The use of home cleaning products in the form of aerosols, at least once a week, is related to the appearance of respiratory difficulties and asthma in adults.
This association becomes stronger when the use of these aerosol products (including glass cleaners, furniture cleaners and air fresheners) is increased to four or more times a week. On the other hand, non-aerosol cleaning products have not demonstrated a connection with asthma.
These are the main results from a multicentre, multinational study conducted by various research teams, including the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL- Centre de Recerca en Epidemiologia Ambiental) and the Municipal Institute of Medical Research (IMIM- Institut Municipal d’Investigació Mèdica- Hospital del Mar). Other teams from Germany, Canada, Holland, Italy, the United Kingdom and Sweden have participated as well, under the coordination of the CREAL–IMIM researchers. These results have been recently published in the online edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.