Should bed linen be more often changed – BBC News in Serbian

Our bedding and pillow are a place where we spend a third of the time every day, and such a contact of our body creates a perfect environment for all kinds of uninvited guests.

After a long day, there is nothing more beautiful than to get into a warm bed, leaning on a soft pillow and tighten under the quilk.

However, we are not people the only ones who think to lie in bed bliss.

Take a peek under the bedding and you are likely to horrify when you realize that it hosts millions of bacteria, fungi, mites, and viruses.

They all also think that your bed is paradise, a warm place where they can grow, a lot of sweat, saliva, dead skin cells, and food particles for enjoyment.

Take for example mites.

From us, 500 million skin cells are wasted, which is a rich buffet for tiny mite.

Unfortunately, bugs and their feces can cause allergies, asthma and eczema.

Bed linen is also a paradise for bacteria.

For example, researchers at Paster’s Institute in Lilu in France 2013. analyzed the placinas of patients in hospitals and discovered that dirty bedding was full of staphylococcus, bacteria commonly found on human skin.

Although most types of staphylococcal benign, some, such as staphylocus aureus, can cause skin infections, acne, and even inflammation of lungs in patients with impaired immune system.

« People carry bacteria as part of their skin microbioma and they can throw them in large numbers, » says Manal Mohamed, a microbiologist from the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom (UK), who did not participate in the studio.

« Although these bacteria are usually harmless, they can cause serious diseases if they enter the body through open wounds, which are more common in hospitals, » says Mohamed.

Hospitals are a rich source of data because hygiene is taken seriously, and bed linen and pillows are washed after each patient.

Scientists from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria are 2018. found a collieihy collection in unworthy hospital bedding, together with other pathogenic bacteria for which the urinary tract infections, pneumonia, diarrhea, meningitis, and sepsis.

In such conditions, dirty bedding presents the right risk of infection.

The researchers were 2022. Year collected samples from hospital rooms where patients lay from monkey goddesses.

They found that during changing the bedding, the viral particles were discharged into the surrounding air.

In the UK, 2018. years, believed that the healthcare worker became sick after he was exposed to the virus as he changed the patient’s bedding.

Hospitals, at least those in developed countries, have introduced rigorous measures to prevent diseases transmission.

« In hospitals, bedding is washed at very high temperatures, which kills most of the bacteria, » says David Dening, Professor of Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the University of Manchester in Great Britain.

The exception is a type of bacterium of clostrials Clostridium difficile causing diarrhea, especially in older people.

Professor Dening says that the washing of bedding can be destroyed by half the amount of this type of clostria, but that it is difficult to remove slow bacteria.

Despite this, the number of infections by bacteria Clostridium difficile has been reduced in UK, indicating that the risk of transmission is very low if the standard rules of washing machines in hospitals are respected.

Of course, the pathogenic bacteria is more likely to be found in hospital bedding on which sick people sleep than in the bedding of healthy people.

But what about your pillows and sheets at home?

The American Maker Bed linen Amerisleep is 2013. said they took a sample from a pillowcase that was not launched for a week.

About three million bacteria were found in pillowcases of 6.45 square centimeters – about 17,000 times more than on average board for the toilet.

Meanwhile, 2006. Dening and colleagues collected six pillows from friends and family.

The pillows were used regularly and were between 18 months and 20 years old.

Fungi, especially species found in all pillows Aspergillus fumigatus that is usually found in the land.

« Expressed figures, we talk about billions or trillions of fungal particles in each pillow, » says Professor Dening.

« We think the reason is the presence of so many numbers (fungi) that most of us sweat our head at night.

« Also, we all have house mites in our beds, and the excrement of mite provides food for the survival of fungi.

« And of course, the pillow warms up every night because we put your head on it.

« So there is a moisture, there is food and there is heat ».

Given that most of us rarely wash pillows, nothing interferes with the survival of fungus and they can survive for years.

The only thing when we disturb them is when we distract pillows from which the spores of the fungus fall out.

Even if we wash pillows, fungi can survive at temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius, and washes are certainly becoming even more wetter, which allows fungus to continue to grow.

Given the time that people spend and close to the pillows with the mouth, this discovery indicates significant consequences for patients suffering from respiratory diseases, especially asthma and sinusitis (sinusitis).

By half of the people suffering from a heavy asthma is allergic to the fungus of Aspergillus fumigatus, and exposure to this type can cause chronic pulmonary disease in people who have previously had pulmoned tuberculosis.

Professor Dening says that even though people who have a healthy immune system can be easily worn with the disputes of the Fungus of Aspergillus fumigates, which can break the host defense and challenges of life-threatening.

« If you have a leukemia, or you are transplanted that you have ended the coronic nosed, what is called invasive aspergylosis, and when the fungus simply reaches the lungs, » Dening says.

So if the pillow washing doesn’t help, can we do something else?

Professor Dening says that if you don’t have asthma, lungs or sinus disease, you should change the pillow every two years.

But people who suffer from these states should buy a new pillow every three to six months.

And as for the bed cover, most experts recommend that they are washed once a week.

Like washing, ironing reduces the number of bacteria in bed linen.

« If you don’t have anything smarter to work, you can carefully iron all your sheets, but as we all have bacteria in our bodies, it doesn’t really make a difference (for a healthy person), » Dening says.

« But if you have a disease or you are faint health, then ironing may be more important than washing.

« Also, if you have a child that wet to bed, then you definitely need to pay more attention and wash all at high temperatures. »

The number of bacteria and fungus increases if you sleep a pet in bed, if you do not take a shower before bed, you go to bed in dirty socks or sleeping with makeup or body milk or night snacks in bed.

« I’m not saying it shouldn’t be eaten in bed, but I think if you do it, then it’s important to wash the sheets regularly, and in that case, it’s not quite enough once a week, » says Professor Dening.

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