Disturbing risks of festive scented candles revealed, as experts say they could be worse for your health than cigarette smoke

Burning a scented candle to fill the room with smells of gingerbread, cinnamon and pine may put you in the Christmas spirit, but it could be detrimental to your health. A study has revealed burning candles has a significant effect on indoor air quality — and it could be worse for your lungs than inhaling passive smoke. That's because as candles burn, they produce a complex mix of chemicals and particulate matter, including toxic gases like carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen. Burning scented candles could cause fine particle concentrations — which can trigger lung damage when inhaled — to increase to 15 times the limits prescribed by the World Health Organisation. Burning scented candles produces a complex mix of chemicals and particulate matter, including toxic gases like carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen In each house, researchers measured the concentrations of five pollutants including CO2 and pollutant particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers, also known as PM2.5, which can easily enter into the lungs, as well as the temperature and the humidity in two rooms.