Daily Health News Blog

In greatly enlarged photographs, dust mites look like something from a horror movie. Invisible to the naked eye, mites inhabit more than 80 percent of all U.S. households, no matter how clean and neat. They are actually on the clean­up committee: they eat our discarded skin cells, as well as ani­mal dander, pollen, fungi, bacteria and other microscopic organic material in the domestic environment. They thrive in mattresses, pillows, carpets and clothing. Thousands of mites can live in just one gram of dust. Dust mites don’t carry disease and don’t bite, fortunately, but they can trigger asthma, hay fever and skin reactions in some people. In fact, dust mites are prob­ably the most common indoor allergen, especially in warm, humid climates and for people with asthma. They are virtually non­existent in very dry climates. There’s a surprising amount of debate about how to reduce dust mites and the symptoms they cause. In recent years, much of the conventional wisdom has been ...