Can Incense Cause Lung Cancer?
Certain researchers in Denmark have requested thousands of Chinese men and women to help them out in a research program to determine whether or not burning incense over a long period of time can increase the risk of developing a type of respiratory tract cancer. It is popular for the Chinese population to burn incense in holy places.
Dr. Jeppe Friborg and his colleagues at Copenhagen’s Statens Serum Institute worked with researchers in Singapore and the United States for a collaborative study of the effects of breathing the fumes from incense. Between 1993 and 1998, 61,320 Chinese men and women in Singapore were recruited for the study, which followed them through 2005. All study participants were cancer-free at the beginning of the study and all were between the ages of 45 and 74.
The study revealed no specific link between incense and lung cancer, although 821 of the study participants developed lung cancer over the course of the study. Other cancers of the respiratory tract, however, were found to be more numerous in people heavily exposed to incense over a long period of time than in people getting minimal, if any, contact with the fumes. Upper respiratory tract cancers occurred 325 times in study participants, including cancers of the nose and sinuses, mouth, tongue, and larynx.
One form of cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, was found to be more common as exposure increased. Squamous cells line the surfaces of all internal and external organs and the squamous cells lining the respiratory tract are at particular risk from burning incense. The risk increased in both smokers and nonsmokers alike, leaving the research team to conclude there is most likely an element of the incense working independently as a carcinogenic agent.