The body and fecal excretions of dust mites have a diameter of 10 to 50 μm. These substances can be broken into smaller fragments and suspended in the air, and can invade the deep parts of the human respiratory tract. These are allergens that cause human diseases. Over the past 50 years, the global prevalence of allergic diseases has been rising sharply. The "European Allergy White Paper" (2013) points out that allergic diseases are the sixth largest disease in the world, ranking after cardiovascular diseases, tumors, diabetes , respiratory diseases, and mental and psychological diseases. Allergic diseases related to dust mites mainly include allergic asthma , rhinitis , atopic dermatitis , spring keratitis, etc.
It is reported that more than 50% of allergic diseases are caused by dust mites, and about 20% of people worldwide are allergic to dust mites. In addition, dust mites can also invade the human body and cause non-specific infections such as intestinal mites, pulmonary mites, urinary mites, and vaginal mites.
Allergic Asthma
More than 300 million people worldwide suffer from asthma, and its prevalence is increasing year by year. Over the past 10 years, the number of asthma patients in Western Europe has approximately doubled. Asthma prevalence has increased by more than 60% in the United States since the early 1980s. The prevalence of asthma in Asian adults ranges from 0.7% to 11.9% (average does not exceed 5%). There are currently about 30 million asthma patients in my country. Skin prick tests using extracts of dust mites showed that 47% to 92.11% of adult asthma patients and 51.64% to 78.85% of asthmatic children in my country are allergic to dust mites.
Allergic rhinitis
Rhinitis can be divided into intermittent allergic rhinitis and persistent allergic rhinitis according to the frequency and duration of occurrence. It can also be divided into mild, moderate and severe rhinitis according to the severity. Allergic rhinitis not only affects the quality of life, sleep, and mood, but long-term chronic inflammation can also damage the function of lungs, ears and other organs, and can lead to learning disabilities, sleep apnea, sinusitis, , asthma, etc.
Atopic eczema
also known as atopic dermatitis, is a chronic, inflammatory skin disease, especially common in infants. The global prevalence rate is 10% to 20% in infants and 1% in adults. ~3%. 60% of these eczema patients are caused by dust mite allergy. The higher the density of house dust mites, the more likely babies are to develop eczema.
Keratoconjunctivitis
is a severe chronic conjunctival inflammation that mostly affects boys. Allergic conjunctivitis in children is an IgE-mediated ocular inflammatory disease related to type I and type IV hypersensitivity reactions and is a non-infectious ocular surface disease. Most scholars believe that allergic conjunctivitis in children may be a polygenic genetic disease, and its allergens mainly come from dust mites and so on.
Secretory otitis media
Also known as glue ear or Eustachian tube obstruction, literature reports that 20% to 90% of children with glue ear are sensitive to common inhaled allergens, which may be related to nasal allergic diseases.
Kawasaki disease
In the 1970s, people first became aware of the disease. Rickettsia-like microorganisms were found in the autopsies of Kawasaki disease patients, and they were inferred to be the carriers of dust mites. At that time, it caused people to panic and anxiety.
Dust mites and gastrointestinal allergy
There are relatively few studies on dust mites and gastrointestinal allergies . However, in recent years, many studies have reported the occurrence of strong allergic reactions induced by eating food contaminated by dust mites. cases. In 1995, Scala described a 5-year-old girl with a positive skin test for dust mites who developed persistent vomiting but no respiratory symptoms. Studies showed that her bedroom exposure to dust mites was high, and her symptoms improved after taking allergen avoidance measures. ease. In order to clarify the relationship between the patient's gastrointestinal symptoms and dust mites, medical staff used dust mite extract to stimulate the patient, and the patient vomited again, which suggested that the gastrointestinal tract is allergic to dust mites; medical staff used oral swallowing and esophageal peristalsis The dust mite extract was delivered to the patient's gastrointestinal tract, which caused the patient to have gastrointestinal symptoms again, further confirming that dust mites induced gastrointestinal allergy.
There are also the following related diseases:
Pulmonary mites, intestinal mites, urinary mites, vaginal mites, parasitic mites in the external auditory canal, etc.!
