Dirty bed sheets linked to serious diseases and infections including meningitis and gonorrhoea

People who only wash their bedsheets on a monthly basis will sleep alongside bacteria linked to a host of nasty diseases, such as pneumonia, gonorrhoea, and Lemierre’s syndrome, new research reveals.

UK bed retailer Time4Sleep 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 then sent to the Biology Development Centre at the University of Seville where it was laboratory 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.

Bed sheets used for just one month had an alarming amount of serious bacteria within them. (Image: Getty)

When tracked back to the original source, bacteria were found to come from everything from human skin and the oral cavity to human stools.

The research comes in light of a recent survey that discovered almost a quarter - 24 per cent - of the UK only change their bedsheets every three or four weeks.

The findings substantiate recent research from the North Carolina State University that revealed the ordinary beds of human beings have a greater diversity of bacteria than chimpanzee nests.

“The sources of this microorganism have been tracked and it has been determined that the microbial ecology of the pillowcase and sheets came from human skin, oral cavity, and stool," Luis, of the Biology Development Centre, said.

“Our findings compare favourably with the North Carolina State University paper published last year, which established a comparison between the microbial composition of human and primate beds. Strikingly, based on this study, chimpanzee beds show less diversity of microorganism than those that can be identified in human beds.”

Bacteria discovered after just four weeks with the same bed sheets

Jonathan Warren, CEO at Time4Sleep, stressed that people should consider changing their sheets more often.

“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," he said.

“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.”