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Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nonbel 9y ago>"The scientists found that the amount of air breathed out by their participants decreased more in women who regularly cleaned. The study did not find any harmful effects comparable to those seen in women in the men they studied." Then: >"While the results appear dramatic, the researchers speculated chemicals in cleaning products irritate the fragile mucous membranes lining the lungs, which over time leads to lasting damage and “remodelling” of the airways." http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resources/women-cleaners-lung-function.pdf http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resour...
- kevindqc 9y agoThis is why I never clean.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoThe only winning move is to just not let dirt happen to begin with.
- st26 9y agoDo you live inside a bunny suit?
- DoreenMichele 9y agoNope.
- st26 9y agoDead skin cells & hair is where a lot of dust & dirt in your home begins.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoI'm aware that is one source. It absolutely isn't the entire explanation. Though I have no idea why you are taking me to task here since it was intended as tongue in cheek humor mirroring the famous movie line to the effect that "The only way to win is not to play". However, if you want to debate this, it is humorous to me due to the element of truth that I essentially never clean, I just don't let things get dirty. But most people don't actually want to have any idea how that can be done because whenever I talk about my personal choices for my life, they feel judged in an ugly way for reasons I cannot fathom. Not saying it is literally true that you can simply never clean. But you can do a lot more prevention than most people seem to imagine is possible. And, of course, I have long utilized a few loop holes that will largely go away should I manage to buy a house.
- uxcolumbo 9y agoSo how do prevent things from getting dirty?
- DoreenMichele 9y ago1. Spartan life. Dust is created by not just hair and skin but all upholstered items, cloth items, books, particle board etc. The less of that you have, the less dust and dirt you have. 2. No deep frying. It's the single nastiest way to cook and coats the entire kitchen in grease. It also is terrible for your health. 3. Keep your own hair short and do a lot of walking. The lymphatic system is powered by motion. It is how the body takes out the trash. If you are clean and healthy, you leave less detritus all over the house. 4. Make it a habit. You just get good at not letting things happen because it takes so much less effort to just not get dirty than to clean it up. Once you have a certain awareness, you just don't do things that lead to dirt. 5. Loopholes. I currently live in an SRO. So I have neither a kitchen nor a bathroom of my own. There are facilities down the hall and management cleans them about three times a week. If I buy a house, I will have to do some cleaning that I can currently skip due to not having private facilities of my own.
- red75prime 9y agoOr not to be obsessed with perfect cleanliness.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoThere is an element of that to my life in a pick your battles kind of way.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoYou've stopped shedding skin, opening windows and doors, and stopped cooking? That's pretty amazing.
- trendia 9y agoI switched to vinegar-based cleaning solution. High dose inhalation of acetic acid seems to induce an acute reaction in mice without long-term effect, so I'm hoping that chronic low dose inhalation won't have an effect in humans either.
- akman 9y agoconsidering some people ingest vinegar for blood sugar regulation, seems like a safe way to go
- sokoloff 9y agoI could imagine that inhaling into lungs might have a different impact from swallowing into the digestive tract. People doing blood sugar regulation are drinking, not snorting, vinegar, right?
- jazoom 9y agoYes, it's very different when a child swallows an M&M to when a child inhales an M&M.
- anonoholic 9y agoThe original headline says "cleaning products", which is what the study covers, but the article lede says "cleaning sprays", which is what the headline here has been edited to suggest. Much discussion on Reddit a couple of weeks ago when this study was originally published: https://www.reddit.com/search?q=cleaning+products+lung https://www.reddit.com/search?q=cleaning+products+lung
- nonbel 9y agoI don't think these results necessarily relate to cleaning products either. They just asked people how much they cleaned in a survey: >'Based on the entrance questions (wording at http://www.ecrhs.org http://www.ecrhs.org ), participants were categorised as “not cleaning”, “cleaning at home” and “occupational cleaning”. Participants responding “yes” to at least one module entrance question, answered a questionnaire concerning use of cleaning agents (sprays, other cleaning agents); defining the exposure categories “not cleaning”, “≥1 cleaning spray ≥1/week”, and “≥1 other cleaning product ≥1/week”.' http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resources/women-cleaners-lung-function.pdf http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resour...
