
Women who clean at home or work face increased lung function decline - jostmey
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-02/ats-wwc021318.php
======
kev009
Not sure why this struck a nerve with me but this is really shitty reporting.
I guess because the site labeled itself as science news but the article is all
confirmation bias and correlation v causation.

On entry to the article of course it seems like common sense that breathing in
what could boil down to chlorine gas (bleaches) and peroxide mist etc would be
bad for you.

But the entire article is then trying to fit a poorly designed and sampled
study to that common sense. By the time you get to the end of the article
where there was no measured effect in men, I don't think the collected data
supports any of the color commentary.

It would be interesting to see a properly sampled study in a country like the
US with wider socioeconomic gradient and crosscutting clean v non-cleaners.

~~~
jostmey
Bad reporting?

It does a pretty good job explaining what was analyzed in the study. It talks
about negative results (i.e. no effect in men, no COPD), and at the end of the
article it discusses the limitations.

It is a Eureka report--It's a press release that I think is usually written by
the researchers themselves or the University.

Is the science valid? Maybe, maybe not. But I do not perceive this as bad
reporting

------
ddalex
I recently bought a robotic vacuum cleaner; I'd vacuum normally about once a
week, and it seemed that I'd need to vacuum more often, because the dust
gathers everywhere; having not the time or the inclination to bring out the
heavy hoover, I decided to buy a robot one.

It is the best investition in the last 12 months, by far. It goes around
automatically each day and keeps the floor clean. But that's not impresses me.
What I'm impressed about the the level of dust that it accumulates each day.
I'd expect each day to be a bit less, but no, it's about the same. So I set
out to figure out where the dust comes from, as I live in a clean area of the
city, surrounded by trees and greenery.

To my shock, it's us. The dust is primarily decomposed skin and clothes
chafing off due to the skin friction. I can't imagine how damaging this is to
our lungs, of course, nothing compared to chemicals or coal dust, but still...

I can't recommend enough to everybody to buy a robotic vacuum cleaner these
days. I bought a cheap Eufy, and I can't imagine what a more expensive one
would actually do more than this one.

~~~
endgame
After reading about the house mapping of some robotic vacuum cleaners I'm
hesitant to let one into my home.

~~~
chaosite
... Why? What's so confidential about your floor plan?

~~~
ancarda
Could you send me a detailed copy of your floor plan? Ideally, SVG? Thanks!
Oh, and anything else the robot sends too, like your IP address and maybe GPS
coordinates?

If you're willing to send, great -- thank you. I'd love to know, for
undisclosed reasons. My email is in my profile, and you can even encrypt the
files you send me using PGP. Although note that I'll be putting it on my Azure
account and leaving it there for eternity.

If you're not willing to send me that, then please don't even try the "you've
got nothing to hide" line, because you clearly do! I'm going to start
challenging this every time I hear this excuse because it's demonstrably
nonsense when challenged.

You won't send me that SVG because you know I have no fucking business knowing
what your house looks like. Neither does the robot cleaning company. The files
could be kept on the device without any real loss of functionality. As Washuu
posted below, they are now selling these floor plans. Should I make money off
the floor plan you send me?

~~~
shaki-dora

         |-=-=-|
         |     |
         | LR  |
         |     |
         |-- --|
         |     |
         *     |      
         |-- - |
         |   |B|
         |   |R|
         |   |-|
        ||     |
        ||Kitch| 
         |     |
         |     |
         |-- --|
         |     |
        ||     ||
        || BR  ||
         |     |
         |-==--|
    

All rather approximate. Each - is about 1m. * is main door. Address is
Laustizer Str. 24, Berlin. Second Floor on the left.

~~~
dgudkov
I noticed that entire building facades on your street are hidden in Google
Street View ([https://imgur.com/a/NzDZP](https://imgur.com/a/NzDZP)).

I'm curious why is that so? Is it possible due to GDPR?

~~~
detaro
Way older than GDPR, opting out has been possible for Streetview as long as it
is available in Germany. Many people didn't like the idea of Streetview, and
the legal status isn't entirely clear (exceptions for photography in public
are fairly limited in Germany), so Google added this instead of risking larger
PR and legal problems.

------
tomohawk
If this worries you, here's a cleaning tip for cleaning your tub with much
better results and much less effort.

In a spray bottle, mix 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 unscented dish detergent. Spray
your shower/tub down with the mixture, including shower curtain. Walk away. In
30 minutes rinse off. You'll never use one of those industrial scented
cleaners to do this again.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Or, you know, simply use soap and water in a small bucket, which is much less
likely to be inhaled and will smell much better. Sometimes just water will
work. You can also steam clean with plain water. These will clean most things,
including windows if you use a squeegee. Simply wiping with water will make
things appear clean, and magic erasers (soap free) can be used for stubborn
stains.

Tubs and showers aren't generally a problem if you rinse and squeegee after
you are done. Curtains are a pain, but doors are similar. Plain dishsoap takes
off soap scum.

~~~
tomohawk
Absolutely. Squeegee after use also helps a lot.

If you get mildew, using a squeegee will usually prevent that. To get rid of
it, though, use fresh hydrogen peroxide instead of bleach.

