A study conducted by researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway recently found that house cleaning is as bad for lungs as smoking. They assessed the impact of household products on lung function over a 20-year period.
The study shows that the lung function in cleaning women who use household products daily deteriorates more quickly.
In fact, there was a loss of forced vital capacity of 7.4 ml per year, the regular use of certain household products would actually cause lung damage as much as smoking 20 cigarettes a day for 10-20 years.
Exposure to household products was likely different from that of women working as professionals, the study says. They assume that the decrease in lung function is due to the irritation caused by most of the cleaning chemicals on the mucous membranes that line the airways, causing persistent changes and remodeling of the airways.
This study also showed that women who do housework are more likely to suffer from asthma than those who don’t. The use of products worsens this percentage (13.7%) compared to those who do not use these products (9.6%). The conclusion of this study is that the products damage the lungs in the long term according to Oistein Svanes, director of the study.
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