Woodstove use and cancer risk

[tradergordo]

Today a person told me about a study showing a link between lung cancer and woodstove use. I'm a total health nut these days, so naturally I wanted to look into this more. Obviously breathing smoke can't be good for the lungs, but woodstoves don't create much indoor air pollution, could the tiny bit (mostly from opening the door to reload, poor draft, etc) be enough to be harmful in a statistically significant way?

Here is the study this person cited:
In-home coal and wood use and lung cancer risk: a pooled analysis of the International Lung Cancer Consortium.

You have to dig deeper to get the full story, see the chart in the article. In a nutshell, when you only look at North American and European studies (remove developing countries where practices and equipment are not good or they burn open fires not woodstoves), only look at NON-SMOKERs, you will see that they found the odds for lung cancer were elevated by 1% (1.01), however the confidence interval was .74 to 1.37, in other words, there is no statistical significance here. Also they don't even specify if this is just woodstove users, or fireplace/other so its likely the numbers would be better when only looking at woodstove use.

I did more searching to see if any other studies had been published. Here is a recent one from 2017:
Indoor Wood-Burning Stove and Fireplace Use and Breast Cancer in a Prospective Cohort Study

Again when you actually dig into the data, they found no statistically significant increase in cancer risk. But they did report one item of interest that I would not have expected -- they found that burning natural gas or propane actually had HIGHER cancer risk than burning wood!

Conclusions - using a woodstove is not likely to increase cancer risk, but don't be a smoker.

-Gordo

 

[Woody5506]

I feel like this topic keeps being brought up, and as much as my mentality tends to lean toward the "oh it's fine" side of things, I do find myself getting more paranoid about smoke spillage during a reload or especially start up on these milder days we've been having. Also I've been using fatwood kindling to start up, and it smokes more than I like. What I do is open the sliding door right next to the stove and set a box fan up to blow out that extra smoke.

I know some older stoves can stink up a house pretty easily, combined with burning under seasoned wood and I know of people who smell like they've been at a bonfire from running their wood stove. I would think indoor smoke to that point would be the risk.

All in all, I'm not too worried about it, but I do try to be aware.

 

[savageactor7]

meh...everything causes cancer.

Besides that, those in the know fully understand that media has an agenda. And your can take it to the bank that these pie faced, liberally indoctrinated academia's hate the fact that we can do this for ourselves and save money...we don't pay fuel tax.

...'people that cut and heat their homes with wood? Why we can't look at them and know for certain how they'll vote'.

 

[begreen]

There are so many variables in a home that can affect human bodies. One big one is fire retardants that are in most fabrics and almost all upholstery. Formaldehyde outgassing is another. Diet also needs to be taken directly into account. I don't have access to pub med to read the full report. In the breast cancer study did they also separate out how many women are smokers?

 

[begreen]

What are you burning in these day TG?

 

[sportbikerider78]

Seems like everyone is just obsessed with safety.

Did they balance out the positive health effects of bucking, splitting and carrying wood? Life is too complex to measure everything and isolate variables.

 

[jetsam]

Of note, this was a study of 58,000 random women who were interested in a breast cancer study. They lost 30% of the participants over the course of the study (10% dropped out and they couldn't get medical records for the other 20%). Of the remaining 40k, 2416 got breast cancer.

Propane fireplaces were more closely associated with breast cancer than wood burning ones. Someone burning a mixture of garbage and wet wood in a smoke dragon 24x7 is in the same use case as someone burning seasoned wood in a blaze king. The study wasn't able to adequately correct for socioeconomic bias in the data.

Point being, while this does look like a good study with interesting findings, it has limitations. It doesn't say "A CAUSES B"- it says, "We did the best we could statistically with the data we had, and here's some interesting correlations."

 

[sportbikerider78]

^^^^ Add 100 layers of political bias,,,and that's about it.

 

[tradergordo]

What are you burning in these day TG?

I've STILL only ever owned one stove But I want to replace it, hoping for a good Spring clearance deal maybe on an (broken link removed).

 

[Doc C]

I would argue that in general wood stove smoke does not cause cancer.

Most of the time cancer is essentially activated by an outside substance in a person that has a genetic predisposition to cancer.

There are some exceptions. Cigarette smoke can cause cancer in people that do not have a faulty gene. Drink enough gas and the same thing can happen.

But in order to really assess if wood stove smoke poses a risk you need to either have genentic testing done to see if you have a predisposition to lung cancer. Alternatively you can look at your family history. Remove cases of lung cancer due to smoking and if your family history shows an increase in lung cancer above the statistical average then it’s probably safe to assume that you as well have an increased likely hold of being predisposed to lung cancer.

