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People don't wash their bed sheets enough, and it's disgusting

bed sheets sleeping girl in bed
meganleetz/Flickr

I hate to break it to you, but your bed sheets are filthy.

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No matter how clean you are as a person, your sheets are teeming with all kinds of germs and debris.

Philip Tierno, a microbiologist and pathologist at the New York University School of Medicine, told Tech Insider all about what's lurking in them.

"You have spores of fungi, bacteria, animal dander, pollen, soil, lint, finishing agents of whatever the sheets are made from, coloring material, all sorts of excrements from the body including sweat, sputum, vaginal, and anal excretions, urine milieu, skin cells ... Plus there are cosmetics that people use — they put oils and creams on their body, all of that is in that milieu."

And there's a lot more, Tierno said, "including food by the way, people eat in the bed. That of course provides a nice environment for these organisms."

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That debris gradually accumulates over time, settling from the air or your body into your bed sheets and mattress. In fact, your mattress is even more disgusting than your sheets, but that's a whole different story.

So how often should you wash your bed sheets?

"Stuff like that accumulates to become significant usually between one to two weeks," Tierno said."Bottom line, they should be washed probably on the average of once a week."

That seems about right. But do people actually wash their sheets that frequently?

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We set up a questionnaire to find out. Using SurveyMonkey Audience, we polled 523 adults aged 18 and older between Nov. 2 and 3. Survey Monkey selected respondents to mirror the age and sex proportions of adults according to the US Census.

Here's what we found: About 46% of the people we surveyed wash their bed sheets as often or more often than they're supposed to — a surprisingly large chunk of people.

Bravo, SurveyMonkey pollsters.

But still, the slight majority, 54%, do not wash their sheets often enough — only a few times per month or less.

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survey monkey cleanliness bed sheets
SurveyMonkey Audience

Of the 523 people surveyed, about 30% said that they wash their bed sheets a few times per month; and 22% said they wash them once a month or less.

Three super-hygienic people said that they wash their sheets every day, and 3 super-nasty people said they wash them once a year or less. Gross.

So, about half of the population doesn't wash their sheets enough.

While dirty sheets aren't going to kill you — unless an antibiotic-resistant superbug from your bed sneaks into a cut, for example — they could be contributing to allergies, which affect a staggering 1 in 6 people, according to Tierno.

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One study from 2015 that assessed levels of fungal contamination in bedding found that feather and synthetic pillows 1.5 to 20 years old can contain between 4 and 17 different species of fungus.

Fungi, bacteria, and other debris, including dust mites, accumulate dramatically in bedding over time. These allergens enter the body through your nose, mouth, skin, or eyes and cause allergy sufferers' immune systems overreact.

Exposure to this debris can lead to allergies and cause a stuffy nose, inflamed airways, and itchiness. It can even aggravate asthma.

Therefore it's imperative to keep your bed relatively clean, Tierno says, to protect your body from these allergy-causing bugs.

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