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COPD, a catchall name for a handful of diseases, most commonly chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is mostly thought of a smoker’s disease. Everything we breathe in affects our lung and airway health. Many cleaning supplies contain volatile organic compounds VOCs.
Cleaning supplies such as alcohol, peroxide and bleach are common in most households and key to killing germs, especially in hospitals, where nurses must keep spaces sanitary for the sake of their patients’ safety. But the harsh chemicals are meant for sterilizing surfaces and frequently breathing them can be damaging to the lung tissue.
The latest – and largest – study to-date, conducted by researchers at the University de Versailles and Harvard University found that nurses who spent years around the chemicals face higher risks for the group of lung conditions known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
These substances are corrosive, irritating the eyes, throat and lungs, as well as causing headaches. But it’s not just the immediate burning and headaches from using too much bleach or Windex – repeated exposures may do long-term harm.
To investigate how these chemicals might affect COPD risks, researchers at Harvard and the University of Versailles followed a group of well over 73,000 nurses, beginning in 1989 and following up with them via surveys every two years since. They’d seen in previous studies that people who cleaned professionally had higher risks of both asthma and death from COPD.
Heavy-duty, thorough cleaning is particularly important in heath care settings, meaning that nurses might be put in harm’s way by doing their best to keep their patients safe. The scientists tracked how much formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, bleach, hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, ammonium and enzyme cleaning products the nurses were exposed to.
They found that those that were often exposed to those chemicals were between 25 percent and 36 percent more at-risk of developing COPD. As a result, an estimated 40 to 70 percent of them would not survive longer than five years after diagnosis, depending on how severe their disease was.
The study authors suggest that the cleaning products may damage the lung lining and cause oxidative stress, a kind of cellular damage that can cause inflammation. Interestingly, enzymatic cleaners – which contain ‘good’ bacteria and are primarily used to clean fat and oil and to eliminate odors such as those from urine – don’t seem to have the same irritant effects or raise COPD risks, the study found.
‘There is a biological plausibility that long-term exposure to irritant disinfectants and cleaning agents could contribute to persistent airway damage and COPD [development].’ The best way to reduce risks for COPD is to never smoke, or quit if you’ve started.