Keeping Your Home Healthy In Winter

We spend most of our time indoors during the winter months.  At the same time, many of us are suffering from colds, viruses, sinus infections and the flu. All of that stress on your upper respiratory system makes it that much more important to maintain a healthy home. Thankfully there’s a lot you can do on your own to improve indoor air quality. Remove Shoes and Boots at the Door.  The dirt and moisture we track in on our shoes and boots brings a lot of debris into the indoor air mix.  This simple habit can reduce airborne contaminants dramatically. Vacuum More Frequently.  Frequent...

read more

How Houseplants Attack Indoor Air Pollution

Winter poses new challenges to our indoor air quality.  We’re spending more time indoors at the same time as we’ve closed up our homes against fresh exchanges of outdoor air.  The build up of contaminants such as dust, pet dander, mold, and chemicals creates a greater threat to respiratory health at a time when many of us are battling sinusitis, seasonal flu, and colds.  Here’s a great article on how houseplants offer a natural air filtering system that cleans noxious chemicals from the air while providing oxygen....

read more

‘Tis the Season — Christmas Trees and Indoor Air Quality

Can a Christmas tree bring on an asthma attack? The answer is yes — a live one can.  Live Christmas trees can carry pathogenic mold spores that proliferate rapidly in the cozy warmth of your living room.  One study showed that indoor mold counts went from 800 to 5,000 spores per cubic meter by the fourteenth day a Christmas tree had been kept indoors.  In terms of indoor air quality, this amounts to an explosion of mold growth — especially when you consider that the average healthy home tests at 600 mold spores per cubic meter. The study was initiated by researchers John...

read more

Sinusitis — The Fungal Connection

Is chronic sinusitis caused by bacteria or mold?  Studies continue to show that mold is now the prime suspect.  The paradigm shift started in 1999 when the Mayo Clinic published a breakthrough study that indicated as many as 96% of sinusitis cases were caused by mold.  http://www.mayoclinic.org/ent-rst/chronicsinus.html.  The evidence has continued to gain ground with experts and researchers; however, as often happens with new evidence, acceptance of these findings by the medical community has been slow. A sinus expert in New York, W.S. Tichenor M.D. offers a detailed explanation of the...

read more