You’re exposed to mold every day. Whether you’re outside, at home, at work, or in your car, you’re constantly exposed to mold, and your immune system is constantly fending off the physiological damage that mold toxins, or mycotoxins, can cause in your body. This might be surprising, because in most cases you can’t see, or smell, the mold that you’re exposed to, even if you’re vigilant about avoidance.
The good news is that humans have coexisted with mold, a type of fungi, for all of human history, and so our immune systems have accordingly developed to be quite effective at neutralizing the damage that mycotoxins can otherwise cause.
The bad news is that, as society has evolved—as we’ve developed technology, over millennia, to create increasingly comfortable environments to live and work in—we now spend most of our time in unnatural environments that are effectively sealed, that create conditions that allow mold to grow unchecked, and our immune systems haven’t kept pace with the increasing threat that mold presents to human health.
To be clear, mold in its natural environment, such as a forest, rarely presents a threat to the human immune system. But in an unnatural environment, such as a building with modern construction materials and poor ventilation, mold can proliferate without the natural checks and balances of an ecosystem, and can significantly compromise health.
That’s not to say that we should all give up the comforts of modern existence and go back to living in trees. Or that we should all wear hazmat suits if we’re spending any amount of time inside.
I think that the best approach is to develop awareness of how mold affects the body, what the most common symptoms are, how to test for mold toxicity, and what you can do to recover, if exposed.
Let’s start with how mold affects the body.
How mold exposure can compromise your health
How your body reacts to mold exposure depends on a number of factors, including duration of exposure, amount of exposure, the particular species of mold, your immune function, your genetic predisposition, and your overall health. All of these factors together influence whether you will experience no reaction, an allergic reaction, or, at the extreme, a chronic inflammatory reaction, which is referred to as mold toxicity.
In an allergic reaction, your immune system reacts acutely to species of mold that you have an allergy to, and you experience acute symptoms that are typical of other allergies, such as sinus congestion, runny nose, post-nasal drip, itchy eyes, nose, and throat, sneezing, coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. An allergic reaction to mold typically lasts for as long as you’re exposed to the mold that caused the reaction, and, as with other allergies, your symptoms often resolve after you either leave the offending environment or address the source of exposure.
In a chronic inflammatory reaction, on the other hand, your immune system reacts to mycotoxins, or the toxins produced by mold, instead of the mold itself. The reaction to mycotoxins causes inflammation throughout your body, in tissues, organs, and systems, that becomes chronic, and you experience chronic symptoms that can range from bothersome to debilitating, such as fatigue, joint pain, cognitive impairment, anxiety, fear, anger, irritability, depression, heart palpitations, cold extremities, weight gain, vertigo, insomnia, and headaches.1 2 In contrast to an allergic reaction to mold, a chronic inflammatory reaction to mycotoxins, and the resulting symptoms, can persist even after you’ve addressed the source of exposure, making mold toxicity particularly difficult to recover from.
But it’s not impossible to recover from mold toxicity. The process of recovery might be more difficult than that of most diet- and lifestyle-driven chronic conditions, but if the right steps are taken, in the right order, recovering from mold toxicity is within reach for most people, however debilitating their symptoms might be.
How to test for mold toxicity
The first step to recover from mold toxicity, of course, is to establish that your chronic symptoms are caused by mold toxicity, and not some other factor that can cause the same symptoms. The most common symptoms of mold toxicity, such as fatigue, joint pain, anxiety, and depression, are also common symptoms of other conditions, such as Lyme disease.
And, to make things more complicated, it’s certainly possible to have multiple chronic conditions at the same time. You could have both mold toxicity and Lyme disease, in which case identifying the primary cause of your symptoms, with absolute certainty, becomes tricky.
That said, if you have chronic symptoms that are consistent with mold toxicity, and you have even the slightest suspicion that mold exposure could be compromising your health, it’s important to test both your body, for mycotoxins, and your environment, for mold, to evaluate whether mold is indeed a factor that you should focus on. It’s also important to test for other factors that can cause the same symptoms—Lyme disease, in this case—to know what you’re up against. But identifying and addressing mold toxicity should almost always be prioritized over other conditions that can cause the same symptoms, given the significant extent to which mold toxicity can dysregulate immune function and compromise health.3
Lyme disease, for example, is often more difficult to address if mold toxicity isn’t addressed first. So if you have both mold toxicity and Lyme disease, but you only test for Lyme disease, and therefore only focus on addressing Lyme disease, your journey to recovery is likely to take longer than it would if you focused first on mold toxicity.
Urinary mycotoxins test
To evaluate your exposure to mold, you can conduct a urinary mycotoxins test, which involves collecting a urine sample in a sterile container included in the mycotoxins test kit, and sending the test kit to the lab for analysis. The test measures mycotoxins from mold genera, such as Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, and Stachybotrys, that are commonly implicated in the development of chronic illness.4 Just as toxic metals and chemicals that you’re exposed to are excreted in the urine, as a normal process of detoxification, mycotoxins are also excreted in the urine, and can be measured to evaluate exposure to mold.
At-home sample collection also makes it easy to conduct the test multiple times over the course of your recovery, which is not only helpful for determining the effectiveness of your recovery strategy, but it’s also profoundly motivating to get test results that validate that your efforts are working, as you take steps to decrease your exposure to mold and increase detoxification of mycotoxins.
