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Indoor swimming pools up asthma rate

Respiratory Care Weekly, July 19, 2006

Where there's an indoor swimming pool, the asthma rate rises, according to a European survey of 190,000 teenagers published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The study, which examined asthma on a per-country basis in 21 European nations, showed that asthma rates rise 2% to 3% for each chlorinated indoor pool per 100,000 population.

The authors concluded that the rise of asthma in Western Europe could at least partly be attributed to the increasing exposure of children to the byproducts of chlorine in the air and water of indoor swimming pools. They suggest that the long-term effects of chlorine byproducts on children's respiratory health should be thoroughly evaluated, and that pools should be properly ventilated with levels of chlorine byproducts regulated, reported Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 

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