TUESDAY, May 22 (HealthDay News) -- Washing laundry in water that is 140 degrees Fahrenheit or higher kills more dust mites than washing clothes in cooler temperatures, according to a study presented this week at the American Thoracic Society's International Conference in San Francisco.
Jung-Won Park, M.D., Ph.D., of Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, and colleagues compared allergen levels on cotton sheets after washing them at various temperatures. When the clothing was washed at 140 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, all dust mites were killed, compared with 6.5 percent at lower temperatures (104 degrees). An alternative may be to wash clothing at a lower temperature and then rinse it twice with cold water for three minutes, as this removes more allergens, such as pollen.
A related presentation suggested that house dust has its benefits. Melisa Celaya, of the Arizona Respiratory Center in Tucson, and colleagues report that children who live in homes with low levels of endotoxin, a component of dust, were more likely to develop wheezing or eczema by age 3. By contrast, higher amounts of endotoxin seemed to protect the children from wheezing and eczema.
Going forward, "we will be looking at the relationship between endotoxin levels in the home and chemicals (called cytokines) that are produced by certain immune system cells, to see why children exposed to lower levels are developing more allergic symptoms later on," Celaya said in a statement.
