Good Lifestyle

As if we did not have enough to fear with COVID-19Overwhelming hospitals in at least 21 cities and causing"UNGODLY ONGE" In at least one US state, a new surprising report suggests that there is another invisible danger to health in the air. This can affect not only your respiratory system, but also your children, and even worse, it hides in your own kitchen: your gas stove.

If you have a stove or a natural gas combustion oven at home - and, let us be clear, millions of Americans allow you to broadcast all kinds of horrible particles in the air, according to an eye opening articlepublished by quartz. Among them are nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which causes serious respiratory problems,especially in children; Carbon monoxide (CO), an odorless gas that can cause vertigo and, at the right levels, even death; Formaldehyde and particles (PM), tiny particles in the air that can also wreak havoc on your respiratory system. These pollutants are produced by the direct fuel combustion, which is obviously very worse if you cook with, say, charcoal, but also exists with gas cooking.

Experts agree that NO2 levels that can be present in US foci are the most troubling. "There is no question that this was a neglected question," T. Stephen Jones, doctor and epidemiologist for the CDC, "said Quartz. "[We have to let people know what are the risks, especially when they can be substantial, potentially fatal risks that can kill children." (In touch:Vitamin doctors exhort everyone to take right now.)

Although scientists have apparently studied the dangers of the NO2 produced by the gas combustion devices foryears or evendecades-And the EPA wasring the alarm Since 1986, the question has been turned on as the Americans are confined inside during CVIV-19 locks and prepare more than ever.

Earlier this year, the Rocky Mountain Institutepublished a report This cites all ways to increase levels of n ° 2 could damage a child, including affecting their IQ and learning capabilities, increasing the risk of asthma, causing lung infections, irritating from their waves and making them to breathe. Another report, produced by the UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences and commissioned by Sierra Club,found only just cooking With your cooktop and your oven at the same time, you can lift No2 at dangerous levels.

"Under a cooking scenario where the stove and oven are used simultaneously for one hour, acute baking exposures with gas appliances exceed national and Californian ambient air quality threshold levels in more than 90% of the modeled emission scenarios "," the researchers concluded.

When a CEO of an atmospheric pollution monitoring company has decided to test its own home, it was surprised by what he found. "Exit of curiosity, I put in place [pollution monitors] at home. The data was crazy",Recount Vox. "For the time, I cook and cooking [with a gas stove, concentrations n ° 2 at the head of the cap] nearly 200 ppb." (For registration, theOutside Standards for NO2,according to at the EPA, are 100 ppb.)

If this does not look pretty bad, new research indicates that Covid-19 combined NO2 creates an even more toxic and mortal combination. A study conducted by researchers at Emory University andPosted last month In the cellular newspaperInnovation I found that your risk of dying of the Roman Coronavirus goes up if you are also exposed to NO2. The researchers came to their conclusion after studying coronavirus mortality data in 3,122 million US counties. "We have observed significant positive associations between NO2 levels and the Covid-19 Covid-19 mortality rate and the COVID-19 mortality rate at the county level, when fighting the covariates," said the report .

According to an article entitled "The false promise of natural gas, "which has been written by three doctors (including the former Director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the CDC) and publishedNew England Journal of MedicineEarlier this year, "new gas appliances should be removed from the market". Yikes.

According to Quartz, the regulatory action could be imminent for gas-powered equipment manufacturers, particularly in California. But if you have one at home now, it could be a good time to replace it with its electrical counterpart. And for more on the insidious that could be hidden in your kitchen, see this roundabout of 30 amazingly dangerous kitchen articles .