Ochratoxin Q&A with Dr. Crista

Foreign. Welcome to the lunch and learn for this week is mycotoxins, the old mycotoxins. So every day this week, we're going to be talking through one of the mycotoxins and the trichothacines. I'm bundling up into the same talk because they have so many things in common. So we'll be talking about ochratoxin, gliotoxin, zearolanone, citrinin, and then the trichothacines, such as verocarin, reordan, those kinds of things. So every day we'll take a little lunch and learn time to go through one of them in detail, and then hopefully I can answer your questions if you are finding these on your mycotoxin tests. Okay, so today is ochratoxin. When you think ochratoxin, think kidneys. Ochratoxin is so tough on the kidneys. One of the ways that we detoxify our mycotoxins is through urine, because urine is a filtrate of blood. So the kidneys, that's what they do, is blood comes through the kidneys and they filter out what we don't need and make pee out of it. And so that's the primary route of excretion for ochratoxin, more so than the other ones. So the routes of excretion for ochratoxin is, first and foremost, the kidneys, Second is the gut, and third is the liver. So the liver really shouldn't be, like, our primary focus. Although, you know, supporting the liver is always a good idea. But we can't forget about the kidneys. The kidneys get forgotten about all the time. We're talking about phase one, phase two, phase three, detoxification. Well, this is like phase different. And the kidneys do a ton of work to help us get rid of mycotoxins. Ergo, why we test them in the urine. So one of the main things with ochratoxin, I call ochratoxin a persister. Mycotoxin, it's a persister. You'll see it stay high. Even if you're not necessarily being exposed to ochratoxin in your food or in your water or in your water damaged building, your moldy building, your damp building. It can stay high for a little while because of its ability to persist. So that's kind of the nickname that I give. Ochratoxin is a persister. Mycotoxin. How is it doing that? Ochratoxin binds really tightly to a blood protein called albumin. Albumin is a Carrier protein in our blood, and we do filter some of it in the urine when the body doesn't need it, or if the albumin. I don't know why the kidney filters it, actually, but to kind of maintain our blood volume and our hydration, that kind of thing. So unfortunately, if ochratoxin is bound to it, it's too big for it to get out. And so the kidneys have to sustain a little bit of damage in order to get that ochratoxin out into the pee. The best way to detoxify ochratoxin is to displace it from the albumin and then it's free and the kidneys can dump it. And that take. That means it's easier on the kidneys and you're excreting more. So when you displace it, you might see your ochratoxin peak up in the urine, and that's a good thing. That means you're getting rid of more of it. So how do we displace it? Bioflavonoids. Bioflavonoids are the colorful pigment in vegetables and in fruit. And I highlight veggies more so than fruit because a lot of people with mold toxicity have problems with fruit. Either the having too many carbs will grow more yeast and they get more of a fungal burden, or they. They have like, you know, fruit sensitivities. Maybe some molds are growing on that fruit. Like apples can grow a mycotoxin called patulin. So you can see these weird fruit allergies, and that can be related to your moldy building exposure. So I highlight veggies just because they're going to be, in general, a lower carb source of these bioflavonoids. And so what are bioflavonoids? That's the whole rainbow of colors. That's going to be all the way from the purple to the red. So let's go through them. That is. Well, let me just back that up. So the bioflavonoids that are specific for ochratoxin displacement are in the orange color band. And that's going to do the best job according to animal studies. Now, this is not human studies. I'm always in the place where I'm taking animal and putting it to human because we don't have the studies, the clinical trials for humans. So orange color bands. Hey, Lisa, nice to see you. And that is what? Astaxanthin, zeaxanthin, beta carotene, also vitamin A. But vitamin A can be a little problematic because we can accumulate it. It's the fat soluble version of beta carotene. Beta carotene is the water soluble version of vitamin A. So it's safer to take a beta carotene supplement, vitamin A, because we can bioaccumulate. That can actually hurt the liver. So you need to be monitoring it. If your doctor has you on vitamin A, make sure you're checking your vitamin A stores. It's interesting though, that