Pollution from gas stoves could contribute to almost 40,000 premature deaths in Europe each year. We are talking about pollutants which, by lodging in the lungs, do not kill directly, but reduce life expectancy by two years.
The analysis, published on October 28, covers both the European Union (around 36,000 deaths per year) and the United Kingdom (around 4,000). If this estimate were confirmed by other studies, it would make these stoves a worse public health problem than had already been pointed out. This is twice as many as car accident deaths.
For doctors, this is a problem that has been known for a long time: the regular use of a gas stove leaves high levels of nitrogen dioxide in closed spaces, in this case in the third of European residences which use this device (and 54% of British residences). The oldest study on the subject cited by this new study dates back to 1978: at that time, higher levels of NO2 pollution were measured in kitchens using gas stoves than in those using electric stoves.
But if we know that they can be a cause of asthma, assessing the number of deaths remained a challenge, since NO2 pollution also exists in the urban environment — because of automobiles and industrial pollution. In fact, in recent years, satellites have been able to measure a reduction in NO2 pollution in large European cities, thanks to new rules introduced on the continent regarding polluting emissions from vehicles and industries. However, these readings could not say anything about “indoor” emissions from residences.
The new study, which was carried out by researchers from Jaume 1 and Valencia universities, both in Spain, is believed to be the first to be able to provide such an estimate on premature deaths in Europe.
A similar study published in May in the United States estimated the number of deaths at 19,000 each year. Neither study considered other potentially harmful gases, such as carbon monoxide (known to cause headaches and dizziness) and benzene, because these two have been the subject of much fewer studies in epidemiology, and the data are therefore still insufficient.
