Exposure to Ski-Wax Smoke and Health Effects in Ski Waxers

Downhill as well as cross-country skis have undergone revolutionary technical development in recent decades. Parallel with innovations in ski bottoms, new types of ski wax have appeared on the market. At the same time complaints have been voiced increasingly by those who wax skis. We followed five male professional waxers at work in this combined chemical and medical study. Chemical analysis of some common ski waxes showed that they consist mainly of a mixture of straight-chain aliphatic hydrocarbons. Some waxes also contain mixtures of silicone compounds in unknown amounts. One brand consisted entirely of a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). The individual components vaporize on heating, and on cooling in the air they condense rapidly to smoke consisting of particles less than 1 μm in diameter. Particles of this size might reach down into the pulmonary alveoli on inhalation. All ski waxes may be expected to behave in the same way, whether they contain paraffin, PTFE, or silicone. The results show that pulmonary function (measured as TLCO) was lowered in all persons tested after waxing for 2–3 hours. Some recovery was recorded after a night's break. Repeated exposure resulted again in lowering the pulmonary function. At the end of a test week a fall of 10–25 percent was seen. The results suggest that the observed impairment in pulmonary function should be related to the exposure to ski-wax smoke.