mold will block your ability to take up vitamin A. So a lot of my patients are low on vitamin A as well. So you get this low bioflavonoid in the orange color band leads to higher ochratoxin persistence and that's the pickle you can get into. Let's see more things about ochratoxin. So again, think kidney. Kidney. Kidney, kidney. It is unfortunately linked to kidney diseases like IgA, nephropathy, nephrotic syndrome, nephritis and kidney cancer. So getting this bugger out is very important. Is it in our food sources? Yes, definitely it can be in our food sources. And so you want to be paying attention to things that you eat every day or you drink every day, such as coffee. You know, if you're having a whole bunch of coffee every day, that is a place where you could be taking up an ochratoxin burden. So making sure you're, you're using a coffee that tests for these mycotoxins and is mycotoxin free, such as bulletproof purity coffee. Those are some things. Green tea, you want to make sure that you are if that's if you're a tea drinker. I'm a tea drinker, not a coffee drinker. So I make sure I'm using traditional medicinals. Who is actually testing for yeast and molds? So looking at what you're having every day is important. But in a typical westernized diet, we don't have as much of an ochratoxin burden in order to make someone sick enough to be calling them or as sick as we can see from a moldy building exposure. Typically, if I'm seeing a patient who has symptoms and they're scoring on my Crista mold questionnaire, which you can download free off my website, if you're scoring a possible or probable mold on that questionnaire and you're seeing ochratoxin in your labs, very rarely in a westernized culture is this from diet. So consider it being from a water damage building exposure. So what kind of molds do you get ochratoxin from? You can get it from Aspergillus, ocrasius Aspergillus niger, Penicillium varicosum, Penicillium nordicum, and penicillium chrysogenum. What color are those molds? Could be anything. They like to be light green. That's their steady state, I guess. So growing on a drywall or something like that, it might be whitish to lightish green, but depending on what food it's eating, it could be any color. So this idea of like, oh, that's not the bad mold. That's not black. Well, I just told you this can cause kidney cancer. Like you. This isn't all the. It drives me crazy that I'm hearing. I hear from a lot of you. So it drives me crazy when I hear, oh, my inspector said we see that a lot. Aspergillus and penicillium. So those aren't the bad molds. So don't worry about it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am telling you, on the health impact side of that, yes, they can impact your health. They can secrete mycotoxins that can harm your health in a big time way. Just because they see it a lot does not mean it's healthy. Big difference. Common is not normal. We have very moldy buildings. Okay. So favorite building material of these particular molds is flooring, carpet, ceiling tiles, heating ducts, and especially those flex ducts because each of those little ridges in there can, can hold water and humidity. So as the cold air is coming into the hot duct, you get a little condensation in there and it can gather in those little, in those little zippers or flexes, and that's where you can get these particular molds. Okay, so ochratoxin also, I went on about kidneys, but is can reduce immune function, it can inhibit energy production. Let me see. It's more neurotoxic and carcinogenic to males than females and has been linked to the male prevalence of autism. This particular mycotoxin has some studies that are linking it to the male prevalence of autism. That's a big deal. So just because those molds are found all the time does not make them safe in a water damage, building exposure. So let me see. I saw a few questions come by. Can high ochratoxin be from colonization? Yes. How do you know if it's colonization? Kind of good question. One of the things that I often use is an organic acids test to look for that. Let's see. Oh, video cutout. Shoot. Sorry about that. What is my thoughts on treating mold viruses and pathogens which with Frequency specific microcurrent. I love frequency specific microcurrent. I do not find that it's strong enough to actually be anti bug, especially if somebody is colonized. So I use it in conjunction with the antimicrobials that I use. I don't know if there's a good protein powder I haven't or protein bar I haven't done testing. I test everything all the time. I love that it makes sense because when I eat carrots I feel better. So yeah, there's the thing with ochratoxin. The number one thing