Swimming Pool Chemicals Linked With Asthma by Francesca Bailey

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Many studies have confirmed the link between swimming pool chemicals and asthma. Chlorinated indoor swimming pools are a cause of asthma, which explains why swimmers who use indoor pools have such a high rate of asthma. For example, it was reported that more than one-quarter of the American swim team suffered from asthma. Swimming pool chemicals also present an occupational hazard to lifeguards and swim instructors.

It is not the chlorine itself but the chemicals that chlorine produces when combined with organics. These organics are contributed by the sweat, dander and urine of swimming pool bathers. This causes the chlorine to produce highly dangerous swimming pool chemicals: nitrogen trichloride, aldehydes, halogenated hydrocarbons, chloroform, trihalomethanes and chloramines.

Research indicates that exposure to these swimming pool chemicals increases the permeability of the lung epithelium, much the way that cigarette smoking does. This is because it damages the lipid-proteins which control the surface tension of the lung epithelium. Loosened surface tension of the throat is what causes impaired lung function since it leads to collapse of lung tissue.

Researchers explored the issue thoroughly before coming to the link between swimming pool chemicals and asthma. In a study by Dr. Simone Carbonnelle of the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, 226 school children were monitored to determine if there was a link between time spent around indoor swimming pools and the condition of their lung epithelium. It was found that the children were exposed to the air around the school´s swimming pool for an average of 1.8 hours per week. Factors such as whether the children lived in a rural or urban area, and whether they were from an upper, middle or less well-off background were also considered when calculating the results. Even with external factors considered, the results were still shocking: the children´s levels of lung permeability were equivalent to that of a heavy smoker.

Dr. Carbonnelle had this to say for the results: "These findings suggest that the increasing exposure to chlorine-based disinfectants used in swimming pools and their by-products might be an unsuspected risk factor in the rising incidence of childhood asthma and allergic diseases."

Dr. Thickett of Birmingham Heartlands Hospital also conducted a study of three employees of a public swimming pool who complained of asthma-like symptoms. In the lab, he exposed them to roughly the same amount of swimming pool chemicals that they would be exposed to at work as a sort of challenge test. The pool water was previously tested to determine the level of swimming pool chemicals the lifeguards were exposed to. In the lab, it took the subjects all of one second of chemical exposure to experience a significant reduction in forced expiratory volume (FEV1.) Subjects also scored high on the Occupational Asthma Expert System (OASYS,) which measures asthma and allergy severity. However the lifeguards left their position, their asthma symptoms improved significantly over a relatively short period of time, so much so that a few stopped seeking treatment for their asthma.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Francesca Bailey uses her PhD in Chemical Science to maintain the proper balance of swimming pool chemicals in pools all over the UK.

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