According to a recent UK research report, cooking in poorly ventilated kitchens with extremely inefficient stoves can cause health damage equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, a condition that leads to 1.6 million deaths worldwide annually. The report also points out that kitchen fumes can lead to lung cancer, pneumonia, and other lower respiratory diseases. Other potential diseases include asthma and even cataracts.
The main hazards of heavy kitchen fumes are as follows: First, kitchen fumes can enter the human respiratory tract through the air, leading to symptoms such as loss of appetite, irritability, listlessness, drowsiness, and fatigue. Medically, this is known as fumes harming a person's sensory organs. Third, kitchen fumes contain a carcinogen known as benzopyrene, which can cause damage to human cell chromosomes. Long-term inhalation can induce cancerous changes in lung tissue.