you have to think about is orange veggies. So carrots, butternut squash, winter squash. These are great ways to be starting to combat the mold. And typically what I'm finding is if someone's finding ochratoxin in an elevated way on their labs, which could be their urine mycotoxin test or the mymicolab antibody test, these are antibodies to mycotoxins. Most of my patients that have it in the elevation, and that could be just even mild elevation, are needing supplements in order to get that bioflavonoids high enough. All the other colors of the rainbow do help displace albumin from ochratoxin or ochratoxin from albumin, but those are the color bands to really focus on or highlight. So a lot of times I'm using something like and full disclosure, I'm involved with Alight Health, working with them to make mold specific products. So I like their. Of course I'm gonna like their products because I can target what I want inside the product. So I like to use colorguard. And then I use an additional when I see ochratoxin colorguard plus astaxanthin, like a 6 milligram, once or twice a day kind of astaxanthin. So typically my patients are needing that extra, extra boost. And by the way, I do have a fact sheet on my website for all the mycotoxins if you. Or at least they're coming. I don't have them all up yet. And so if you put in drkrista.comochratoxin or/gliotoxin, the fact sheet is on there and then the bundle of things that I'm using with my patients. And if you are a member, you get specific doses because I can't. My liability insurance tells me I cannot just tell you guys all of that, though sometimes I say it verbally because they don't. My lawyers are trying to protect me. So if you're a member, you get Doses. Okay. Is the manufactured citric acid a dangerous mold? I read it was grandfathered in and hasn't been tested for safety. Okay. The citric acid typically comes from Aspergillus niger, which is an ochratoxin former. It's fine like it's, it's considered food safe. Aspergillus niger and a lot of the molds make these acids that prevent other molds from growing. That's what ochratoxin is doing is the Aspergillus niger in a water damage building is seeing and encountering other molds in the space. So it starts to spit out these toxins to prevent the other guys from growing. So citric acid is one of those things that is a very, very good preservative to put into foods because it prevents the growth of other microbes. Really awesome. Unless you're sensitive to it. So people can have citric acid sensitivity. That has usually to do with their mold sensitivity. And that does get better as you get better from mold. But if you are one of those people that's having a reaction when you have citric acid, that is a sign for you that you're probably also mycotoxic and sensitive. Technically all of the mold fungal everything is supposed to be cleared out of that citric acid. And so if you actually tested the chemistry, you wouldn't find any ochratoxin or mycotoxin or mold or any kind of fragments in there. But I think there's an energetic imprint and some people are very sensitive to that energetic imprint. I have a video blog or a little pearl on my page. If you go to my website drkrista.com at the bottom go to Pearls. Or you could just put in the top search citric acid. And I have a post that has symptoms of citric acid sensitivity. Okay, what about if you're feeling worse after orange foods? That can happen if your kidneys need more support in the fat soluble range. So then I would be looking for the things that are the supplements that are more in the fat soluble state, such as astaxanthin and then also melatonin. Melatonin is very kidney protective, so that can happen. How much kale should you be eating daily as a binder? A handful of steamed. That's what. So what, what would that be like a cup, half cup? Cup. I would go for a cup of steamed. You know, once you steam it, it crunches down. How do I treat kids with ochratoxin? I have a, a mold in kids course that you can take that gives you how to adjust things for kids. Then I have an ochratoxin bundle in my store. You don't have to get it. You can just. That's where you can read about what I'm using and why. So thought that helpful. Trying to determine if my apartment is safe. Can high MPA be from colonization? I. We don't know. So you're gonna hear different things. I know Dr. Andrew Campbell says that he does see high MPA on his mymico lab. With colonization in my patient base, and we're all attracting different patients. In my patient base, I haven't seen colonization rise MPA to a high enough degree to be significant. So if I'm seeing a high mpa, I'm tending to think it's a current exposure. That's