EP 146 WTH?!? The Doctor's Chat: Discover the Hidden Dangers of Mold with Michael Rubino

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Welcome back everybody to what the health. I am Dr. Greg Eckel and today's topic is regaining your health after mold exposure and sensitivity. My expert on the line here is Michael Rubino. He's an innovative expert in mold contamination and remediation. He and his company, the Home Cleanse can be found@homecleanse.com have been featured in USA Today, New Jersey Biz, Readers Digest, New Jersey Monthly and Digital Trends. He's also selected a speaker for the spring 2020 indoor air quality association meeting and expo. His focus is not just on removing cosmetic damage resulting from the mold, but actually making your home more livable. And this is a topic that we're talking about all of the time. Over greater than 50% of homes in the United States have some mold issues. He's coming at us from Tampa Bay, Florida, which is moldy capital of the world. No, I don't know that it is that. Michael, welcome aboard.

Thank you so much for having me here today.

Yeah, I. This is such a timely, it's always a timely topic. You know, you wrote a book called the Mold Medic. You have a company that goes in and remediates homes. Oftentimes mold is a massive smoking gun for brain health. And so we need to rule this in and rule it out. And this isn't just like the black mold that you see on the wall. What do people, what do they don't understand? What do people don't understand about mold?

Well, mold is many different things. It is a hundred thousand different species, right. So we typically only talk about one, which is stachybotry chitarum, which is that toxic black mold that we've all come to know from the media and stuff like that. Mold is both a living organism and it's also used to name the spore, which is what the living organism creates. Kind of like how a plant creates seeds, mold creates spores to essentially repopulate. So we get confused on the word a bit because we use it for so many different things. But essentially it is a type of fungus just like yeast. And we want to make sure that, you know, we're, we're understanding the amount of brevity of the situation considering we take 20,000 breaths per day.

It is, I mean we've co evolved, coexisted with mold. Some mold we actually eat like in cheese. So it is, it isn't, it's not all bad for us. And when you look at mold's operations in the forest, it's a decomposter. Right. But where it becomes an Issue is when it's in your home and you're exposed to it all the time. And like you said, 20,000 breaths, you know, we're, we're respirating this stuff. And mycotoxins aren't the same thing as mold. And then your immune system gets a hold of it too. So I, I test the human body. When it comes back as positive for mycotoxins in the urine, after I do a challenge test, then we have to go looking for the source. So not all mold like you alluded to is created equal. So we got the dreaded black mold of Stachyboitrys. But there are other ones out there too. So what do you see? Like number one, how did you get into writing a book called the Mold Medic? How did you get into that?

I was growing up and I just dreamed of being this mold superstar. Right. You know, I come from the north.

Thank you so much, Michael.

I come from the northeast. And we may recall a hurricane called Hurricane Sandy. And it was really after that. I was in my early 20s, I was working for my dad, My dad was doing fire restoration. So I've been around construction my entire life. And I started working for my dad, going door to door, answering calls, going to people's homes and seeing what's going on. And what I realized was that first off, everybody started complaining of various health issues. I mean, from your typical, I have asthma, this is a problem for me. I have Lyme disease, I have these co infections, I'm sensitive to mold. Really it opened my eyes to how much of a impact this really has on people. People dealing with cognitive impairment, slurring of speech, skin issues. I had a woman who was covered head to toe in rashes until she left her place. All kinds of bizarre things right over this span of my career. And I really noticed that, well, what's happening is you have these water events, leaks, hurricanes, whatever it may be, and then you usually call your insurance company, your insurance company sends a crew over and they're supposed to come and mitigate the damage. But the whole thing is set up to fix things cosmetically. You have a water stain, we cut it out, no more water stain. Great. But scientifically, you still have these organisms of mold and bacteria that are thriving inside your home, that are reproducing rapidly by spores, as we talked about earlier. Well, here's the other complication, as you mentioned. Mycotoxins. Well, sometimes mold produces mycotoxins. It's a self defense mechanism that mold produces in order to thrive inside your Home, which is behind your walls, typically. Now, the problem with that is, as you mentioned, there are different species of mold. Stachybotrys and katomium might be fighting each other for that same real estate inside your walls. And as a result, they're producing mycotoxins to literally kill each other. And we are innocent bystanders of this chemical warfare that's happening behind our walls. And we have no idea, because guess what? A mycotoxin is about 50 times smaller than what the eye can see. A mold spore itself, about 25 times smaller than what the eye can see. So when you start to put this into perspective, 250,000 spores can fit on the head of a pin. Wow. That tells you by the time you see a problem, it's already a big problem. Right. Most of the issues that I'm helping people deal with, you can't even see. They have no idea it's happening. And that is where things get crazy, because, you know, they go to doctors trying to figure out what's going on with their health because they have no idea that they could be living inside the problem.

