The Connection Between Dust and Weight Gain

With the exception of the seemingly innocuous phrase “dust bunnies,” dust has always had a well-deserved bad rap in history.  A Korean dust event in 174 AD, was called Woo-Tou or Tou-Woo.  In spite of it’s catchy name, it ruined countless lives.  Massive dust storms caused by severe drought in the US Great Plains staes in the 1930s, forced the Joads and 2.5 millions of their neighbors to escape the Dust Bowl and head to California.  Life in the Boomer Lane’s own personal allergy to dust has created a lifelong, slavic dependence on antihistamines (although it has not created a lifelong, slavic dependence on the actual act of dusting).  While Trump continues to rant about mainstream media being the “Enemy of the People,”  dust continues to actually be that.

We may now add even one more atrocity that dust creates: fat. 

Researchers out of Duke University collected samples from 194 households in North Carolina, broke them down into their chemicals and tested whether these could promote fat cell growth.

Alert Readers may now be wondering why such a study would even be funded. Why not test whether listening to music while eating causes fat cell growth or taking a bath instead of a shower.  Who is the person who was sitting around one day, using his index finger to doodle on a dusty table and wondering whether that dust was making him fat?

We don’t know, but it’s time to get back to the research. The answer was an “unequivocal yes,” according to the lead scientist Christopher Kassotis. “We found that two-thirds of dust extracts were able to promote fat cell development and half promote precursor fat cell proliferation.”

Dust is basically the accumulation of dead skin cells, dirt we track in from the outdoors, residue from furniture, cleaning products, cookware. Let’s not even discuss animals in homes and other wildlife that are so tiny we can’t see them until they appear on fruit and we say, “Where the hell did these come from?”

This study is focused on endocrine disrupters in dust in particular, which have been found in things like plastics, food can linings, toys, and detergents. LBL will leave it up to Readers to educate yourselves on what endocrine disruptors are, or even what endocrines are. LBL has better things to do than to make herself knowledgeable, just so she can educate you.

The bottom line is: Dust makes you fat, specifically because it contains a bunch of chemicals known as “obesogens,” which interfere with how our bodies store and process fat. This is fascinating primarily because the word “obesogens” conjures up a cartoon, showing hordes of little fat globules who look a lot like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Kudos to whichever scientist thought of that.

Alert Readers may now be protesting: “But wait!  Doesn’t this really mean that people who have dusty homes are simply lazy and so more likely to eat fast food and pizza on the couch in front of the TV and isn’t that the real reason they gain weight?”

Good try, here, but you lose. Even homes with minimal amounts of dust can cause fat cell growth.  If you are good at cleaning regularly, the culprit may be the cleaning products you are using.  Non-toxic, chemical-free products are best. And no dry dusting. That simply kicks the chemicals back up into the air.  Also, removing your shoes at the door helps, as well as having a HEPA air filter.

After all of these steps are taken, you can reward yourself by sitting on the couch, eating pizza and fast food and staring at the TV for hours and days on end.  You may still gain weight, but you can’t then blame it on the dust. Or on mainstream media.