Exclusive Dr. Hyman+ Functional Medicine Deep Dive: Mold Exposure

Hey, podcast community, Dr. Mark here. I'm so excited to offer you a seven day free trial of my revolutionary new platform called Dr. Hyman Plus. For seven days, you get special access to all the private content included in Dr. Hyman Plus entirely free. It's so easy to sign up. Just go to Apple podcast on your phone and click try free button on the Dr. Hyman's Pharmacy podcast. You'll get exclusive access to ad-free Doctors Pharmacy podcast episodes and functional medicine deep dives where a practitioner dives into topics like heart health, muscle health, insulin resistance and more to help you understand the root cause of specific ailments and walks you through the steps to improve your health today. You'll also get access to all my Ask Mark Anything Q&As where I answer the community's biggest health and wellness questions. Because I'm so sure you're going to love this platform, I'm offering you free access to all of this content for seven days and a teaser of my brand new functional medicine deep dive episode diving deep into one of the most important topics in health. Head on over to the Doctor's Pharmacy podcast on Apple Podcasts and sign up for your free trial right now. Okay, here we go.

Good morning. I'm Dr. Ann Shippy and I'm asked to share with you about one of my favorite topics and that is toxic mold and how to recognize when mold is a problem, so it might be mold and then what you can do about it. So I'm board certified in internal medicine and functional medicine, but I started my work life in the world as a chemical engineer. for IBM and I got very sick and couldn't get the help that I needed from the traditional medical model and got so inspired after I figured out how to get myself better to do medicine differently. So when I was into my functional medicine career and I got pretty sick and couldn't figure out what was going on with me, It was a new layer of learning because I got to learn some really important things from my own body again. Functional medicine was still on the newer side and I had two younger children, one in middle school and one in elementary school, single mom. I was waking up in the morning just barely making it, just barely being able to get out of bed. I remember one morning really clearly when I went to get a glass of water to take some supplements and my arm was so weak I couldn't hold the glass. It slipped out of my hand and broke. And I had started just asking my colleagues, like, what do you think could be causing this? And I went back to the allopathic model, you know, saw a neurologist and some other specialists, and nobody really knew what was going on. so fortunately, I had gone to Bill Reay's environmental health conference about a year before this happened and started learning about toxic mold. And at that time, there was very little information. It was just kind of it exists. Mold makes toxins. It was more than what we had just learned in medical school that some of these molds can actually cause infection and immunocompromised people. and be a cause of allergies and asthma. It's like, oh, wow, mold makes toxins that are pretty major. And so then I started my path to think, oh, okay, well, maybe this is mold. And I had an angel show up in my life, and I still credit her with saving my life because it was one of my patients. And she was sitting across from me and doing so well. She had had a mold problem years before, but she was still dealing with some chemical sensitivity. And we had gotten her really feeling good. And she leaned across the table from me and she said, Dr. Shippey, my angels are telling me that you have toxic mold in your house. What time do you get off of work? She was very insistent about coming and checking out my house because she can sense mold. She ended up being right. At the moment, I was a little in awe of the whole situation, but I believed her and I was so sick and I was so scared that I did exactly what she said. I took my kids that night with just a couple of simple belongings, left everything behind, and went and stayed with my parents really until I started getting better. learned about how to test for mold and finally, like on my fifth mold test at the house, found out that she was right. It was Geotrichum and it's a very strong neurotoxin. So that to be said, I've learned a lot about what I'm going to share with you from my own body and the research that I did to really understand, you know, from an engineering and science perspective, how mold works and how to get better. and for those of you in the audience that are in whatever stage of the process that you're in, whether you're just wondering, okay, could I be being affected by mold? Is that my tipping point? Or if you've been in the journey to. To try to get better, or one of the things that I see all the time is how do you convince the other people in your life that. That you really are ill and that. you need to take some pretty significant actions to get better. So we know a lot about mold. It is kind of like a huge glacier, but there's still so much to learn. And even like in the building sciences and how do we build healthy buildings, I think that's one of the hugest opportunities that we have so that we're not building mold factories. so you'll hear people talk about the mold spores, which are, you know, just part of the growing organisms. The mycotoxins, which are one of the main things that we're concerned about from a toxicant standpoint. So those are