The best place to attack dust mites is in the bedroom where we spend about one-third of each day. These microscopic pests thrive on dead skin flakes as a food source. The average bed can contain up to two million dust mites. To reduce dust mite exposure in the bedroom and home, here are a few simple suggestions.

ENCASE all pillows, mattresses, box springs and comforters in dust-proof, zippered encasements to create a barrier between you and the dust mites as well as other allergens.

WASH all bedding - blankets, sheets, pillow cases and mattress pads - in hot water (130 F.) weekly. If cold or warm water is required or desired, de-mite is an effective dust mite control laundry additive. AllerSafe and Allergen Wash are concentrated laundry detergents that control allergens created by dust mites, pet dander, pollen, mildew and mold.

IMPROVE the quality of air in your home by installing high efficiency A/C filters to help trap airborne allergens. High efficiency filters such as an electrostatic filter or disposable pleated filter.

HEPA AIR CLEANERS can be used to reduce airborne allergens and improve overall air quality, especially in the bedroom. Purchase air cleaners made by quality manufacturers such as Honeywell (Quiet-Care) and Austin Air.

VACUUM using a HEPA-filtered unit designed with a sealed system to lower the allergen level in your carpets and home. Most vacuums offer powerful pick-up action while releasing unfiltered, dirty air from the back of the unit. Purchase vacuums made by quality manufacturers such as Eureka and Nilfisk.

TREAT CARPETS and rugs with products that neutralize protein allergens and/or kill dust mites in carpeting and upholstered furniture. Dust Mite Control, AllerSafe Spray and Allersearch ADS Spray are safe and effective products.

ANIMAL DANDER can be controlled on the pet by using AllerSafe dander neutralizing shampoo and Aller-Pet conditioner. AllerSafe and Allersearch ADS Sprays can safely and effectively be used on carpets and furniture to neutralize pet dander.

AVOID using down-filled comforters and pillows. Consider using the hypo- allergenic Primaloft comforter, pillows, dust-proof duvet covers and dust-proof Allersoft pillows.

USE CLEANING AND PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS developed for people with allergies, asthma and chemical sensitivities. Products by Envirorite do not compromise air quality because they are free of common respiratory and skin irritants, petroleum solvents, fragrances, dyes and toxic and semi-toxic ingredients. Cleans powerfully without health risks.

MINIMIZE dust buildup by avoiding dust collectors such as wall pennants, throw pillows and knickknacks. Use an electrostatic dust cloth to aid in dust removal. Wear a mask while dusting or vacuuming if you are dust-sensitive.

Air purifiers convert dirty air into fresh and clean air, and also free the air from pollutants and contaminants. They are very beneficial for people suffering from allergies and can help alleviate asthma. Allergy inducing particles within the air may come as dust, pollen, pet dander or mold spores.

There are numerous air purifier brands and manufacturers worldwide. It becomes too tough for a customer to pick the air purifier of one’s choice from the huge range available.

The best idea is to do some research online. Thanks to the online reviewers, there are some good air purifier comparisons and reviews on the Internet.

A decent air purifier review will honestly depict the pros and cons of a specific air purifier. Therefore, going through numerous air purifier reviews will help you make a good decision before buying an air purifier.

There are a large number of air purifiers including Oreck Super Air 8, Sharper Image Ionic Breeze GP, Friedrich C-90A, Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Quadra, Blueair 601, Bionaire BAP1300 Quietech HEPA, Honeywell HEPA 50250, Hunter Quietflo 30400, Vornado AQ535, Hunter HEPAtech 30375 etc.

Oreck Super Air 8 is a good quiet machine, quite effective at clearing the air of a number of pollutants, allergens, and irritants. It’s efficient, covers a large area and quite inexpensive having a strong warranty.

Sharper Image Ionic Breeze GP is a good home air purifier having a germicidal UV lamp. Ultraviolet radiation is capable of combating many pathogens such as viruses and bacteria. It’s quiet and quite effective in air purification, with a 5-year warranty. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America awarded it with a Consumer Product seal as its “proven to reduce airborne allergens and irritants including dust mite allergen, pet dander and cigarette smoke”.

Friedrich C-90A is good, efficient but a little noisy and bit costly also. Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Quadra is also good at removing pollutants and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America also awarded it with a Consumer Product seal.

Blueair 601 using activated carbon technology is particularly effective in removing odors and gases. It’s considerably cheap with 10 Year Overall Warranty.

