Gas stoves are believed to be responsible for the premature deaths of 40,000 people each year in Europe (European Union [UE] and United Kingdom combined), warns a study led by the Jaume I University and the University of Valencia, in Spain. “This number of deaths is twice as high as that linked to car accidents”, notes the British daily The Guardian.
The combustion of city gas that occurs when cooking results in the formation of other gases such as nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, known as “NOx”, which can irritate the lungs. It also emits carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, which have harmful health effects and can affect the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. But, for this study, only the effects of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) on health were taken into consideration, which leads the authors to say that their estimates are lower than reality.
In the EU, one in three households cooks with gas. In Italy, Romania, Hungary and the Netherlands, 60% of homes are equipped with this cooking method, while in the United Kingdom 54% of homes cook with gas.
“From a public health point of view, gas stoves are toxic”, insists Juana Maria Delgado-Saborit, lead author of the study, asked by Bloomberg Green. The problem of premature deaths “is much worse than we thought.”
Open windows when cooking
This work, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was funded by the European Climate Foundation, a non-profit organization. They are part of a wider “clean cooking” project organized by the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) and add to the growing body of evidence that gas cooking in homes increases the cost of indoor air from harmful pollutants, which poses a danger to health. In May, a study carried out in the United States, for example, revealed that gas stoves were probably responsible for 50,000 cases of asthma in children.
“Phasing out cooking gas is key to advancing EU priorities on promoting health, improving air quality and phasing out fossil fuels,” writes EPHA in the press release announcing the results of the new study.
Quoted by the Guardian, EPHA’s Sara Bertucci says the dangers of gas stoves have been underestimated for too long. “Like cigarettes, people didn’t really care about their health effects – and, like cigarettes, gas stoves are slowly polluting our homes,” she emphasizes.
While waiting to switch to electric hobs, households equipped with gas stoves should consider opening the windows and turning on the hood ventilation when cooking, suggests in a previous article in Guardian, Seth Shonkoff, research associate at the University of California and executive director of PSE Healthy Energy, an independent research institute.
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