8 sicknesses that emanate from smoke exposure

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

A new research conducted by the University of Michigan has revealed sicknesses that emanate from one’s exposure to smoke.

In the study published online Jan. 12 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, seven sicknesses were identified to affect humans who expose themselves to smoke and they include:

1. Poor eyesight including from cataracts and age-related macular degeneration.

2. Dizziness

3. Shortness of breath

4. Difficulty in breathing

5. Wheezing

6. Cough with phlegm and other symptoms indicative of severe respiratory distress.

7. In some cases, headaches were statistically associated with fish smoking and carbon monoxide exposure.

8. Fish smokers were also more likely to have burns on their bodies than members of the control group.

The study looked at how Fish smoking in coastal Ghana was linked to high pollutant exposures and health risks.

University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues looked at the air pollutant exposures and health symptoms experienced by fish smokers in two coastal cities in the West African nation of Ghana.

They compared the measured exposures and the self-reported symptoms to a control group of local women who work at other occupations, then conducted a statistical analysis to look for significant connections.

The researchers found that exposure to both carbon monoxide and particulate matter (specifically, small airborne particles called PM2.5 that include soot, smoke and dust) was 2.6 times greater among fish smokers than in the control group. All PM2.5 exposures exceeded World Health Organization safety guidelines.

The project began as dissertation research by study co-author Antwi-Boasiako Amoah at the University of Ghana.

Firewood is loaded into homemade mud ovens, and wooden-framed metal trays are loaded with fish and stacked atop the ovens for smoking and most of the work is done outdoors or in partially enclosed settings, though about 8% of the smokers were indoors.

The U-M-led research team found that workers who used open-air smokers were exposed to less than half the carbon monoxide compared to those who used indoor smokers.

“We were able to show that working with wood combustion for about five hours per day has measurable health and exposure associations, even when used outdoors,” said study senior author Pamela Jagger, director of the FUEL Lab and an associate professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

“Fish smoker health may be improved by working in well-ventilated spaces and using improved smokers that have been field-tested to verify emissions reductions,” Jagger said.

The study involved a health questionnaire administered to about 300 women who smoke fish in the coastal Ghanaian cities of Moree and Elmina. The control group consisted of women engaged in other occupations including businesswomen, tradeswomen, fish salters, tailors and hairdressers (152 total). Twenty-four-hour carbon monoxide and PM2.5 exposures were measured for a subset of the study participants.

The study also compared pollutant exposures among residents of coastal Ghana—both fish smokers and members of the control group—to exposures among residents of noncoastal cities in eastern Ghana, where fish smoking is not practiced. The fish smokers had 24-hour carbon monoxide exposures that were seven times greater and PM2.5 exposures that were four times greater than inland residents.

Interestingly, even members of the coastal Ghanaian control group—who were not engaged in fish smoking—had greater exposure to carbon monoxide and PM2.5 pollutants than women from inland Ghana, according to the study.

In addition to Weyant and Jagger, the authors of the Environmental Health Perspectives study are Antwi-Boasiako Amoah of the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Studies at the University of Ghana, and the Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana; Ashley Bittner of North Carolina State University; Joe Pedit of the University of North Carolina; and Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe of the Regional Institute for Population Studies at the University of Ghana.