| By Tajinder Panesar, Kingston University Given that we spend about a third of our life in bed and the close proximity of bedding to our body, the interaction of dust mite allergen plays a major role. So it is important to understand the nature of the dust mite, so that we know how to inhibit its population growth. A dust mite is made up of 80% water, and without water it will not survive. Dust mites only survive by taking in water from the atmosphere using small glands on the outside of their body. They feed on human skin scales, pollen, fungi, bacteria and animal dander and even their own droppings. That is why they flourish in the bed, as it is both warm and humid, and has a continuous supply of food. A typical used mattress may have anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million living and dead mites inside, and according to one often-quoted statistic, as much as one-tenth of the weight of a two-year-old pillow may be composed of dead mites and their droppings (3). We spend approximately 8 hours in bed, and this prolonged exposure to their harmful dropping leads to the various symptoms experienced in a typical dust mite allergy. By simply leaving the bed unmade and aired for a while can help the bed to cool off and dry out causing the mites to dehydrate and eventually die. Allergen proof bedding and mattresses are effective way to reduce the moisture and dust mite populations. Many pillow covers have a pore size of greater than 20 m allowing live HDM to penetrate the coverings, colonize within the pillow and contribute towards allergen production within the pillow, while high quality feather pillow coverings do not due to their lower pore size. Steam cleaning the mattress is an effective way to kill dust mites and de-nature their allergen, and vacuuming with a high filtration cleaner, particularly with HEPA filters is also extremely beneficial | 
