Your pillow is a marvelous ecosystem of dust mites and killer fungus. Yay!
Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal spores right under our noses — in our pillows.
Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Fungi also exacerbate asthma in adults.
The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow – more than a million spores per pillow.
How fun. Synthetic pillows seem to be more of a good fungal environment than feather ones.
Professor Ashley Woodcock who led the research said: “We know that pillows are inhabited by the house dust mite which eats fungi, and one theory is that the fungi are in turn using the house dust mites’ faeces as a major source of nitrogen and nutrition (along with human skin scales). There could therefore be a ‘miniature ecosystem’ at work inside our pillows.”
[…] Aspergillus can also worsen asthma, particularly in adults who have had asthma for many years, and cause allergic sinusitis in patients with allergic tendencies. Constant exposure to fungus in bed could be problematic. It can also get into the lung cavities created by tuberculosis which affects a third of the world’s population, causing general ill-health and bleeding in the lung, as well as causing a range of plant and animal diseases.
Dr Geoffrey Scott, Chairman of the Fungal Research Trust which funded the study, said: “These new findings are potentially of major significance to people with allergic diseases of the lungs and damaged immune systems – especially those being sent home from hospital.”
Professor Ashley Woodcock added: “Since patients spend a third of their life sleeping and breathing close to a potentially large and varied source of fungi, these findings certainly have important implications for patients with respiratory disease – especially asthma and sinusitis.”
Sleep tight! Breathe deeply …
(via J-Walk)