HAZARDS OF THE JOB

How your job can affect your health. This week: Bakers may get asthma

AROUND 10 per cent of asthma cases in adults are thought to develop a result of their jobs.

One at- risk group is bakers, who develop the condition from breathing in flour, according to Professor Paul Cullinan, a consultant respiratory physician at Royal Brompton Hospital, London.

The flour contains proteins that the body recognises as foreign when inhaled — it can then set up an allergic response. Bakers who develop this problem usually do so in the first year or two of work, then have to give up their job, suggests Professor Cullinan.

Asthma is more of a problem in places such as supermarkets which have their own bakeries and less so in bread factories because much of the work is done by machines.

Other groups at risk are those who work with animals, and hairdressers, who breathe in the chemicals used in bleaching powder.