It’s no surprise men have stronger lungs than women. But Saudi researchers in 2011 found the difference in lung strength was far greater than could be explained either by lung size or athletic activity.
So they tested a hypothesis by running an experiment among different women. They found 19 women who regularly wore a niqab (a religious face covering) and 19 who did not regularly wear a niqab. Then they tested the strength of their lungs.
By all measures, lung strength “for niqab wearers were significantly lower than the corresponding values for non-niqab wearers.” What’s more, they found a “significant negative correlation” between lung capacity and “the number of hours of the use of face veil per day.”
In other words, covering your mouth and nose with cloth all day can weaken your lungs in the long run.
A 2015 study had 32 women (half of them pregnant) stand, exercise, and sit — both with and without N95 masks. They found masks “were associated with increases in diastolic pressure (p = 0.004), mean arterial pressure (p = 0.01), and subjective exertion score (p < 0.001) of all study subjects.”
In other words, standing and exercising imposed more strain on women, pregnant or not, when masked than when unmasked.
These pre-COVID studies are worth revisiting now that we are debating mask mandates, the prudence of voluntary masking, bringing back masks every flu or COVID-19 season, requiring masks for the rest of the school year, requiring masks for longer on airplanes and buses, and more.
The social and emotional harms of masking children for seven hours a day will be harder to measure, although they are undeniable, in my opinion. The speech and learning harms of all-day masking are obvious, and their magnitude will be measured for sure.
But the effect on lung capacity and lung strength should also be measured. The above studies were all on masked women. A new COVID-era study could broaden the net and have more control and bigger treatment groups.
We may just find that COVID-19’s damage to our lungs is partially due to the masks we all wore in the name of protecting our lungs from COVID-19.
