IMA Senior Fellow Dr. Michael Turner joined The National News Desk to discuss the recent surge in bedbug infestations across the country. With spring break travel fueling outbreaks in hotels and apartments, Dr. Turner breaks down the real health risks—from inflammatory skin reactions and allergic sensitization to the often-overlooked impact of sleep disruption on immune function, hormones, and metabolism—and shares practical steps families can take to protect themselves.
Check out these related resources from IMA below, followed by the full segment transcript.
Transcript
Jan Jeffcoat: Bedbug infestations are surging across parts of the country, raising concerns for travelers and families as the pests are spreading right now through hotels, apartments, and luggage. As these outbreaks spread, questions are growing about the real health risks and what you can do to protect your family. And joining us now to discuss is CEO of a national concierge medical practice and senior fellow at the Independent Medical Alliance, Dr. Michael Turner. Great to have you on, good morning to you.
Dr. Michael Turner: Ah, thank you, Jan. Glad to be here.
Jan Jeffcoat: So why are we seeing more bedbug outbreaks specifically now? And tell us why families should also take them seriously from a health standpoint.
Dr. Michael Turner: Sure. Well, a lot of the recent news cycle around the bedbugs has related to spring break traveling, as you can understand. And a lot of it has related to perhaps less than hygienic conditions at certain places that people are staying, and just turnover and, you know, population movements and such.
And the challenge with these guys is they can hide out very easily. They often hide out in baseboards, headboards, or in the seams of mattresses. And they can survive months without feeding, and the eggs are resistant to many kinds of treatment. So it poses a bit of a dilemma. The good news is they don’t fly, they don’t jump. They just have to be sort of dragged from place to place, which is usually on your luggage or a backpack or something like that. And once they take up residence in the lodging, they can be a bit hard to eradicate.
Jan Jeffcoat: And they—and they can be serious too if they bite you. What kinds of inflammatory or allergic reactions can some people have?
Dr. Michael Turner: Sure. Some people can have welts, uh, you know, hive-type of a situation at its worst. Can be very discomforting. And it can trigger further sensitization. Sometimes, as in a bee sting, you know, you get stung initially it’s not so bad, but your body’s sensitized, so then in the future it can get worse. So there’s that possibility of worsening sensitization towards this bite or other bites.
Jan Jeffcoat: And when you think about a hotel, could it also transfer blood from one person to another if they were to have a disease?
Dr. Michael Turner: Good question. I’m doubting that’s so, but there may be a possibility there. That’s not the biggest concern typically with them—it’s not person-to-person transmission that way, thankfully. Unlike, say, mosquitoes where there’s a large volume of blood that’s drawn back and some seepage back in.
Jan Jeffcoat: Interesting. How do you get rid of them?
Dr. Michael Turner: Yeah. So, if you know you have a bedbug infestation in your room, you want to vacuum first of all. You want to launder and dry on high heat any possible clothing item. You want to try to lift up your luggage off the floor, and you want to try to isolate your bed from the wall. Sometimes they hide out in the cracks of walls and such.
There are certain, as you saw a picture there, at-home bug killer concepts that people use. I’m not the biggest fan of those because you can spray a lot of pesticide around and sometimes be very minimal in its effect. So I’d feel like if it got to that level, I would call in a professional and get a proper, you know, home cleaning done.
Jan Jeffcoat: Right, right, right. And also for somebody who does get bitten—and this is true for I’m sure any insect bite—but is there some practical ways to calm the skin, reduce the irritation, especially when—if you have kids, you know, avoid making things worse?
Dr. Michael Turner: Oh sure. Yeah. I’ll suggest three things. So one of them would be calamine lotion—we’ve all heard of that—it can be extremely calming, helpful for reducing skin irritation. Then there’s also over-the-counter anti-inflammatory creams that you can get, like a hydrocortisone, if you’ve heard of that. Those are typically available. Hydrocortisone cream, maybe applied twice a day to any of the bites that are troublesome. And then you could take an oral antihistamine like a Zyrtec or a Claritin or an Allegra as well to try to calm some of the itching and skin reaction that’s happening.
Jan Jeffcoat: Yeah. And I gotta tell you, I’m not very familiar with this, so I was looking online and seeing so many videos out there that talk about this, unfortunately. And it sounds like the sleep disruption is also something that can affect a lot of people who have bedbugs. Talk a little bit about that.
Dr. Michael Turner: Well, absolutely. If you’re rolling around scratching, itching, uncomfortable, etc., your sleep’s going to be quite disrupted, which turns out to have a big bearing on your health. The more we study about sleep, the more important we realize that it is. First of all, for your immune system. So if you get a lack of sleep, your immune system is not as strong the next day. Many people don’t understand that, but every night when you sleep, your bone marrow’s putting out new white blood cells, new antibodies.
And your immune system is literally having a growth spurt and a surge. But if you have choppy sleep, your immune system decreases immediately the very next day. It doesn’t take a long time; it’s the very next day. So people often find themselves getting sick then after a period of prolonged disturbed sleep.
The other thing is hormones. So your hormones regulate quite importantly overnight. There’s sort of a reset pattern that occurs. So things like testosterone, for example, reset overnight and then surge in the morning unless you’re getting terrible sleep, and then that doesn’t happen—the whole process is kind of short-circuited. Other hormones that relate, yeah, to blood sugar or to weight gain, like insulin or leptin, also have a so-called circadian rhythm. And if your sleep is disturbed, you end up basically being hungrier and gaining weight the next day, even though you’ve done nothing different.
Jan Jeffcoat: I knew it! That is one of the things that we all need to watch out for. That’s why sleep is so important. Alright, for more information, thanks so much, doctor, for joining us. You can visit IMAhealth.org for the tools and resources to take control of your health.
