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Updated 5:29 PM ET November 1, 1999 |
NEW YORK, Nov 01 (Reuters Health) -- Cooking with gas may aggravate asthma symptoms, researchers warn.
"Adults with severe asthma should avoid exposure to indoor pollutants, including gas stove cooking," according to Dr. Mark Eisner and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco. Eisner presented his team's findings on Monday at the 65th annual scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians, held in Chicago, Illinois.
According to Eisner, home gas stoves release nitrogen dioxide, a gas that can irritate the eye and respiratory tract. Patients with asthma may be more susceptible to the effects of the gas than
nonasthmatics.
The California researchers examined rates of asthma-related emergency room visits in more than 500 adults with asthma. They found that individuals who used gas stoves seven or more times per week had twice the rate of asthma-related emergency room visits compared with less frequent users or people who did not use gas stoves.
Frequent users of gas stoves were also more likely than other study participants to require urgent visits to a doctor's office and to require hospitalization for asthma.
Eisner's group stresses that further study is needed to analyze other factors that affect frequency of emergency room use, such as housing conditions, income and race.
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