Effects on respiratory system due to exposure to wheat flour

• Main Authors: Adel Mohammed Said, Eman Badawy AbdelFattah, Abd-Almonem Mohsen Almawardi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2017-07-01
• Series: Egyptian Journal of Chest Disease and Tuberculosis
• Subjects: Wheat flour; Mills workers; Pulmonary functions; Computed tomography of the chest
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0422763816301558

Background: There is growing consensus on the deleterious effects of organic dust on respiratory symptoms and function of industrial workers. Flour dust is widely incriminated to cause impairment of lung function. Exposure to flour dust occurs across a range of food industries including grain mills, flour mills and bakeries. Aim of work: To assess the effects of exposure to flour dust on respiratory symptoms and lung function of bakery workers at a number of bakeries in Cairo. Subjects and methods: The study was conducted on 30 bakery workers working at bakeries in Cairo state, the cases matched for age, sex, and height. All bakery workers participated in this study were subjected to following: Full medical history taking, Thorough clinical examination, Routine laboratory investigation, BMI was calculated, Chest X-ray, Spirometric lung function test, Diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO), Further proper radiological assessment using CT scan for cases that show abnormalities in their chest X-ray or DLCOSB. Results: All workers included in the study were males. The age of the flour milling workers ranged between 14 and 56 years. They worked at least for 10 h per day for 6 days per week for total working years ranged between 2 and 30 years. This study reported that there was an increase in respiratory symptoms among bakery workers due to exposure to wheat flour. Also, 16.6% of the studied population had abnormal spirometry compared to the reference value, 30% had abnormal diffusion capacity of lung to carbon mono-oxide compared to reference value. Nine participants underwent HRCT chest as their DLCOSB has shown diffusion defect, 5 (55.6%) of them have normal HRCT chest and 4 (44.4%) of them have interstitial changes. Conclusions: Exposure to wheat flour increases the risk of developing respiratory symptoms; it also causes reduction in the pulmonary function parameters, as regards spirometry and DLCOSB. Exposure to wheat flour causes interstitial lung disease as detected by HRCT chest. Smoking augments the wheat flour induced lung disease.