Episode 295: Mold Toxicity: A Functional Approach
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
Mold. It's not always as straightforward as it seems, and its symptoms can mimic other conditions. It can be a hidden culprit behind various health issues, but it's not always easy to identify. From respiratory issues to brain fog, mold exposure can manifest in various ways.
In this episode, we're not just scratching the surface; we're exploring the ins and outs of how mold can affect our bodies and what we can do about it. Erin sits down with her Lead Practitioner, Rachel Mistry, to guide you through the process of identifying, understanding, and addressing mold exposure.
Rachel will be teaching an exclusive "Detox and Drainage" class in March for members of the Funk'tional Nutrition Collective. Join the Collective now to get access to the class!
In this episode:
Mold only affects some people, not all [10:32]
When to start thinking about mold toxicity (signs & symptoms) [16:33]
Humidity in the home: why it matters [22:48]
How to test your home if you suspect mold [30:02]
Mold treatment strategies [34:48]
Foods & supplements to support mold detox & drainage [47:01]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Collective
1:1 Functional Medicine Nutrition
Ned Natural Remedies (get 15% off your order with code FUNK)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Qualia Mind (get $100 off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with code FUNK)
Learn more about Functional Nutrition and Autoimmunity
Related episodes:
160: Mold, Lyme & Chronic Illness with Toréa Rodriguez
200: A Special 200th Episode: How it Started, How it’s Going & Answering Other Listener Questions
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
I'm Erin Holt, and this is The Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast, where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do. And that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect so I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school in mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same.
Erin Holt [00:00:44]:
This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment.
Erin Holt [00:00:58]:
I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review, and share, because you never know whose life you might change. And, of course, keep coming back for more.
Erin Holt [00:01:07]:
Okay. Yay. We're back, and I've got Rachel on with me, our Lead Practitioner. Hi, Rachel.
Rachel Mistry [00:01:19]:
Hey, Erin.
Erin Holt [00:01:20]:
And we're doing it. We are doing it. A mold episode. I've always been really hesitant to talk too, too much about mold on this show because it can scare people, myself included. It's one of those things that when I first was getting into functional medicine for my own health and first learning about functional medicine, it was like the options were unlimited with all of the different things that could be wrong with me. And mold was one of those big, scary things lurking in the corner. And it can be. It absolutely can be.
Erin Holt [00:01:50]:
And we want to kind of give you all the opportunity to help to assess and discern: is mold something that I should be concerned with? That's kind of like the nature of today's show. We're not building biologists. We're not mold experts. So we're going to talk a little bit more about this from a health perspective, like when to suspect mold, what to do about it, how to support your body, things like that. But I mean, we get quite a few clients in the clinic that are dealing with mold, and Rachel has a really good track record with getting them to feel better. So we wanted to bring this subject to light. You ready?
Rachel Mistry [00:02:30]:
I'm ready.
Erin Holt [00:02:31]:
All right. Also, I know that, I did. We recently purchased a lake house in Maine, not me and Rachel, my Scott and I. And we had some potential mold problems. We almost didn't buy it. And you know, I shared that story on Instagram, and a lot of people have been asking for updates, so I will kind of weave that into the conversation, too. Like where we netted out, we ended up purchasing the house, so I can kind of talk through how I made that decision. But even before we get into the nitty gritty of mold, we always believe in getting your health house in order first before doing deep dives on some of these more high level things like mold investigation.
Erin Holt [00:03:16]:
And as you'll learn, as Rachel talks, you'll see that a lot of mold reactions can overlap with a lot of other health conditions and a lot of other symptoms that might not be coming from mold. So, like, let's say you have a stuffy nose. Maybe it's mold, maybe it's something else. So if that is something that you're working on, just getting your health house in order, then we invite you into the Funk'tional Nutrition Collective, which is our annual subscription. You'll get access to all of our nutrition and functional medicine programs, including live classes and workshops every single month. If you like the podcast, you will absolutely love the Collective because it's a curated education portal, there's a lot of frameworks to follow, and you have a lot of support and resources. And it's just a really bitchin community for holistic health. So definitely join us there.
Erin Holt [00:04:06]:
I feel like everybody should be part of that Collective because it's just like, such a good vibe. But let's get into the mold. So, Rachel, you're our resident mold gal, so why don't you take it away?
Rachel Mistry [00:04:16]:
Thank you for that kind introduction. Basically, we see a lot, we see a lot of moldy patients in our practice, especially in my one to one work with patients. So we just wanted to share a little bit more information about it to spread awareness. The key thing to keep in mind is that mold produces mycotoxins. So we might refer to them as mycotoxins. We might refer to them as toxins on this call. But this is basically how mold protects itself. And these toxins are really inflammatory, and they can have really damaging effects on our health.
Rachel Mistry [00:04:57]:
And so keeping that in the back of our mind, we sometimes refer to mold as a master antigen because it can just elicit this really potent inflammatory response. It can create this chronic allergic reaction in the body. It can sensitize our mass cells, and overall, just like, can wreak havoc on our health in general.
Erin Holt [00:05:24]:
For somebody who might not be familiar with what a mast cell is. Can you just explain that a little bit, like, high level?
Rachel Mistry [00:05:31]:
Yes. So, mast cells, they're part of the immune system, really simplified. But mast cells, they can release a handful of different inflammatory compounds. One of them is histamine. So histamines can create a lot of those allergy type of reactions. And so we think about mass cells being involved in a lot of those allergic responses.
