Mold: The Hidden Toxin Affecting Our Body
Water-damaged buildings cause mold and mycotoxin problems. Water damage buildings are a global issue, affecting approximately 14,000 individuals in the U.S. daily and one in 50 homes yearly. This problem transcends from country to country, as evidenced by my clinical experience working with clients worldwide. The effect of water damaging buildings, whether working or living in one, is that it causes mold and mycotoxin exposure, which causes harm to our biology. A few common symptoms from mold or mycotoxins include migraines, pain (fibromyalgia), chronic fatigue syndrome, low libido, impaired immunity, low vitamin D, digestive/gut issues, memory or cognition, frequent urination, and much more.
Water damage from living or working inside buildings where we spend 93% of our time now (indoors), whether the water damage occurs from the weather, leaks, a damaged roof, or a basement, creeps in and destroys our health, usually silently.
It can be hidden behind appliances or with shady paintwork and incentives that mask the problem. At the same time, your health slowly suffers and leads to chronic fatigue.
When water damage occurs within as little as 24-48 hours of being wet, it sets the scene for mold to grow and take advantage of the humidity and food, a carbon material, to grow and thrive. After a leak, most homeowners will try to dry it out and throw some bleach on for good measure, but this will not cut it. Mycotoxins and mold can persist after the water-damaged event and then protect themselves with biofilms.
In an ideal world, you would have insurance or the budget to hire a renovation team to clean up water damage from an event or accident, but this is rare.
Many homeowners unknowingly buy or rent properties with hidden water damage issues. These problems are often concealed by a fresh coat of paint, making them difficult to detect without a thorough inspection. This highlights the importance of due diligence when acquiring a property.
Several companies routinely use ERMI testing to test mold (from water damage) or mycotoxins (spores released via the mold biomass). Alternatively, simple air samples (cheaper) are the easiest way to detect mold. However, both these tests might not be specific or evaluate your walls or building to a deeper level if it requires remediation (which requires further investigation and resources)—all these test samples and remediation are discussed in the practitioner course shared below.
The air sample testing does provide a snapshot, which can lead you to notify the landlord that there's a problem or, if your health problems are unbearable, give you the nail in the coffin to say goodbye.
The most essential detox for mold or mycotoxin exposure is to REMOVE yourself from the exposure.
I learned this firsthand. I was working in my dad's family antique business, where the basement was extremely damp, moldy, and old, and my dad thought it was optional. A mustardy smell lingered, and of course, working with my dad year after year, my health was rapidly declining.
Mold and mycotoxins were not on my health radar—I only realized this after working with my fifth nutritionist in my health quest, who said in passing, "Do you live or work in a water-damaged building?"
Mold and mycotoxins are not given much importance. But they're typically one of the many causes of modern human health struggles. The question lies in our health problems caused by mold/mycotoxins due to our poor health. It can also be a healthy stressor like a sauna or a problem due to our modern way of living 93% of our time indoors and using materials and appliances that are liable for water damage, creating the problem ourselves.
The problem with mold and mycotoxins lies in the middle.
Where I live, mold and sometimes mycotoxins are ubiquitous. I live in a jungle with intense storms. You can walk around my property and see mold growing, eating up dead plants and materials (remember, mold makes up 20% of the world's biomass). It's a recycling organism and part of how life works.) Food like coffee, beans, and chocolate naturally contain a fraction of mold - it's how they ferment and grow here within reason.
But it's deeply connected with the environment, so does it make sense that if you are healthy, with great solar light exposure (high redox), a little moldy chocolate or coffee is going to be a healthy hormetic stressor, but when you take this food to San Francisco or New York or London without the high redox from the tropics, that naturally moldy food can cause food sensitivities and mycotoxin problems. This falls into the importance of eating locally and seasonally, so antioxidants should always be localized as they are entangled with your biology.
Nowadays, clinically using functional labs and a more detailed clinical assessment (I usually detect this in the onboarding phase with clients, I include an evaluation for each client to do the VCS or Visual Sensitivity Test. While the test is not 100% accurate, I have acquired some patterns. It provides decent data for little time and zero money.
The VCS test is a crucial first step in identifying potential mycotoxin exposure. It's not a perfect solution, but it provides initial data to guide further assessment. Understanding your personal health needs is key to effective treatment.
What are mycotoxins?
There are two things to know here. Mold is the organism, and mycotoxins are the spores of the organism. Mold is living and seeks to grow, which means it wants to spread its terror by looking for material. As a byproduct of its metabolism, mold secretes compounds that enter the atmosphere and, thus, our lungs. These include spores, spore fragments, mycotoxins, chemicals, volatile organic compounds, and aldehydes.
When we breathe these compounds in, we have a built-in potential detoxification mechanism. However, there is a limit and personal variation on how well or poorly that works.
The spores released by mold break down into fragments, and these fragments make mycotoxin. This is the main route of our exposure to mycotoxin in the air we breathe from our environment.
