A defeated purpose: Cleaning with bleach lowers your and your children's immunity

Many people have switched over to other cleaners instead of bleach, for good reasons.  Aside from the nasty smell of bleach, it can do serious damage to your respiratory system and even your immune system.  

Bleach releases chlorine gas, especially if you mix it with certain other cleaners.  Although Clorox maintains that its product doesn’t emit chlorine gas (Cl2) and both acute and long-term exposure is safe for staff and patients of healthcare facilities, we disagree. (Busting Myths About Bleach)  Mixing bleach with other chemicals containing ammonia, quaternary ammonium compounds (found in other disinfectants), vinegar, or other acids can create a toxic gas. (What’s Wrong with Using Bleach?)  When bleach is mixed with acid (for example vinegar or toilet bowl cleaners), it creates chlorine gas. When bleach is mixed with an ammonia product, it creates chloramine gas. Both of these gases are very irritating to inhale and can cause coughing, chest tightness, wheezing and headache.(Bleach)

The effects of exposure to chlorine gas (Cl2), either through chemical disasters, such as railway spills, or passive exposure, such as inhalation of disinfectants, can result in profound changes in the lung. Even minute exposure to Cl2 (1–5 ppm) can lead to acute changes in a key indicator of lung function used to diagnose and monitor conditions like asthma and COPD, which is forced expiratory volume at 1 s (FEV1), and also functional residual capacity (FRC).  Clinical evidence indicates that exposure to Cl2 gas has the potential to induce a lung environment that is conducive to the development of infection. (Chlorine gas exposure increases susceptibility to invasive lung fungal infection)  Bleach can make asthma worse in someone who already has asthma, and it can cause asthma in people who never had asthma. (What’s Wrong with Using Bleach?)

The components of bleach fumes damage our bodies in more ways than one.  Here are the effects:

• Chlorine gas released damages the mucous lining of the respiratory tract, as well as affects the immune response.

• Chlorination by-products are produced, which also affect your immune system.

• Bleach causes the buildup of chloroform in the air. Elevated levels of chloroform have been found in some New Jersey child care centers due to the mixing of too much bleach with water. Chloroform is a known cancer-causing chemical. (What’s Wrong with Using Bleach?)

We’ll look at these one at a time:

People who are exposed to chlorine gas (Cl2) are at risk from developing lung infection.  This is because, in addition to severely injuring the lung, Cl2 gas exposure compromises neutrophil defense mechanisms, leading to impaired antimicrobial immunity. Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell that engulf and destroy disease-causing microbes.  (Chlorine gas exposure increases susceptibility to invasive lung fungal infection)

In a large study of school-age children in the Netherlands, Finland and Spain, the risk of one episode of flu in the previous year was 20% higher, and recurrent tonsillitis 35% higher, among children whose parents used bleach to clean the home.  Similarly, the risk of any recurrent infection was 18% higher among children whose parents regularly used cleaning bleach. (Passive exposure to bleach at home linked to higher childhood infection rate)

Just swimming in a chlorinated pool alters our immune system. As bleach is a disinfectant, it’s important that surfaces be cleaned before using bleach.  (If you want to learn more about the differences among cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing, we have an article on them). This is because the ingredients in bleach react with proteins left behind by cleaning (or not cleaning), creating hazardous disinfection by-products (DBPs), like trichloramine.  Trichloramine has been linked with chronic allergic and respiratory health effects, including asthma.  These effects are most likely due to the DBPs’ toxicity to our immune systems.  Swimming pools in general have proteins from our bodies in them.  In a 2017 study, the impact of 40 minutes of swimming in a chlorinated pool on changes in a set of 13 serum immune markers was assessed.  After considering the good effects of physical activity, the observed decreases in immune markers are possibly due to an immunosuppressive effect of DBPs. (Acute changes in serum immune markers due to swimming in a chlorinated pool)

Chloroform is another DBP, which is also found in chlorinated drinking water.  Animal studies indicate that short exposures could be associated with suppression of the immune system, among other effects.  (Chloroform and Drinking Water)  For example, the median level of chloroform detected in Minnesota public drinking water was 1.5 ppb in 2016, well below the state’s guidance level of 20ppb. However, using bleach as a disinfectant increases your exposure, and it’s also shown that a substantial amount of chloroform is emitted into the indoor air as a result of chlorine bleach use in residential washing machines. (Halogenated volatile organic compounds in chlorine-bleach-containing household products and implications for their use)

To summarize, bleach fumes are not just bad for smelling because they pass into your lungs and affect your whole body, even to the point of weakening your immune system.  If the main purpose of disinfecting your home’s surfaces is to have less illness, bleach literally cancels itself!  There are many other non-toxic, healthier products for cleaning, so we suggest TotalClean, and a number of other non-toxic multipurpose spray cleaners that really work. 

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash