to an increased risk of asthma as
particles fly in the air.
“There’s an idea that clean equals good and healthy, but this should
broaden our idea of what cleaning work is and what the chemical
hazards are in particular,” said Dr. Margaret Quinn of University of
Massachusetts in Lowell, who wasn’t involved with the study.
Quinn is researching how home care aides who care for elderly
patients are affected by cleaning tasks. In Quinn’s experimental
lab, aides perform typical cleaning tasks while air monitors test
air quality for off-the-shelf cleaners.
“We need to think about our products and the way we apply them,”
Quinn told Reuters Health by phone. “Cleaning products, especially
sprays, now contain a mix of chemicals that can cause respiratory
illness.”
The fact that the study included few women who didn’t clean at home
or work, and few men who worked as cleaners, raises a broader social
question about gender and cleaning work, Quinn added.
“Cleaning at home, in hotels, at office buildings and in kitchens is
still seen as women’s work, and most workers are still women,” she
said. “We need to think about this societal perception and how
different types of work carry occupational hazards.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2I5QzdN American Journal of Respiratory and
Critical Care Medicine, online February 16, 2018.
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