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Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes

independent.co.uk

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Re: Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes

#81

Post by st26 »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #68
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol kills most things very well. I'm a scientist that handles lots of nasty things like MRSA and gram negative organisms that have killed their human hosts and we spray our gloves with 70% ethanol and spray down our biosafety hoods with it as do almost all labs in the world. This is all moot probably because homes don't need disinfection (hygiene hypothesis implies you probably need the opposite) but alcohol will…

As you're a scientist, I'd defer to your expertise, but I will mention that the situations where alcohol falls short are with spores and when cleaning certain materials. AFAIK, MRSA does not form spores, and so alcohol would work well for disinfecting it. Your gloves and hoods are also probably made of a material that is effectively cleaned by alcohol. On the other hand, C. difficile (a bacteria responsible for diahr…

C. diff is pretty much only killed by bleach, and not something most people deal with frequently, or you know, ever. These seem like rather special cases to be bringing up.

Re: Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes

#82

Post by txcwpalpha »

st26 wrote: post #81
txcwpalpha wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you're a scientist, I'd defer to your expertise, but I will mention that the situations where alcohol falls short are with spores and when cleaning certain materials. AFAIK, MRSA does not form spores, and so alcohol would work well for disinfecting it. Your gloves and hoods are also probably made of a material that is effectively cleaned by alcohol. On the other hand, C. difficile (a bacteria responsible for diahr…

C. diff is pretty much only killed by bleach, and not something most people deal with frequently, or you know, ever. These seem like rather special cases to be bringing up.

What? C. diff is one of the most common disease-causing bacterias [1]. Other examples like norovirus or C. perfringens (another spore-forming bacteria responsible for stomach flu) are also among the most common [2]. They aren't special cases at all.

1: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/p0225-clostridium-di...

2: https://www.foodsafety.gov/poisoning/causes/bacteriaviruses/...

Re: Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes

#84

Post by refurb »

st26 wrote: post #79
refurb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ammonia is such a strong irritant you'd never be able to inhale enough (willingly) to cause systemic toxicity. We also have a lot of info around the effects of ammonia. The body is very good at eliminating it. Heck, doctor's use ammonium chloride to acidify a patients urine. Could you inhale enough to irritate your lungs? Sure. But it's not going to cancer or something.

Could you inhale enough to irritate your lungs? Sure. But it's not going to cancer or something. I think we're assuming here that it's something like asbestos lung cancer. Asbestos is not a poison, just an irritant. Presumably nobody is getting poisoned here; chronic irritation is triggering problems.

Asbestos is more than an irritant. The toxicity and resulting cancer is due to the small particle size and the iron atoms in the asbestos that catalyze the formation of reactive oxygen species that damage the cell and can cause mutations.

I guess my point is that there is no mechanism by which ammonia could cause something like this. It's a simple molecule that pretty much causes irritation due to it's alkaline properties.

Re: Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes

#85

Post by stevenwoo »

nck4222 wrote: post #11

For anyone else looking for mentions of specific products, the original paper doesn't mention any. It just categorized people in to non-cleaners, cleaners at home, and professional cleaners. Both the professional cleaners and at home cleaners were impacted.

They were relying on surveys of memory but they indicated spraying only once a week versus any other method was correlated with issues.

Re: Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes

#86

Post by stevenwoo »

Symbiote wrote: post #46

I don't like the idea of paying someone else to clean my filth, but I don't clean often enough myself. So I get really lazy, and soak a sponge in phosphoric acid[1] then rub it gently on the glass around the shower. Leave for 2 minutes, and the limescale in gone! It's much easier than any "real" cleaning product, and the phosphoric acid is the equivalent of about $1.50 for a litre. But I don't know if it's bad for me…

Where do you get phosphoric acid? The strongest conventionally available stuff is Limeaway and CLR and those are not strong enough for heavy calcium deposits. The strongest home stuff appears to be toilet bowl cleaners with diluted hydrochloric acid or hydrochloric acid for chlorinating pools.

Re: Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes

#88

Post by [deleted] »

mirkules wrote: post #63
GavinMcG wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth is high pH water? Water has a pH. If something has a high pH it's not water.

According to the company's documentation it is basically (hah!) a pH 11-12.5 solution of sodium hydroxide, aka lye: http://phurwater.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/MSDS-Cleaner... You can call this water insomuch that it contains water (kind of like wine)

[deleted]

Re: Cleaning sprays have an impact on lung health comparable to cigarettes

#90

Post by st26 »

refurb wrote: post #84
st26 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you inhale enough to irritate your lungs? Sure. But it's not going to cancer or something. I think we're assuming here that it's something like asbestos lung cancer. Asbestos is not a poison, just an irritant. Presumably nobody is getting poisoned here; chronic irritation is triggering problems.

Asbestos is more than an irritant. The toxicity and resulting cancer is due to the small particle size and the iron atoms in the asbestos that catalyze the formation of reactive oxygen species that damage the cell and can cause mutations. I guess my point is that there is no mechanism by which ammonia could cause something like this. It's a simple molecule that pretty much causes irritation due to it's alkaline prope…

Thanks, I hadn't heard they finally figured out why/how asbestos was causing cancer.
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