Erin Holt [00:05:54]:
Yeah. And that's why it's not uncommon to see a lot of histamine type symptoms and histamine reactions when somebody's dealing with a mold issue. So, speaking of symptoms, what are some symptoms that you would associate with mold illness or mold toxicity or just ongoing mold exposure?
Rachel Mistry [00:04:56]:
My disclaimer about this, too, is a lot of these symptoms can mimic other conditions, because mold is creating this generalized inflammation in the body. So a lot of people with mold or mycotoxin illness, they look normal. Respiratory conditions, whether that is like a post nasal drip, chronic stuffy nose, asthma, even respiratory issues, tingling fingers, brain fog, fatigue, nausea, headaches, skin related issues, whether that's like eczema or just like, hives, irritation, like, things that don't seem to totally make sense. Maybe there's no rhyme or reason. It's not like where you're at in your menstrual cycle. It really isn't influenced by what you ate or not. Mold and mycotoxin illness can be associated with autoimmune conditions. And then what I've seen a lot is weight gain or some of that weight loss resistance where patients are like, I don't know what happened. I just moved into this house.
Rachel Mistry [00:07:19]:
Nothing else changed, and I've gained 25 pounds in the last year. I'm eating the same, I'm moving my body. Stress is the same. And so sometimes those can be some context clues as well. Mycotoxins are neurotoxic, and so we can see issues with recall and memory cognition as well. Those can be a little bit more serious and gnarly, too.
Erin Holt [00:07:18]:
Yeah, like, that. The brain fog is a big one. Or just like, cognition. Feels kind of funky and clunky and slowed down like crazy headaches. I even had a friend who was dealing with bad mold stuff, and her neck got really stiff, too. So sometimes when you think about a stiff neck and headaches, you're immediately going to go to Lyme disease. I think kind of classic, but Lyme and mold have a lot of overlap in terms of symptoms. So that's why somebody can kind of just get stuck in this we'll talk about testing for all of this, and like you said, context clues.
Erin Holt [00:08:17]:
But some people can get stuck in this chronic loophole of, is it Lyme? Is it co-infections? Is it mold? And people just kind of get dumped into this category of all that stuff. That's not terribly uncommon to see unfortunately. I had mentioned the nose, but that is always a little red flag for me, because the mold can be colonized in the sinuses. And so if you just have ongoing sinus infections, you're just like, yeah, that's who I am. I'm just somebody who always gets sinus infections. Mold might be something to think about. There might be a situation, either you're getting exposed or you've had exposure in the past.
Erin Holt [00:09:06]:
So that's just something to think about. Right? Like how the mycotoxins can colonize in different parts of the body.
Rachel Mistry [00:09:11]:
And I've worked with some patients where we've had to do very specific nasal rinses and sprays to treat the mold that had colonized in their sinuses. There's testing for that as well, and swabs that you can use, and mold can also colonize in the respiratory tract. And I've even had patients with EOE, the eosinophilic esophagitis, where there was a big correlation. It turned on, basically when she was living in a home with water damage. And so by treating her for mold, she saw almost a complete resolution in her EOE. It's not always that simple. It took us a while to get there, but, yeah, it can colonize in the gut as well. Just lots of different parts of the body, too.
Erin Holt [00:09:51]:
And I think that's just a good clinical pearl for any of the practitioners listening, too. I'm sure just a lot of light bulbs went off for some practitioners. All right, so this is where I'm like, I get nervous about talking about this too much, because, again, if you have a propensity to be afraid or have a lot of health anxiety, a lot of health fear, the more we start to talk about this, the more you're like, the world is out to get me. My environment is out to get me. Nothing is safe. And I say that from a place of love, because that was a place that I occupied for a while, and I want to make it really clear that you can't avoid mold. Like it's in our environment. Mold, mildew, it's going to be in our environment. It's outside.
Erin Holt [00:10:32]:
And so the intention is not to just live in a bubble and avoid all mold all the time. But we also have to understand that for some people, it's problematic, and there's a certain percentage of the population where it's really more problematic than others. Can you speak into that a little bit?
Rachel Mistry [00:10:51]:
Yeah. So genetic susceptibility plays a big role in how responsive your body is going to be to mold. The thought is there's about 25% of the population that carries a gene that really impairs their ability to detoxify mold. And mold just creates this very intense reaction in their bodies. I was working with this patient where she was living in a house with, I think, five other family members, and she had these awful skin issues, awful migraines and headaches, and it ended up that she tested positive for mold. Nobody else in her home felt sick at all. And they were like, are you sure it's mold? Like, are your doctors, are your clinicians onto something? Are they valid? What's going on here? And she ended up like, the solution was she stayed at a family member's house for a week, and literally on day two of just getting out of the home, nothing else changed. Her migraines went away completely, and so everyone else in the home, totally fine.
Rachel Mistry [00:11:55]:
She was the only one affected. And it led to them remediating the home, treating the home, and she's so much better for it.
Rachel Mistry [00:12:02]:
But exactly what you said. Sometimes only a percentage of people are affected. So we start to question, are they making it up? Is this in my head? What is going on?
Erin Holt [00:12:14]:
And I think these are the people who get labeled as hypochondriacs or overly sensitive or you're making things up. It's not really that bad. And it's hard not to feel like you're going crazy, especially if you suspect mold. And you're like, I'm the only person that doesn't feel well here. And that's not always how it goes down. I'm thinking of a client who did move into a house, and we'll talk through context clues, like Rachel said, who did move into a house. And she experienced weight gain. That was, like, the big thing.