Bionaire BAP1300 Quietech HEPA is a powerful air purifier, a bit noisy and requires a regular filter change. It has a 5-year warranty.

Honeywell HEPA 50250 is good and effective in small rooms. Its price line is good with a 5-year warranty. Hunter HEPAtech 30375 is a good device having an ionizer that can be controlled independently.

Recently, there has been a controversy that ionizing air purifiers produce ozone (O3 poisonous allotrope of oxygen) that can worsen asthma and decrease lung function. Some critics feel that air purifiers are over hyped devices that can’t completely clean the air and protect against secondhand smoke.

Article Source: http://www.articleco.com

Paul MacIver writes articles on a variety of health topics. For further info on the health benefits of air purifiers visit Ultimate Air Purifiers. Ultimate Air Purifiers is the sister site of Dehumidifiers You may freely reprint this article as long as this resource box is included, and links are intact.

The house dust mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus is about half the size of a dot or period on a newspaper. The mite has no eyes, no organised breathing system, cannot drink and lives for approximately 3-4 months. Twenty droppings a day may be produced by the mite, which means approximately 2000 during its lifetime. The HDM can get nourishment from its own droppings and may eat them up to three times over. The females can lay from 60-100 eggs depending upon living conditions, which ideally, are warm dark and damp for breeding mites. Most modern conventional beds provide perfect breeding conditions!

The mite will not bite. It is a scavenger with a preference for discarded old mouldy human skin scales. As a scavenger, however, it will eat pollen grains, insect scales, house dust, plant fibres and old bits of dead mites. The mite is a necessary cleaner in nature. We must learn to understand and respect the house dust mite. This simple creature has been on earth for about 23 million years. It has lived with man for about 10,000 years.

The most important thing to know about the mite is that it consists of up to 80% water. A tiny bag of water! Without water it will not thrive!

HealthAccording to researchersyour pillows may be home for millions of fungal spores, .

Aspergillus

The fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, which is the species most commonly found in pillows, is also the most likely to cause disease. The resulting syndrome, aspergillosis, has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukemia patients. Fungi can also worsen asthma

A Million Spores Per Pillow.

Both feather and synthetic pillows were examined for a study, and thousand of spores of fungus per gram of used pillow were discovered — well over a million spores per pillow. The pillows studied were ones that had between 1.5 and 20 years of regular use.

Four to sixteen different species were identified in each sample looked at, with higher numbers found in synthetic pillows. Bread and vine molds, as well as fungi usually found on damp walls and in showers were found in addition to the Aspergillus.

Difficult to Treat

Aspergillosis usually infects the lungs and sinuses, although it can spread to other organs such as the brain. It is very difficult to treat.Immuno-compromised patients can easily die of Aspergillus pneumonia or sinusitis.

Since Aspergillus can also worsen asthma and cause allergic sinusitis, constant exposure to fungus in bed could be problematic even for relatively healthy people.

University of Manchester October 14, 2005Allergy November 2005; 60 (11)

Dr. Mercola’s Comment:

A spore is structure of protein encapsulating bacterial DNA. It is formed by certain species of bacteria in conditions of low moisture, nutrients, temperature, etc.

They are metabolically inactive and are incredibly tough to destroy. Once a spore finds itself in a suitable environment (like your nose or throat), it can germinate into a single bacterium and attempt to multiply. They can cause many problems, including sinus trouble and dangerous infections.

So the answer is not to rush off and clean you pillows in your washing machineas hot, and even boiling water, will not kill spores.Spores require a temperature of about 121 degrees (Celsius) to be destroyed, and boiling water only reaches 100 degrees (Celsius).

Hospital supplies have to be autoclaved for 15 minutes to be sterilized. Basically, autoclaving involves superheated steam at high pressures to reach the required temperatures. Also, remember there are various levels of disinfectants. A cleaning agent doesn’t kill spores unless it specifically says it’s a sporicide, which is different from it being “antibacterial.”

If you believe that spores are dangerous and you are determined to kill them bleach is a good sporicide. However thebleachsolution should be about 1:5, or at least 1:10 (You want a minimum of 2,500 ppm of chlorine in your solution, and normal household bleach is 5 percent available chlorine).

So the question becomes what is more toxic, inhaling toxic chlorine fumes are fungal spores?

This is a no win question, similar to do you prefer getting hit in the head with a hammer or a baseball bat.

