Berlin
A US study suggests that gas stoves in the kitchen are responsible for asthma in children. But it’s more complicated.
Is the gas stove in the kitchen a health risk? This question has been studied and controversially debated for years. A research team from the USA has now a study presented, which concludes: About 12.7 percent of all asthma diseases in children in the US are due to the use of a gas stove. That is at least 650,000 of the approximately five million cases in the USA.
The study thus initiates a new debate. A research team came in in 2013 a meta study concluded that there is a proven link between cooking with gas stove and the risk of developing cough or asthma.
But is the situation in the USA comparable to that in Germany? Some of this is still unclear. Anyway: that Federal Environment Agency wrote in 2020 in his own study: “Cooking and baking with gas stoves or smoking in the apartment can cause high NO2 pollution for a short time.” However, these could be quickly eliminated by ventilation or an extractor hood with an exhaust air duct to the outside.
Gas stove: In the US, every third person uses gas for cooking
The Federal Environment Agency also comes to the conclusion that short-term and rare exposures with high nitrogen dioxide concentration generally remain without health consequences. It is more important to reduce lifelong, i.e. permanent, stress. In addition, no new data was collected in the US study, but only results that were already known were extrapolated to the total population.
It should also be mentioned that in this country far less Households with gas stoves are equipped than in the USA. While about a third of all US households cook with gas, according to the Federal Statistical Office, more than 90 percent of all households in Germany use an electric stove and only about six percent use gas.
Switching to an electric stove can be worthwhile
In addition to the type of stove, the size of the room in which you cook is also important. In small rooms in particular, the concentration of nitrogen dioxide can rise significantly for a short time. One Swiss study however, comes to the conclusion that the average NO2 concentration in apartments with a gas stove increases only slightly in the long term.
So will on the air quality sufficiently respected, the results of the US studies should not cause further concern. If you still want to be on the safe side, you can go to one electric stove change and have the gas connection sealed. This can be worthwhile, especially when gas prices are high like they are now. (lro)
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