We consume various foods containing mycotoxins, typically cereals, grains, and milk.
Mold and mycotoxin exposure occur mostly indoors. The main culprit of our mycotoxins issue is that we spend 93% of our time indoors, creating our own problems with leaks, poor plumbing, air conditioning, ice makers, indoor pools, and condensation. However, we live in humid locations, coasts, and near water like lakes, rivers, or land with poor drainage.
Mold is very different from yeast—while they can interact with each other, they are like apples and oranges. Mold is multicellular, while yeast is single-cellular.
A mix of spores and fragments (mycotoxins) usually affects our body, and they have different reactions—spores large enough to trigger the immune response. In contrast, fragments are not recognized but still contribute to health effects over time.
Every one of us responds to mold or mycotoxins differently. This can depend on several factors, such as our age, gender, microbiome (gut, lung), liver, gallbladder, and digestive health, use of antibiotics, predispositions (healthy or diseases), genetic variation in SNPs, vitamin D status, and also how leptin, melatonin, and melanin (POMC) work in our biology. In some clients, genetically (25% of the population), it might mean they cannot make the antibodies.
Symptoms of mold and mycotoxins.
Mycotoxins seep their way through our lungs and circulation system, move around, and typically end up in our fatty tissue (adipocyte), disrupting leptin biology. This impacts the POMC system by altering aMSG, hormonal system—TRH (Thyroid releasing hormone) and ACTH (Adrenal cortisol releasing hormone) inflammatory hormones like VIP impacting the gut, causing pain and then leading to the cell danger response, then to chronic fatigue and becoming a sitting duck for more health issues on top.
You might have seen a conventional doctor, and they slapped a diagnosis on your head, such as fibromyalgia, or maybe mycotoxins have influenced your brain/nervous system. Hence, you have multiple sclerosis, musculoskeletal system fibromyalgia, gut irritable bowel syndrome, etc.
There is a cascade of events, but perhaps if we were truly healthy, it's a small natural environmental dose from some food, a jungle excursion, or a wood cabin for a night—the effects are non-existent. But if we live day in and day out in a damp basement flat with previous leaks that are hidden with new paint, then within a few months, we can be waking up to health issues.
Mycotoxin Testing
To test or not to test? This typically depends on the client's budget and location in the world. Sometimes, the information at the start does not change the clinical picture or trajectory. It will still warrant optimizing health, focusing on mycotoxins, with or without knowing the specific type or amount. Perhaps testing 6 months after working together would be more viable to see where we are. But this depends on the client's needs and budget.
There are 2-3 functional mycotoxin test options available. Limiting certain foods - e.g., grains and potentially provoking your body with a hot bath or sauna the day before releasing mycotoxins can be helpful, but this would be a personalized intervention.
How long do mycotoxins stay in your body?
This depends on how healthy you are and the plan of action regarding remediation of the environment or removing yourself from it; the clinical health optimization program I take with clients with improving their cellular redox (health), their leptin signaling, gut health with liver detoxification + kidney support, vascular and circulatory system, and other lifestyle practices like sweating and sunlight exposure.
Depending on the degree of exposure, my clients require around 6-18 months of commitment. If there is a colonization, this can take longer, but this is highly personalized.
How to heal your body from mycotoxins
There is a consensus in the mold/mycotoxin practitioner sphere that we should take binders to grab and pull out the offending mycotoxin from our gut and liver axis. Multiple binder options include activated charcoal, spirulina, modified pectin, glucomannan, zeolite, medications like cholestyramine, alcohol, or the more holistic approach of eating vegetables such as okra, cauliflower, and carrots.
The goal of any mycotoxin program is always to treat the client, not the test results. Some clients will hit a wall with the smallest binder dose, and others can handle it.
Some mold specialists would make out their specific binders for specific mycotoxins, but this is based on weak research papers. Certain mycotoxins can impact the body in different organs, such as the brain, from Gliotoxin or ochratoxin to the liver and kidney.
I can never stress this enough with clients or potential clients who come to me for mold mycotoxin issues.
The fundamental approach is always about building optimal health. This directly improves overall health, and improving your weakest links will enhance your capacity to repair, regenerate, and thrive.
Detoxing mycotoxins should not be thought of as a six-week program or cleanse. Working on their health comes first for my clients (yes, we naturally focus on mycotoxins). However, their regeneration is massive in 12 months. Going AWOL at mycotoxins makes you lose sight of the number one factor—pro-moving good health, and your body will look after you.
Starter pack for dealing with mold exposure:
— Live Vitae 🌞💧🧲 (@livevitaeuk) October 6, 2024
1. First, remove yourself from the environment. Optionally, work with a clinician to avoid spending hundreds of hours researching and thousands of dollars.
2. Focus on achieving optimal health, as it will make the process easier.
3.…
By focusing on optimal health, you naturally support your hypothalamic pituitary thyroid adrenal axis, which helps you feel better each day, improves your resilience, and increases your capacity to produce melatonin, a sign of mitochondrial health.