Before you bathe all your household pillows in bleach, though, you might want to take a look at the list of contributors to the Fungal Research Trust, the “charitable organization” that funded the research covered in the article:

Fujisawa Corp., Oxford Glycosciences, F2G Ltd, Chronic Granulomatous Disorder Research Trust, Aventis, Janssen Research Foundation, Roche, Schering Plough Corporation, The Liposome Company, Merck, Imedex, Bristol Myers Squibb, Aronex Ltd, Vestar Inc, Eli Lilly, BioMerieux, Alza Corporation, Pfizer Inc, Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Phairson Ltd., GlaxoWellcome, The Gossett Trust, The Clear Group, British Medical Association, Basilea, Valeant and Orthobiotech.

Are the pharmaceutical companies funding this trust out of the kindness of their hearts, or is it a way of maximizing shareholder value?They want to frighten you so that you will purchase one of their expensive and toxic drug based solutions.

In the meantime rather than using toxic approaches, I believe there is a better solution. I recommend using a mechanicalbarrier and purchasing a high quality water, mold and spore proof pillow cover (not pillow case) that you can wash regularly (even with a bleach) to keep it clean. You can even purchase new pillows every year as they are relatively inexpensive.

This is the solution that I personally use and have found to be very effective. Call me obsessive but I even take my pillow cover with me when I travel and sleep in hotel rooms. Sure beats breathing in fungal spores and dust mites all night long.

Dr. Mercola is the founder of Mercola.com, one of the world’s most visited and trusted health websites, and publisher of the FREE Mercola.com e-newsletter — the #1 dietary health and wellness newsletter on the Web with over 500,000 subscribers.

Dr. Mercola, a physician for over two decades, is also a New York Times bestselling author whose latest book, “Dr. Mercola’s Total Health Program,” presents his entire renowned dietary health program and has sold over 150,000 copies. He is routinely interviewed by the media for his expert insights, including CNN and ABC World News Tonight. His passion is to change the fatally flawed conventional medical system to one focused on real prevention and cure.

Sign up for the FREE Mercola.com health e-newsletter now http://www.mercola.com/forms/mt_test.htm and right away you will get — as a special no-cost gift — the complementary “Metabolic Type Test.”

If you truly want to optimize your weight and improve your health, learning your body’s specific metabolic type — whether you are a Carb Type, Protein Type, or a Mixed Type — is one of the absolute most important steps you can take! (Without this knowledge you are sabotaging your health!)

FamilyFor most of us, housework is a necessary evil. Not something we enjoy doing very much, rather a thing that brings pleasant results. But what if housework was something that we needed to do in order to maintain our health? For people who suffer from allergies, housework is just that, and so the right vacuum cleaner can be the difference between maintaining health and losing it.

In our modern world, we are exposed to an increasing number of allergens, substances that can cause enormous irritation to those predisposed to sensitivity to them. While allergies might easily be included in the list on non-life threatening conditions, anyone who has endured an allergic reaction for any period of time can testify to the fact that nothing can rob you of your enthusiasm for life than what might, in the grand scheme of things, be inconsequential reactions. And, in fact, allergies can sometimes traverse boundaries, becoming potentially lethal, particularly to the elderly and infirm, or the very young. So any device that can help allergy sufferers fight the good fight is not to be taken lightly.

The right vacuum cleaner can make the world of difference in the fight against allergens in your home. Whether it is pet hair or dust mites that generates an allergic reaction in you or one of your family members, choosing a vacuum cleaner with this in mind can help you gain control over your environment and ease the symptoms of the sufferer a great deal.

The most effective allergy control vacuum cleaners employ a technology known as HEPA, or high efficiency particulate arresting. Developed by the government in the 1950s to help protect those in the services against radioactive particles, the proponents of this technology claim that it can remove 99.7 percent of particles from the air when used in air purifiers. Translated into the vacuum cleaner, this technology helps remove all of the allergy causing substances that find rest on your carpets and upholstery, creating a home environment that is safer for the allergy sufferer in your home.

For those who suffer from upsetting allergies, an allergy fighting vacuum cleaner is just what the doctor ordered. So do some prescription housework – your family’s health will thank you for it.

Home and GardenThere are many different types of air cleaners on the market, including hybrids of the various types, but all fall under two broad headings, arrestors and non-arrestors. Under these we can find the five most popular: High Efficiency Particle Arrestor (HEPA)/mechanical air cleaners, ionic air cleaners, ultra-violet air cleaners, ozone air cleaners, and electronic air cleaners.

