{"id":27414,"date":"2015-12-02T17:36:51","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T09:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/?p=27414"},"modified":"2019-05-24T08:26:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T00:26:05","slug":"home-allergens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/2015\/12\/home-allergens\/","title":{"rendered":"Dust \u2013 What we can&#8217;t see can seriously harm us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently the entire household was sniffing, coughing and itching as we did our year-end spring cleaning.&nbsp; In fact the kids were having persistent runny nose with no symptoms of flu or any illness.&nbsp; After some deduction, we knew that the culprit was a common one but a potentially harmful one &#8211; Dust.<\/p>\n<p>Around the world, allergies are on the rise. But what&#8217;s alarming is that these triggers are&nbsp;found all around the home. On average, humans shed 28g skin flakes every month \u2013 a rich source of food for insects and dust mites.&nbsp;&nbsp;Dead human skin cells, dust mites and their faeces, pollen, pet dander, mould and bacteria. Lurking inside our homes are these harmful, microscopic allergens, Just 0.000001g is enough to trigger coughing, sneezing, itching and other allergic reactions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Recently, Dyson has conducted a dust study alongside the National University in Singapore to better understand the invisible villains that reside&nbsp;in Singapore homes. We agreed to&nbsp;participate in the&nbsp;study just to see what allergens are cohabiting in our home.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-27438\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/house-feather-duster-628x363.jpg?resize=628%2C363&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"house-feather-duster-628x363\" height=\"363\" width=\"628\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/house-feather-duster-628x363.jpg?resize=628%2C363&amp;ssl=1 628w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/house-feather-duster-628x363.jpg?resize=300%2C173&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 628px) 100vw, 628px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A&nbsp;team of dust researchers descended upon our home in August and collected dust from the floor, mattresses and desk top surfaces&nbsp;such as shelving, wardrobes and TVs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We received the&nbsp;Dyson dust report in the email which indicated that:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1449041183857_55242\">\n<li id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1449041183857_55252\">We&nbsp;had small traces of cat&nbsp; (What??!!) and cockroach allergens but not dog or mice. Since we don&#8217;t own&nbsp;a cat, this could be simply from a visitor&nbsp;who has been in contact with a cat and traces could then be transferred via clothing and ended up on your couch\/bed etc.<\/li>\n<li id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1449041183857_55253\">For our mattress, it showed we&nbsp;had all traces of dust mites and dog, cat and cockroach allergens found (yikes!).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1449041183857_55254\">The&nbsp;report basically shows that we&nbsp;have a clean home but if there are members of the family&nbsp;who suffer from asthma and allergens (which we do), the European dust mites on our floor&nbsp;or the couch area could trigger the allergies. It&#8217;s&nbsp;not just the dust mites alone but their droppings that cause an allergic response; triggering asthmatic symptoms or other allergic conditions.&nbsp;No wonder I suffer from nasal congestion&nbsp;quite often and the kids sometimes get unexplained insect bites!&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>The&nbsp;Dyson dust report also revealed&nbsp;that beds are a haven for moulds, bacteria and allergens. The average mattress had 3,000 cfu (<strong>cfu<\/strong> = Colony Forming Unit) of mould per 1g of dust. A single mould can produce 40 or more proteins that can cause allergies. Mould allergy symptoms include sneezing, nasal&nbsp;congestion and itchy or watery eyes.<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><strong>Some Interesting Facts About Allergens<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-27441\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Dust_Introduction.ashx_.jpg?resize=1000%2C560&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Dust_Introduction.ashx\" height=\"560\" width=\"1000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Dust_Introduction.ashx_.jpg?w=1000&amp;ssl=1 1000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Dust_Introduction.ashx_.jpg?resize=300%2C168&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dyson.com.au\/dust-and-allergies.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Image Source<\/a><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>400 million people worldwide are now suffering from allergic diseases.<\/li>\n<li>House dust is the No.1 cause of allergies in the home.<\/li>\n<li>Some pollen can travel hundreds of miles which is why warm, dry windy weather can increase allergy symptoms.<\/li>\n<li>An entire mattress can be home to between 100,000 and 1 million dust mites.<\/li>\n<li>An average carpet can contain up to 1,000 mites per square metre.<\/li>\n<li>Mould allergens are perennial and allergy sufferers can display symptoms throughout the year. Levels rise during wet and warmer weather, especially in the high humidity of the Asia Pacific region.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>Now that we are aware that we are sharing our home with some &#8216;unwelcomed residents&#8217;, it is even more imperative to maintain a regular cleaning regime to keep these dust mites and mould allergens at bay. &nbsp;Dyson has developed a total home solution to tackle these invisible villains in the home. Stay tuned as we review one of the awesome Dyson products which comes with an in-built&nbsp;Air Multiplier\u2122 technology&nbsp;that&nbsp;projects cleaner, purified air around the home giving us fresh dust-free air.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently the entire household was sniffing, coughing and itching as we did our year-end spring cleaning.&nbsp; In fact the kids were having persistent runny nose with no symptoms of flu or any illness.&nbsp; After some deduction, we knew that the culprit was a common one but a potentially harmful one &#8211; Dust. Around the world, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,68],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Home-Picture.jpg?fit=893%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p59hHF-78a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27414"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46095,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27414\/revisions\/46095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifestinymiracles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}