Pillows Dangerous for Your Health 444
Roland Piquepaille writes "I guess we shouldn't be surprised by the fact that our pillows are miniature zoos containing millions of fungal spores, with some species able to cause diseases and even death. Researchers at the University of Manchester have studied the fungal contamination of our pillows for the first time in seventy years and discovered that these pillows were hot beds of fungal spores. After dissecting both feather and synthetic pillows in regular use between several months and 20 years, they've "identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow -- more than a million spores per pillow."
Bacteria, funguses, and viruses are everwhere. (Score:5, Informative)
Probably the article is a public relations effort. Probably the Fungal Research Trust [fungalresearchtrust.org] is a money-making scheme of one or more large pharmaceutical companies, a way to preserve deniability.
The web site says it is a "not-for-profit charity". However, there are many ways that those who control the "charity" can use general research for profit. If there's some social cost, however, a "charity" provides a barrier between the work and the pharmaceutical companies.
Maybe people will spend more money on fungus medicine because of the article.
The fact that the article has no balance or perspective indicates the real purpose is different than telling the truth, in my opinion.
Other dangers in the air at home (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.calpoison.org/public/breath.html
TOP "10" HAZARDOUS HOUSEHOLD CHEMICALS: http://consumerlawpage.com/article/household-chem
Also at http://www.ghchealth.com/top-10-hazardous-househo
Air Friendly Household Products:
www.lung.ca/cando/content/FS-HOUSE.pdf
Solid fuels seem to be a primary contibutor to fatalities. This pdf lists other health affecting materials:
ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/krsmith/Publications/Chapt%2
A useful sheet on exposure points out that as we know, different people have different sensitivity to differnt exposure levels and methods of differnt substances:
http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/environ/expo
Oh, I guess thats enough exposure to URL's in this posting.
Re:how do we "treat" this problem? (Score:4, Informative)
Kindness, or maximizing shareholder value? (Score:5, Informative)
Question: Are the pharmaceutical companies funding the Trust out of the kindness of their hearts, or is the Trust a way of maximizing shareholder value?
If a pharmaceutical company wants to do some research that is risky to people, the company can avoid liability by having the work done by a "charitable" trust.
The Trust can even collect money from the public [fungalresearchtrust.org], and use it to fund research that will eventually end in a profitable product.
Bad science? Bad writeup (Score:5, Informative)
"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 reason aspergillus is the leading cause of death in leukaemia patients is because their immune systems are comprimized. This is similar to Candida Albicans (see: yeast infections), which is THE leading cause of death in transplant patients, IIRC, due to its buildup on cathoders, and on implant devices. For normal people, Aspergillus has only minor effects.
This article continues to raise the areas of danger including this gem:
"Invasive Aspergillosis occurs mainly in the lungs and sinuses, although it can spread to other organs such as the brain, and is becoming increasingly common across other patient groups. It is very difficult to treat, and as many as 1 in 25 patients who die in modern European teaching hospitals have the disease. "
Wow. 4% of deaths can be attrubuted to aspergillis species. Pardon me, but this is not particularly impressive.
My best guess is that this press release is either because the researchers are working with a pillowcase disinfectant company, or because they're trying to play up the importance of their research to get more funding.
All in all, unimpressive, and I expect better of slashdot than to blindly believe headlines.
Hypoallergenic Pillow Cases (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fungus AmongUs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fungus AmongUs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:how do we "treat" this problem? (Score:3, Informative)
get rid of things that can harbor dust (drapes, carpeting) or that bring on allergens (ie animals).
oh, and eat your veggies too, like mom always told you to
yeah, i suffered through asthma for most of my childhood. till we figured out i was allergic to just about every animal with hair there is (and we had dogs) till I was 15.
Although I'm no allergologist... (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, I don't think the parent poster wanted to destroy the spores.
He said his wife was asthmatic and AFAIK (im not allergologist, only MD), Acari [wikipedia.org] are much more common allargen causing asthma and therefor I think that's what they targeted in their cleaning method.
Like he said : people are living with all these bacterial spores for ages without much problems. There's no point at all in sleeping in a surgical-grade sterile bed. Only some people have asthma problems and must pay a little attention.
Reasons why sterile bed sheets are stupid :
- There's litteraly millions of bacterial spore around. A few more or less in the bed aren't making change at all.
- Out of the incredible amount of bacterial species, only a really tiny fraction are pathogens. The biggest fraction don't harm the human body at all. Mostly because they just don't reproduce well in "body environnement" (for exemple : most bacteria have an optimal temperature of 20C or less, whereas pathogenes are usually among the few that work better around 37C)
- TFA is about fungal spores (Aspergillus in this case). Normally, fungi *are completly harmless*, except in some very *special* occasion, like reduced immunological function (the article mentions leukemia, AIDS and drugs like steroids and drugs used for transplantations) and/or free sterile niche (we human aren't sterile at all. But most of the time we are covered with completly harmless bacteria, that just sit here and take the place, so there's no more free room for pathogens. - Example : when taking antibiotics that are to strong and not enough specific, too much of the normal harmless bacteria may die and thus leaving place for Candida to proliferate). Healthy people shouldn't care.
- Allergies (and asthma) don't develop just like this by themself. For an allargen to create a new allergy, there must be always some chemical that triggers the immune system, usually an irritating one (in case of Acari, it's the protease that they secrete in their feces. In case of animal fur, it's other enzymes that are present in the saliva and that the animal spreads on his/her fur when cleaning him/herself). But spores are, as you said, an inactiveted form of the bacteria, sleeping and waiting for better time. And thus, they don't secrete much, so they cannot produce irritating chemicals that could trigger an immune reaction. Therefor, they cannot create a new allergy on their one. There's only an allergic reaction if something else has previously created an allergy and if antibodies of this new allergy can also cross-react with the non-irritating stuff.
- Some evidence tend to show that sterile environnement *may* be bad for allergy. Because allergy is a form of immune system malfunction, and in non sterile environnement you keep one's immune system busy with other things, therefor preventing allergy to happen in those people who have such allergic immune system.
Once again, I'm not an allergologist, so maybe there's some revelent detail that I haven't studied.
Re:I certainly hope you're joking (Score:3, Informative)
But the funny thing about chlorine
The advantage is you get the best of both worlds, safe water, without the ingestion of chlorine. Also, keeping a pitcher in the fridge is an easy way to have cold water on hand.
Re:I prefer to think of it (Score:4, Informative)
However, the human body was designed to operate at 98.6 degrees. Shifting temperature can cause the body to either slightly overshoot this, or drop below it. When this happens the immune system is temporarily weakened. Bacteria or viruses can take advantage of this weaker state (generally by reproducing faster than the immune system can destroy) and cause sickness.
Most of the time you will not notice this, the cellular death is too low to trigger adverse body-wide symptoms. However when it truely starts to get out of hand and the 3rd level of defense starts to kick in, you will generally start to feel sick.
Shifts in temperature CAN cause you to catch a cold, hence the name. Cold temps weaken the immune system. Weak immune system = weaker bacteria/virus can invade easier. Invasion = sick. That sums it up methinks. Feel free to insert common sense where needed.