Mechanical and electrostatic air cleaners are arrestors, and the others are non-arrestors. Arrestor air cleaners work by attracting the pollutants into the filter thus trapping them. Non-arrestors work by either killing the pollutants, bacteria, molds or by causing them to stick to charged surfaces.

Arrestors

HEPA filter air cleaners were developed to capture radioactive dust in the environment so as to protect scientists during WWII. The technology has been refined for modern use in both homes and businesses. HEPA filters can trap most allergy-causing agents: dust mites, cigarette smoke and chemical odors to name a few.

Mechanical filters can be portable or centralized. Centralized systems are installed inside central heating and air-conditioning systems.

Electrostatic filters use the principle of opposite poles attracting, thus pulling particles into the charged plates designed to collect and hold air-borne contaminants.

Non-Arrestors

Ionic air cleaners, also known as electrostatic air cleaners, produce an electric charge that forces air borne particles onto furniture, walls and other surfaces, thus effectively removing them from the air you breathe. These are only available as portable units, so they are ideal for residential purposes. Ionic air cleaners release ozone into the air so they should be used with care.

Electronic air cleaners, purify the air by utilizing an electric current to trap air-borne pollutants. These types can also be installed in central heating and air-conditioning systems.

The main purpose of ultra-violet air cleaners is not to remove particles from the air, but to kill bacteria and molds. It does this by pulling the air inside where the bacteria and molds are zapped by the powerful ultraviolet rays.

Hybrid devices use a combination of any of the above filters to clean the air. There are single room air cleaners as well as cleaners that work for the entire house.

by Michael Modica

About one person in ten suffers from an allergy to dust mites. Dust mites are microscopic creatures of the arachnid family which also includes spiders and scorpions. Dust mites burrow deep into fibrous objects, such as clothing and carpeting. This makes it difficult to remove them by cleaning or vacuuming.

The World of Dust Mites

Dust mites thrive in indoor living spaces. They like temperatures between 75 and 80 degrees and the humidity levels of about 75%. Dust mites feed on shed scales from human skin, which is commonly found in carpeting, bedding, etc.

Symptoms of Dust Mite Allergies

People are not allergic to dust mites themselves, but rather to their fecal matter and decaying body parts. These mite waste products continue to cause allergic reactions long after the mite that produced them has died. Itchy, watery eyes, runny nose, clogged and itchy ear canals, and other respiratory problems are the most common symptoms. Symptoms are often worst at night because dust mites thrive in blankets, pillows and other bedding materials. A little bit of tossing and turning is all is takes to make some of the allergens airborne.

Asthmatic people often have an especially difficult time with dust mites. Respiratory congestion, wheezing, and severe shortness of breathmay occur. Anyone suffering these symptoms should be treated by a licensed physician or asthma specialist.

Self Help for Dust Allergies

Reducing your exposure to dust mites will help to alleviate your symptoms. Here are some effective methods:

- Vacuums equipped with special filtering systems help to reduce the amount of allergens in your home or office. - Dust mites live in areas with high concentrations of dust and debris. A cleaner house means fewer dust mites. - Focus on your bedroom. You probably spent one-third or more of your time there and it is often the room with the most dust mites. - Encase your box spring, mattress, and pillows in dust proof covers. An average bed can contain as many as ten million dust mites! Yikes! - Use polyester fiberfill pillows instead of kapok or feather pillows. - Use window shades instead of curtains or venetian blinds (both are dust magnets). - Wash blankets in hot water. Do not use wool or down blankets. - Avoid dust collecting knickkancks such as wall pennants, macrame hangings, throw pillows, and stuffed animals. Furniture should be wood, leather, plastic or metal–as upholstered furniture tends to trap dust and become a site for dust mites to grow. - Use hard wood or linoleum floors in place of carpeting. Dust mites love carpeting because it keeps them and well fed with human skin cells and fingernail residue. - Adjust the climate in your home. Use a dehumidifier and turn down the thermostat. Dust mites don’t survive for long when the humidity below drops below 55 percent. Dust mites don’t drink water like we do, they absorb it from the air through their skin. If it is too dry they will die of thirst. - Use specially designed filtration systems for furnaces and air conditioning units. These filters capture airborne allergens. It is also a good idea to place a cheesecloth screen over your bedroom heating vents to mimimize dust coming from a forced air style heating system. Michael has published many free articles on Allergy Symptoms including Seasonal Allergy Symptoms and Wheat Allergy Symptoms