Environmental mold test
If the results of your mycotoxins test show abnormal levels of mycotoxins, indicating probable mold toxicity, it’s important to conduct an environmental mold test, such as the environmental relative moldiness index (ERMI), to evaluate the source of mold exposure. The primary source of exposure, for most people, is mold in the home, given the disproportionate amount of time people spend at home, and that most residential buildings have inadequate ventilation systems and are built with materials that are conducive to mold colonization, such as drywall, fiberglass insulation, and fiberboard ceiling tiles.
The ERMI is a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) test to assess the presence and concentration of mold species in buildings. And like the mycotoxins test, collecting a sample for the ERMI is easy. Included in the ERMI test kit is a container that you use to collect dust samples from various areas of your home. Once you’ve collected samples that provide a representative sample of the dust in your home, you then send the test kit to the lab for analysis. If abnormal levels of mold species are identified on the ERMI, and the results of your mycotoxins test indicate mold toxicity, it may make sense to consult with a mold remediation specialist, for a comprehensive evaluation of your home, and to determine what the next steps are to address the source of exposure.
How to address mold toxicity
Recovering from mold toxicity, unfortunately, isn’t as straightforward as testing for it, given that mold toxicity affects everyone differently. The most effective recovery strategy should be personalized, based on your symptoms, medical history, and test results, but there are also a number of dietary, supplement, and lifestyle strategies that tend to be effective for most people, that could serve as a starting point.
Diet
Mycotoxins dysregulate immune function, and cause rampant inflammation throughout the body, which manifests as chronic symptoms, so it’s important to transition to a diet that doesn’t further promote inflammation.5 The standard American diet could be the worst, most inflammatory diet out there, and the further you can get from it, the better your likelihood of recovery.
The ancestral diet, or a diet consistent with that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors—consisting of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, meat, and fish—is perhaps the best dietary framework to adhere to, with just a few modifications to increase the effectiveness of the diet at promoting recovery from mold toxicity.
In addition to eliminating grains, legumes, dairy, refined sugar, and processed foods from your diet, to minimize exposure to foods that cause inflammation, certain foods that are susceptible to mold contamination, that are typically included in the ancestral diet, should also be avoided. These foods include dried fruits, corn, mushrooms, peanuts, cashews, brazil nuts, walnuts, and cacao.
Foods that are high in sugar content should be avoided, as well, because overconsumption of sugar contributes to fungal growth, impairs immune function, and can exacerbate symptoms. High-sugar foods include honey, maple syrup, pineapples, mangos, bananas, oranges, and grapes.
Supplements
Optimizing your diet, by eliminating foods that are inflammatory, contaminated with mold, and high in sugar content, is a precondition to recovery from mold toxicity, but a targeted supplement protocol can also be a significant catalyst for your recovery. Supplements that support immune function and promote detoxification of mycotoxins, in particular, should be prioritized over other supplements, due to the effect that mycotoxins have on the immune system and overall health.6
To support immune function, take vitamins and minerals that provide the raw materials necessary for the production and function of immune cells, such as vitamin D, vitamin K2, vitamin C, magnesium, zinc, and selenium, and immunomodulatory herbs, such as astragalus, cat’s claw, and schisandra berry.
To promote detoxification of mycotoxins, take compounds that bind to and transport mycotoxins out of the body, such as activated charcoal and bentonite clay, and amino acids and herbs that support liver function, such as NAC, glycine, and milk thistle.
Lifestyle
An often overlooked component of recovery from mold toxicity is lifestyle, which encompasses exercise, sleep, and stress reduction, perhaps because it’s more interesting, for most people, to focus on what they can consume. Eating new foods and taking new supplements can be exciting, and particularly when you experience symptom improvement, relatively quickly, that can be attributed to these foods and supplements. But exercise, sleep, and stress reduction are also important to your recovery, even if the benefits aren’t as obvious in the short term.
Exercise, for example, is necessary for promoting healthy circulation, which is necessary for lymph function, which in turn is necessary for both immune function and detoxification. Sleep, though seemingly uneventful, is a complex physiological process during which immune cells are rejuvenated and detoxification processes are upregulated. And stress reduction, whether it’s meditating, using a sauna, or spending time in nature, provides immeasurable benefit to the nervous system, which significantly influences the body’s capacity to fight infections, respond to antigens, and eliminate toxins. Implementing health-promoting lifestyle strategies should thus be considered a requirement for your recovery, creating a foundation for healthy physiology that ultimately makes your dietary and supplement strategies more effective.
Recovery is possible
Mold toxicity is complex and multifactorial. It’s not just about addressing the source of mold exposure, because the chronic inflammatory reaction and immune dysregulation caused by mycotoxins can persist even after you’ve addressed, or removed yourself from, the source of exposure. And it’s not just about implementing a dietary, supplement, and lifestyle strategy to reduce inflammation, support immune function, and promote detoxification of mycotoxins, because if you don’t also address the source of exposure, and you continue to be exposed, then your symptoms are unlikely to resolve. Recovery from mold toxicity requires being equally committed to all of the above, and maintaining your commitment even when the process gets difficult, which it inevitably will.
There’s no quick fix for mold toxicity; recovery takes months, even years, and requires substantial effort. But don’t let the amount of time and effort required dissuade you from starting your journey. Whether you’re just learning about mold toxicity, or you’ve been aware of it for a while, know that recovery is possible, if the right steps are taken, and that getting your life back is within reach.
If you suspect that mold exposure could be compromising your health, and you’re interested in investigating the possibility of mold toxicity, you can schedule a call to learn more about Quantify membership and how we can help you to resolve your symptoms and optimize your health.