Household cleaning sprays linked to higher asthma risk

Study says 1 in 7 adult asthma cases could be attributed to cleaning and deodorizing sprays

Last Updated: Friday, October 12, 2007 | 3:47 PM ET

CBC News

Love spritzing down the house with those scented deodorizing sprays? You may be putting your lungs — and the lungs of others around you — at risk, according to a new study.

Using household cleaning sprays and scented air fresheners as little as once a week can raise a person's risk of developing asthma, the European study says.

The risk of developing asthma increased with frequency of cleaning and number of different sprays used, but on average was about 30 to 50 per cent higher in people regularly exposed to cleaning sprays than in others.
(CBC)

"Frequent use of household cleaning sprays may be an important risk factor for adult asthma," said lead author Jan-Paul Zock of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology at the Municipal Institute of Medical Research in Barcelona, Spain, in a release.

Fifteen per cent, or one in seven, adult asthma cases could be attributed to use of cleaning and deodorizing sprays, according to the study.

The research is published in the second issue for October of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The study included more than 3,500 subjects across 22 centres in 10 European countries. Participants were assessed for current asthma, current wheeze, physician-diagnosed asthma and allergy at follow-up, which took place an average of nine years after their first assessment.

Two-thirds of the study population who reported doing the bulk of cleaning were women, about six per cent of whom had asthma at the time of follow-up. Fewer than 10 per cent of them were full-time homemakers.

Participants were also asked to report the number of times per week they used cleaning products.

The risk of developing asthma increased with frequency of cleaning and number of different sprays used, but on average was about 30 to 50 per cent higher in people regularly exposed to cleaning sprays than in others.

Cleaning sprays such as air fresheners, furniture cleaners and glass cleaners had a particularly strong effect.

The researchers theorize that chemicals in the products trigger an inflammatory response in the lungs when the particles are inhaled. Asthma is a disease in which the airways are oversensitized and overreact to psychological or environmental triggers by becoming constricted and inflamed.

"There is a need for researchers to conduct further studies to elucidate both the extent and mechanism of the respiratory toxicity associated with such products," noted Zock.