The bacteria, bacteroidales, which is linked to pneumonia and gonorrhoea has been found in month-old bedsheets according to Time4Sleep research.
Discovered in new research conducted by Time4Sleep, the UK bed retailer, people who don’t wash their bedsheets for as little as a month will sleep alongside bacteroidales that are linked to a host of diseases such as pneumonia, gonorrhoea, and Lemierre’s syndrome.
The world of bacteroidales
The UK bed retailer asked a member of the public to sleep in the same bedsheets for a whole month, swabbing parts of the bed at the end of each week. Each swab was sent to the Biology Development Centre at the University of Seville, Spain, laboratory and tested, revealing an alarming list of dangerous bacteria.
Among the bacteria discovered in the laboratory were bacteroidales, a bacterium linked with pneumonia, gonorrhoea, and appendicitis, fusobacteriales, known to cause throat infections leading to Lemierre’s syndrome, as well as neisseriales, bacteria that is known to cause gonorrhoea.
When tracked back to the original source, bacteria were found to come from everything from human skin and the oral cavity to human stool.
Changing bedsheets every three to four weeks
The research comes in light of a recent survey that discovered almost a quarter (24%) of the UK only change their bedsheets every ‘three or four weeks.’
The findings substantiate recent research from the North Carolina State University, USA, that revealed the ordinary beds of human beings have a greater diversity of bacteria than chimpanzee nests.
Jonathan Warren, CEO at Time4Sleep said: “Despite the accepted habit that you should change your clothes every day, there is significantly less attention paid to how often you should look to change your bedsheets. Given almost a quarter wait as long as a month, we decided to find out what meant for the hygiene of your bed.
“The results highlight how important bed hygiene is to us all. Look to change your bedding at least every fortnight. If you don’t, you’re likely sleeping in worse condition than a chimpanzee.”
For more on the research, including expert comment from bed hygiene experts, visit the Time4Sleep blog: https://www.time4sleep.co.uk/blog/clostridiales-neisseriales-and-fusobacteriales-the-bacteria-that-lurks-in-four-week-old-bedsheets/
