Nearly a fifth of Britons fail to change their sheets at least one a month, startling new figures suggest.

And they could be storing up a whole host of health woes as a result, ranging from asthma to rhinitis and eczema, a leading allergy expert has warned.

A survey of more than 2,000 people found that more than half of us sleep in dirty sheets – and women are the guilty sex when it comes to not changing the bed linen regularly.

Nearly a fifth of Britons fail to change their sheets at least one a month – and women are the more lax of the two sexes when it comes to bedroom hygiene

The research, commissioned for the home retailer Dunelm Mill, found just two in five of us change our sheets weekly – in line with the standards of TV’s cleaning gurus Kim and Aggie.

A further 36 per cent perform the task fortnightly, while 17 per cent of us
admit to changing dirty sheets just once a month or even less frequently.

Meanwhile six per cent of houseproud people stripped the sheets more than once a week, one per cent of people admitted they were changed just once a year, while three per cent had no idea.

Women were revealed to be the more lax of the two sexes when it came to bedroom hygiene.

More than half do not clean their sheets weekly, with 12 per cent changing their sheets once a month and 1 per cent admitting to never changing them at all.

But 40 per cent of men, on the other hand, managed a weekly change, and a further eight per cent did it even more frequently than that.

Dr Adam Fox, a paediatric allergist at a leading London teaching hospital, warned that dirty sheets could exacerbate a number of health problems.

Just two in five of us change our sheets weekly, in line with the standards of TV’s cleaning gurus Kim and Aggie

He told MailOnline:  ‘Having good bedroom hygiene when it comes to changing your sheets is about more far than just freshening up your linen.

‘We spend about a third of our lives asleep and this is reflected in the debris that we leave between the sheets.

‘Our bodies shed millions of skin cells each day, many of which rub off in our sleep and are deposited in our beds.

‘In addition to skin cells, our bodies also secrete fluids, sweat and oils during a long nights sleep.

‘While unsavoury in themselves, these deposits mostly pose a problem as they are all deliciously appealing for dust mites.’

He added that while dust mites in themselves are quite harmless, the droppings of the microscopic creatures are laden with allergens which can cause health complications. When inhaled, these allergens can provoke asthma and rhinitis and may also worsen eczema.

‘In order to reduce the possible problems caused by dust mites, the professional recommendation is that people with dust mite allergies should be taking a number of measures to reduce allergen exposure.

‘Those who suffer particularly badly should consider investing in dust mite proof bedding and we should all be making it a priority to wash our sheets on a one to two weekly basis at 60 degrees.

‘It may seem like a bit of a chore but taking these precautions helps to protect against the health complications which may be caused or worsened by the unwanted dust mites which share our sheets.’

The research also exposed the Britain’s cleanest regions, with the Scottish and those from the North West found to be the best. By comparison people in the South East were the worst.

– Mail Online