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Pulmonary Function Tests in Workers Exposed to Sugar Industrywork Place

2011; World Wide Journals; Volume: 4; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.15373/2249555x/june2014/192

2249-555X

S.A.NAYAKAWADI Dr. S.A.NAYAKAWADI,

Energy and Environment Impacts

In Maharashtra sugar industry is the largest agrobased industry,plays a key role in economy and provides employment to many peoples from rural areas.The work place of sugar industry is characterized by many stress factors such as high intensity noise, excessive heat, high concentration of dust, toxic fumes of gases and chemicals. The health of the worker is affected by adverse working environment.In present investigation pulmonary function test parametersof randomly selected ten workers from manufacturing section of sugar industry were studied. The workers from general office were taken as control group. It was found that the values of TV, IRV,ERV,IC and VC were at low level as compare to control office workers INTRODUCTION India is the second largest country in the world as for as sugar production is concern next to Brazil, employing over 0.5million skilled and unskilled workman mostly from rural areas. In Maharashtra state 25lakhs of farmers grow sugar cane. It gives direct employment to about 7.5 lakhs of workers.the sugar factory is one of the highest paid in country. Various studies on health and safety in agriculture have revealed health problems and disease patterns in Agriculture. Most of the studies in this area have indicated a high risk for particular cancers, respiratory diseases and injuries to the agricultural workers. Several natural products have been associated with occupational asthma when processed, these include vegetable gums, flax seed, castor bean soyabean, coffee bean, grain products, flour, orris root, papain and tobacco dust (Merchant et al.1988).Swan and Crook 1998 have reported of substantial evidence that workers handling grain dust develop respiratory symptoms. Probably between 5% and 15% of all persons who are regularly exposed to organic materials develop hypersensitivity pneumonitis (David 1999). Hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) is a group of lung diseases caused by inhalation of a wide variety of materials that usually are organic and always are antigenic (Mark Schuyler 2002). .Respiratory ailments associated with work place havebeen reported by various authors ( Jiirvinen et al. 1979, Rylander et al. 1986, Popp W. et al. 1989,Zskin E.et al . 1992 , Pundit et al. 1994 and Singh A. et al. 1998). Rahman et al. in 2001 reported that the most important of the respiratory diseases known to have major environmental risk factors include pneumonia, chronic obstructive lung disease,TB, asthma, lung cancer and various other occupational lung diseases. The workers working in the sugar industry are prone to face a number of stresses. Sugar mill employees would develop flulike symptoms several hours after reporting to work at the beginning of a new season or even after a free week end, repeated attacks causes fine scarring of the lungs and impaired breathing. “The chest X-rays often resembled military tuberculosis. It’s all gone now you never see it” says Dr. JohnBobear, a Louisiana state University school of Medicine Faculty member. It is also known that an allergic reaction also occurs after exposure to the spores of sugarcane. Spraying with propionic acid can kill the sugarcane spores. The Laboratory of physiology, Department of Zoology, Shivaji University, Kolhapur (India) is engaged in extensive work in toxicology, occupational physiology and some applied problems in textile, foundry and sugar industry.In many jobs, the workers were exposed to various types of health hazards and environmental stress factors. Sawant and Muthane (1988) described the assessment of workload and respiratory stresses in textile industry at Ichalkaranji. The environmental conditions and respiratory stresses among workers in the powerloom sector worked out by sawant and Dubal (1995b). While working conditions and health status of workers in various processing units of Ichalkaranji was carried out by Sawant et al. (1995).Health risks in the spinning mill workers were studied by Sawant et al. (1999). The effect of cotton dust and or associated endotoxin (s) on platelet count of rat were studied by Sanandam et al. (2000).Cotton dust induced Neutrophilia in powerloom workers at Ichalkaranji were studied by Sawant et al. (2000). Physiologicalreactions to cotton dust animal model was developed by Sawant et al. (2001). Effect ofrespirable textile particulate matter on animal model rat were observed by Sawant et al. (2001). Physiological reactions to cotton dust exposure development of an animal model has been worked out by Dubal (2002). Air borne pollutants and respiratory impairment in textile environment has been studied by Sanandam et al. (2002). Physiological studies of rats exposed to cotton dust has been studied by Sanandam (2002). In sugar industry although human factor is very important factor which plays very important role in productivity it is often being neglected. For sugar cane the process of refining istwo step procedure completed in various processing units in first step the sugar cane is pressed to extract the juice in engineering section and in second step crystalline sugar is manufactured in manufacturing section. The present study is carried in manufacturing section which includes juice, pan, centrifugal, sugar house and godown section. MATERIAL AND METHODS Study area The present study was carried out in PadambhushanDr.Naganath Anna NayakawadiHutatmaKisanAhirSahakariSakharK arkhana,Walwa.Dist.Sangli.having 4500 tons of crushing capacity per 24 hours.Nationally renowned for the recovery of sugar. The industry provides employment to 324 permanent workers. Subjects: Randomly selected ten workers from various subunits of manufacturing section of sugar industry were studied for the respiratory stress. The workers from office section were taken as control group. A detailedquestionnaire for socio-economic and health information was filled up with due consent from those who volunteered for the study as most of the workers had poor educational background.