So how this. So that brings up the first conundrum. Testing. How do you know? Like, what do you recommend as the mold medic for? How do we find this out? Is this a culprit?

In my home, so there's an amazing lab. They're called emsl. I helped develop a test called the dust test with emsl, and it tests your dust utilizing PCR technology to look at the DNA of what's there. When you look at microscopy, for example, a lot of people hear about air tests. They think, if I want to test my air quality, I do an air test. Right. Almost makes sense. But when you do an air test, it's microscopy, meaning someone is physically counting the spores under a microscope. Well, what might be the challenge with that? Well, sometimes you can't tell different species apart. For example, when you do an air test, they lump Aspergillus and Penicillium together. Well, why might that be a problem? Well, because some species of Aspergillus are completely benign and are not going to cause any problems for you. But some are mycotoxin producing species of Aspergillus. Same thing with Penicillium. Some Penicillium species can produce something called aflatoxin or mycophenolic acid, which, by the way, is an immune suppressant that they use to make immune suppressant drugs for people who get organ transplants. Right. So you don't reject the organ transplant when we look at all this stuff together, you know, when we want to quantify what's in my home and is it a problem? We need to get a little better scientific information. And that's why using like a PCR test for that is going to tell you what you're exposed to. Now, every testing has limitations, right? So the PCR test isn't going to tell you which wall it's coming from. It's just going to tell you what you're being exposed to. So it's a screening tool. But the reason that I created that is because so many people, they think they have a problem. They call Joe Schmo down the street. Joe Schmo comes in, sets up an air test in the center of the room, and he tells you your house is fine, but yet just six feet away, there's a massive issue, right? And so the. The testing limitation of an air test is if you're not. If you're. The further away you test from it, the more normal it's going to seem. Because mold is typically not traveling very far before it attaches to our dust particles that are already suspended in the air. Now, why is that an issue? Because the dust is too large to fit inside the cassette that goes to the lab to be analyzed. So therefore, they're only analyzing isolated spores, which you're not going to see once it kind of travels at least three feet or beyond. So you're missing a large portion of what you're actually breathing in when you do an air test in the center of a room, as opposed to right on top of where you suspect there might be an issue. So this screening tool is a better tool to understand what am I being exposed to. Then you give that to an inspector and say, help me find this.

Is that. So that's PCR testing. Is that similar to ERMI testing or what's your thoughts on ERMI testing?

So ERMI is actually the index. So it's called the Environmental Relative Moldy Moldiness Index. It is an algorithm that the EPA created as a research tool. Back in, I think, 2015, they really published that whole study. The technology of PCR utilizing that for inspections has been around longer. But what the ERMI tried to do is basically create a score of what your home might look like. The problem with the irmi, and I'll give it to you as an example, is if you open your window for 24 hours and then shut it and take an ERMI sample, your score is going to look better than what it actually might be. And that's because the score takes a algorithm of what's, what's a water damage mold and then subtracts it from a normal outdoor mold that you might see prevalent inside homes. So essentially, as long as you have more outdoor molds than indoor molds, your score is going to look good. But that doesn't mean that you don't have a lot of toxic indoor molds too. Right. And so the algorithm was a bit flawed. Wanted to make things a little better and more consumer friendly because this information is important. That's why we kind of took the technology and built a new platform on it. Got it.

So, and those, the dust samples, are you doing it with like a Swiffer around environments that you think are the issue?

Yeah, so they're, they're sanitized almost. They look like Swiffer cloths. Essentially they're like sanitized Swiffer cloths. You collect dust from across your home. Again, it's a screening tool. So you want to collect it from different rooms, get a good sense of what might you be exposed to. And just because it's DNA specific information, it's a lot more accurate. You're not relying on a human being counting spores inside a little slide. And with that information you'll be able to understand, okay, which molds are mycotoxin producing molds that I might be more concerned about and what the levels are. Because you're going to get an understanding of how many spores per milligram of dust you're getting. It also has the capability of mycotoxin analysis and endotoxin analysis, which endotoxins are toxins that are killed by, that are produced when bacteria dies off. So that's kind of helpful to understand. Like the source of water, was it a bacteria ridden water? Because you might want to change the outlook on that a bit as well. You know what's really interesting? I think we'll get a kick out of this. When you do a mycotoxin test internally, like the testing that you're doing, and then you do a dust test and you look at it side by side, like 99% of the time you see a correlation. It'll be like, I have ochratoxin a. Well, I have high levels of aspergillus in my home. And you're like, eureka. Because there's been a lot of conflicting information about, oh, this could be food related. And yes, it could be, but it's when you look at the studies out there by like real time labs, as an example, the food related um, illness is such a small. Such a small percentage compared to the air quality. Right. And so I think for me, it's. As an advocate for this and trying to get people healthier through their homes, I want people to really understand, like, this is more of a problem through air quality than it is through the food.

