Breathing excessive amounts of wood dust has been associated with nasal cancer in some industries. These figures indicate that the worst contribution that an individual is likely to make to the mutagenicity of the air is using a wood stove for heating, follower by driving a diesel car. Free radicals produced from wood smoke are chemically active for twenty minutes, tobacco smoke free radicals are chemically active for thirty seconds . I.E. Wood smoke free radicals may attack our bodies cells up to forty times longer once inhaled. Woodburning is the third largest source of dioxin in the United States .
Dioxins are the byproducts of combustion processes.
Dioxin compounds rise high into the atmosphere as smoke particles, then fall to the earth in rain, lodge in the soil, and settle in lakes and rivers, where they get into the food chain. Dioxin collects in fatty tissues and can be found in fish, meat and dairy products. Babies can be exposed to dioxin in their mother's milk. Dioxins cause changes in hormonal levels and molecular reactions when it enters animal cells. It binds with a protein called the Ab receptor, which is present in human tissues.