- xerxe-sans-s 9y agoThis supports previous research that indicates there's a connection between asthma and cleaning products, particularly in occupational cleaners. I don't see any reference to study on particular cleaning solutions, exposure times, or any particularly reliable control. I'll continue working under the assumption that long term exposure to any chemical can be associated with an increased health risk - until a more detailed study is done there's really no actionable conclusion here.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- fitzroy 9y agoI use vinegar for light cleaning and dusting, and rubbing alcohol for almost all other household cleaning now. Isopropyl alcohol is basically magic — it sterilizes and completely evaporates with no lingering residue or fragrances. And a steam mop for the floor.
- txcwpalpha 9y agoIn case someone reads your comment and takes it to heart: isopropyl alcohol is not as magic as you're making it sound. It is a disinfectant but isopropyl alcohol does not sterilize. Some bacteria and spores are not killed by isopropyl alcohol, and depending on the surface you are cleaning, it can be ineffective at even disinfecting. >Alcohols are not recommended for sterilizing medical and surgical materials principally because they lack sporicidal action and they cannot penetrate protein-rich materials. Fatal postoperative wound infections with Clostridium have occurred when alcohols were used to sterilize surgical instruments contaminated with bacterial spores. [1] It's probably fine for most household uses, but it does not sterilize like you said it does, and if you're trying to clean something that you know is contaminated by disease-causing bacteria (eg cleaning the bathroom after someone has had the stomach flu) or someone immuno-suppressed lives in your house, you probably should reach for something stronger. Isopropyl alcohol also, like you mentioned, evaporates quickly. You mention this as a benefit, but fast evaporation also means that you are likely inhaling a lot of alcohol particles as you clean, which is not good for your lung health either. 1: https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/disinfection-methods/chemical.html https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- JohnJamesRambo 9y agoAlcohol kills most things very well. I'm a scientist that handles lots of nasty things like MRSA and gram negative organisms that have killed their human hosts and we spray our gloves with 70% ethanol and spray down our biosafety hoods with it as do almost all labs in the world. This is all moot probably because homes don't need disinfection (hygiene hypothesis implies you probably need the opposite) but alcohol will certainly kill most things. It would be extremely rare for you to need to kill exotic things like bacterial spores that need nuclear options like autoclaving to kill.
- nck4222 9y agoFor anyone else looking for mentions of specific products, the original paper doesn't mention any. It just categorized people in to non-cleaners, cleaners at home, and professional cleaners. Both the professional cleaners and at home cleaners were impacted.
- stevenwoo 9y agoThey were relying on surveys of memory but they indicated spraying only once a week versus any other method was correlated with issues.
- jopsen 9y agoI got the impression that they concluded correlation, not causation. Could be that less dust decrease lung capacity... Unlikely, but who knows?
- nextos 9y agoI clean with a steamer. It doesn't project particles, and it's extremely good at disinfecting. I also use a vacuum cleaner with exceptionally low dust re-emission. And an air purifier. The only "chemicals" I use are an extremely mild lactic acid based cleaner and a pre/probiotic on toilets and kitchen tops. And I don't use any fragrances anywhere. My allergy problems have disappeared. I really recommend this approach. Cheap chemicals are a disaster for ones health. Microfibres are cool, but I've seen inconclusive evidence they might shed asbesto-like particles. So I'm waiting for better testing.
- smaili 9y agoCare to point to Amazon(or other sites) product pages? May be useful for some of us looking to buy.
- bitwize 9y agoWindex sells lactic acid cleaner readily available in stores. It's the yellow stuff, it looks like pee but it does the job.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoIs that the same as windex vinegar? That’s what we use as our low-level cleaning agent.
- Paperweight 9y agoAlmost all household cleaning sprays use lactic acid. Its smell is less irritating than acetic acid, so presumably you can inhale more of it until you cough...
- chmaynard 9y agoBelieving a report in a general news publication that attempts to summarize the conclusion of a study that hasn't been replicated anywhere can lead to an increase in stupidity. Caveat emptor. Also, all headlines are clickbait. Get over it.
