Using Exhaust Fan on a Gas Stove Cuts Pollution: Study

HealthDay – 1 hr 11 mins ago THURSDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Turning on the exhaust fan above your kitchen stove and cooking on the back burners can reduce the amount of air pollution from gas stovetops and ovens, a new study says.

The study also found, however, that exhaust fans vary in their effectiveness in reducing levels of indoor air pollution from cooking with gas, which can produce pollution levels higher than those in heavily polluted outdoor air.

Exhaust fans in hoods over cooktops and downdraft systems that suck air directly from the cooking surface also vary widely in price, loudness and power consumption, concluded researchers Brett Singer and William Delp at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility in Berkeley, Calif.

Despite these differences, there is no rating system to help consumers know which product is best at removing pollutants from their home.

The study was recently published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The researchers measured the performance of seven over-the-range hood designs and found that none of them performed well in all of the key functions: fan efficiency, sound levels and efficiency in capturing polluted air for exhaust, according to a journal news release.

Two products that operated quietly and removed 70 percent to 90 percent of pollutants had high fan speeds that compromised their efficiency. A third product that was best at removing pollutants was so loud it made normal conversation impossible.

The best option may not require buying a new over-the-range hood, the researchers suggested.

"Routine use of even moderately effective venting range hoods can substantially reduce in-home exposures to cooking and burner-generated air pollutants," Singer and Delp wrote. "Effectiveness can be substantially enhanced by preferential use of back versus front cooktop burners and by using higher fan settings."

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more about air quality inside homes.

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In utero exposure to diesel exhaust a possible risk factor for obesity

ScienceDaily (July 19, 2012) — Pregnant mice exposed to high levels of air pollution gave birth to offspring with a significantly higher rate of obesity and insulin resistance in adulthood than those that were not exposed to air pollution. This effect seemed especially prevalent in male mice, which were heavier regardless of diet. These findings, published online in the FASEB Journal, suggests a link between diesel exhaust exposure in utero and bulging waistlines in adulthood.

See Also:Health & MedicineDiet and Weight LossObesityPlants & AnimalsMiceExtreme SurvivalEarth & ClimateAir PollutionPollutionReferenceSouth Beach dietSaturated fatZone dietNutrition and pregnancy

"It is becoming clearer that our environment profoundly affects our health in ways that are little understood," said Jessica L. Bolton, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University in Durham, NC. "We believe these data have important implications for health disparities as a consequence of socioeconomic conditions, in which low income neighborhoods tend to be disproportionately exposed to high levels of pollution, which we hope will inform policy and regulation decisions."

To make this discovery, Bolton and colleagues used two groups of pregnant female mice, one of which was exposed to diesel exhaust during the latter half of pregnancy. The second group was exposed to filtered air for the same time period. The mice lived in specialized chambers for four hours each day breathing polluted air and then were returned to normal housing after these exposures. Prior to birth, some of the fetal brains of the mice from both groups were analyzed to measure immune proteins and to get a "snap shot" of the fetal brain immune response to the in utero condition. Once the offspring were adults, they were placed on either a low-fat diet (10% saturated fat) or a high-fat diet (45% saturated fat). All other nutritional aspects of the diets were identical.

Scientists measured food intake, body weight and activity levels before putting the mice on their diets, and then weekly throughout the experiment. At the end of six weeks, metabolic hormones were assessed. They found that males from diesel-exposed moms were heavier than the males from clean air-exposed moms regardless of their diet as adults. In contrast, females from diesel-exposed moms were heavier than control females only if they were fed a high-fat diet as adults, and they never developed signs of insulin resistance.

"If you're pregnant and have a long drive into work, you might think twice about opening the car windows," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal. "It's already been established that risk factors for obesity (junk food, high fat-high cholesterol diets, etc.) begin as early as the womb. This important study shows that the air a mother breathes is also one of those risk factors."

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