THE ESSENTIAL
- The authors argue for ventilation and exposure control systems to be installed in rooms where laser printers are used.
- According to them, pregnant women should be particularly informed of these dangers because the modification of genes is transmitted from generation to generation.
Pollution, smoking, poor diet… The list of things in our lives that can harm our health is long and growing. According to a study published in the medical journal The International Journal of Molecular Sciences, laser printers might also be dangerous. In question: the very small particles emitted by these devices and which remain suspended in the air. They are accused by researchers of causing genetic and metabolic changes which, in turn, might increase the risk of cardiovascular and neurological diseases.
To achieve this result, the scientists conducted experiments on rats. For 21 days, the rodents were confined in a space where, for five hours, they were in contact with a laser printer which operated continuously. “That’s the equivalent of the professional setting. A rat’s life expectancy is regarding one or two years. Converted to ours, that would be more like four or eight years of five-hour-a-day exposure. But the changes are very significant from day one.”explains Nancy Lan Guo, one of the authors of this study.
Cardiovascular and neurological disorders in rats
To measure the consequences of this exposure, the researchers analyzed the rats’ lung cells and blood every four days. The goal was to see if their genetics had been modified, by studying each gene, because this can ultimately cause health problems and in particular disrupt the production of cellular proteins. These are essential to our body.
According to the observations of the scientists, following a single day of exposure to the laser printer for five hours, the genes of the rats were disturbed. At the end of the 21 days of the experiment, their genetics were clearly altered. Finally, cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological disorders have been identified in rodents.
Print in the hallway instead of in your office
In addition to this experiment on rats, the scientists examined the genomic changes of a group of employees who used this type of laser printer on a regular basis. Result: the same genetic changes were observed in humans as in rats. “A lot of workers were in their 20s and early 30s, and we were already starting to see all these changes, détaille Nancy Lan Guo. Who doesn’t have a printer these days, whether at home or in the office? But now, if I have a lot to print, I don’t use the printer in my office. I print in the corridor”.