"The Side Effects of Burning Incense"
Frankincense and myrrh date back to thousands of years
before the three wise men.
The burning of witch's incense
may have actually had a hygienic functions,
like maybe repelling mosquitoes, and when put to the test,
incense fumes were able to kill off
some bacteria and mold in the air
but may also carry health risks.
Although the adverse health effects of second-hand tobacco smoke
are well recognized, the impact of burning incense in the home
has received less attention, but burning incense has been found
to generate like four times the particulate matter as cigarettes;
so, incense may be even worse!
No wonder home incense use may have significant adverse
health effects, particularly on the heart and lungs,
including childhood asthma.
No wonder, since the incense smoke particle size
peaks down in the danger range, so ultrafine they can float
down into the deepest parts of the lungs.
It’s not just the little ash particles in the smoke though,
there’s carbon monoxide, nitric oxides, sulfur dioxide,
carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
and volatile organic compounds like benzene and formaldehyde.
The World Health Organization suggests limiting indoor formaldehyde
to about 80 parts per billion, but even with a window open
during the hour or so incense is burning,
formaldehyde levels exceed the safety limit.
What does this all mean in terms of disease outcomes?
Studies on rats show incense can do all sorts of terrible things,
but what about people?
A study of thousands of children followed over time found
that exposure to household incense burning was associated
with impaired lung function, reduced lung function growth,
and increased risks of respiratory diseases and symptoms.
Daily exposure is associated with impaired lung function
in adolescents too, though interestingly those who had
pets at home appeared to have better lung function.
Something I noted previously, how having a dog or cat in the house
during early life may protect against
childhood asthma and allergy.
What about the heart?
Long-term exposure to incense burning in the home environment
was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality.
Approximately 8 percent of heart disease deaths and
12 percent of stroke deaths could potentially be attributed
to incense use, though they were looking at long-term exposure,
so like incense burning at home on a daily basis for more than 20 years.
What about cancer?
Temple workers exposed to incense day in and day out were found
to have evidence of signiﬁcantly more DNA damage,
including DNA strand breaks.
Does this translate into greater cancer risk?
One unsolved mystery has been why non-smoking Asian women
have such high lung cancer rates.
Might it be incense?
Probably not, since the association between incense use
and lung cancer remains inconclusive,
though incense use does appear to be linked to cancers
of the upper respiratory tract, as well as brain tumors
among children whose mother were exposed to incense.
Three times the odds, even more than that of second-hand smoke.
In fact, even more than the consumption of bologna sandwiches.
Processed meat consumption only appears to at most
double brain tumor risk among children.
Even without tumors, a study of 15,000 infants found that
household incense burning was associated with a delay
in brain development milestones such as when they start to walk.
And then on the other side of the life cycle,
incense exposure among older adults was associated with reduced
cognitive performance and adverse structural changes in the brain.
The researchers conclude that this calls for safer practices,
such as avoiding burning incense indoors
or using safer incense alternatives.
So-called environmentally friendly types of incense have been
put to the test, and…
they were found to contain even higher concentrations
of several potentially carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Despite being a recognized health hazard,
burning incense remains in widespread use.
In the very least, we may want to avoid burning incense in the home
when susceptible individuals are present,
such as the very young, the very old, or
people with a family history of allergy or pre-existing
cardiovascular or respiratory disease.
One innovative suggestion is electronic incense,
like the e-cigarette of the incense world,
so you can get the fragrance
without the combustion by-products of smoke.
Most of the concern about e-cigarette-related adverse events
traditionally have revolved around the nicotine,
which wouldn’t be a problem with e-incense,
the concern that e-cigarette use would lead to real cigarette use.
But now that there have been thousands of cases of lung injury
associated with vaping, and we’re still actually not sure
what’s causing the issue,
it seems to me we should figure that out
before we push for the electronic incense equivalent.
One option in the meantime is scented candles,
which, under normal conditions of use,
do not appear to pose known health risks to the consumer.