{"id":32603,"date":"2024-07-19T19:28:09","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T11:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/?p=32603"},"modified":"2024-07-19T19:35:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T11:35:06","slug":"ionizer-air-purifier-particles-stick-lungs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/blog\/ionizer-air-purifier-particles-stick-lungs\/","title":{"rendered":"Studies Find Ionizer Air Purifier Makes Particles Stick to Lungs and Cause Inflammation"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many ionizer air purifiers available on the market today. These devices work by using charged ions to make airborne particles stick to surfaces, which helps the particles get captured more easily by filters. A big downside of ionizers is that they cause particles to stick inside our lungs! That means ionizers\u00a0might\u00a0<\/strong>make people more likely to get infected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers in Italy\u00a0tested this<\/a>\u00a0by having participants breathe particles with a more or less electrostatic charge. They measured the number of particles in the air before people breathed it and after they breathed it out. That way, they could tell what percentage of particles stuck in people\u2019s airways. As the electrostatic charge increased, a higher percentage of particles stuck inside the participants.<\/p>\n\n\n

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So ionizers might help because they make particles stick to the walls<\/a> and other surfaces in your home more. That would keep the particles out of your lungs. But they might hurt because virus particles you breathe in are more likely to stick inside your lungs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s the net effect? Does the harm outweigh the benefit? I haven\u2019t seen a study testing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ionizers May Cause More Inflammation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To add another layer on top, a study found that breathing air from ionizing purifiers caused more inflammation<\/a> in people\u2019s bodies. Researchers had (very brave) volunteers breathe (1) straight diesel exhaust or (2) diesel exhaust cleaned by an ionizer air purifier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then they measured the inflammation in people\u2019s bodies. Breathing the air from the ionizer purifier actually led to more inflammation in people\u2019s bodies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It\u2019s speculative, but the inflammation may make our bodies more susceptible to infection. Or it might make those infections worse. The uncertainty alone is enough to make me wary of using an ionizer to prevent infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clean Air Without the Side Effects<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A better way to build a purifier is to capture the particles in the purifier<\/strong>, not in our lungs. An easy way to do that is to use a filter, like a HEPA filter. HEPA filters capture particles inside the filter.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The researchers in the inflammation study did just that. People who breathed the diesel exhaust cleaned through a HEPA filter experienced less inflammation in their bodies. That\u2019s how it should be!<\/p>\n\n\n

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I should make it clear that I\u2019ve never seen a test of ionizers on actual infection rates in humans. So these mechanisms are theoretical, not proven. But they\u2019re enough to give me pause.<\/p>\n\n\n

Bottom Line<\/div>
<\/div>
Ionizers cause particles to stick to your lungs, potentially raising infection risk. They also cause more inflammation compared to HEPA filters, which capture particles without such side effects. While infection effects are unproven, these risks make ionizer air purifiers a poor choice for cleaning air.<\/div>
Smart Air<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many ionizer air purifiers available on the market today. These devices work by using charged ions to make airborne particles stick to surfaces, which helps the particles get captured more easily by filters. A big downside of ionizers is that they cause particles to stick inside our lungs! … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1035,"featured_media":32612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"18739,7656,15616,12183,237,21498","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-pollution","resize-featured-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1035"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32603"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32611,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32603\/revisions\/32611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}