Keep in mind that if you do have a family history of non smoking related lung cancer then there is still only a VERY small chance that you will get it as well.

Enough of a chance that a person should take some precautions. But I would argue that even with no history of lung cancer we should taken precautions anyways. It only takes $3 and a couple seconds to put on a mask when going into an attic or crawl space, or spray painting or anything else that common sense dictates should not be in your lungs.

 

[kennyp2339]

Not making fun of you specifically, but we're late this year with these type of articles, normally they pop up just after the holidays.
But in all seriousness indoor air quality is the up most important, whether you have to run a stand alone filtered air cleaner, a furnace with a heap filter, to general routine vacuuming and dusting, keep your indoor air clean.

 

[rdust]

After all the hours I’ve spent in my life breathing around an outdoor fire my woodstove is the least of my worries.

 

[Rearscreen]

these pie faced, liberally indoctrinated academia's

Most likely the academic doctor that diagnosis your cancer early enough to cure it or at least knows the treatment for a comfortable last days.

 

[jetsam]

^^^^ Add 100 layers of political bias,,,and that's about it.

There's zero political bias in what they published as far as I can see. The bias comes in when someone else decides that "we found some correlations" doesn't generate clicks, and retitles it "STOVES CAUSE CANCER SAY LYING EGGHEADS- IS THE GUMMINT COMING FOR YOUR STOVE??????!".

It's really not the researchers' faults that nearly everyone who will ever hear about this study will never actually read it. That's on YOU, gentle readers. Look before you shoot.

 

[St. Coemgen]

when you actually dig into the data

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! For taking the time to do this!

The world would be a better, kinder place if more people actually did this with everything they read, hear or see. Rather than hyperventilating and overreacting to the surface conclusions they either (1) merely perceive by failing to really understand the issues and the actual data, or (2) worse fall victim to such conclusions injected by intent with an agenda hoping for such misperceptions.

 

[jetsam]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! For taking the time to do this!

The world would be a better, kinder place if more people actually did this with everything they read, hear or see. Rather than hyperventilating and overreacting to the surface conclusions they either (1) merely perceive by failing to really understand the issues and the actual data, or (2) worse fall victim to such conclusions injected by intent with an agenda hoping for such misperceptions.

Worse yet, the surface conclusion often isn't even vaguely related to anything in the study- it's just the headline some person with poor reading comprehension and poorer scruples decided to slap on their story about it.

 

[sportbikerider78]

There's zero political bias in what they published as far as I can see. The bias comes in when someone else decides that "we found some correlations" doesn't generate clicks, and retitles it "STOVES CAUSE CANCER SAY LYING EGGHEADS- IS THE GUMMINT COMING FOR YOUR STOVE??????!".

It's really not the researchers' faults that nearly everyone who will ever hear about this study will never actually read it. That's on YOU, gentle readers. Look before you shoot.

I was speaking more towards the news sources. They pick up news that fits a their notion of what happened and push whatever story does that. While ignoring stories that don't fit the narrative.

 

[begreen]

I was speaking more towards the news sources. They pick up news that fits a their notion of what happened and push whatever story does that. While ignoring stories that don't fit the narrative.

Yes, unfortunately that happens a lot more these days. The stations and networks are profit driven and have found that sensational news attracts eyeballs. Many have sunk to trying to make the news an entertainment medium. It's important for the viewer to discern between good journalism and National Enquirer level hype.

 

[edyit]

National Enquirer level hype

are you saying bat boy isn't real begreen?

 

[toddnic]

I've spent quite a bit of time working in 3rd World countries. And, I've seen the damage that inhaling smoke from wood burning fires inside a "home" can have on the inhabitants. That being said, the new EPA stoves, their efficiencies, and the little amount of particulate being emitted into the environment does not even compare to what I've experienced in the 3rd World. Definitely agree that we need to be careful breathing in ash dust, etc.

 

[begreen]

are you saying bat boy isn't real begreen?

Didn't he get abducted by aliens?

 

[Sodbuster]

I'd be more concerned about the stuffing that China is using in your Lazyboy as you sit and enjoy your wood stove.

 

[firefighterjake]

Didn't he get abducted by aliens?

Nope . . . he's still working at the Tuscaloosa Burger King with Elvis who recently was promoted to be a Manager. The aliens meanwhile continue to stay in New Mexico with an occasional trip into Vegas to play Blackjack.

 

[Bootstrap]

If you can smell wood stove smoke in your house, there is a risk. And if you have that, you have a problem.
There is never any wood smoke smell in my house. Only way that would ever happen is if I whip open the door really fast to create a brief suction effect.

 

[cjgoode]

One fire pit out side and cooking some hot dogs over it, I am sure I am exposed to 100 times more smoke then the wood stove in my house including loading it exposes me to.