Erin Holt [00:12:45]:
Like, rapid, significant weight gain almost overnight. But her children experienced different symptoms. So everybody had these weird symptoms, and they were all different from each other. So that's like, another like, something's going on with the house. That's, like, another thing. And then I love how you said she left the house and her symptoms got better, because that's, like, a little quick and dirty if you're like, gosh, I don't really have the money right now to invest in a mold test or. I'm not really sure.
Erin Holt [00:13:17]:
We're always so conscientious of people's budgets with what test to run and that sort of thing. So it's kind of like a little quick and dirty way to test. If you remove yourself from the environment, your home or a workplace, and you feel better, hey, there's probably something going on in the environment, and that's something to be aware of. The other thing that I will say in addition to genetics, because if you are like, oh, gosh, what if I'm that 25%? Am I just screwed? We always want to take into account how full your bucket is. And by that I mean like, what other toxicants are you being exposed to? How are you eating? How are you sleeping? Are you moving? Are you drinking water? Are you getting sunlight? We always have to come back to the basics. Even with something like a mold illness, we still have to do the foundational building blocks to make sure that we're reducing your exposure to anything that's going to disrupt your immune system or just cause you to feel not so great. Like, that's still ground zero, even with mold.
Rachel Mistry [00:14:19]:
Absolutely.
Erin Holt [00:16:33]:
Okay, so, context clues. When do we start to think about mold toxicity? Because you and I both, we're not just starting to work with somebody and we're like, let's test for mold. This is not something that, everybody gets tested for mold all of the time. So when do we think about, gosh, this might be part of somebody's health problem?
Rachel Mistry [00:16:56]:
I would say it's always so important to complete a really thorough health history, because, like I mentioned, sometimes people do just move into a new home and they feel sick, or they start working in a new environment and they feel sick. It's not always that simple, though. We always want to think about what led up to their symptoms. Do they know that there's been exposure? Sometimes I'm asking my patients who present with a lot of skin issues or histamine issues or just recurrent infections, like, hey, do you have any knowledge of water damage in a home that you've lived in in the past or any issues with that? Did you live somewhere where there was, like, a lot of flooding or things along those lines? I have this patient who ended up being positive for mold. She was so positive, so certain that she didn't have mold in her home because her home was a new build. She's like, there's no possible way that there could be an issue here. And it turned out, I guess, when they were screwing in the towel rack, one of the screws went into a water pipe, not, like, burst it. But this very small, slow, gradual trickle in this new build led to this crazy mold overgrowth in her bathroom.
Rachel Mistry [00:18:13]:
And, yeah, it was just interesting. That's where testing can be really helpful. I also like to think about mold toxicity when people are not responding to treatment like we would have expected when we've ruled out other potential causes for their symptoms. Like you mentioned, they're doing the foundations, their diet's in a good space. Their gut is all cleaned up. They're eating low inflammatory diet. They're managing their stress. It's like, why is this not moving the needle like we would have hoped for?
Erin Holt [00:18:44]:
Yeah, and even you've done a lot of gut treatments on somebody or just things that aren't clear, they're not getting better. It just doesn't make sense. That's when you're kind of like, all right, we might need to look at the toxin mold thing now. I'm thinking of that same client who had the rapid weight gain, and that's why she started working with me. It's like, something's not right here. I'm eating really well. I'm moving my body. I'm exercising a lot.
Erin Holt [00:19:16]:
None of this is making sense. And she just kept gaining weight, and she was having a lot of blood pressure issues as well. And so she kind of went the whole conventional medicine route for the blood pressure, for the weight gain. She was, like, doing everything by the book when she came to me. We started with the usual suspects. We looked at diet, we looked at hormone stuff, we looked at thyroid stuff. We found something going on with her thyroid, but even with that, she was getting better, but not all the way. She started working with a naturopath to get on thyroid prescription medication, and still nothing moved.
Erin Holt [00:19:52]:
And it was at that point that I'm like, so should we have the mold conversation now? And she's like, well, funny you should say that, because. And then that's when it kind of started to come out that there was mold exposure. She had just moved houses, so she was in a really good place to do this because she wasn't still living in the mold, and that was, like, the next step. So we kind of covered all of the basics, and she was doing everything right, and it was like months of her doing things right, and we just knew that there was something else going on. So I feel like that's when kind of mold can swoop in.
Rachel Mistry [00:20:29]:
Oh, definitely. And at the same time, we always want to keep in mind what's going on with temperature. Where are they geographically located? Is humidity an issue? My former clinic had a location in Florida. Florida. I mean, there's hurricanes. There's so much humidity, so much moisture. Also, people like living in Hawaii. We saw just a lot more positive mold tests when I had a heavy Florida patient base, just because of the environment.
Rachel Mistry [00:20:56]:
So that's always something to keep in mind, too.
Erin Holt [00:20:59]:
Yeah, and that's interesting that you bring that up, because that's essentially the issue that we ran into with the lake house. So we have been on the look for a lake house. We wanted it right on the water. And anything by the water, there's going to be potentially more moisture. And this is Maine. There's a lot of moss. Can you picture it? There's, like, pine cones and moss. And you're on the lake, it can be damp.
Erin Holt [00:21:25]:
And when you walked downstairs, there's a finished basement. When you walked downstairs, there was, like, a little smell. I've got a nose. They call me the hound dog. And I was like, that's a little bit of a musty smell. And everyone was like, it's a basement by a lake, it's going to be musty. But I'm like, I'm not trying to buy a house with a mold problem because of the work that we do.
