People who are exposed to formaldehyde, particularly funeral directors, face a higher risk of developing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), according to new study.
The study, published last July 13 in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, looked at data taken from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NMLS), a database comprising a non-institutionalized population in the U.S.
The study sample consisted of 794,541 male subjects and 674,694 female subjects, all of them aged 25 and above at the time of the survey.
Researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health estimated the subjects' exposure to the chemical using criteria from the U.S. National Cancer institute and looked at death records to check for deaths caused by ALS, according to a report from HealthDay News.
Of an estimated 500 male subjects exposed to dangerous amounts of formaldehyde, all of them worked as funeral directors, said Andrea Roberts, study author and research associate at T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The study also found that women who were exposed to formaldehyde were not found to have an increased risk and this could be because not a lot of women engage in such work, making risk calculation rather difficult.
It was also noted that only two deaths resulting from ALS were recorded in the sample of men with high exposure to formaldehyde.
"The study is important because, unfortunately, we know almost nothing about what causes ALS, which is 100% fatal within a very short time period," Roberts said, according to WebMD.
According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the information from the new study is of great concern and it came as no surprise to many funeral directors.
The association said it will advise workers to observe precautionary measures, such as allowing proper ventilation when working with formaldehyde.
Embalming is not the only kind of work that deals with formaldehyde. Laboratories and textile industry also make use of the chemical, but workers in those job fields are not exposed to high and intense chemical levels.
