Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Search research articles

Related Experiment Videos

Diacetyl-induced lung disease.

Philip Harber¹, Kaochoy Saechao, Catherine Boomus

¹Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90024, USA. pharber@mednet.ucla.edu

Toxicological Reviews

|February 10, 2007

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Influence of Audio Speech Rate and Source Text Difficulty on Health Information Comprehension and Retention.

Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences·2026

Same author

Parallel Corpus Analysis of Text and Audio Comprehension to Evaluate Readability Formula Effectiveness: Quantitative Analysis.

Journal of medical Internet research·2025

Same author

Letter to the Editor "WOEMA Position Paper and Call-to-Action: California needs more physicians specializing in Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM)".

Journal of occupational and environmental medicine·2025

Same author

Impacts of Altering Spirometric Prediction Equations in Occupational Health.

Journal of occupational and environmental medicine·2025

Same author

Respirator Medical Examinations: Current Practices and Future Needs.

Journal of occupational and environmental medicine·2025

Same author

Critical Assessment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Respirator Questionnaire.

Journal of occupational and environmental medicine·2025

Industrial diacetyl exposure, a buttery flavoring, is linked to severe lung disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. This condition causes small airway fibrosis and obstruction, impacting respiratory health.

Area of Science:

Food Chemistry and Toxicology
Occupational Health and Respiratory Medicine

Background:

Diacetyl is a diketone flavoring agent widely used for its buttery taste.
Industrial exposure to flavoring agents, especially diacetyl, has been linked to severe respiratory conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the association between diacetyl exposure and respiratory illnesses.
To understand the mechanism of respiratory damage caused by diacetyl.

Main Methods:

Review of industrial exposure cases, particularly in the microwave popcorn industry.
Analysis of respiratory symptoms and spirometry abnormalities in affected workers.

Main Results:

Diacetyl exposure is associated with bronchiolitis obliterans, characterized by small airway fibrosis and obstruction.

Related Experiment Videos

Spirometry abnormalities, including fixed airflow obstruction, and respiratory symptoms are linked to exposure.

A direct effect on respiratory epithelium with disorganized fibrotic repair is the likely mechanism.

Conclusions:

Diacetyl is strongly implicated as the causative agent in occupational lung disease.
While diacetyl is the likely culprit, it may serve as a marker for other un identified causative agents.