Erin Holt [00:21:47]:
Number one, I'm not trying to have ongoing health problems or give them to my family. But number two, mold remediation is not inexpensive. So I just didn't want to take on that project. We're not project people. Okay? If a light bulb goes out in my house, I'm like, I guess we'll just never use that light again. We're not project people. So I was not trying to get a house that had this huge project. So the first thing that we did was to do an ERMI test.
Erin Holt [00:22:17]:
And we'll talk about testing and stuff, because there's different ways to test. You can test the building, but then you can also test your body. So we'll talk about both of those. So I did an ERMI test to test the building. That came back pretty atrocious. It was, like, very bad. I was about to walk and say no, but I kind of did the ERMI test wrong, where you're not supposed to do window sills, because if windows are open, of course there's mold species from outside, and they can kind of, like, get on the windows. Didn't know that I did it wrong.
Erin Holt [00:22:48]:
But then we had an actual mold inspector come in, and he tested everything outside, inside, up, down, left and right, and it was pretty fine. There was more mold in the basement, but it matched the exact species as outside. But the issue was the humidity, because there was no humidity control. So the humidity was at 70% down in the basement, which is like prime mold real estate. And so the recommendation is that you want your humidity in your house under 60%. Ideally, it's actually, like 30% to 50%. So that's just something to be aware of. There's a lot of the temperature gauges in the house.
Erin Holt [00:23:33]:
What are they called? That's it. That's what we call them. But some of the new ones actually will tell you the percentage, like the humidity percent in your house. And that's something to just be aware of. And if you know that your basement tends to hold on to moisture, and I'm not talking about overt flooding or anything like that, because that's a horse of a different color, but if you know that your basement or any rooms in your house hold on to moisture, take that pretty seriously. What we ended up doing is getting a really heavy duty dehumidifier. It was, like, $1,000 humidifier. It was, like, professional grade.
Erin Holt [00:24:09]:
I'll actually link up the exact one because it came from a mold professional is who recommended it. So I'll link that up. And once we installed that, it was like a dream. It's dry as a bone down there. So the humidity in your house absolutely can create kind of, like, a moldy situation. So something to be aware of. And that's, like, a pretty easy fix, too, when we start talking about mold behind sheet rock and burst pipes and flooding and stuff. Yikes.
Erin Holt [00:24:41]:
But sometimes it's a really easy fix. Just get a really solid dehumidifier.
Rachel Mistry [00:24:47]:
Even run the fans in your bathroom for longer than you think, too. After a shower, that can be so easy. I feel like a lot of people, they shower in a bathroom that's attached to their bedroom. They shower, they turn the lights off, and then they leave for the day. And it's like you're just fostering an environment for that to kind of grow. And that can be another clue, right? Like, do you spend time in a home or an office with dampness problems? Do you see obvious mold in your shower or under the sink? Start by just turning the fan on, cleaning the bathroom if possible, if it's realistic, and then keep your eye on things. Like, I can share. My sophomore year of college, we didn't know any better.
Rachel Mistry [00:25:27]:
My roommates and I, we lived in a home where we had a shared bedroom. And the wall that our beds were pressed up against, that our pillows were up against every night in the winter months just got a little, like, damp. It got a little weird. That was probably a little too obvious, knowing what I know now. And I had a textbook on my desk that was pressed really close to the window. And after the winter months ended, the pages of my book were, like, rippled. It was so damp in there that the pages rippled. Or do you know what Rainbow sandals are? The leather flip flops.
Rachel Mistry [00:26:05]:
They're big. My Rainbow sandals were pressed up under my desk almost to the wall over the winter, and they looked like they had been, like, wet all, like, probably not a good idea for us to be sleeping next to that. And it was crazy, because reflecting back, that's the year that my allergies got so much worse. And I just attributed that to in San Luis Obispo, everyone's like, oh, the allergies. Allergens are so bad here. I'm like, it must be California. No, it was probably mold. We never tested that home, but yeah.
Erin Holt [00:26:36]:
We lived across the street from the beach, this is the house that I was pregnant in. So, like, nine years ago, we moved out. So it's like a beach house, right? Like, salty air all the time. When we moved out, I went into the back of my closet and pulled out my old shoes. There was, like, leather shoes, and they had growth on them. And we pulled up the. And I didn't know about, like, at this point, I was like, oh, this is crazy. But I wasn't like, this is really bad.
Erin Holt [00:27:02]:
But I pulled up the rug in our bedroom, and it literally had just, like, mildew all underneath it. Yeah, this is happening to us, so it's probably happening to a lot of people, too. So it's just something to be aware of and conscientious of. And there are certain things you can do to clean, and then there's certain things that probably a little bit more intense than that. And I think that mold is not always visible either. And I had a client who was really sick and a lot of histamine issues, a lot of autoimmune issues, and just kind of struck me as a moldy gal. And so she communicated this with her husband. She lived in an old house, and he brought in somebody who he knew that just came in and looked around and was like, no mold here.
Erin Holt [00:28:03]:
But because of her symptoms, we kind of persisted. Like, let's actually do a mycotox test. Let's actually get the home tested with an ERMI test to start. And sure enough, there was mold everywhere. So you can't always see it, which is like, that's another thing that kind of can pour gasoline on the health anxiety fears, because you can definitely start to be like, oh, my God, it could be here. But it's an important thing to note. You don't always see visible mold growth, but what would be primary signs? Like, how would you know to suspect mold growth in your home? What are the more obvious signs?