Got it. Yeah. I full on agree. And that Real Time is one of the better companies in the country for that. Mycotoxin testing and people. Okay, so we find mold in the home. You're seeing a provider, you got tested, you've got mycotoxin positive, you got symptoms related. Can we just put bleach on it, call it a day?

Please don't do that. So everyone who loves organizations and credibility, go to EPA's website and then type in bleach in the search bar. EPA will tell you that you should not use bleach to remove mold, because even dead mold can cause an allergic reaction in some. Now jury's out as to what dead mold actually means. Cause the spore itself is not actually alive until it, you know, mix mixes with earth's life source water, just like a plant. Right. So I think that the goal is, if you're trying to remove the organism, remove it, don't try to kill it. That's. It's a big no, no.

Yeah. I mean, so many times I hear, well, I just put bleach on it and then I painted over the spot. It was like, oh, yeah, that. That's not so mold. Medic, please.

That is so 90s, you know. So the goal is you want to remove the organism. Right. And so we have to look at two different things. One, how did the organism get there in the first place? There's an opportunity, right? There had to be a leaking window, leaking roof. Maybe you have too much humidity or too much moisture. Because some species only require 60% relative humid or higher. Something happened that allowed it to grow, because without water, it is not going to be a viable condition for it to grow. So that's step one. Where did the water come from? Identifying that and repairing that is absolute. The most important step, Step two is removing the organism. So when we know about mold, mold has roots that grow into building structures. So that means if it's in your drywall, it's growing through your drywall because your drywall is porous. It's growing into the wood structure behind it, probably into the insulation if there's. If it's an exterior wall. And so we need to remove all of that. If we don't remove all of that, it'd be like going out to your backyard and just trying to cut the weed at the top of the weed and not pulling the roots out. Right. It's going to come right back. So it's really imperative we get down to the root cause of the issue and remove it. And then, and this is the kicker, and this is where people get lost. One of the biggest things that I noticed in this Hurricane Sandy traumatic event is that even when you remove it, if you don't think about what the mold organism has created all of this time, maybe it's been a year, maybe it's been a few years, all these particles are now abundant in the environment. And that's both the toxin, the spore that are opportunistically entering our body with each breath that we take. So, so picture this, right? We all, we all have sat near a window on a sunny day and we saw a ray of light peek through that refracted off all the dust in the air. And we're like, oh God, I'm breathing in so much dust. Right? So these mold and toxins become a part of our dust as they're generated through these sources. And now we're inhaling this dust all of the times and that's how it's entering our body and affecting us. Right. And so what we need to do is we need to remove the sources, the organisms, and then remove as much dust as humanly possible. And dust collects on our stuff too. So cleaning our stuff, our home, floors, walls, you name it, to make sure that we're removing all these particles within our dust. Otherwise we might have fixed the problem and it won't get worse. But as we keep breathing, if we don't deal with the byproducts, it's still going to be impacting us.

Got it. So do you recommend, I mean, there's, you know, different air filters that actually filter as small as some of the mold particles. Like IQ Air I know has a good reputation, is that that's part of the aftercare that you recommend for folks.

Yeah, I mean, we filter our water, we want to filter our air. You know, those plug in air purifiers are great. My personal favorite is the ones that go into the H Vac system. And the reason being is because if you can stop a tiny particle getting to the coil of the H Vac system, you're in good shape. Because for those that don't know, an evaporator coil is a piece inside the H Vac system that gives us the AC and It always condensates. Right. That's why your AC has a drain pan and drain lines that drain the water out and away from the house. And so if it always condensates, that means it's always wet. And if you don't have a good filter, and many people listening right now are probably running to their H vac, checking their filter. Right. Because it's something, it's something that we often neglect. We're supposed to change it all the time. Right. If you don't have a good filter to begin with, these tiny particles go right through the filter, get to the coil and start to grow inside the H Vac system. Right. Huge problem in Florida, by the way. But it's a problem pretty much anywhere that's going to have air conditioning and mold, which is pretty much anywhere on planet Earth except North Pole maybe. Right. So we have to look at these, these issues to make sure that we have a healthier environment.

