Solvents are very important in many industrial worksites, especially those involving paint, painting or paint products or varnishes. Solvents can solve a lot of problems when it comes to paint, varnishes, sealants and other products that work on metal, wood, plastic or most any other material.

But it is possible that solvents may actually cause more problems than thy solve?

[Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]Solvents have fumes that are known to cause health problems when inhaled for extended periods of time. But what if you have not been exposed to them for decades? Does the brain heal from high exposure to solvents and other chemicals? A recent Harvard study may shed some light.

Think about being in contact with those solvents and their fumes, and think about the dangers of the kids sniffing glue, which was a prominently popular way for kids to get “high” on legal chemicals in recent years. Many of us understand the risks to our brains and neural systems when we inhale or are in consistent contact with these chemicals – but have we thought about the impact if we haven’t been around them for years – or even decades?

Is it just like the concept of quitting smoking so your lungs can heal? According to a recent study, that does not seem to be the case – brain cells apparently do not heal themselves as well as, say, lung cells from tobacco or liver cells from alcohol.

The research, conducted recently by researchers at the School of Public Health at Harvard University in Boston, featured a group of more than 2,100 retired workers from a national utility in France. Each of the workers had retired at various times and had varying exposures to different solvents and chemicals – some had little contact with the solvents, some had moderate and some had high contact and they stopped having contact with them anywhere from just a few years up to 40 and 50 years ago. All of the retirees were given a series of tests to determine memory and mental cognitive skills. Results accounted for age, education, alcohol and tobacco use among all retirees, and what was found was considered a warning sign to the researchers.

What was found was that high, recent exposure (less than 30 years) of course showed lapses in virtually all the tests conducted, but here is the real money shot – even those with high exposure up to 50 years ago (and not since) still reported  some level of debility in memory and cognitive skills, which seemed to indicate that the dangers of solvents may be more pronounced than first believed; that brain cells do not heal as well or as quickly as lung or liver cells. In the research, 82 percent of all retirees tested showed  some impairment on at least one of the eight tests.

Research chief Erika Sabbath said, “Solvents pose a real risk to the present and future cognitive health of workers, and as retirement ages go up, the length of time that people are exposed is going up, too.”

The results of the research may open some eyes and may at least create some dialogue  among workers and companies in terms of their policies in handling and being exposed to solvents to help increase safety and health of workers who are exposed to the various chemicals. I bring this to your attention now to let you know that with the new year coming up, this might be a good time to assess your current policies regarding solvents, have open discussion with your workers who are regularly exposed and answer some hard questions about how to move forward so your workers can do their job in a safe and healthy way and not have the effects of their work be felt decades after they leave.