Here’s how often you should actually be washing your bed sheets
You’re probably not washing your bed sheets anywhere near enough – and it could be triggering allergies and other problems, experts have warned.
A new study found 90% of homes had three detectable allergens, according to IFLScience – and your bed could be a breeding ground for them.
An expert warned that your bed is soaked in up to 100 litres of sweat per year, plus about a pound of skin – making it an ‘ideal fungal culture medium’.
Your pillows alone can hold up to sixteen species of fungus.
Your bed also probably contains bacteria, soil, sweat, sputum, vaginal juice, faeces, urine, and a huge amount of dead skin, said New York University microbiologist Philip Tierno..
And you spend about a third of our lives in there – in what is basically a ‘botanical park’ of bacteria and fungus, according to Tierno.
Tierno says you should wash your sheets weekly – as that’s long enough time for the build-up of filth to become ‘significant’.
‘If you touched dog poo in the street, you’d want to wash your hands,’ Tierno tells Tech Insider.
‘Consider that analogous to your bedding. If you saw what was there — but of course you don’t see it — after a while you have to say to yourself, ‘Do I want to sleep in that?'”
‘Even if you don’t have allergies per se, you can have an allergic response. Just like Rome over time was buried with the debris that falls from gravity, gravity is what brings all that material into your mattress.’
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