Cleaning Products Can Lead to Asthma – Stats & Facts

FACTS

  1. Cleaning products can be toxic for people with asthma as they often contain chemical compounds that can inflame the airways, leaving people prone to an asthma attack.
  2. Cleaning products can cause long-term lung damage for people with asthma.
  3. Fumes from cleaning products used at work can make existing asthma worse.
  4. Products such as bleach, glass cleaner, detergents and air fresheners exacerbated asthma-related symptoms for the women, and their reduced lung function lasted until the morning after exposure, in some cases getting worse with time.
  5. Many common household cleaners contain chemicals that provoke or worsen asthma or COPD symptoms, making cleaning uncomfortable and potentially dangerous.

STATS

  • Many of the children with asthma had significant asthma risk factors besides VOCs: 77% had at least one parent with an allergy problem and 57% had at least one parent with asthma.
  • Seventy-seven percent of the asthmatic children had a genetic tendency to have allergic reactions such as asthma or allergies; 51% of the children without asthma had this tendency.
  • Children who had lived in a home with a fume-emitting heater during the first year of their life were 47% more likely to have hyperresponsive airways, wheezing, and had twice the risk of developing asthma compared with children not exposed to fume-emitting heaters early in life.
  • Exposure to cleaning products caused children to be 35 percent more likely to have chronic difficulty breathing. In addition, they were 49 percent more likely to have chronic allergies.