According to a recent study, gas stoves are linked to around 40,000 premature deaths each year, although the number of unreported cases may be much higher. The problem is not the risk of explosion, but rather the health effects of exposure to pollutants from indoor gas cooking.
The research, carried out at Jaume I University in Spain, covers EU countries and the UK. Of particular concern is the number of cases of childhood asthma, which runs into the hundreds of thousands. It is estimated that around a third of European households use a gas stove for cooking. Emissions of pollutants such as particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, a corrosive and irritating gas, produced during combustion, are problematic for health.
Life expectancy is reduced by two years on average
It is estimated that this pollution can reduce life expectancy by an average of two years at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/28/pollutants-from-gas-stoves-kill-40000- europeans-each-year-report-findsfor example due to premature heart and lung diseases. In addition, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide contribute to climate change, which is why New York, for example, will ban gas stoves in new buildings from 2024.
Despite this, gas cookers remain very popular: in Austria, around one in four households have a gas cooker, while in other countries such as the UK, Romania, Poland and Italy, the proportion of gas stoves well exceeds 50%. There are many reasons for this. In areas where power cuts are common, or for people with a self-sufficient lifestyle, gas cooking increases independence from local grid operators. Cooking with gas is also easy, quick and, depending on the region of Europe, cheaper.
The study was funded by the non-profit European Climate Foundation and organized by the European Public Health Alliance. However, a separate study in May 2023 found that more than 12% of all childhood asthma cases in the United States were due to cooking food in the United States were due to the use of gas stoves.
The danger of gas stoves is underestimated – like that of cigarettes in the past
Juana Maria Delgado-Saborit, lead author of the study, therefore recommends ventilation and, if possible, replacing gas stoves with electric stoves. She also believes that the number of deaths is probably underestimated, because the study did not take into account several other harmful substances released during gas cooking. Sara Bertucci of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) even compares the dangers of gas stoves to those of cigarettes
For too long, it has been easy to ignore the dangers of gas stoves. Like cigarettes, people haven’t given much thought to the health effects – and, like cigarettes, gas stoves are a small fire that fills our home with pollution.