Rachel Mistry [00:28:41]:
Definitely, like, condensation on surfaces or structures like windows or walls, kind of like I mentioned. Of course, visible mold. I say a moldy odor, but it's not always that obvious. Like, some clues. Some people who are a little bit more sensitive, they will smell their towel after it's only been used once or twice. It's been in the bathroom, like, air drying, as it should be, and they smell it and they're like, this just smells very mildewy. That's not always 100% of the time indicative that your home has mold, but it can be kind of a context clue that we'll look for. If your A/C isn't maintained regularly, that can be a risk factor.
Rachel Mistry [00:29:21]:
Or just like, the very basics of histories of water damage, whether that's leaks on the outside, a wet basement, or, like, a musty smelling basement, leaking plumbing. Like, sometimes people will rent a place. They're like, oh, yeah, there's that weird spot in the corner of my room that's a little brown. Maybe we should get that looked into also.
Erin Holt [00:29:41]:
Yeah. And this isn't something just. We had one of those weird spots. We had a leak in our roof a few years ago, so we got a whole new roof. But I had insurance. Like, an insurance guy come in and he was looked up and he's like, yeah, there's nothing we're going to do about a spot on the wall. So this isn't always stuff that's covered by insurance either. This is like, when it can start to get it to get expensive, which is fun.
Erin Holt [00:30:02]:
So if you suspect mold, maybe you have some of those symptoms or those signs, and maybe there's some sketchy spots that you see in your house. What are ways that you can test the home?
Rachel Mistry [00:30:13]:
So I know you mentioned the ERMI. The ERMI can be great. And the disclaimer with the ERMI is typically, if you are testing every room or each room that you use, you need a different ERMI cloth for it. If you go and wipe around every single room with a single ERMI cloth and it comes back positive, we won't know which one it is. What room is a concern? So ERMIs can be great immunolytics. They make, like, a culture that you can do. I want to clarify, this is not, like, the gold standard way to assess for mold, but this can be a little bit more budget friendly, low cost way just to see you send it off to the lab. They send you an interpretation just to rule out, do we want to take this a step further? Maybe have a building biologist come in or like a professional.
Rachel Mistry [00:31:01]:
And if there is a real concern about the mold, that's where I'm recommending a building biologist, like, bring a professional in to figure out what needs to happen, what is going on.
Erin Holt [00:31:12]:
And if this is something you guys are interested in, please DM us and let us know, because we can bring on a building biologist, we can bring on somebody who kind of specializes in this. We're going to now transition more into what to do for your body because that's our wheelhouse. But if you want to learn more about all of this, just let us know and we can absolutely bring somebody on. So that was how to test for the home. What are your favorite ways to test the body? And actually, let me back up a step. What do you prefer to start with? If you're working with a client and you're like, I think there might be mold. Do you start by testing the house, or do you start by testing the human?
Rachel Mistry [00:31:52]:
I'm a fan of testing the human from the perspective of, like, let's get some clinical data before you might spend an upwards of $1,000 to have a professional come out and look at your home. And it depends on a case by case basis. So, like we spoke about, if our patients need to work a lot on the you know, we need their gut health in check, we need a lot of systems working well before we can begin a mold detox plan. We'll typically start with testing there. But there's a screening tool that I'll use sometimes. It's from Shoemaker. He has a lot of great mold treatment protocols and education that he's created. It's called the VCS test.
Rachel Mistry [00:32:35]:
It's a visual contrast sensitivity test. And you do it online, it's relatively cheap. I want to tell you it's like $25-30. I do want to clarify, it's not mold specific. So if you fail the test, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have mold. It means that there's a high likelihood that you have this chronic inflammatory response syndrome. And so if you fail that, and I'm on the fence about do we want to test? A failed test can lead us to further testing. And that's where I use a lot of the mycotox profile in our clinical work with patients.
Rachel Mistry [00:33:15]:
It's through Mosaic Diagnostics. It's a urine test. So this is actually looking at what is the body excreting and detoxifying actively. So we always kind of interpret those test results with a grain of salt, knowing what's going on in their health history. And I should mention, it's really important to know if someone suspects mold. If we are pretty positive they do have mycotoxin illness, it's really important to know what species of mold you might be affected by so that can guide treatment.
Erin Holt [00:33:43]:
Yeah. This client of mine ended up going to work with a naturopath, and the naturopath heard mold and immediately put her on a binder, which is not a bad idea, especially when you don't have more data. But I'm like, because you have the test to back up and show what specific strains or species, or I guess, is that what they're called, species of mycotoxins. Because we have that data, we want to use it to our advantage because certain. It's just important if you can afford a test, if you're working with a practitioner, that's really good, helpful information to know, because then the practitioner can direct the treatment based on what's actually in your body and help to get it out. So with that said, and also one of my mentors, this is, like, so many years ago, but he said, and I quote, the only go to that I have for mold is Ritchie Shoemaker. Everything else is flaky and don't. It's like one of those things that's always stuck in my, like, his website is very robust, and that's where you can get that test.
Erin Holt [00:34:48]:
We'll make sure to link it up in the show notes. I will say kind of what Rachel said. Years ago, I did that test when I just had a lot of health stuff going on and I failed it. It wasn't because I had mold. I just had so much going on that my body was like help help. So, it doesn't, it's not like, proof positive that you have mold, but it's a good indication that you should do some further investigative research on what's going on with you, for sure.
Erin Holt [00:37:41]:
So let's talk treatment strategies. If somebody's dealing with mold, what do we do?
Rachel Mistry [00:37:48]:
We know that we can reverse the changes caused by mycotoxin illness. But with that being said, the earlier we catch it, the better. Kind of like if you're living in a moldy environment for a month versus five years, you're just going to have more inflammation. It's going to deplete your nutrients. It's going to be harsher on your liver for longer. First and foremost, in order to really treat the root cause, we need to treat the exposure. We need to get you out of the home or remediate the home. We need to address the environment first and foremost.
