Blog #13 Toxic Air and Cancer Risk
Avoid Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.
Studies indicate the deadliest month for CO is in January.
January is the Deadliest Month for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
According to a new study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the first month of the year is the worst for carbon monoxide poisoning. At least two people die each day from carbon-monoxide poisoning in January—three times the fatality rate recorded in August and July. Unintentional carbon monoxide exposure accounted for 15,000 emergency room visits annually between 1999 and 2004, with an average of 439 people dying each year.
Fatalities were highest among men and senior citizens: Men because they are engaged in more high-risk behaviors such as working with fuel-burning tools or appliances and seniors because they are likely to mistake the symptoms of CO poisoning (headaches, nausea, dizziness or confusion) for the flu or fatigue.
It should come as no surprise that CO deaths are the highest in winter (December is the second highest month). Cold weather increases the use of gas-powered furnaces as well as the use of risky alternative heating and power sources (portable generators, charcoal briquettes, propane stoves or grills) during power outages. It’s also understandable that the highest CO death rates are in colder states: Nebraska, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and North Dakota. By contrast, California has the lowest fatality rate.
With these sobering facts it’s a good time to remember the following safety tips to prevent CO poisoning:
- Have your heating system, water heater and any other gas, oil or coal-burning appliance inspected and serviced by a qualified technician every year.
- Install battery-operated CO detectors on every level of your home.
- Don’t use a generator, charcoal grill, camp stove or other gasoline or charcoal-burning device inside the home, basement or garage or outside the home near a window.
- Don’t burn anything in an unvented stove or fireplace.
- Don’t let a vehicle idle inside a garage attached to a house, even if the garage door is left open.
- Don’t heat a house with a gas oven.
A vast majority of the world still cook and heat their homes with highly polluting materials such as coal, oil, wood and cause seriously high amounts of indoor air pollution and increased risk of CO poisoning. A movement in 2010 by Hillary Clinton to disseminate safer stoves and heaters globally has not met expectations. Cost and accessibility has limited this global alliance for clean cooking.
The WHO continues to make efforts to improve indoor air quality, reduce pollutants and deaths by educating communities around the world on better/safer ways to cook and heat.
Who thinks about Radon in their home?
The time is now..
Check out your risk here.
We should because Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer!
How can we reduce VOC's in our homes or "Off Gassing" pollutants??
See this incredible and easy step-wise list created by Meagan Visser at Growing up Herbal: https://www.growingupherbal.com/decrease-vocs-and-off-gassing/
Her recommendations complement those of the EPA who suggest we open up our windows more and have proper ventilation. House plants can help too!
5 Simple Ways To Decrease VOCs And Off-Gassing In Your Home
Now that you know what VOCs and off-gassing are as well as why you should do your best to avoid these things, let’s look as some practical ways to decrease VOCs and off-gassing in your home.
1. Avoid Toxins
Now, I mentioned earlier that this isn’t always possible, but it does pay off to try to decrease VOCs and off-gassing as much as possible. Buying organic, using natural products with names you can pronounce, staying away from synthetic things (like plastics and fragrances), going with green, eco-friendly options, buying used (or floor model products), and even making as many things from scratch (or purchasing them from others who make them from scratch) will all help you to decrease VOCs and off-gassing in your home.
But let’s say you do opt for the toxins because that’s all you can do at the moment. What are some other ways you can help yourself decrease VOCs and off-gassing?
2. Go No or Low-VOC
Nowadays, as there’s more awareness around chemicals and their negative effects on our health, many companies are offering no or low-VOC options for paints, stains, and glues as well as furniture finishes. If you look at the label and you see GREENGUARD, Scientific Certification Systems, or SGS Group approval, then the product is a sustainable and no to low-emitting product. If you’re looking to remodel or build a new home or to purchase new furniture, do a quick Goolge search for “low-VOC” followed by whatever you’re thinking about buying. Tons of results will come up, helping you be more informed about your options.
Another low-cost option that can potentially help you decrease VOCs and off-gassing in your home is to try to neutralize VOCs using baking soda. This doesn’t really work for furniture or paints, but it will work for mattresses and carpets or rugs. Baking soda is alkaline, and when it comes into contact with an acid (like most VOCs), it reacts and binds the acid which helps to neutralize the smell.