- wil421 9y agoAgreed. I saw an article on the front page last week about how standing desks causes more issues than sitting. The sample size was one office with 20 people.
- frozenport 9y agoDoesn't mean they are wrong. Imagine if everybody in that office died. You'd know something was up, perhaps not standing desks. The key thing is mechanism and if another group tried to reproduce.
- gascan 9y agoIt fits in with other things we already know, though. Cleaners and their VOC are responsible for an increasing portion of ground level ozone & smog, which are also correlated with declining lung function. This would be just yet another reason to change how you clean.
- sdpy 9y agoThe original study: http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resources/women-cleaners-lung-function.pdf http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resour...
- derefr 9y agoHow much of this is to do with the fact that these cleaners are being put into the air as vapor through a diffuser (the spray-bottle's nozzle); and how much has to do with the fact that these chemicals are volatiles that will evaporate off of the surfaces they're on and then travel into the lungs as a gas? That is, if I wore a dust mask while I cleaned—or if I sprayed the cleaner directly into a cloth pressed against the bottle, then rubbed the cloth against the surface—would that help? It'd reduce cleanser vaporization, I'd think, but not do much to help with avoiding evaporated cleanser gas.
- exodust 9y agoYou might have a point, particularly considering the action of cleaning involves leaning forward and bending down into the area you just sprayed as you begin scrubbing, further exposing yourself to the misty air and fumes. I thought about this last time I cleaned shower with fan on... I figured the fan was drawing the fumes up towards me as I cleaned shower, so now I don't use fan and just try to finish the job quickly! I think there's a lot to be said for using a mask when cleaning, even if just for a slightly reduced exposure.
- ben509 9y agoI assume "comparable" means "similar" in this sense. But there's nothing about lung cancer, which makes the impact on lung health not remotely similar to a pack a day cigarette habit.
- code_duck 9y agoSmoking diminishes lung function in many ways other than eventual risk of cancer. Not every smoker gets cancer, by far, but every one has their lung function decreased.
- truculation 9y agoPresumably better to twist nozzle to jet spray rather than mist spray?
- RIMR 9y agoBetter not to use cleaning sprays at all...
- WiseWeasel 9y agoI would think better to pour onto a container, soak a sponge, and apply.
- truculation 9y agoOr squirt directly into/onto the damp sponge/cloth.
- refurb 9y agoAs a former chemist, call me suspicious of these findings. Can cleaners be an irritant to the lungs? Of course. Inhaling a lot of things can be an irritant. Most cleaners that consumers use are surfactants sometimes mixed with alkylbenzonium disinfectants (in very low concentration). Even cleaners that are ammonia based aren't harmful. Now on the professional side, I could believe there is risk. Some of those chemicals are very harsh.
- sizzle 9y agoWhy do you believe ammonia/chemical based cleaners are not harmful when inhaled from normal day to day use? I say that as someone who majored in human bio and can only imagine that inhaling these chemicals will have adverse effects on your health.
- drewbuschhorn 9y agoI'd assume because our bodies have a pretty big buffer store to avoid pH effects, and most ammonia based derivatives would be concentrated in the external mucus membranes not the lungs, at least that's most inhaled acids work, I'm not really a bases guy. I mean if you're inhaling anything with benzene rings on a regular basis, you should really wear a mask and so not do that, but inhaling 2x your daily dose of surfactant once a week is probably fine for the home cleaner. Skip the BBQ that weekend and it probably balances out.
- refurb 9y agoAmmonia is such a strong irritant you'd never be able to inhale enough (willingly) to cause systemic toxicity. We also have a lot of info around the effects of ammonia. The body is very good at eliminating it. Heck, doctor's use ammonium chloride to acidify a patients urine. Could you inhale enough to irritate your lungs? Sure. But it's not going to cancer or something.
- st26 9y agoCould you inhale enough to irritate your lungs? Sure. But it's not going to cancer or something. I think we're assuming here that it's something like asbestos lung cancer. Asbestos is not a poison, just an irritant. Presumably nobody is getting poisoned here; chronic irritation is triggering problems.