Erin Holt [00:35:19]:
Totally. It's like the same. You can't heal in the same environment that you got sick. I've said that 100 times if I've said it once. But I also want to say, we'll focus on the mold thing here. But I've worked with enough people to say that that goes for all environments. It's not just the house. Also, think about what's your lived situation in that house.
Erin Holt [00:38:40]:
This includes relationships or perhaps, like, workplace, career. Sometimes a lot of people get exposed to mold, and they're perfectly fine. Some people live in a very moldy house, and they're healthy as an ox. So we also want to think about other things that could be contributing to it. My mom, I've told this story before. She had chronic Lyme. She was in a wheelchair. She was bedridden for years.
Erin Holt [00:39:06]:
She left a marriage, and poof, she got a lot better. So these things are things to be explored. And I say that because I think the type of people or the people that we see with chronic, ongoing health challenges, sometimes it's as simple as, like, I'm living in a moldy house. We get rid of the mold or we move, and everything gets better. If that's not the case for you, if you've been doing all of these strategies, if you've done all of these things, there might be something deeper going on. One of my mentors said that the energy of mold is kind of like old, stagnant stuff. And this is obviously very anecdotal and personal to me. This summer, I was dealing with a lot of super weird health things.
Erin Holt [00:39:52]:
It didn't make sense. It was really weird. I couldn't figure it out. And I had the issue with the lake house. I was like, oh, that's like a moldy thing. What's up? And then, like you said, the A/Cs, one of our A/Cs hadn't been cleaned, and it smelled like mold. I was like, get that thing out of here. And then I looked in my washing machine, which is a front loader washer, which are very mold prone.
Erin Holt [00:40:13]:
But we've had it for nine years. We've never had an issue. It was, like, covered in mold. So I'm like, okay, there's been three potential mold exposures. What is going on? And I was currently, or at the time, I was working on some very old, outdated, stagnant beliefs about myself and behaviors associated with that. So it was almost like the mold fear came in. I learned the lesson. I took the medicine from the lesson.
Erin Holt [00:40:43]:
I moved through it, and the mold went away. And obviously, it's not that simple, but we have to think beyond just, like, the physical stuff sometimes, especially for ongoing chronic health challenges. So I will float that out there in case somebody needs to hear it. But let's go to actual physical body stuff. What can we do to get mold out of the body?
Rachel Mistry [00:41:08]:
Well, and it's all related, too. So we think about detoxification, and we think about drainage. And not to sound cheesy, but with a mold detox, we also want to detox life, like, move through, process our emotions and things like that. And many patients, when we're starting to work on detox, work on drainage, they start to see an uptick in emotions as well. We're pushing the liver. Are we, like, releasing emotions? Not to sound too hippy dippy woo woo, but sometimes people two to three weeks into their mold treatment, they're like, I'm feeling weepy. I'm feeling so reactive and so sensitive, and so on a related note, I just wanted to throw that out there, too. But starting with mold treatment, drainage is really foundational.
Rachel Mistry [00:41:49]:
And so a lot of times when people talk about detoxification, I think it's really important to differentiate between detoxification and drainage. So detoxification is the process of taking a toxic compound, packaging it up into a less toxic compound that can then be excreted from the body. And drainage is, how do we actually get that stuff, those toxins out of the body? So drainage, I think about peeing, pooping, and sweating. Those are really foundational. And so a lot of what I recommend in practice is a castor oil pack. Castor oil pack will increase blood flow and lymphatic flow to the liver and the gallbladder. I think about sweating regularly. Honestly, mycotoxins have been shown to be excreted through the sweat.
Rachel Mistry [00:42:38]:
Sauna use is more effective for certain types of mold than others. But honestly, people with mycotoxin illness typically feel so much better when they get themselves into a sauna. Hot yoga can be, like, a good solution if you don't have access to a sauna. I recommend a lot of hot baths with epsom salts if possible. Dry brushing, lymphatic massage. We also need to make sure that you're having a daily bowel movement. If you're not pooping daily, you are not excreting and just moving those toxins out throughout your body. So that's where I say sometimes gut work and gut support is very foundational.
Rachel Mistry [00:43:14]:
We need to make sure that's in check before going into a deep mold treatment plan also.
Erin Holt [00:43:19]:
So, in terms of order of operations, if somebody's dealing with mold stuff, would you run, like, a stool test, or would you just be, yeah?
Rachel Mistry [00:43:29]:
Yeah, probably just to make sure we're not missing anything. Definitely want to make sure we're getting their bowels moving. Daily foundationals, like, let's make sure you're chewing your foods well, eating enough fiber, eating in a relaxed state, that your stress is in check, that your blood sugar is balanced, but we need you pooping daily. That's foundational. If we ramp up all of this liver detoxification work and you're not having a daily bowel movement, you're probably going to feel worse, because then we're stirring up all these toxins that you can't get out. So, yeah, we need a daily bowel movement, 100%. And then taking that a step further. Liver support.
Rachel Mistry [00:44:07]:
We want to give the liver lots of TLC. So really limiting alcohol, arguably no alcohol, limiting endocrine disrupting chemicals, high fructose corn syrup, really anything that is harsh on the liver, we want to limit or avoid to the best of our ability. And so the thought process is, when we think about detox, it's mainly happening in the liver. And there are two phases. The first phase takes this toxic compound, and it creates, they're called intermediary metabolites, but these toxic compounds get converted into compounds that are actually more toxic. And then the liver goes through phase two, detox, which takes this more toxic compound, and it converts it into something that can be excreted. And phase two, step two is heavily influenced by genetics. It requires a ton of nutrients, a ton of calories, a ton of protein.