There is no one-size-fits-all mycotoxin protocol.
What it typically looks like is this:
A binder
Take vitamin C / NAC
Maybe Bitters, TUDCA, Milk Thistle
Magnesium citrate
Coffee enemas, sauna therapy, etc.
In addition to personal variation with gut health and wanting to eat healthier, it becomes a mind field. If a female menstruation variation impacts oxalates, lectins, yeasts (candida), and our stress response, mast cell activation creeps in.
This explains the long list of symptoms attached to mycotoxins and mold. Depending on personal variation, symptoms can be dynamic and complex because they can persist in our peripheral organs.
I have seen mycotoxins affect the skin of clients with eczema, in male clients with a lack of libido and inability to gain muscle and weight, in some concentration, memory going awol due to dopamine, persistent food sensitivities, intolerances and digestive issues like bloating and gas due to the immune system.
Mycotoxins can create apoptosis in our intestinal epithelial cells, deplete glutathione and thus turn off our antioxidant response element, alter iron physiology and how we transport and utilize oxygen, hence disrupting mitochondrial health, causing mitochondrial damage, and impairing and changing how proteins work, affecting RNA, DNA, actin, myosin, immunoglobulins, albumin, and hemoglobulin.
This leads to inhibiting our innate host defense, blocking our antibody-producing cells, disturbing our gut microbiome, and compromising the barrier integrity of our endothelial cells, which are not just based in the gut but also in our lungs, vascular system, brain, and everywhere else.
The opening up of increased permeability, whether in the gut or not, increases endotoxins, which impact our immune system and disturb the controlling nervous and hormonal systems by disinvesting in optimization and placing the body in a cell danger response, which protects the body but at the cost of down-regulating metabolism.
A qualified and advanced nutritionist like me or naturopaths typically work with mold/mycotoxin-impacted clients on the frontline. Those who are well-read and use nuance in their approach or even taking an accredited mold/mycotoxin course, such as Dr Jill Crista, would have more wisdom. Additionally, personal experience teaches us valuable lessons which, from my journey, have been through and come out to the other end. I went too hard, focussing on the "protocol." However, my issues around mold/mycotoxins disappeared only when I focussed on building resilience and optimal health.
Evidence-based medicine might be too uptight regarding personalized nutrition with clients who require support and delicate adjustments to their diet, routines, and lifestyle. A recent PubMed study stated that mycotoxins can contribute to chronic fatigue caused by fireworks, with many comments and pushbacks.
How do you find a clinician with mold experience?
Working one-on-one with a respected clinician with experience working with mycotoxins and mold is key. Ask them about client successes or any further education they have acquired in their clinical practice. In addition to my personal experience and the hundreds of clients I have worked with in the last 10 years, I have read several books and completed many courses relating to mycotoxins/mold.
You can work with me directly as a client to restore your health, resolve mold/mycotoxins disturbing your body, and get back to thriving for good. Find out more about how to work with me HERE.
For practitioners, I highly recommend that you further educate yourself in the mold literature and explore how mycotoxins can affect your clients. Dr Jill Crista's course is the best for mold/mycotoxin training. You can find out more about enrolling HERE. You can get a 10% discount off the course when using the code LV10.
In addition, Dr. Jill Crista does have a public course to explore, but I would still recommend working with a clinician for personal, in-depth advice.
Dealing with a mold exposure?
In unfavorable circumstances, when you cannot move, there are strategies at your disposal.
Invest in an air filter which is HEPA. I recommend this one from Amazing Air LINK This automatically provides a £100 off discount at checkout.
Ventilation: Keep the windows open to circulate the air.
Check the humidity. An air humidifier can help prevent and slow down the growth.
If you have pinpointed the room of exposure, spend minimal time there. For example, if it is a bedroom, move it to another room if possible.
Closing remarks:
You should not wing it when it comes to mold or mycotoxins. Gathering generic health advice on social media is never going to cut yourself free and truly revolutionise your health. As I have been there, I know this person or protocol is the answer. Learn from my mistakes. Working with a mentor or coach in a personalized fashion is going to remove the noise, save you time and energy, and prevent you from continuously exploring and going down rabbit holes.
Take action if you're a clinician interested in learning more about mold and mycotoxins with your clients in the clinic. If you have a number of symptoms, your history is tainted with water-damaged buildings, or you've had deliberating health for a number of years and explored many avenues, then think about how you might need support exploring this with a clinician with the experience of being a mold/mycotoxin accredited.
References:
https://www.bmscat.com/blog/equipment-safety-precautions-used-in-water-removal/
https://jenkinsrestorations.com/how-to-prevent-mold-after-water-damage/
Break the Mold: 5 Tools to Conquer Mold and Take Back Your Health – September 24, 2018 by Dr Crista.
Mold Warriors: Fighting America's Hidden Health Threat – April 1, 2005 by Ritchie C. Shoemaker