3. Purify Your Air
One of the best things you can do to decrease VOCs and off-gassing in your home is to purify your air. That can be as simple as opening the windows or turning on some fans so the air circulates, moving the VOCs out and bringing fresh clean air in, or it can be that you purchase air purifiers for your home. There are a variety of air purifiers on the market today, and all seem to be designed to do different things. Some are inexpensive, some purify larger spaces, and some are quiet. No matter what you’re looking for with an air purifier, if you want it to decrease the VOCs in your air, be sure you choose one that has a HEPA filter. To help you in your search for the right air purifier for your home, check out this list of the best air purifiers of 2016 from Aparthment Therapy.
Another way to decrease VOCs and off-gassing is to increase the amount of indoor plants you have in your home. All plants purify the air, but some do it quicker than others. Lifehacker has a cool NASA infographic that details specific plants and the chemicals that they are known to filter from the air. Below is a list of these plants, but some are known to be toxic to pets if they eat them so if you’re a pet owner, do some extra research about each plant before you put it in your home.
Air-Filtering Houseplants
- Dwarf Date Palm
- Boston Fern
- Kimberly Queen Fern
- Spider Plant
- Chinese Evergreen
- Bamboo Palm
- Weeping Fig
- Devil’s Ivy
- Flamingo Lily
- Lily Turf
- Broadleaf Lady Palm
- Barberton Daisy
- Cornstalk Dracaena
- English Ivy
- Verigated Snake Plant
- Red-Edged Dracaena
- Peace Lily
- Florist’s Chrysanthemum
(Pinola, 2015)
4. Take It Outside
You can also decrease VOCs and off-gassing in your home by letting new products air out before bringing them indoors. Concentration is key here so this should be done in a large, open space if possible. If you have time and can let something sit out outside or in a garage for a week before bringing it into your home, it will reduce your exposure to VOCs quite a bit. This is why floor models are good options when purchasing new appliances or furniture. Not only are they typically cheaper, but they’ve had a lot more time to off-gas in the store.
Another option to help decrease VOCs and off-gassing is to expose new things to heat as heat increases the evaporation rate of VOCs. Think about a new car that sits in the sun all day. As soon as you open the doors that “new car smell” comes pouring out. Part of that is because heat has built up inside the car and increased the off-gassing from the carpet, plastic, and glue inside the car. If you can let new products sit out in the sun when you’re airing them out, it can help speed up the off-gassing process. As far as new cars go, be sure to open the doors or roll the windows down so the car can air out before getting in or putting your kids in.
5. Detox Your Body
Lastly, the more you can keep your elimination pathways open and support your body’s natural detoxing processes, the better. That means, drink plenty of water to keep your kidneys flushed and eat fiber or take natural fiber supplements to keep bowels moving. Get outside and breathe fresh air. Do some indoor or outdoor work to promote sweating in order to release toxins (working out and sitting in a sauna works too). Again, the goal is to keep your elimination pathways open (Horne, 2007).
You can also take herbal liver cleansers (see here and here) to help support and nourish your liver so it can do its job metabolizing the chemicals that do come in to your body.
So there you go. VOCs are best avoided if you can, but sometimes that simply isn’t possible or convenient in our modern worlds. Instead, do what you can to minimize your exposure to VOCs and off-gassing, and perhaps, as time goes on and sitations change, you’ll have better options or be able to make better decisions next time around.
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REFERENCES:
- Christianson, A. (n.d.). Toxins. Retrieved February 17, 2017, from http://drchristianson.com/toxins/
- Horne, S. H. (2007). The ABC Herbal: a simplified guide to natural health care for children. Warsaw, IN: Whitman Publications.
- Janssen, S., Solomon, G., & Schettler, T. (n.d.). About the Toxicant and Disease Database. Retrieved February 17, 2017, from https://www.healthandenvironment.org/what-we-do/toxicant-and-disease-database/about-the-toxicant-and-disease-database
- Pinola, M. (2015, May 20). This Graphic Shows the Best Air-Cleaning Plants, According to NASA. Retrieved February 16, 2017, from http://lifehacker.com/this-graphic-shows-the-best-air-cleaning-plants-accord-1705307836
- Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality. (2016, December 05). Retrieved February 16, 2017, from https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/volatile-organic-compounds-impact-indoor-air-quality
I thought Carbon monoxide poisoning was just something I would read about not something my family would have to go through. About two months ago my sister, her husband and my niece who is a special needs child were poisoned by carbon monoxide due to an old furnace. She had been feeling ill for a long time and she thought it was just the flu. She got the crazy idea to look up her symptoms on the internet and decided to go to the ER. To her surprise all three of them had very high levels of carbon monoxide. it has been several weeks and she still does not feel well. Her furnace is now fixed.
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