It’s crazy when you think about all of the different kinds of food we eat.
We just swallow and hope it all works out for the best.
Well, it turns out there are better ways
to think about keeping our bodies humming healthfully along.
Welcome to Nutrition Facts.
I’m your host Dr. Michael Greger.
Today we take our recently de-cluttered living spaces... a-hem
and try to clean them, without passing out from the harsh chemicals.
And yes – we’re talking about cleaning products.
So, what do we use? Here’s our first story.
Household cleaning products can be hazardous,
landing hundreds of thousands of children in U.S. emergency rooms.
And the product most commonly associated with injury was bleach,
which can be toxic even if used as directed.
We've known that those with asthma who work
with cleaning products day in and day out can suffer adverse respiratory effects,
a worsening of symptoms, decline in lung function, inflamed airways.
But even cleaning workers without asthma can be affected.
Even below so-called acceptable exposure levels,
cleaners with or without reactive airways
can suffer a substantial decrease in lung function.
OK, but that's people who clean for a living.
Although we've known that occupational use of bleach
may have adverse respiratory health effects,
but it was unknown whether just common domestic use of bleach in the household
may put lungs at risk, until now.
Bleach use was significantly associated with nearly 5 times the odds
of non-allergic adult-onset asthma,
as well as ongoing lower respiratory symptoms such as chronic cough.
The way bleach works is as such a strong pro-oxidant
that the thought is that it can lead to leaky lungs and allow allergens to penetrate.
This phenomenon of cleaning product induced asthma
has been known for decades.
More than three quarters of the dozens of population studies looking into it
have found increased risk of asthma or nasal inflammation.
Ideally, safer cleaning products should be available.
Unfortunately, this body of evidence has been largely ignored by
the manufacturers and commercial cleaning companies.
And most of the workers put at risk are women.
In fact, that may help explain some of the gender differences in asthma.
The relatively high frequency of bleach use for home cleaning by women
around the world, together with the strong association
between bleach use and non-allergic asthma,
emphasizes the need for reconsidering the use of bleach for cleaning.
There are natural, environmentally friendly cleaning products
that may offer a safer alternative.
Safer perhaps, but are they as effective?
We didn't know until now.
The effectiveness of three home products in cleaning and disinfection
of Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria that causes staph infections,
and E. coli on home environmental surfaces.
The first report ever of the performance of purportedly safer alternatives.
In the home setting, some individuals will select conventional products,
such as bleach due to familiarity; it's a smell some associate with cleanliness.
Others are seeking less hazardous and environmentally preferable
green, organic, or natural disinfectants, which you can buy
or make yourself, so-called DIY: do-it-yourself recipes
that typically involve ingredients like vinegar,
club soda, and plant essential oils, such as tea tree oil,
prized for its antimicrobial qualities.
So researchers pitted head-to-head Clorox bleach
versus a natural disinfectant based on thymol,
which is from thyme essential oil,
versus a DIY recipe---half club soda, half white vinegar,
with a few drops of tea tree oil.
You could probably buy the bleach for around $3,
the natural stuff for more like $7,
but the DIY mix for less than a dollar.
Yeah, but does it work?
On the bottle, it says bleach can kill 99.9% of germs, which is the EPA standard
for the disinfection of surfaces that don't come into contact with food,
like the bathroom sink or something.
They claim 99.9% of germs, but when put to the test,
the bleach actually killed 99.9999% of germs,
completely wiping out the E. coli and staph germs,
which even exceeds the EPA standard for food contact surfaces,
like the kitchen counter,
and so did the expensive natural stuff--- worked just as well as the bleach.
But the club soda, vinegar, tea tree oil concoction flopped,
allowing as many as a few percent of the staph bugs to thrive.
Now, maybe they didn't use enough of the tea tree oil,
only adding about a drop per cup,
but from a performance perspective, the environmentally preferable product
is an effective alternative to conventional bleach,
and I would say even better,
since bleach is well known as a respiratory irritant,
and it's corrosive, too, and may end up damaging surfaces.
What I would find interesting
is to test how effective a cheap DIY thyme oil solution would be.
In our next story,
we find the reason the CDC prohibit not only smoking,
but also scented or fragranced products in their buildings.
In a recent review of the “Damaging effects of household cleaning
products on the lungs”, researchers noted that the “[a]dverse
respiratory effects of cleaning products were first observed
in populations experiencing high level[s] of exposure at the workplace,
such as cleaners and health-care workers,
with a primary focus on asthma.” But the occupational use of
disinfectants has also been linked to a higher risk of developing
chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases like emphysema.
And now we know it’s not just workplace exposures but also
“common household exposures” that are “risk factor[s] for
respiratory disorders in childhood”, as well potentially
an important risk factor for adult asthma, with common
household cleaning spray use accounting for as many as
one in seven adult asthma cases.
