Time to ditch your gas stove for health reasons? The answer is 'murky,' experts say
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A Canadian study suggests an association between household use of gas stoves and a higher risk of asthma in some kids. However, like other recent studies on the issue, the results were inconsistent.
A Canadian study suggests an association between household use of gas stoves and a higher risk of asthma in some kids. However, like other recent studies on the issue, the results were inconsistent.
Researchers acknowledged the findings suggest some health effects with gas stove use, but no direct connection to childhood asthma could be drawn.
That echoes similar findings elsewhere, but a study published last year in the United States associating gas stoves with childhood asthma added to the confusion.
The Canadian study, published June 9 in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, was based on questionnaires conducted by the CHILD Cohort Study to collect data on nearly 3,000 children born between 2009 and 2012 in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto. The overall data in the project allows scientists to track the participants' environment and health, including onset of asthma, obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases over many years.
Dr. Padmaja Subbarao, a respirologist and study co-author, said 5.5 per cent of children living in a Toronto home with an electric stove were diagnosed with asthma but that jumped to just over 10 per cent at age five for kids whose families used a gas stove.
She said asthma cases were likely higher in Toronto compared with Vancouver, where they were not statistically significant, because a milder climate in the West Coast city means people tend to open their windows, even in winter. That allows pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides emitted by gas stoves to escape outdoors instead of staying inside and potentially irritating the lungs.
"It shows you that it's not as simple as saying you can't have a gas stove," Subbarao said. "It really depends on how you use it and the environmental characteristics that you live in."
