Indoor sources of mutagenic aerosol particulate matter: smoking, cooking and incense burning.

The emission of aerosol particles and their mutagenic activity as well as the emission of some gaseous pollutants has been studied experimentally in order to compare the emission from some indoor pyrolysis processes. Cigarette (tobacco and herbal) smoking, incense and mosquito-coil burning and frying of experimental lean minced pork emitted particulate matter. Their extracts were mutagenic in the Ames Salmonella test with TA98 and activation as well as, with a higher response, in a microsuspension test with the same strain and activation condition. The response of the particles from the smoking and burning processes varied from 3000 to 50,000 revertants per gram of smoked or burnt material in the conventional Salmonella test and from 50,000 to 350,000 revertants per gram in the microsuspension assay. The frying of lean minced pork gave an airborne emission of about 53 and 560 revertants per gram of fried pork, respectively, in the 2 assays. The frying of some common food items following cookbook recipes also emitted mutagenic aerosol particles but the emitted activity was less than that in the pork experiment. Carbon monoxide, isoprene and benzene were present in the emissions from the smoking and burning processes but were not detectable in the frying fumes. The results suggest that incense and mosquito-coil burning can cause indoor air pollution akin to that from cigarette smoking. Indoor air pollution from cooking requires further study.