Got it. So that you're, you and your team, you come in and you do all of that, you look at all of the facets, you're doing the clean, you're getting people educated on where routes are of exposure are. A question on front loading washing machines, is that a massive exposure for a lot of people?

Did you see an Instagram post I made recently or something? Yeah. They're a big issue. You know, they have a rubber gasket that keeps the water from spilling out the front of your machine. Right. That's what it's designed to do. It looks nice. I love them, but the way they look. But I have a tap loading washer machine in my house and there's a very good reason for that. That rubber gasket traps moisture. And wherever you have trap moisture, you will get mold. And if you really want your clothes to be clean, you know, it's very difficult to do that. Now for all those people that have front loaders that are, you know, that want to shoot me right now.

Yeah.

What you need to do is every time you wash your clothes, you need to leave the door open and you need to take like a microfiber towel and wipe down that gasket. And if, if you actually pull apart that gasket, there's creases. You have to wipe inside those creases too, because it only takes 24 to 48 hours from for certain species of mold to grow. And so you wash your clothes, you leave that wet overnight, good chance by the morning you already have mold.

So what do you suggest if somebody has mold there? Because that's a. This is a big thing. Like, I, I. When I see my patients, you can actually smell it's on their clothes. And it's because of their washer mainly that they washed. Maybe they let the clothes sit in there, you know, didn't get to it. The kids got busy, whatever. What do you recommend for people?

There's a nice little product called, like, EC3 laundry additive. I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but it removes mold and mycotoxins from your clothes. It's probably only one of the, only one of very few products that have claims to do that. And it's like 20 bucks, right? So you add it with your laundry detergent. Pretty, pretty inexpensive way to keep your clothes clean. As far as the unit itself, you gotta wipe it down. So if mold's growing on the gasket already, your clothes are starting to smell. You're probably gonna want to use some sort of botanical disinfectant, something that has a surfactant, which is a fancy term for, for, for dish soap, that you can wipe it down with to remove it. Microfiber towels are much more effective at removing mold and small particles. So I would recommend something like that and microfiber towel to wipe it all clean. And at that point, you'll probably want to clean out the inside of the drum as well. And you're also supposed to clean your washing machine. I don't know if people realize that, but you're supposed to do that, like, once a month. So if you're hearing this and you're like, I've never done that. They make these really cool tablets that you just throw in there and you run a cycle on, and it helps clean out all your drain lines because nasty mold and bacteria grows there too. So it's really important we're staying on top of this stuff. Any water device that we have in our home, we probably want to pay more attention to.

That's the truth, is the stat that I shared at the beginning. Is that True? More than 50% of homes or buildings in the US have mold toxicity.

So actually, the largest study ever done was in 1994 in North America by a guy named John Spengler. And it. You're exactly right. 50% of homes in North America on the thousand homes that he surveyed had a history of water damage. And 80% of those homes had visible mold growth. I say visible because I bet you 100% of those homes had mold. The other 20% probably just you couldn't see it. It was behind the Wall. It was in the H Vac. Right. So no, it's, it's a big problem. It is an epidemic. You know, I point people to look at the rise of chronic fatigue syndrome as one example. It was pointed in 1986 through this various, this mysterious microbiological bloom that they said in Lake Tahoe. Today we have two and a half million people in the US diagnosed with, with chronic fatigue syndrome with no other mysterious outbreak that would explain it. Right. Autoimmune disease and disorders are on the rise, growing and trending, but yet we have better access to water, better access to food than we've ever had before. Right. So for me, when I'm connecting these dots, I'm saying, well, what is it? Well, we're certainly not paying enough attention to air quality. So I think is that. And when I, when you, when you kind of have as many clients as I've had and seen people miraculously change their lives and their quality of life through paying attention to air quality and fixing it and addressing it, it's, it's pretty obvious to me, but hopefully it's, it's more obvious to people listening when they start connecting the dots for themselves.

Well, this has definitely been educational and very important. I mean this is one of those smoking guns that I've seen in the last 22 years of practice where talking about mold. I was just talking with my clinicians today on our round table. It's complicated, it's complex and it's really ever reaching. And so I really appreciate you coming on to educate us. I'm going to put your contact information in the show notes. It's www.homecleanse.com and that'll be in the show notes. Michael Rubino, Any last parting words for the listeners and viewers of what the health 20,000.

That is the average number of breaths that a human being takes in one day. You know, so it is. Air quality is profoundly important and I hope that people understood that.

Awesome. So here's to many more clean breaths together, everybody. If you like today's show, go out there, give us a five star review and tell people one thing you learned today and also share with your friends and family because that's how we get this information out. It's not coming from mainstream media, it is coming here on what the health. We'll see you soon. Thanks for tuning in. Bye.