Rachel Mistry [00:45:01]:
And so the ironic thing here is there's all those New Year's detox cleanses. Juice cleanses support your liver. By going on a juice cleanse or a smoothie cleanse, you're probably actually restricting all of these nutrients and all of these things that your liver actually needs to do that detox work. And again, heavily influenced by genetics. And so that's where sometimes doing some of the foundational work to get inflammation lowered can be really foundational in a mold treatment plan.
Erin Holt [00:45:31]:
But you've got to eat and, like, something like a juice cleanse, for example, that so much of detoxification is driven by amino acids, too, and we derive those from protein. So protein can be really helpful to support overall liver health and detoxification. And so, like something like a juice cleanse, it might be easier on your digestion. It can give your digestion a break because you're removing the fibers, but it's not really giving your liver and your detoxification organs the nutrients that they actually need to drive detoxification. So that's just like something too. I mean, it's an important point. And also, I want to back up to when you were talking about a daily bowel movement, because there might be some people who struggle with ongoing constipation. And if you can't get that moving and you're attempting to do something like any type of detoxification, mold clearance, or even like a GI protocol, getting colonics can be very helpful.
Erin Holt [00:46:34]:
And if that's out of either the budget or you just don't have somebody that's available doing an at home enema, water enema, or coffee enema can also be really helpful to just make sure that you're moving the bowels, because like Rachel said, if you're not doing that, chances are you're going to feel a lot worse when we start to drive the detoxification. How about any specific foods that you're a fan of?
Rachel Mistry [00:47:01]:
I'm a big fan of whatever we can do to support bile. So your liver produces bile, stores it in the gallbladder, and it releases this during the digestive process. It's really helpful to break down fats. But bile is also one of the ways that we remove toxins from the body. So we want that bile free flowing. So any bitter foods like arugula, ginger can be great, whether that's ginger tea, I have, like, a jar of pickled ginger that you would have with sushi that I eat. Sometimes beets can really thin the bile. Dandelion root tea.
Rachel Mistry [00:46:02]:
And there's so many different supplements that you can do to support bile as well, like digestive bitters, silymarin, and milk thistle, things like that, too.
Erin Holt [00:47:41]:
And then you had mentioned binders before. Let's talk a little bit about that and how that helps.
Rachel Mistry [00:47:50]:
So the way that I think about binders is they're typically part of a treatment plan for mold. We're not just giving binders, but they can be a great starting point. So for some of my patients where we are concerned that they are living in a home with mold, I'll get them started on just like, a very foundational binder, maybe like an activated charcoal, just as an effort to offset any absorption or negative health effects that they may get from the environment while they're still in it. But this is where testing is really key, because certain molds or certain mycotoxins are only responsive to certain binders. So if you're just taking, like, a generic mold treatment plan or an activated charcoal, that may not be checking all of your boxes. That's why I think it can be so helpful to test for what specific mycotoxins are in the body and what you're getting exposed to. Shoemaker has great protocols and recommendations for this as well.
Erin Holt [00:48:47]:
And then do you find that, let's say you suspect mold, and you get somebody started on binders. Is that enough to help somebody start to feel better, or do you see any improvements with just binders? I guess is my question.
Rachel Mistry [00:47:40]:
Sometimes, it really depends. I have a patient. So, for instance, she was living in a home. She moved out of her home, did a mycotoxin profile, and it was positive, and we were fairly certain it was from the home that she had just moved out of. And I got her on a binder while we were working on some of the other stuff. Like, I just got her on a charcoal binder, and she was like, oh, my gosh. Night and day difference. She felt so much better starting it.
Rachel Mistry [00:49:29]:
Some people, you start them on a binder, and they're like, not much is going on.
Erin Holt [00:49:32]:
Yeah, people swear by binders, and some people notice no difference. So I was curious what you thought there, and then, how about the mitochondria?
Rachel Mistry [00:49:44]:
So, everyone knows mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. It's where our bodies produce a lot of our energy. And we can kind of start to think about this like a chicken or an egg scenario when we think about toxins and mitochondria. But we need our mitochondria working well in order to perform detoxification. At the same time, toxins interfere with how our mitochondria work. And so that's why so many people with toxicity, whether it's mold or other toxin exposure, just have this fatigue. And it can be very difficult to do some of these lifestyle strategies, like go to the sauna, take a bath, dry brush, hot yoga when you're just feeling so depleted. And so that's where we always want to be mindful about circadian rhythm support.
Rachel Mistry [00:50:29]:
Red light therapy can be really therapeutic. Spending time outside to support our mitochondria, sometimes I'll bring in certain nutraceuticals or herbs that can be helpful for the mitochondria, too, but that is a really important consideration as well.
Erin Holt [00:50:45]:
And you said something important. I have seen some really intense detoxification protocols, and you kind of have to get your body prepared for something like that. That can make somebody feel a lot worse if it's not done in a thoughtful and strategic way. And so I believe that we all have the capacity to heal. I believe that we can make a lot of effort to heal ourselves and to diy some of our health. I don't want it to be out of reach and off limits for people, but when we're dealing with an intense health challenge or even a health crisis, to put somebody on this hardcore detox protocol, I've seen that go south really fast, and so just be mindful of that. Sometimes we have to get the body almost, like, stable enough or sturdy, resilient enough to withstand a detoxification protocol. So if you're working with a practitioner, make sure of that.