- forgotmypw 9y agoOur bodies are 4-billion-year-old spaghetti code that gets added to every time it runs. They have been evolving all this time for exposure to a very particular range of chemicals. Every time you introduce a new chemical into the mix that has only been in our environment for less than 100 years, you are testing your body's ability to deal with them for the first time.
- samirm 9y agoloving the analogy
- vwbl8s6fgeo 9y agoexcept that the genetic code is highly modular with multiple hierarchies, we just don't know how to read it yet
- nsgi 9y agoSo avoid all drugs that have been around for less than 100 years?
- forgotmypw 9y agoI would say, use them sparingly. Be aware that the mechanisms behind most modern drugs are mostly theories. Respect the law of unintended consequences. Listen to your body carefully, give it rest when it wants, and trust your body to do its own healing. When your life is in danger, consider medical professionals.
- benbreen 9y agoI vividly remember my first summer job, working at a grocery store deli when I was in high school. My job was basically to spray down surfaces with some kind of industrial version of Windex. Within a week I had developed a scratchy cough, and after two weeks I had completely lost my voice! I was in the privileged position of being able to quit the job and go on to college, but if I'd kept working with those chemicals for years I don't doubt there'd have been lasting damage. Does anyone know specifically what cleaning chemicals the study is talking about though? Always annoyed by the absence of what seems like basic information in reports like this.
- hueving 9y agoIt just sounds like you caught something at work...
- exodust 9y agoI agree it's annoying the study doesn't mention any chemicals or ingredients in particular. Also the claim that all we need is "water and a cloth" is rubbish. You will just spread the bacteria around from one place to another with water and a cloth only. I recently started using an organic "food safe" spray in the kitchen for general surfaces and chopping boards. Smells nice very natural, all natural ingredients and stops nasty things living on the wooden cutting board. Water and a cloth would do nothing, you need to make it an unfriendly place for bacteria, but safe for cutting up food.
- RandomInteger4 9y agoMakes sense in the case of bleach, which when combined with the ammonia containing body ingredients shed off in the shower, reacts to produce chloramine, which hydrolyzes to produce hypochlorous acid, which is a strong oxidizing agent, and I assume said hydrolysis takes place in the lungs, meaning ample exposure to free radicals, which I assume can lead to cancer if inhaled often enough.
- rubyfan 9y agoWas anyone able to spot which cleaning sprays were problematic?
- stevenwoo 9y agoThey only speculate about lung irritants like bleach and ammonia that are common in cleaning sprays.
- hckern3ws 9y agoI wonder how long it will take before the tort lawyers can sniff this.
- m0llusk 9y agoThe amount used and technique for spraying probably matter. A careful cleaner may use only a very small amount as needed while some seem to think it is necessary to slather everything with concentrated soaps that leave a strong smell. We are still just coming to terms with aerosols as high powered forced air hand dryers have shown, and those were intended to minimize spread of contaminants.
- MrBuddyCasino 9y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16404551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16404551
- lewis500 9y agoThis is why I switched from cleaning spray to chewing tobacco.
- Symbiote 9y agoI don't like the idea of paying someone else to clean my filth, but I don't clean often enough myself. So I get really lazy, and soak a sponge in phosphoric acid[1] then rub it gently on the glass around the shower. Leave for 2 minutes, and the limescale in gone! It's much easier than any "real" cleaning product, and the phosphoric acid is the equivalent of about $1.50 for a litre. But I don't know if it's bad for me. I wear gloves. [1] "pH 1.0" and "contains phosphoric acid" is all the label says.
- stevenwoo 9y agoWhere do you get phosphoric acid? The strongest conventionally available stuff is Limeaway and CLR and those are not strong enough for heavy calcium deposits. The strongest home stuff appears to be toilet bowl cleaners with diluted hydrochloric acid or hydrochloric acid for chlorinating pools.
