Women with regular exposure to cleaning products may face a steeper decline in lung function over time, according to an international study.
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.