Erin Holt [00:51:42]:
Make sure that they're being gentle enough and kind of tiptoeing your way in and understand that. I think that's a big deal. And then with detoxification and mitochondria and something we haven't touched on yet is the need for antioxidants, too. Do you like to go, like, diet with that supplement? A little bit of both.
Rachel Mistry [00:52:06]:
A little bit of both. I have seen a lot of patients who have been put through detox strategies or protocols, and diet isn't even touched on. And of course, very foundationally, we need your high fiber foods, fruits and vegetables. We want to, again, keep the bowels moving, but at the same time, your brightly colored fruits and vegetables are a great source of antioxidants. We have seen that bioflavonoids have been shown to break down mycotoxins.
Erin Holt [00:52:33]:
Oh, interesting.
Rachel Mistry [00:52:06]:
Yeah. Matcha can be a really therapeutic part of a treatment plan as well. It's just so packed with antioxidants. And then we also want to make sure we're replacing minerals that are lost during the detox process. If you're taking a binder that's going to strip your body from minerals, inflammation and stress, you're going to burn through your minerals more rapidly and then, of course, sweat. And so we've been using HTMAs a little bit more in our practice as well. Hair tissue mineral analyses, which can be a great way to also support our patients. But we want to make sure antioxidants, lots of fiber, lots of minerals to cover our bases.
Erin Holt [00:53:12]:
Yeah. Get all the colors in all of the time. That's something that you canbsolutely DIY, is just tweaking the diet. It's the foundational work that we need to do that's kind of like how to address the mold, how to help to get it out of the body. Assuming that you're changing the environment. Right.
Erin Holt [00:53:34]:
Because it's very hard to heal and clear mold out of the body if you're getting ongoing exposure. But what about if somebody's just dealing with a lot of symptoms? Is there any way to maybe.
Erin Holt [00:53:46]:
We want to make sure that we're addressing the problem, but is there a way to alleviate symptoms and manage symptoms while somebody's dealing with this?
Rachel Mistry [00:53:45]:
Definitely. So we have to remember that mast cells release histamines and other compounds in response to triggers like mold. And so we want to address. We want to stabilize the mast cells, and we want to make sure that, like you mentioned, the histamine bucket is as empty as possible. So we want to address fungal overgrowth, if it is present. We can do this with herbals or, like, prescription antifungals, depending on who they're working with. We need to make sure that the gut is in a good space, because if you have an overabundance of bad bacteria, those can be histamine producers and make you a lot more symptomatic. Having low beneficial bacteria species can be a contributing factor to this.
Rachel Mistry [00:54:32]:
And then we really need to be mindful about alcohol intake and sugar intake as well, because sugar can feed fungal overgrowth, yeast. And then alcohol is just high histamine. It releases histamine in the body as well.
Erin Holt [00:54:46]:
What about moldy, like, food that is. That has mold commonly on it? I can't talk right now. Like peanut butter, for example.
Rachel Mistry [00:55:00]:
Yeah. Foods high in mold antigens.
Erin Holt [00:55:03]:
There we go. Yes.
Rachel Mistry [00:55:05]:
The most common ones are. Well, of course, like fermented foods. Being mindful of that, but really, like, a lot of nuts and seeds and grains. Sometimes patients can do well by storing them in the fridge or the freezer. That can be really helpful. Obviously, no one's ever really intentionally eating moldy food, but sometimes people are like, I'm going to cut that little piece of mold off. Maybe just toss it. That can be really helpful, too.
Rachel Mistry [00:55:29]:
Yeah, that can be a biggie.
Erin Holt [00:55:31]:
Okay. I feel like there's mixed evidence on whether or not that actually makes a huge difference. Some foods, like grains, for example, nuts and seeds, like you said, they're more likely to have mold growth on them. Peanuts is a big one just because of the way that they're grown. And some people are absolutely not on a mold protocol. And some people are like, it doesn't really matter that much.
Rachel Mistry [00:55:54]:
Yeah. Or like, ketchup. I found that that sometimes creates more stress, more harm than good. If someone's extremely reactive, I think we have other work to do than focusing on putting your rice in the fridge.
Erin Holt [00:56:08]:
Fair. And then other ways to just decrease that overall histamine bucket. To make somebody feel better.
Rachel Mistry [00:54:45]:
So we know that there's a lot of genes that influence how we clear histamine out of the body. And so DAO is an enzyme that can help to decrease histamine in the gut. There are other genes like COMT or HNMT, which are methylation genes, sometimes bringing in methylation support, whether that's by taking methylated B complex or a magnesium or CME, can be really therapeutic. Eating a diet high in choline, like plenty of eggs, can help support methylation. There's another enzyme, it's aldehyde dehydrogenase, which plays an important role in clearing histamine. Some people, when they drink alcohol, when they get really flushed, really red, that glow, molybdenum can help to break that or can help to support that clearance and that breakdown of histamines in the body as well. And like a very foundational thing that people can do is bring in nettle tea or nettle infusions or supplement with quercetin. That can be really therapeutic as well.
Erin Holt [00:57:19]:
Awesome. So I think that this was a robust episode. If you are listening to this and you suspect mold, you want to work with a practitioner. I will include the link in the show notes to our one on one services. Like I said, Rachel sees a lot of moldy people. So if you're one of them and you want her help, definitely apply to work with us and hopefully we can get you started feeling better. But thank you so much for being here, Rachel.
Rachel Mistry [00:57:45]:
Thanks for having me.
Erin Holt [00:57:45]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of The Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.