- Symbiote 9y agoIt's from any supermarket in Denmark. This shows the whole shelf [1], which also has an acetic acid solution, ammonia solution, and sodium/potassium hydroxide for cleaning drains. And "cleaning benzene", whatever that's for. Most of the bottles are branded "BORUP", except the phosphoric acid, which is "KALK VÆK". I found a safety information sheet [2], which says the phosphoric acid solution contains 5-15% phosphoric acid. That's stronger than Limeaway. If I pour it on limescale deposits I can hear it fizz. The from-a-supermarket strong toilet bowl cleaner here (probably applies to most of the EU) contains "9% w/w -- 94 g/L HCl" [1] https://shop.rema1000.dk/husholdning/rengoring-og-kemisk-teknisk https://shop.rema1000.dk/husholdning/rengoring-og-kemisk-tek... [2] http://rema1000.dk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Kalk-V%C3%A6k-Kaffe-1-L_DK_v2-0-1.0.pdf http://rema1000.dk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Kalk-V%C3%A6k-...
- fulafel 9y agoMany disinfectants meant for cleaning brewing equipment contain it, you can order it from brewing equipment web shops.
- tomjakubowski 9y ago
- scythe 9y agoUnfortunate that all sprays are combined. One reason for the rather large sex effect might be the choice of different products by men and women. If I had to guess, bleach sprays are going to be the most damaging, but that's a guess.
- sizzle 9y agoI use a 3m facemask with 2 p100 bio air filters when cleaning specifically to avoid these chemicals.
- WiseWeasel 9y agoIn a past life as a lab tech for sterile environments, we used Spor-klenz, mostly a diluted combination of glacial acetic acid (pure distilled vinegar) and sodium hypochlorite (concentrated bleach), to kill statistically approaching anything on a surface you need sterilized. Upon application, they form chlorine gas, notorious as a chemical warfare agent in WWI. It must be used in a ventilated area, and with a respirator for any kind of prolonged exposure. Use of this combination of chemicals in an unventilated area without protective gear is sternly cautioned, as it will quickly cause lasting injury to your lungs. It's not uncommon for commercial cleaning products to contain these ingredients, as well as other potentially hazardous combinations of chemicals, and there isn't enough awareness of the very serious consequences to their misuse.
- crobertsbmw 9y agoI’m willing to bet there are some “dreaded third variables” that have crept into the study. Also being able to find the effect on women but not men leads me to believe there might be some P-hacking going on.
- jaggederest 9y agoSoapcalc and make your own soap: http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp This is what I do. I have a nice batch of coconut/castor/olive/cocoa soap curing under the sink. It's literally just water, vegetable oils, and some sodium hydroxide.
- mirimir 9y agoJust about all bathroom and window cleaners cause shortness of breath for me. Maybe it's because I smoked tobacco for so many years. So I use diluted vinegar on windows, and baking soda plus dish detergent on surfaces. And diluted citric acid for lime, because it's faster than acetic acid.
- purplezooey 9y agoBut it doesn't say which cleaners were tested. For example perhaps Simple Green is not at the same level as Formula 409.
- JonathonW 9y agoThe study [1] wasn't testing specific cleaners; it was a long-term study following people who use varying amounts of cleaning products in day-to-day use (those who don't clean, those who clean on a regular basis at home, and those who clean as an occupation). [1] Full text: http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resources/women-cleaners-lung-function.pdf http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resour...
- IshKebab 9y agoThis headline is just a lie. They're as bad for "lung health" if cigarettes didn't cause lung cancer! (Lung health is measured by lung capacity by them)
- mc32 9y agoOn a related note, dentists dying of mysterious lung disease[1] likely from improper respiratory protection while exposed to breathing hazards. [1]https://www.thetalkingdemocrat.com/2018/03/us-dentists-are-dying-of-mysterious-lung-disease/ https://www.thetalkingdemocrat.com/2018/03/us-dentists-are-d...
- ineedasername 9y agoSomething is odd here. From the study itself, the observed declines in lung function were only observed in females, not males. This was among respondents that identified as occupational cleaners too, so you can't just attribute that difference to "gender roles". Also, for women, the rate of decline was the same for occupational cleaners (it was their job) vs home cleaners (they cleaned their own home). Nothing good comes from breathing cleaning spray, and this research references other pieces to suppprt that claim, but it seems possible that this research is honing in on some other common factor besides cleaning exposure, else degree of exposure is negligible in the outcomes and male biochemistry renders men immune to this effect.
- hi41 9y agoI find it very hard to remove soap scum from bathtub if I don't use cleaning sprays. Can someone please suggest a better way.