Can bacteria grow on your pillow?

 If you don't wash your sheets frequently, your best pillow case has more bacteria than your toilet seat. 

Making the bed, much alone washing the linens, is a chore that no one enjoys—men, in particular, who are single. According to one survey, 55 percent of single men aged 18 to 25 said they only changed their sheets four times a year. To be clear, those are not beds in which you would wish to sleep.

You lose roughly 15 million skin cells each night, but they don't just accumulate in your sheets. Because there's already someone waiting to eat them: dust mites. And the longer you wait between washes, the more food these organisms will have, allowing them to reproduce and multiply. If you don't wash your linens, you'll be sleeping with hundreds of thousands of arachnids.  

 

It's only getting worse for the estimated 20 million Americans who suffer from dust allergies. People who are sensitive to dust mites and their feces develop proteins that cause red and itchy eyes, runny noses, and other cold-like symptoms. On the other hand, Dust mites aren't the sole allergen in a filthy bed. A fungus community can grow on your pillow sheets if you don't wash them. According to one study, an average a best pillow in Australia can contain up to 16 different species of fungus and millions of fungal spores. The most common of them, Aspergillus fumigatus, is possibly harmful. It can infect your lungs and other organs, in addition to causing allergic reactions. 

It's not just mushrooms which are showing up. Bacteria, on the other hand, adore a dirty pillowcase or sheet. According to another study, unwashed pillow coverings and sheets had up to 39 times more bacteria than pet food bowls and thousands of times more bacteria than a toilet seat. Like Staphylococcus aureus, which can be fatal in rare situations. 

Now, on a little less ominous (or perhaps more ominous) note, filthy sheets can also cause acne. Each night, your skin's oil, lotion, and other cosmetics migrate to your sheets and accumulate over time, turning your bedding into a gigantic used makeup wipe. Then, over the course of the next several nights, all of that junk travels back onto your body, clogging your pores, and voila, acne.

Fortunately, there's a simple solution to all of these issues: wash your sheets frequently. Experts recommend using the hottest water possible once a week. This will destroy a lot of bacteria and dust mites while also removing stains and grease.