Article by Pauline Ferguson

Dust and dust mites can trigger asthma.  So can some chemicals and detergents in your home.  Did you know that some additives, not only in food, but also in your furniture, building materials and even paint can be an asthma trigger too?

It may not be just one item, either - it could be cumulative.  This graph (albeit about food) shows what I mean about the cumulative effects on your system:

 As you can see, the body absorbs chemicals, in this case, food, which builds up and eventually there's an issue.  In this case, the chocolate will be blamed, because it's the latest in the chain and produces the obvious reaction, however it is actually the cumulative effects of all these foods (or chemicals) which actually cause the problem.

Your body will also have different tolerance thresholds for chemicals, and of course each person has a different threshold - explaining why some people have reactions to different products that others find easy to tolerate:

So here you can see that while perhaps most of your household is tolerant of the dishwashing detergent (or the washing powder etc), one member of the house reacts to it...

How do you find out what you're reacting to?

There are different ways to do that - you could have an allergy test for each substance within your house, although that would be time consuming and probably expensive.  You could take the precautionary approach followed by Building Biologists, which is to reduce or avoid chemicals or substances unless they're proven to be non-harmful.

If you have any queries or comments, I'd love to hear them!

Diagrams from:

Swain, A.R, Soutter, V.L. and Loblay, R.H, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Allergy Unit “Friendly Food”, 1991 Murdoch Books Australia

6 Apr 2012

Article/Information supplied by Pauline Ferguson

Disclaimer - Any general advice given in any article should not be relied upon and should not be taken as a substitute for visiting a qualified medical Doctor.

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