Gas stoves kill 40,000 Europeans every year by introducing pollutants into their lungs, according to a report. That's twice as many as deaths in car crashes.
Cookstoves emit harmful gases linked to heart and lung disease. But experts say there is little public awareness of the dangers. On average, using a gas stove shortens a person's life by almost two years. That's according to a survey of households in the EU and the UK, the Guardian reported.
"The extent of the problem is much worse than we thought," said lead author Juana Maria Delgado-Saborit. She heads the Environmental Health Research Laboratory at Jaume I University in Spain.
Researchers attribute 36,031 early deaths each year to gas digesters in the EU and a further 3,928 in the UK. They say their estimates are conservative because they only took into account the health effects of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and not other gases such as carbon monoxide and benzene.
"Back in 1978 we first learned that NO2 pollution was many times greater in kitchens using gas rather than electric cookers. But only now do we have the ability to calculate the number of lives cut short," Delgado-Saborit said.
One in three EU households cook with gas, rising to 54% of households in the UK and more than 60% in Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and Hungary. Cookstoves burn fossil gas and emit harmful substances that inflame the respiratory tract.
The report, backed by the European Climate Foundation, builds on last year's study which measured air quality in homes to find out how much cooking with gas increases indoor air pollution. This allowed scientists from Jaume I University and the University of Valencia to determine the ratios between indoor and outdoor air pollution when cooking with gas and to map indoor NO2 exposure.
They then applied disease risk ratios derived from studies of outdoor NO2 pollution to estimate the number of lives lost.
"The main uncertainty is whether the risk of death found for outdoor NO2 caused primarily by traffic can be applied to indoor NO2 caused by cooking gas. But this is a fair assumption and necessary for the assessment," explained Stefan Loft, an air pollution expert at the University of Copenhagen who was not involved in the study.
The results match those of a study conducted in the US in May. It found that gas and propane-butane stoves contribute to the deaths of up to 19,000 adults each year.
This month, the EU tightened its rules on outdoor air quality, but has not set standards for indoor air quality. The European Public Health Alliance has called on politicians to phase out gas hobs by setting limits on emissions, offering cash to support the switch to cleaner hobs and forcing manufacturers to label hobs with pollution risks.
"For too long it has been easy to dismiss the dangers of gas hobs. Like cigarettes, people didn't think much about the health impacts - and like cigarettes, gas cookers are a small fire that fills our homes with pollution," stated Sarah Bertucci of the European Public Health Alliance.
People can partially protect themselves from the fumes by opening windows and running exhaust fans when they cook.
Delgado-Saborit said she and her husband grew up in homes that cooked on electric stoves, which was "cleaner, safer and healthier," but later moved to a home with a gas stove in the kitchen.
"We are now in the process of home improvements and counting the days to install a new electric cooktop in my kitchen," she noted. | BGNES
