Home Air Pollutants a Danger to Breast-Fed Infants

More than chemicals in a mother’s milk, breast-fed babies face a greater risk from dirty air at home. An infant's exposure to gases known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from indoor air was 25-135-fold higher than from breast milk. "We ought to focus our efforts on reducing indoor air sources of these compounds," said Sungroul Kim of Johns Hopkins.

VOCs are gases emitted from solids and fluids such as paints, cleaning supplies, building materials, printers, glues and photographic solutions. The EPA found levels of a dozen common organic pollutants to be up to five times higher inside a house than outdoors, regardless of whether the home was in an urban or rural area.

Plants to Clean Your Air at Home

In his popular book How to Grow Fresh Air, Dr. B. C. Wolverton shares his NASA research on cleaning indoor air using house plants. His work led to improving air quality in space stations and long manned missions. Now he applies what he learned to what you can do at home. That's good news since blankets, toys, gas stoves, computers, and carpets can lead to allergies, asthma, even cancer. Some research indicates they might contribute to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

Wolverton has found that common indoor potted plants may improve indoor air by reducing levels of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

VOCs, (including benzene and hexane) exist at low levels in many homes. Some, like benzene, find their way inside through pollution from traffic outside. Others emerge as a result of their use in paints, carpeting, and furniture fabric, especially in new or recently refurbished buildings. VOCs can contribute to “sick building syndrome,” a phenomenon that causes dry eyes, nose and throat, headache, lethargy, and nausea.

400 plants can absorb toxic heavy metals and contaminants, like lead and arsenic, from soil and water through a process called phytoremediation. The plant’s root system literally absorbs pollutants and transports them to the leaves, where they remain until the plant is harvested. In some instances plants such as the poplar tree can even break down pollutants, like the pesticide atrazine, and make them harmless.

Wolverton found that some of the best air cleaners are the Areca Palm and Lady Palm, as well as Dracaenas and Chrysanthemums.

5 Tips for Reducing Asthma or Allergy Attacks at Home

The American Lung Association and the EPA offer four tips for relieving respiratory problems at home and I’ll suggest a fifth.

1. Reduce or remove asthma and allergy triggers. They include:
• Cold air.

• Tobacco smoke and wood smoke.

• Perfume, paint, hair spray, or any strong odors or fumes.

• Allergens (particles that cause allergies) such as dust mites, pollen, molds, pollution, and animal dander - tiny scales or particles that fall off hair, feathers or skin - and saliva from any pets.

• Common cold, influenza, and other respiratory illnesses

2. Use air filters and air conditioners -- and properly maintain them.

3. Pay attention to the problem of dust mites. Work hard to control this problem in the bedroom.

4. Vacuum cleaners with poor filtration and design characteristics release and stir up dust and allergens. Select a unit with high-efficiency filters such as micro filter or HEPA media, good suction, and sealed construction.

Ask for test data from manufacturers to determine the quantity and size of dust particles captured (e.g., 96 % at 1.0 micron or 99.97% at 0.3 micron). Alternately, consider a central vacuum that exhausts particulate outside the home.

5. Just as there is a wide variation in vacuum cleaner perform, air filters vary. Along with purchasing a HEPA-level vacuum, also get a HEPA-equivalent Electronic Air Cleaner (EAC). EACs perform better than conventional whole home air filtering systems. In fact the EAC technology used by AspenAir Inside also uses less energy, does not require a whole new HVAC system, installs quickly, lasts longer and requires less maintenance. Learn more here.

Here’s “ten more tips to making your home asthma-friendly.” (PDF)

Think you or someone you love has asthma? See the free online test here, to help a doctor make an accurate diagnosis.

Can a Green Home Be Unhealthy?

In some cases, yes, according to building biologist, Athena Thompson. While researching and writing her book, Homes That Heal (and those that don't): How Your Home Could be Harm... she many people, “What exactly is green building?” Answers varied.

Builders, architects, developers, suppliers and manufacturers and other home-related professionals tended to have more elaborate answers including descriptions of sustainability and life-cycle analysis, more efficient use of energy and water, less toxic building materials, recycled content of products and so on. Many cited the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification system.

However, when talking with homeowners and the general public, their descriptions were much simpler. They revolved around being healthier places to live and work in, more energy efficient, and better for the planet. When asked what they valued and wanted most from their home, across the board the answer was always “health” first.

So how healthy are green homes? Again the answer varies a lot. According to Thompson, “Many people still do not realize that all that is ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ is not necessarily healthy. For instance, using products that have been manufactured from recycled materials might win you some green points, but are people looking at the low-level off-gassing of some of the ‘sustainable’ solutions and how this impacts the indoor environment and peoples’ health?”

For example, autism, asthma and other respiratory problems, behavior and learning problems, and cancer are all on the rise. Also the focus on energy–efficiency means “green” homes are built “tight” or sealed. Thus some ”sustainable designs” are prone to holding harmful fumes inside, as Jason F. McLennan notes in Philosophy of Sustainable Design.

When this was first discovered in buildings it was sometimes called the "sick building syndrome." Even back in 2000, Michael V. Ellacott and Sue Reed noted in their research paper that, “The increasing incidence of health problems associated with ‘tight buildings' can be partly blamed on the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) derived from human activity and the presence of a range of synthetic furnishings, office equipment and building materials.’ For the rapidly increasing number of us who work at home, these health problems literally hit home.

As a first step, read Thompson’s book. Get more tips here and here. Consider getting the air in your home checked by someone certified by the American Indoor Air Quality Council. Then get a high-efficiency electronic air cleaner (EAC) that can connect directly to any size home’s HVAC system, one that makes your indoor air cleaner than fresh, is energy efficient, quiet and does not emit harmful ozone, as many conventional systems do.

Young children are more likely to develop multiple allergies

… later in life, when they are exposed to fungal spores that are “abundant in the air that we breathe every day” according to University of Cincinnati researchers.

They found that infants who were exposed to basidiospores and other airborne fungal spores (called penicillium/aspergillus and alternaria) early in life were more likely to develop allergies to mold, pollen, dust mites, pet dander and certain foods as they grew older.

That finding is worth reading twice.

“Because mold exists naturally in the outdoors, it’s very difficult to completely remove mold spores from the air," concluded Melissa Osborne, a graduate of the university’s environmental and occupational hygiene program and the lead author of the study.

(Yet it is not as difficult to remove most of those spores in your home than outdoors.)

Stress Worsens Your Allergies in Ways Traditional Treatments Don’t Help

If you're allergic, stress and anxiety are a bad combination," reports Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, PhD, Ohio State University Medical Center. When one gets upset allergies get worse – and continue to worsen the next day.

Kiecolt-Glaser concluded, "This is clinically important for patients since most of what we do to treat allergies is to take antihistimines to control the symptoms runny nose, watery, itchy eyes, and congestion.”

"Antihistimines don't deal with those symptoms on the next day."

People may be setting themselves up to have more persistent problems by being stressed and anxious when allergy attacks begin," Kiecolt-Glaser said. Pratanu Banerjee agrees and so does Debra Fulghum Bruce, PhD.

"The common cold is the main reason …

… why people with asthma get bad attacks," says Professor Neil Barnes, spokesperson for the British Lung Foundation when new research was announced in August, 2008.

In the UK, respiratory disease is the second biggest killer. It is also the most commonly reported longterm illness in children and the third most commonly reported in adults. Gender matters here. One in 7 boys and 1 in 8 girls aged 2 - 15 report having long term respiratory illness in England.

Learn more at the British Lung Foundation, including gender differences in development of asthma (girls get it later and longer) and the often curable disease, COPD (one cause is polluted indoor air).