The vinegar/dish detergent mixture really gets the soap scum, though.

------
marchenko
I wonder if there is a similar effect observed in people who cook regularly -
especially at high temps or in poorly ventilated spaces. Cleaning the exterior
and filters of the exhaust cabinet makes me wonder about the interiors, of,
for instance, apartment dwellers doing wok frying.

~~~
def-
"Chinese food cooking and lung cancer in women nonsmokers."
[https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-
pdf/151/2/140/272296/15...](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-
pdf/151/2/140/272296/151-2-140.pdf)

> This study presents evidence that cooking habits are associated with lung
> cancer in Taiwanese women nonsmokers. As shown in this and our earlier study
> (1), women who do not use fume extractors during cooking are at high risk of
> developing lung cancer. Furthermore, women who wait until the oil has
> reached a high temperature before cooking the food (stir frying, frying, and
> deep frying) and do not use a fume extractor have a consistently higher risk
> of lung cancer when compared with both hospital and community controls.

and further:

> In Taiwan, the market for vegetable oil increased from less than 50 percent
> to 85 percent between 1950 and 1990. However, vegetable oil containing
> unsaturated fatty acids was found to be more unstable than lard oil at
> higher temperatures and could emit benzoapyrene, which was not found in lard
> oil fumes (26).

------
ZeroGravitas
I heard someone on the radio, possibly one of the authors, discuss this and
they seemed to be emphasising aerosol sprays that produced very small droplets
rather than cleaning chemicals generally.

------
2muchcoffeeman
Can this be solved by just wearing a face mask?

Why don’t we wear face masks when cleaning?

Edit: face mask not meat mask!

~~~
arkades
In theory, an N95 mask should work. At its weak spot - .1 microns or so - it’s
still 95% effective. It’s been shown to be 95% vs NaCl, which is smaller than
bleach (NaOCl).

But in personal experience, whenever I finish up with a patient in contact
isolation, I use bleach wipes on my steth. Not only does the odor strongly
penetrate the mask, but by mitigating the dilution effect of free air flow, I
honestly feel like it concentrates more of the crap inside the mask.

For whatever anecdote is worth.

------
karyon
also, see a longer discussion at "Deodorants, perfumes, soaps pollute air at
levels as high as cars":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16395372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16395372)

i wouldn't be surprised if the same held true for cleaning agents.

------
baud147258
> The number of men who worked as occupational cleaners was also small, and
> their exposure to cleaning agents was likely different from that of women
> working as cleaning professionals.

I don't understand this. How being a male working as cleaning professional
will get a different exposure to cleaning agents? It's the same job, with the
same chemicals.

A family member working in the construction business told me that it was also
the case for construction worker, they were dying much younger than the
average, because of exposure to airborn particles from paint, concrete,
asbestos, dust, wood and other various chemicals.

------
gaius
Miners with “black lung” didn’t need a study or scientists to tell them about
it.

~~~
true_religion
And yet scientists still did a totally "unnecessary" study about them [1],
because _today_ miners are dying at younger ages than they did in the past and
that's a troubling conclusion that you wouldn't immediately guess from
annectoda.

Science is important, even for the 'its obvious, everyone knows it is
dangerous' kinda stuff.

[1]
[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6549a1.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6549a1.htm)

~~~
madez
> Science is important, even for the 'its obvious, everyone knows it is
> dangerous' kinda stuff.

Indeed. Intuition, or in other words the "well, that's obvious" feeling, might
be a good lazy approximation of the truth, but it is often wrong when examined
closely.

~~~
socceroos
> ... but it is often wrong when examined closely.

Having witnessed the whiplash in scientific understanding I'd almost say that
"it's more complicated than that" is a more accurate summation. Since often
the approximation isn't totally wrong but it's more a simplification of the
issue.

------
Havoc
So what's the solution? Wear a Asia style face/dust mask while cleaning?

~~~
jostmey
That won't stop submicron sized particles

------
adynatos
can we finally offer scientific explanation for why we rarely clean our
apartments??

~~~
hh3k0
No wonder I always felt so miserable when I had to clean!

------
jsiepkes
Nowadays everything kills you...sitting at your desk at work, cleaning at
home....

~~~
bmon
People said the same thing about sun exposure and smoking half a century ago.

~~~
chrisper
So? His point still stands.

If you want to maximize your life expectation, you have to restrict yourself
quite a lot.

And I think the goal of studies like this should not be to say "don't use it,
it kills you" but rather to make us find a better alternative.

~~~
qplex
In terms of absolute physical harm, yes.

If you live with other people you probably need to convince them to do things
differently too.

In my experience this can be very stressful and I wonder if the induced stress
of even worse for ones health.

------
mikro2nd
Women, but not men? So nobody should clean? Is it just me experiencing this
gender bias cognitive dissonance? For me this renders the whole study suspect
and dodgy: if they missed this Elephant In The Room bias, what other, more
subtle, issues might they have missed/ignored/swept under the rug?

~~~
hodl
Actually it should say "European Women" rather than just "Women"

~~~
guitarbill
If you're going to be pedantic, at least go all the way: "3,298 European
Women"

