256While proper building ventilation is a key component to improving indoor air quality, it
cannot do the job on its own. As stated earlier, awareness is the key component to
improving air quality, when choosing building materials, furnishings, and decorations.
When architects and engineers implement best practices in ventilation and mechanical
systems, the owner must maintain good air quality levels thereafter.
Limit Values for VOC Emissions
Limit values for VOC emissions into indoor air are published by e.g. AgBB, AFSSET,
California Department of Public Health, and others.
Chemical Fingerprinting
The exhaled human breath contains a few hundred volatile organic compounds and is
used in breath analysis to serve as a VOC biomarker to test for diseases such as lung
cancer.
One study has shown that "volatile organic compounds ... are mainly blood borne and
therefore enable monitoring of different processes in the body." And it appears that VOC
compounds in the body "may be either produced by metabolic processes or
inhaled/absorbed from exogenous sources" such as environmental tobacco smoke.
Research is still in the process to determine whether VOCs in the body are contributed by
cellular processes or by the cancerous tumors in the lung or other organs.