We have a lot of choices to make about our diet. Add to that doing the right thing when it comes to preventing or treating a chronic disease, fighting a virus or losing weight, and suddenly our nutrition choices can seem almost overwhelming.

Well, I'm here to help. Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

It's time for the Nutrition Facts Grab Bag where we look at the signs and whole variety of topics. Today, we start with an unusual finding. Did you know that burning incense has been found to generate about four times the particulate matter is burning cigarettes? Here's the story.

Frankencense and Merr date back to thousands of years before the three wise men. The burning of witches incense may have actually had a hygienic function, like maybe repelling mosquitoes, and when put to the test, incense fumes were able to kill off some bacteria and mold in the air, but may also carry health risks.

Although the adverse health effects of second-hand tobacco smoke are well recognized, the impact of burning incense in the home has received less attention.

But burning incense has been found to generate like four times the particulate matter is cigarette, so incense may be even worse. No wonder home incense use may have significant adverse health effects, particularly in the heart and lungs, including childhood asthma.

No wonder since the incense smoke particle size peeks down in the danger range so ultra fine they can float down to the deepest parts of the lungs.

It's not just the little ash particles in the smoke though, there's carbon monoxide, nitric oxides, sulfur dioxide, chrysanogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and also organic compounds like benzene and formaldehyde.

The World Health Organization suggests limiting indoor formaldehyde to about 80 parts per billion, but even with a window open during the hour or so incense is burning, formaldehyde levels exceed the safety limit.

What does this all mean in terms of disease outcomes? Studies on rats, show incense can do all sorts of terrible things, but what about people?

A study of thousands of children, thought over time, found that exposed a household incense burning was associated with impaired lung function, reduced lung function, growth, and increased risks of respiratory diseases and symptoms.

Daily exposures associated with impaired lung function in adolescents, too, though interestingly those who had pets at home appeared to have better lung function, something I noted previously how having a dog or cat in the house during early life may protect against childhood asthma analogy.

What about the heart? Long-term exposure to incense burning in the home environment was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. Approximately 8% of heart disease deaths and 12% of stroke deaths could potentially be attributed to incense use, though they were looking at long-term exposure, so incense burning at home on a daily basis for more than 20 years.

What about cancer? Temple workers exposed to incense day in and day out were found to have evidence of significantly more DNA damage, including DNA strand breaks.

Does this translate greater cancer risk? One unsolved mystery has been why non-smoking Asian women have such high lung cancer rates.

Might it be incense? Probably not, since the association between incense use and lung cancer remains inconclusive.

The incense use does appear to be linked to cancers of the upper respiratory tract, as well as brain tumors among children whose mothers were exposed to incense.

Three times the odds even more than that of secondhand smoke.

In fact, even more than the consumption of baloney sandwiches, a process of meat consumption only appears to it most double brain tumor risk among children.

Even without tumors, a study of 15,000 infants found that household incense burning was associated with a delay in brain development milestones, such as when they start to walk.

And then on the other side of the life cycle, incense exposure among older adults was associated with reduced cognitive performance and adverse structural changes in the brain.

The researchers conclude that this calls for safer practices, such as avoiding burning incense indoors or using safer incense alternatives.

...