Living Healthy Indoors

As a Registered Nurse (RN) I enjoy finding ways to improve my family's health. One of the latest topics I am researching is indoor air quality. My research has led me to some interesting -- and startling -- finds.

An EPA survey I found showed that indoor air was 3 to 70 times more polluted than outdoor air. That's a wide range but even if it was only, 3 percent, that's still huge. Another EPA study showed that toxic chemicals found in common household cleaners are 3 times more likely to cause cancer than outdoor air.

Many people, spend 90% of their time indoors, 65% of that time at home. Mothers, children, and elderly, often spend about 90% of their time at home.

Indoor air quality is something you can take charge of so I searched to find out ways to limit toxic exposures and improve air quality in my home.

Think of your home as a toxic waste dump. Today, the average home contains 62 toxic chemicals -more than a chemistry lab at the turn of the century. According To Dr. Joyce Woods who completed her Doctoral Thesis on "Indoor Air Pollution and it's effect on your health,"Less than 2% of synthetic chemicals havebeen tested for toxicity, mutagenic, carcinogenic, or birth defects. The majority of chemicals have never been tested for long-term effects. If that's not disturbing, I don't know what is!

I found that often an overlooked and important source of home pollution is the cleaning and personal care products we use every day. These can cause dizziness, nausea, allergic reactions, respiratory tract irritation, cancer, and even death. You don't always see the skull and cross bones on a product that contains toxic compounds in it.

There are hundreds of harmful chemicals in our common household products that we don't even think about when we use them. Many of these toxic chemicals belong to what are called volatile organic compounds (VOC's). Some common VOC's found in cleaning products, deoderizers, personal care items, new building materials, and pesticides, are:

Formaldehyde, decane, butoxyethanol, isopentane, limonene, styrene, xylenes, perchloroethylene, methylene chloride, toluene, and vinyl chloride. Often these chemicals are given 'trade names' which you may not always recognize as the chemicals above.

For instance, Johnson's baby soaps contain a chemical called Quaternium-15. This is a preservative that helps prevent the growth of bacteria and fungus in the shampoo. This is actually a formaldehyde-releasing preservative.

In one decade, there has been a 42% increase in asthma (29% for men, 82% for women). The higher rate for women is likely due to women’s longer exposure times to household chemicals. [Source: Center for Disease Control]

Liquid dish soap is the leading cause of poisonings in the home for children under six years old (over 2.1 million accidental poisonings per year). Most brands of liquid dish soap contain formaldehyde, ammonia and bleach.

Of the chemicals found in personal care products:
* 884 are toxic
* 146 cause tumors
* 218 cause reproductive complications
* 778 cause acute toxicity
* 314 cause biological mutations
* 376 cause skin and eye irritations
[Source: United States House of Representatives Report, 1989]

150 chemicals found in the home have been connected to allergies, birth defects, cancer and psychological disorders. [Source: The Consumer Protection Agency)

I am happy to say I have started using safe daily use items in my home that have already positively affected my family's health. We have noticed ecreased problems with allergies and joint inflammation and I am sure other positive effects will be noticed the longer we use the healthier, safer products in our home.

You don't put your hand in a jar of formaldehyde, ammonia, or bleach, right, becuase we know that they are toxic; however, we have an accumulation of chemicals in products we use every day that are slowly affecting our health and wellness.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. I had fun sharing with you. Please email me or post a comment if you have any questions.

Soon I'll post on Formaldehyde and it's common trade names.

Until next time...
Live and Be Healthy