Health Hazards Linked with Air Conditioner
Air conditioners cause health hazards not only in people suffering from breathing-related issues, but in perfectly normal people as well.
It is not just patients with allergies or breathing disorders who need to worry and be careful about their air conditioning, but the healthy and normal people too, who work in air conditioned rooms in their offices or those for whom air conditioners are the essential appliance in the house, may be also affected by an unclean air conditioner.
Some of the health issues caused by air conditioners are:
- Cold and Shivering: Sometimes, sitting in an air conditioned room for a long time can cause shivering. The people might also experience chronic headaches and fatigue. Some people who are not used to live under air conditioning for long experience mucous membrane irritation and breathing difficulties. It makes them more vulnerable to colds and flus.
- Dry and Rough Skin: For people with dry skin, sitting in an air conditioned room is not going to help their skin too much. Studies show how skin loses moisture when it is exposed to air conditioners for a long time. However, this can be solved by applying moisturizer repeatedly on the exposed parts of the body and drinking a lot of water.
- Worsening of Diseases: Central air conditioning system could enhance the effects of some diseases the person might already be suffering from. Air conditioning could possibly increase the symptoms of low blood pressure, arthritis and neuritis, that makes pain management more difficult.
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- Intolerance To Heat: Spending long time in an air conditioned room makes people intolerant of hot, summer temperatures. When the body is spending more time in a colder environment, it cannot adapt to the higher temperature outside. This leads to increased heat-related diseases, strokes and deaths during summers.
- Breathing Problems: An uncleaned air conditioner contains colonies of harmful microorganisms inside them. In such situations, the air conditioner circulates air which is contaminated with harmful bacteria and molds. Living under such conditions leads to breathing in of the microorganisms, with resultant breathing disorders and other health issues. Cases of Legionnaire’s disease, that produces high fever and pneumonia, are caused due to contaminated or uncleaned air conditioners.
- Hearing Loss: Old air conditioning units can generate sounds to which men, women and children are exposed for a long time. This can lead to hearing loss of an individual. The molds coming from a dirty air conditioner can collect in the ear lobes and cause bleeding and irritation of in the ear of the person.
