Asthma and allergies can become exacerbated by air fresheners and other chemicals designed to perfume houses.
According to Dr. Stanley Fineman, an allergist with Emory University and the Atlanta Allergy & Asthma Clinic, doctors need to be aware of this issue to inform their patients of the health hazards of air fresheners.
"The chemicals in some of these products can trigger the nasal congestion, sneezing and the runny nose. With the asthmatics, there's really good data showing their lung function changes when they're exposed to these compounds,” said Fineman, as quoted by MSN. "A lot of patients say that they don't correlate an increase of their symptoms with exposure. One of the things that I'm trying to do in my talk is make our members, the allergists that are in practice, more aware of this problem."
The main products to be avoided by people who have asthma and allergies include scented candles, air fresheners, wick diffusers and plug-in deodorizers. Why?
According to Stanley Caress of the University of West Georgia, it’s because these individuals are very chemically sensitive and therefore affected by chemically made-up products.
There are other ways to make your home smell nice, Fineman says, such as baking cookies.
"As allergists, we are specialists in determining what triggers a patient's symptoms," he said, MSN quoted. "This is basically just another aspect of what we do, in terms of finding out what triggers a patient's symptoms, and how we can help them deal with it."
