Clean Houses and Asthma

Triggers for asthma attacks can include environmental stressors such as cigarette smoke, cockroaches, dust mites, mold, animals, pollen, cold air, exercise, stress, and respiratory infections.

Indoor cleaning to reduce levels of allergens is one of the interventions recommended to reduce asthma attacks. However, a paper published last year in Thorax reported that indoor volatile organic compound concentrations (benzene, ethylbenzene and toluene were mentioned) were risk factors for asthma attacks. The abstract doesn’t discuss the potential sources for the VOC emissions (the paper can be downloaded for a fee), however news reports speculated that VOC emission sources indoors included domestic and cleaning products.

The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA) was in a bit of a lather over this issue. After investing in studies about the effectiveness of cleaning and cleaning products in reducing allergen loads indoors, and developing a resource guide, the last thing the industry wanted to hear was that cleaning products could cause asthma too. SDA asserted that such a study sends the wrong message about cleaning and asthma.

That response might have been a bit overwrought. A search in NLM’s Household Products Database indicates that, for the three VOCs mentioned, the preponderance of products are engine and parts cleaners, spray paints and pesticide formulations. They are also constituents in gasoline and cigarette smoke. All that this shows is that there may be more complexities to managing the indoor environment with regard to asthma, than just keeping down the allergens.

There seems to be a lot of attention to this issue of VOC exposures and asthma.