Women who clean at home or work face increased lung function decline

[FarCenter]

Women who work as cleaners or regularly use cleaning sprays or other cleaning products at home appear to experience a greater decline in lung function over time than women who do not clean, according to new research published online in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

In "Cleaning at Home and at Work in Relation to Lung Function Decline and Airway Obstruction," researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway analyzed data from 6,235 participants in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey. The participants, whose average age was 34 when they enrolled, were followed for more than 20 years.

"While the short-term effects of cleaning chemicals on asthma are becoming increasingly well documented, we lack knowledge of the long-term impact," said senior study author Cecile Svanes, MD, PhD, a professor at the university's Centre for International Health. "We feared that such chemicals, by steadily causing a little damage to the airways day after day, year after year, might accelerate the rate of lung function decline that occurs with age."

The study found that compared to women not engaged in cleaning:

- Forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), or the amount of air a person can forcibly exhale in one second, declined 3.6 milliliters (ml)/year faster in women who cleaned at home and 3.9 ml/year faster in women who worked as cleaners.

- Forced vital capacity (FVC), or the total amount of air a person can forcibly exhale, declined 4.3 ml/year faster in women who cleaned at home and 7.1 ml/year faster in women who worked as cleaners.

The authors found that the accelerated lung function decline in the women working as cleaners was "comparable to smoking somewhat less than 20 pack- years."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180216084912.htm

[spooky3]

1. I would think this could apply to male cleaners too.

[FarCenter]

2. Apparently not

"The study also did not find that men who cleaned, either at home or at work, experienced greater decline in FEV1 or FVC than men who did not."

[spooky3]

6. thanks

[blueinredohio]

4. This just gives me another reason to justify not cleaning

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Me too. Thank God I'm casual as far as cleaning.

As Quentin Crisp said, "After two years, it really doesn't get much dirtier."

[meadowlander]

11. +1000

No more cleaning for me

[silverweb]

16. Ditto that!

I can't think of many things I enjoy less than cleaning, especially when there are so many, much more interesting things to be doing!

[donco]

7. HHhhmm That would explain

the cleaning crew that we use from “WE GOT MAIDS“ wearing respirators the last time they cleaned.

[procon]

8. You don't have to be a "cleaner" to get exposed to the chemical fumes used

in industrial sanitation products. I was a nurse for 30 years, and the types of cleaning and disinfection liquids we used everyday were toxic. My hands were constantly raw and painfully red, my eyes would get swollen, my nose was always dripping, and I wheezed and coughed all day. In the last years before I retired I was already taking daily breathing treatments to deal with the chemically induced asthma symptoms I developed.

Women are generally shorter than men, and the strong chemical fumes wafting up from a newly cleaned wet floor, a gurney or counter, were always in my face so I breathed it all in... year after year, and now my lungs are a mess.

[TheBlackAdder]

12. Remember trichlorotriflouroethane? The best degreaser & upholstery cleaner. Bottle w/ skull & crossbones.

[procon]

13. No, I can't recall that name, but I remember the quats, they were terrible!

Quaternary ammonium compounds that were cheap chlorine-based cleaners and sanitizers which were also absorbed through the skin and irritated human tissues like eyes and airways. The EU banned some products, and finally the US took a baby step to ban certain chemicals from certain products.

Then there was pHisoHex, those little green bottles were at every sink in every hospital back in the day, but it actually grew resistant bacteria inside the bottle. We always removed the lid and sniffed, then shined a light inside to check, they finally discovered that the antibacterial cleaner was also killing some people, too, and then it was banned.

[TheBlackAdder]

9. Bleach vapors is perhaps the most dangerous to lungs, followed by Fabreze-like products.

[WhiteTara]

10. Cleaning supplies are generally very toxic stuff

I can't be in the same room as any of it. Citrus products are great cleaners and not toxic.

[Neema]

14. I hate cleaning, so one of the first things I justified to myself was a cleaning person. When I

first hired them, they seemed a bit put out that I asked them to use my own non-toxic cleaning supplies. I don't use bleach and other toxic chemicals in my house and didn't want them to use them either. Partially because I'm trying to do my part not to pollute our air and water more than necessary, and partially because I work at home and don't want to smell it. At first they'd forget and use their own stuff, and I had to remind them all the time.

But then, a couple months later, they told me they asked their boss to switch to non-toxic stuff because my supplies didn't hurt their lungs, eyes and skin. They said they even switched at home.

[silverweb]

17. Well done!

[pansypoo53219]

15. faux citrus bad. plants help, but cleaners would inhale more.