made in their growth process, but then they can also be dispersed from mold that's already dried and desiccated. Some of the mycotoxins can break off. The MBOCs are the microbial volatile organic compounds that are really the things that you smell. You generally can't smell the mycotoxins, but when you smell something musty, it's the MBOCs. And those are toxic as well in some situations. But these molds also grow with gram-negative bacteria and mycobacteria, which can also make toxins and contribute to the toxic burden that inhabitants have. And then there are other toxins that can be made as the mold and the water damage occurs to release toxins into the environment. So I like to go back to some work by Kay Kilbourne all the way back to 1998, where he wrote a book based on a whole lot of research that it's out there that toxic exposures are often causing neurological and psychiatric diseases. And that the limbic system is a huge part of this. And I wanted to start out here because I think this is a huge part of what needs to be addressed to help people to get better. When the limbic system gets activated through the body sensing the toxins from the mold, it engages the survival part of the brain and really causes a lot of the emotional and psychiatric effects that can happen with this that just make mold feel so overwhelming. So if you haven't experienced this yourself, you're listening for somebody else in your life that has dealt with this, there's a lot of science behind this. So finding the love and compassion for people as they're dealing with these things is so, so important. Then I also want to overlay the effects of how mycotoxins compare to pesticides. So in a lot of the child studies, we know that herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and fumigants really, really affect children as far as their nervous system, increase the risk for childhood cancers, birth defects, developmental harms, impact metabolism, and also severely the immune system. And I think pretty much probably anybody in this audience is already aware of how much we need to be trying to avoid these pesticides. So here's a study that looks at all the way back to 2010 that looks at comparing mycotoxins and their effect versus pesticides, and they're even more toxic. Part of it is probably because these fungal metabolites have synergistic effects. So that means that it's not just 1 plus 1 equals 2. It can be 1 plus 1 equals 10 or 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals a thousand kind of things as far as the effects on the body because so many different parts of the metabolic pathways are being affected. And I'm going to show you some diagrams that I don't want those of you that don't love biology to be overwhelmed, but I want you to have a sense of how we understand how some of these toxins are working in the body at a pretty in-depth way. So there's a study again back to 2010 where they, that was done by human health and human services and CDC and workplace safety. And they were looking at water damaged buildings and the different categories of symptoms that could be affected. So we've got the more obvious things with the respiratory lower and upper. We have constitutional symptoms, which are things like fever, sweats, the body aches, the fatigue, the headaches, and then the neurobehavioral. So the things that people describe as being brain fog or lapses in memory, irritability, depression, changes in and then also some of the skin issues. So a lot of this has been documented for a long time. It's just not really getting into traditional medicine very well. So I just threw together a lot of the symptoms that I see. The fatigue is a big one. Some people will have night sweats, which can be part of the immune system being flared up or some of the hormonal disruption. A lot of people crave sugar. it's just a very, very common thing. We can have all the skin issues with the hives and the rashes. The allergies and sinus congestion are very common, but not necessarily present. For me, I had another round with a different moldy house a few years after that. It was about five years after that, and I developed asthma for the first time. So I think that was to just show me another pattern that I might have been missing. Like now, anytime anybody has asthma at any age, we go looking for mold. And then there are a lot of gastrointestinal symptoms that pop up, even heartburn, nausea. Nausea is actually a pretty common one. Abdominal discomfort and bloating, it can really throw off the microbiome, which can cause the bloating. Another very common thing when When people's toxic load gets overwhelmed, just to feel it in their bladder probably is part of their body trying to detoxify. They feel a lot of urinary urgency or discomfort, even some incontinence. A lot of people's body will be able to gain weight, but you can also have a weight loss. But the weight gain, I think, is a protective mechanism to try to disperse the toxins so they're not as affecting the brain and some of the vital organs. A lot of people will develop you know, kind of some hyper alert food sensitivities. Often people are feeling really thirsty and getting dehydrated, and we know that's from some of the hormonal changes that happen in the body. Mycotoxins can also trigger a lot of immune disorders, including Rhinoides symptoms. The, you know, when the hands and feet get a little cold, they start to have basospasm, so they get painful. in either red or white. Inflammatory bowel disease can get triggered, so