Thursday, August 27, 2015

Is incense bad for your health?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/s-iib082515.php

Public Release: 25-Aug-2015
Is incense bad for your health?
Comparison between indoor use of cigarettes and incense provides surprising results
Springer

The burning of incense might need to come with a health warning. This follows the first study evaluating the health risks associated with its indoor use. The effects of incense and cigarette smoke were also compared, and made for some surprising results.
[Not surprising to me. Any kind of smoke is bad for us.

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During the burning process, particle matter is released into the air. This can be breathed in and trapped in the lungs, and is known to cause an inflammatory reaction. Not much research has been done on incense as a source of air pollution, although it has been linked to the development of lung cancer, childhood leukemia and brain tumors.

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Incense smoke was found to be mutagenic, meaning that it contains chemical properties that could potentially change genetic material such as DNA, and therefore cause mutations. It was also more cytotoxic and genotoxic than the cigarette used in the study. This means that incense smoke is potentially more toxic to a cell, and especially to its genetic contents. Mutagenics, genotoxins and cytotoxins have all been linked to the development of cancers.

Smoke from the sampled incense was found to consist almost exclusively (99 percent) of ultrafine and fine particles, and is therefore likely to have adverse health effects. Taken together, the four incense smoke samples contained 64 compounds. While some of these are irritants or are only slightly harmful (hypotoxic), ingredients in two of the samples are known to be highly toxic.

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