Persistent weekly disinfectant, cleaning product use may raise odds for current asthma
Key takeaways:
- A link was found between persistent weekly disinfectant and cleaning product use and current asthma/wheeze.
- Researchers noted “considerable uncertainty” in this finding due to sizable confidence intervals.
Young adults classified as persistent weekly users of disinfectants and cleaning products vs. those who did not use these products weekly had nonsignificant elevated odds for current asthma, according to results published in Allergy.
“Among the identified exposure profiles, only a persistent weekly use of multiple [disinfectants and cleaning products] over time seemed to have an adverse effect on asthma,” Emilie Pacheco Da Silva, MS, doctoral student at Université Paris-Saclay and the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, and colleagues wrote.
Using data from the phase 2 International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood, Pacheco Da Silva and colleagues evaluated 1,143 young adults (63% women) from German centers in the study to determine long-term exposure profiles for weekly disinfectant spray, cleaning spray and nonspray disinfectant method use via latent class analysis.
Following this discovery, researchers investigated the link between the different exposure profiles and the odds for asthma and wheeze.
The time period of this study spanned from 1995 to 2018. Disinfectant and cleaning product use at age 19 to 24 years and age 29 to 34 years informed the exposure profiles, according to the study.
Of the five profiles found, most adults (55%; 56.4% women) belonged to the “no weekly use” of the outlined disinfectants and cleaning products group.
Two profiles focused on changes in use during the two outlined age ranges, with a greater proportion increasing vs. decreasing their weekly use at age 29 to 34 years (18%; 69.1% women vs. 7%; 74.3% women). The final two profiles centered on persistence, with 8% (80.3% women) of the study population fitting under the persistent weekly disinfectant spray, cleaning spray and nonspray disinfectant method use group and 12% (65.5% women) fitting under the persistent weekly cleaning sprays use group.
Researchers observed nonsignificant elevated odds for current asthma among those classified as persistent users of disinfectants and cleaning products vs. those with “no weekly use” (OR = 1.68; 95% CI, 0.48-5.88). The same was true for current wheeze, with nonsignificant heightened odds for this outcome in the “persistent use” vs. “no weekly use” group (OR = 1.71; 95% CI, 0.75-3.9).
“[The] large CIs indicate considerable uncertainty,” Pacheco Da Silva and colleagues wrote.
Researchers further reported “wide interval estimates” when analyzing the odds for incident asthma and incident wheeze.
“Future longitudinal studies in other population-based cohorts should focus on repeated assessment of the use of [disinfectants and cleaning products] at surveys separated by shorter time periods, in order to better characterize the long-term deleterious effects of using [disinfectants and cleaning products] on asthma,” Pacheco Da Silva and colleagues wrote.
Perspective
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Many epidemiological studies have reported on the association between disinfectants and cleaning products and asthma. However, previous studies have had limitations, such as short-term exposure assessments and not taking into account multiplicity and correlations of exposures to disinfectants and cleaning products. The strength of this study is that it assessed exposure to multiple disinfectants and cleaning products on a longitudinal manner. The authors used latent class analysis, and this method of analysis provided a closer assessment of exposure to the real world.
Latent class analysis identified five distinct long-term exposure profiles to disinfectants and cleaning products, of which “persistent use” profile was associated with current asthma, although not statistically significant compared with “no weekly use.” The results of the present study are reasonable in comparison with previous studies and suggest that not only asthma but also wheezing are all associated in the direction of risk, and that the lack of statistical power may be the reason why the statistical difference did not reach significance.
The current study used data from before the COVID-19 pandemic, during which disinfectants were more important than before as infection prevention, and the result “disinfectants and cleaning products is a risk for asthma” may have been an inconvenient topic. However, even after the COVID-19 pandemic, disinfectants remain indispensable for health care professionals, and the risk assessment of disinfectants and cleaning products for asthma needs to continue in the future. Of course, risk assessment of disinfectants and cleaning products for asthma is also important for the general population, for routine disinfectants and cleaning products use and for future pandemic preparedness. Although there are many studies on the relationship between disinfectants and cleaning products and asthma using animal experiments and cultured cells, further epidemiological studies, like this study, are desirable.
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