Risks and precaution to take while cooking indoors

There are many risks associated with cooking indoors. PHOTO/MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI 

What you need to know:

Some cooking fuels produce carbon monoxide when they burn. The health risks associated with inhaling this gas are more pronounced when one is cooking in restricted spaces. This is just one of the dangers of cooking indoors

With the increasing tendency to adopt Western culture, many people have stopped cooking their food out in the open and resorted to cooking inside the house, using gas, charcoal stoves and electric ovens.
Najib Lukooya Bateganya, a public health and environmental specialist with Kampala Capital City Authority, says when cooking indoors with a charcoal stove, there’s incomplete burning of cooking material such as charcoal. “These are dangerous because they contain and produce hazardous fumes or substances such as carbon monoxide which when inhaled, compete with oxygen in the respiratory system thus leading to suffocation.

Dangerous fumes
“This gaseous chemical gets into the blood circulatory system and results in ill health. Instead of blood efficiency transporting oxygen, it instead transports carbon monoxide,” he adds.
Given that it contains methane, a highly flammable and colourless gas which is a component of liquefied gas, cooking gas leakages can cause house fires.
The leakages could be as a result of poor quality material used for wiring and installation (workmanship) which may lead to short circuits in the house on top of equipment damage.

“If one has cooking space in the house which is not well aerated, they should ensure that all the dangerous by-products from the cooking area which may cause suffocation among children, expectant mothers and people with breathing complications are expelled. It can lead to general body weakness and dizziness,” Lukooya cautions.
Even when someone is cooking using firewood, it produces a lot of smoke containing carbon monoxide which deoxygenates blood and can eventually lead to development of pneumonia.
“This smoke which is impure, enters the lungs and gets stuck in the lung cavity and can result into complications in breathing,” the doctor says.

Dr Edrin Jjuuko, a general practitioner at Life Link medical centre in Ntinda says cooking indoors consequentially leads to development of chronic obstructive or pulmonary airway diseases (COPD) which is characterised by emphysema and chronic bronchitis; conditions that lead to the obstruction of oxygen go through the lungs for easy breathing.
“With indoor cooking, one is susceptible to cough and developing difficulty in breathing brought about by reduced rate of oxygen circulation in the blood and body.

If the rate at which oxygen enters lungs for circulation in the body is below 90 per cent, the person will eventually suffocate and collapse. This is a result of carbon monoxide, produced mainly from charcoal or firewood, displacing oxygen due to constant exposure to cooking areas with poor aeration, Dr Jjuuko notes.
Jjuuko adds that in a chest x-ray on a person with breathing complications, the lungs are quite enlarged and the diaphragm is always flattened yet it’s supposed to be dorm-shaped or curved under normal circumstances.

Effects and treatment
He says that the long-term health effect of a person who has developed breathing complications is that they will be in and out of hospital because of lung damage brought on by injury to lung cells.
Treatment of health complications such as constriction of the lungs involves giving the patient corticosteroid tablets to reduce or control lung injury, putting the person on oxygen support until oxygen circulation in the body rises above 90 per cent or using an inhaler. One must then avoid cooking inside the house and smoking since it also worsens or retards the situation.

Taking dilating drugs which open the bronchi (breathing system) helps to ease breathing. If the affected person does not take dilators, they will keep on having constriction or blockage of the bronchi,” Dr Jjuuko further explains.
He adds that exercising regularly also opens up the lungs (bronchi) because it increases oxygen intake.
For a person who has collapsed as a result of limited oxygen supply to the brain due to excessive carbon monoxide, make sure that the person is breathing by applying mouth to mouth rescuscitation if they are still home, while looking for quick medical attention.
“The more the oxygen supply, the faster the ousting of carbon monoxide from the lungs,” he concludes.