things like ulcerative colitis and Crohn's. A lot of people's immune systems get suppressed, so they get chronic and recurrent infections. We've seen a number of people who have miscarriages or even birth defects. The clotting mechanisms can get disrupted in some people, so they'll have nosebleeds, and then some people's bone marrow is affected, so they'll have changes in their white blood cell count and their platelet levels. Hair loss is a big thing for me and it's commonly like even had patients where the hair loss was part of their initial revelation that mold was involved. The hair loss came back and so we're like, okay, well we better go look for mold again. And it was actually their warning sign that the mold was back and then it's very common people have muscle or joint pain because of the increase in inflammation settling in places where the body's had some wear and tear. And then I made a whole page of the neurological or psychological impacts because, you know, this gets really scary for people. And I just want to really emphasize that, that when it gets to this point, it's so important to go look for mold and also just hold a space that it's still possible to get better even when you think that your body is really giving up. So commonly headaches, the muscle jumping called fasciculation, we see neuropathies that cause weakness and pain and even some sensory changes like some numbness and tingling. A lot of times people will have some dizziness and vertigo. The cognitive dysfunction, almost everybody will use the words brain fog for whatever reason. And I think it really is just the best way to describe how people are feeling. I think they're just walking through a fog. Definitely countless people where they just feel like their memory is not working. And with Bredeson's work, that's and a lot of research now, you know, there is a definite link with Alzheimer's and dementia, the executive function, being able to make computations, decision making, and then there's also links with ADHD, ADD and autism. I've had quite a few people have tics, tremors, and then depression, anxiety and OCD is also very, very common. Some people will just feel more irritable. They'll just feel like their fuse is short. That can be for some people just their only symptom. And it's so interesting because I that's a lot of times in what men are dealing with, like just a shorter fuse, more easily frustrated and angered. That would be something that I'll see a lot in, especially in children. And then there's changes in vision, especially being able to have a good depth perception. So some people will have, you know, never had a car accident, and I'll start all of a sudden have car accidents because they're not able to adjust to people stopping and that kind of thing. And then some autonomic dysfunction and insomnia. So the net of this is almost any symptom can be associated with mold. And then I just wanted to touch on a study that I, you know, it just makes me so protective of kids. because so many schools get water damaged and are not remediated properly for whatever budgetary constraints there are. And it's, you know, it's having such a severe impact on kids. They, as, you know, we're sending them to learn, and we now know that it, if the, the school is water damaged, that they can be lowering their IQ and even permanently if nothing is done about done about that. So, and then in similar studies with the IQ, looking at pain disorders, so, you know, even things like chronic fatigue, movement disorders where people are having some ataxia and the tremors, even to the point of delirium, dementia, and decreased coordination. so we can get mold exposures from multiple routes. Food is one of them. And so you hear about some of the coffee companies now taking precautions to make sure that their batches of coffee are tested. So Bulletproof, Purity, and Danger Coffee are three of them, because coffee actually is a big root of mold. of mold exposure. And it's interesting now, like, I, I hadn't paid that much attention to it until, like, the last couple of years. And because I don't really drink much coffee, but it really makes me pause about, you know, going to Starbucks and grabbing a coffee more than once in a blue moon. It's much better if you, if you get your coffee from one of these companies that is being careful about what they're, they're providing for you. But then there are a whole bunch of other foods that can also be very moldy. But what is the most important path is the respiratory path. So when there's a mold factory in our environment and we breathe it in, we can also get it through the mucous membranes in our respiratory system and our gut, and then also through the skin. But the studies show, this one is a study on trichothecene, which is one of the toxins made by Stachybotrys. which is one of the molds that most people relate to the black mold. So when the mycotoxins are breathed in, it's much more toxic than if it goes in through the gut or through the skin.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that teaser of exclusive content that you get every single month with Dr. Hyman Plus. If you want to listen to the full episode and get access to ad-free podcast episodes, Plus, Ask Mark Anything episodes, plus monthly functional deep dive episodes. I guess that's why we call it Dr. Hyman Plus. Then head on over to the Doctor's Pharmacy on Apple Podcasts and sign up for your seven day free trial.

Hi everyone. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.