Car Air Fresheners, Smoking in Car Increase Cancer Risk

German doctors issued a warning to people who smoke in their cars and use an air freshener in the car. These people put themselves and any passenger at a greatly increased risk of developing cancer due to a dangerous chemical interaction between the cigarette smoke and the car air freshener scents.

Car air fresheners emit a good smell. And while not everybody likes them, they can be found in many cars, often dangling from the rearview mirror. The most common form is a tree shaped air freshener, which is offered for purchase in a great variety of scents. Especially smokers often use them to cover up the stale cigarette smoke in their cars.

The car air fresheners like those tree shaped ones, but also those emitting scents from an oil light, release chemicals to produce the smell. These chemicals cause fine dust particles to connect with the about four thousand often extremely dangerous contents of cigarette smoke. This combination of air freshener chemicals and cigarette smoke contents is especially dangerous. Furthermore, these fine particles stay in the air of the car, where driver and passengers inhale them through their normal breathing motions every time they enter the car. These fine particles settle in the body, especially in the area of the mouth and throat.

The danger is even greater, if the car is not aired out regularly. The more cigarettes are smoked in a car that has an air freshener, the more of those dangerous fine particles circulate through the airspace of the car. This multiplies the cancer risk for anybody who enters the car and breathes in the air inside the car.

The cancer these people are at an especially increased risk of developing is the cancer of the mouth, throat, and larynx. This is the area, where those dangerous fine dust particles can most easily settle within the body when breathed in. Mouth, throat, and laryngeal cancer patients often suffer especially painful death, because they can't properly swallow food or breath. Furthermore, due to fungal infections in the area of the mouth, these patients also often suffer from extremely bad breath.

While many people, who smoke, also use air fresheners in their homes, the cancer risk inside a house or apartment is significantly lower than in a car. A car only offers a confined air space and rarely gets thoroughly aired out. The proximity of the smoker to the air freshener is also much closer than in a house.