New research by B.C. physicians is shedding light on the environmental impact of inhalers and proposing a greener alternative for patients with asthma and other lung diseases.
Between 2016 and 2021, the study found inhalers produced 8,748 tonnes of climate-polluting carbon dioxide in the Fraser Health region alone — a footprint equivalent to about 22 per cent of the health authority’s overall greenhouse gas emissions.
“There’s many types of inhalers out there, but for a certain type of inhaler called a metred-dose inhaler, it has a special type of propellant to deliver the medication into the lungs for patients, and that propellant is a greenhouse gas,” explained report co-author Dr. Kevin Liang, a family physician and researcher with Fraser Health’s population and public health team.
“There’s many, many more options available for patients with respiratory disease that do not require the propellants.”
The study, co-authored by Dr. Jiayun Angela Yao, Dr. Philip Hui and Darryl Quantz, was published in the May edition of the BC Medical Journal. It suggests dry powder and soft mist inhalers, which don’t use propellants, as climate-friendlier options.
The team analyzed community-dispensed inhaler prescriptions in the Fraser health region between 2016 and 2021 and modelled three scenarios for switching to lower-carbon inhaler alternatives.
Switching asthma patients between 12 and 40 years old from a pressurized, metred-dose inhaler to a dry powder inhaler would reduce emissions by 14 per cent per year, it found, while switching patients between different formulations of pressurized metred-dose inhalers could reduce annual emissions by 44 per cent.
If patients older than 12 were prescribed exclusively dry powder inhalers, Fraser Health could achieve a 78-per-cent reduction per year, the report said.
Often, Liang said these alternative inhalers are better for patients as well.
“What I really want to reinforce with our finding about the greenhouse gases and these inhalers is that we’re not at all asking folks with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) or asthma to compromise their respiratory care to lessen the impact on the environment, but instead to speak to their family doctor or their nurse practitioner about looking at different inhalers that can both improve their respiratory health and lessen the environmental impact overall,” he told Global News.
“Climate change is a health issue, and that’s why I’m so passionate about it, working as a family doctor.”
According to the report, health care-related carbon emissions make up roughly 4.6 per cent of the global carbon footprint. Canada’s is the third-highest in the world on a per capita basis, compared to the health systems of 47 countries, it said.
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