Cooking with solid fuels may induce respiratory diseases

a joint team of Chinese and British researchers published a paper on
that cooking with solid fuels such as firewood and coal could lead to respiratory diseases.
from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the University of Oxford in the UK tracked nearly 280,000 people aged 30 to 79 in China. These people did not smoke and did not suffer from major chronic diseases at the beginning of the study. During the nine-year study period, nearly 20,000 people were hospitalized or died from major respiratory diseases.
study found that people who cooked directly with solid fuels such as firewood or coal had a 36 percent higher risk of major respiratory disease than those who cooked with clean energy sources such as electricity or gas.
also showed that the longer solid fuels were used, the higher the risk of hospitalization or death from respiratory diseases. Compared to those who had not used solid fuels, those who had used solid fuels for more than 40 years had a 54 per cent increased risk of hospitalization or death, while those who had abandoned solid fuels and switched to clean fuels had a 14 per cent higher risk of hospitalization or death.
, a professor of epidemiology at oxford University and one of the authors of the study, said the findings suggest a need to accelerate the promotion of cheap clean energy and replace solid fuels such as firewood and coal. (Source: Xinhua News Agency Zhou Zhou)