Gas stove found to be more harmful than secondhand smoke

Many homes and apartments have a gas stove with an oven that is used for cooking every day. A new study has shown that such appliances can be dangerous to health, because incomplete combustion of household gas releases a lot of benzene into the air. This is a strong carcinogen, the concentration of which in such a case is even higher than in the air next to a smoker.

Many kitchens still have a gas stove, allowing you to boil and fry food on the burners or bake it in the oven. It's quick and convenient, but it's not always safe - and not just because of occasional household gas explosions. As the authors of a new paper in Environmental Science & Technology found, using a stove emits a lot of benzene, an aromatic organic compound that is one of the most dangerous carcinogens in the air.

The gas line and gas cylinders that keep the blue burner lights burning contain simple hydrocarbons. Most often it is methane and propane, respectively, as well as admixtures of some others. Such gas burns with the release of heat, but does not burn completely, so the products of this process are not only harmless water and carbon dioxide, but also some dangerous substances.

The authors of the new paper studied benzene, one of the by-products of this process. This simple aromatic compound, which in its pure form is highly irritating to the skin and mucous membranes, can accumulate in the body and pollute the environment. But what is most alarming - benzene has the properties of a strong carcinogen, that is, it causes cancer, primarily various malignant diseases of the hematopoietic system and bone marrow.

Scientists conducted studies in 87 homes and found that burning burner or oven, heated to about 180 degrees, emit into the air a lot of benzene - more than a smoking cigarette. It turns out that in this respect, cooking on a gas stove can be more dangerous than passive smoking.

Household gas itself contains very little benzene - hundreds of times less than the products of its combustion, the authors of the article noted. Did not emit this carcinogen and products, which as an experiment fried on the stove (in this case - bacon and salmon).

To everything else, "cooked on the stove" benzene quickly spread throughout the room where the gas stove or oven. It easily gets into neighboring rooms and remains in the air for hours. At the same time, benzene concentrations in bedrooms have exceeded the maximum permissible concentrations accepted in many countries.

Good ventilation in the room helps reduce benzene concentrations, the scientists added. At the same time, standard kitchen hoods located above the stove do not do a good job.

In this respect, the competitors of gas stoves - electric and induction - look much less dangerous. The former emit 10-50 times less benzene, in the case of the latter it could not be detected at all.