Is Mould Making You Sick?

Until recently, the health dangers of mould have often been overlooked. Moulds emit some of the most prevalent toxins into the environment, frequently without arousing suspicion. If you’ve been searching for answers to your health issues, it’s worth considering whether mould might be a factor.

In this article, you’ll learn more about moulds, the mycotoxins they emit and how they may be affecting your health. Read on to also learn about ways to avoid moulds and how to identify whether they might be an issue for you.

How Can Mould Affect Health?

Moulds are types of fungi. They live on damp surfaces because they need warmth and moisture to thrive. They often colonise kitchen appliances, walls, fabrics, furniture, carpets, behind wallpaper, and even food – the list goes on.

You’re probably picturing the unsightly black mould that loves to live in your bathroom, but some mould is invisible to the naked eye.

Many types of moulds emit equally invisible chemicals known as mycotoxins. These float off into the air waiting to be inhaled. When these chemicals access your bloodstream, they travel around your body where they can cause health issues.

Mycotoxins affect the kidneys, liver, digestive system, nerves, and immune system. They can even damage your DNA and reduce the amount of energy produced by your body’s cells.

Because of this, they may cause a whole range of symptoms without any obvious cause.

In other words, mould inside your home can have a major effect on your health.

Are Mycotoxins Found in Food?

Food is an often-overlooked source of mould and mycotoxins. Moulds often live on grains and seeds, especially those stored for long periods. So, dried fruits, sugar, coffee, herbs and spices, processed meats, hard cheeses, nuts, and mushrooms often contain mycotoxins.

When you eat these foods, you’ll ingest the moulds and their toxins. However, animals eating these crops will do so, too. Therefore, mycotoxins will be present in their meat or milk. Mycotoxins are heat resistant and very stable, so they aren’t destroyed by food processing. What’s more, you can’t smell or taste them, and you won’t be able to see them either.

The amount of mycotoxins in foodstuffs is not inconsiderable. According to official statistics, around 25% of the world’s crops contain mycotoxins (1). Mycotoxins can be an unsuspected cause of food poisoning.

Avoiding foods with mycotoxins can be challenging, but knowing which foods typically don’t harbour mycotoxins can be helpful. These include berry fruits, grass-fed (rather than grain-fed) meat and poultry, wild-caught oily fish, leafy green vegetables, and starchy veg.

Eating food as fresh as possible can help, too, as can avoiding storing food for lengthy periods.

What are the Symptoms of Mycotoxin Exposure?

Some of the wide-ranging symptoms of mycotoxin exposure include:

Respiratory issues like cough, throat irritation, shortness of breath, wheezing, asthma, and nasal irritation
Cardiovascular issues
Joint problems, and muscle cramps and pain
Headaches
Digestive issues, including bloating, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, inflammatory bowel disease and colitis
Skin problems like eczema, itching, or redness
Fatigue
Headaches
Eye problems
Anxiety, low mood, irritability, brain fog and problems concentrating
Food intolerances
Allergies
Unexplained fluctuations in weight
Numbness, tingling
Metallic taste in the mouth
Vertigo, dizziness, or tinnitus
Excessive thirst
Poor immunity and frequent infections

Mycotoxin Overload

Mycotoxin overload disrupts immune system function and can encourage chronic inflammation in your body. This is linked to the development of many chronic diseases.

Mycotoxins can affect both energy production and the digestive microbiome, as well as immune health. Therefore, they’re implicated in chronic diseases as widespread as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and a raft of auto-immune diseases. Mycotoxins have a significant adverse effect on nerves and the brain. This means they can be a factor in degenerative brain issues like Alzheimer’s and dementia.

What Happens to Mycotoxins in the Body?

In an ideal world, your body would process and expel mycotoxins. However, sometimes it isn’t very efficient at doing this, perhaps due to a genetic predisposition, a compromised immune system or an overload of toxic metals. In this case, mycotoxins can build up in the body and cause many of the health issues mentioned above.

You can encourage your body to detoxify mycotoxins more effectively by eating plenty of onions, garlic, ginger and turmeric, alongside cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, and cabbage. Our expert nutritionist can advise further on the types of foods and supplements that can support detoxification and elimination of mycotoxins.

How to Deal With Mould

If you can see visible black mould in your home, you know you’re being exposed to mycotoxins. But don’t forget the culprits are often invisible. It’s crucial to address any damp areas in your home, encourage air circulation and clean off visible mould with white vinegar. Don’t use bleach – this simply removes the black colour but doesn’t kill the mould. And because they’re stressed out by the application of bleach, the moulds will react by releasing additional mycotoxins.

If mould is an issue for you, a specialist mould remedial service might be needed to completely remove it and prevent it from coming back.

Help and Support to Detect and Manage Mycotoxins

So, you may have been trying to discover the causes of your symptoms without success. Maybe you’ve noticed your symptoms have worsened following water damage to your home, or they flare up during damp weather. The answer might lie in moulds and mycotoxins.

But how would you know whether they are affecting you? With such an array of possible symptoms, diagnosis of mycotoxin overload from symptoms alone is tricky. This is where functional testing comes in. A Mycotoxin Mould Panel can detect 16 possible mycotoxins by analysing a sample of your urine.

If your health picture is complex, you might find the test is more helpful when it’s interpreted by one of our expert practitioners. However, if you are confident you can act on the results yourself, we also offer the test without interpretation.

Help find the missing pieces of your jigsaw puzzle of good health. Start your health journey by booking an Integrative Health Assessment today.