Researchers at the Umea University in northern Sweden have studied air quality in homes where wood-fire stoves are used and found that inhaling smoke from the stoves may not only cause asthma and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases, but can also enhance the risk of the onset of dementia.
The study found that in households with wood stoves, the risk of dementia was 70 percent higher when compared to other residents living in non-wood smoke areas of the town of Umea.
People who lived in smoky neighbourhoods, but didn’t have a wood stove, had a 30% greater risk of dementia than people living in less smoky neighbourhoods.
The study covers a 15-year period and compares the rate of particles from traffic and from wood fires in residential areas in Umea where 1,800 people with dementia have lived.
Read the full article: www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-06/14/c_137253934.htm
The full study is here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0198283
Traffic vs wood stove pollution
The article mentions the impacts of traffic as well. Keep in mind that in the Comox Valley, all air, land and marine transportation combined accounts for 12% of our annual fine particulate pollution.
Residential wood heat is responsible for almost 3 times as much (35.5% of our fine particulates)! And wood stoves put out all of that pollution in a concentrated 5-6 month period.