The thought is that the inhalation of chemical irritants may cause
injury of the airways that leads to oxidative stress and inflammation.
Okay, so what can we do about it?
Well, it may indeed be limited to sprays.
Cleaning products not applied in spray form were not associated
with asthma, and it’s possible that environmentally friendly
cleaning products may represent a safer alternative,
though they may still present some risk.
Ideally, safer cleaning products should be available.
Unfortunately, the research suggesting harm “has seldom been heeded
by manufactures, vendors, and commercial cleaning companies.”
I wonder how much of that is because “most of the workers
exposed to cleaning product [both occupationally
and presumably domestically,] are women.
One of the problems may be the fragrance chemicals.
One in three Americans surveyed “reported health problems
such as migraine headaches and respiratory difficulties,
when exposed to fragranced products.”
And in about half it was so bad they actually lost work over it.
“Results from this study reveal that more than one third
of Americans suffer adverse health effects, such as
respiratory difficulties and migraine headaches,
from exposure to fragranced products.
Of [all] individuals, half reported that the effects can be disabling.
Yet [more than] 99 percent of Americans are exposed
to fragranced products at least once a week . . .”
The effect on asthmatics may be even worse,
affecting closer to two-thirds. One compound that may be
of particular concern is called 1, 4-dichlorobenzene,
also known as para-dichlorobenzene, which is found in many
air fresheners, toilet bowl deodorants, and mothballs.
It breaks down in the body into a compound called 2,5-dichlorophenol,
which you pee out, giving researchers a reliable measure
of your dichlorobenzene exposure.
Not only may it make respiratory problems worse for those already
suffering from compromised airways, but exposure to dichlorobenzene
“at blood levels found in the general U.S. population,
may result in reduced [lung] function” in people who start out
with normal breathing. What’s worse, higher exposure was associated
with greater prevalence of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
That’s not good! So, better read the labels, right?
Surprisingly, there is “no law in the U.S. [that] requires
the disclosure of all ingredients in fragranced consumer products”.
In fact, for air fresheners, laundry supplies, and cleaning products
they don’t even need to say it has fragrance at all.
You don’t know until you smell it.
So, if you can’t tell which products have which chemicals,
you can follow the lead of the CDC,
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Not only is cigarette smoking indoors prohibited at all times,
“[s]cented or fragranced products are [also] prohibited at all times
in all interior space owned, rented, or leased by CDC.”
I wish rideshare services like Uber and Lyft would have
a similar policy or at least a fragrance-free option.
About one in five or more than a thousand Americans surveyed
said they would turn right around and leave a business
if they smelled air fresheners or some fragranced product,
so it’s in business’s best interest too, since “[more than]
50 percent of the population would prefer that workplaces,
health care facilities, and [their health care] professionals,
hotels, and airplanes were fragrance-free.”
Finally today, we learn how volatile chemicals in consumer products
such as air fresheners, laundry detergents, fabric softeners,
and dryer sheets may be hazardous.
In addition to meat, exposure to common household chemicals
may exacerbate or induce allergies, asthma, and eczema.
Researchers at Harvard and all around the world
collected air samples from where children slept,
and demonstrated for the first time that the bedroom concentration
of propylene glycol and glycol ethers was significantly associated with
an elevated risk of multiple allergic symptoms, runny nose, and eczema.
This class of chemical compounds is found in cleaning fluids, paint, pesticides,
PVC pipes, varnishes, and may be one of the reasons we’ve seen an increase
in these kinds of diseases around the world over the last few decades.
Recently, researchers put a few consumer products to the test:
air fresheners, a laundry detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets—
each with annual sales over $100 million.
Six products; nearly a hundred volatile chemicals identified,
though none were listed on the labels;
it usually just says something like “fragrance.”
And ten of the chemicals they found are regulated as toxic or hazardous—
with three officially classified as hazardous air pollutants.
For example, the fabric softener they tested.
On the label, it just says “biodegradable fabric softening agents.”
And it even smells like mom, when she leans in for a good night kiss.
But this is what they really found,
including the carcinogenic hazardous air pollutant acetaldehyde.
What about if you just stick to the naturally scented products?
Even products advertised as green, natural, organic emitted as many
hazardous chemicals as standard ones.
For example, a soap boasting pure essential oils and organic tea infusions
also contained all of these.
Yeah, but what if you somehow know for certain it’s all just natural—
like the limonene, right?
That’s a real phytochemical found in real citrus.
Until it photo-oxidizes with ozone in ambient air to form dangerous
secondary pollutants, including formaldehyde.
When it comes to consumer products, the best smell is no smell.
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please go to the Nutrition Facts Podcast landing page.
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