the tricky thing, the. How do I tell if I'm okay where I'm at? There are a couple of methods that different doctors use, but the best is environmental testing. Actually, the best test is how do you feel when you're not there? That's the best test. Okay, When I say if ochratoxin shows up on oats, it is colonized. Okay. So what's showing up on an organic acid test or an oat test is the fungal markers. In the first section of an oat, you're gonna see certain markers that are elevated that indicate colonization. So you're not going to see ochratoxin, but you will see some of the byproducts of Aspergillus or Fusarium. You can see some of those. Or if you have a very high arabinose, that could be an added Candida burden. So if you are wondering if you're colonized, so you're seeing mycotoxins on a test, whether it's a urine test or a blood test, then you can run the oat at the same time. And that could tell you more hints to whether you're colonized or not. In my patient base, almost all my patients are colonized in the sinuses. That's why I use intranasals with my treatment. And I didn't initially until Dr. Joseph Brewer's study, where it showed that even though all of us have fungus in our sinuses, so it's not the mere presence of fungus in our sinuses. Healthy people, sick people, everyone has fungus there. The people that are sick after their water damage, building exposure, have mycotoxins in their washings of their sinuses, their gut. They even have mycotoxins in brain biopsy, lung biopsy. So that told me, okay, this is a microbiome problem. So our sinus microbiome gets hijacked and becomes pathogenic biofilm colonization. Okay, yes, I've heard of mycolabs and I use it a lot. I use both urine and the serum testing. Hey, Dr. John. And I'm. Actually, there's. I published a paper. I'm publishing a paper. It's in peer review right now that goes through a case where I do both. And you can see the rationale of why I'm using both. I'm finding that the my microlab IGE is the best test to determine if someone is currently being exposed to a moldy environment. We can also see it rise if someone has breast implants. So that's the only case of colonization that I am seeing. I don't consider that colonization. I call that fungal infection of the breast implant. So we can use the serum mycolab to determine that the IGE will go up. I love to combine that with an mpa. Right now, as of this, it always changes. I'm finding that Vibrant Labs is doing the best on mycotoxins. Their prep seems to be picking those up best and not so much mpa, whereas Great Plains Prep is picking up MPA better than mycotoxins. So right now I might run a. An MPA as well. There are other ways to do it. You. You know, some of the inflammatory markers. You can leave your apartment for a couple of weeks, then, then take your labs, the inflammatory markers, and then come back to your space and then retake them after 48 hours and see 24 to 48 hours and see if you're feeling better. Okay. So I want to make sure we cover a lot about ochratoxin. So you have it all at the end of this. So we talked about kidney. It will reduce glomerular filtration. So if you're starting to see your GFR on a lab, go back and look. Historically, if it's starting to lower and lower and lower and lower, that can be an ochratoxin problem. If you start to see your albumin also lower, sometimes what'll happen is it lowers and then it goes up and then your kidney function goes down. But typically we're going to see lower. Another really, really, really important thing I want to convey is that ochratoxin is hard on the heart. We're hearing a lot about myocarditis right now. And for those of you on my newsletter list, you know what I'm talking about. Mycotoxins are very hard on the heart. So we can see myocardial injury with ochratoxin exposure. I have a lot of information on my website. If you, if you go to the search and just put in myocarditis, I have what I'm using for that. Mitochondrial dysfunction is another one. So we can see a really strong negative effect on cellular glutathione. When we're using glutathione, we're not always going for, like, the liver pathway glutathione. We're trying to boost glutathione in every mitochondria in every cell in your body, particularly in the head. Brain fog is a big, like, pooped out mitochondria symptom. So I will often use glutathione for ochratoxin because of the mitochondrial injury. It's also genotoxic, can cause birth defects, neurotoxic. It can bioaccumulate in the brain because it gets actively taken up by some of the transporters. So every cell has different doorways, keys. So you have to have the right key. And ochratoxin is one of those keys that can open that doorway. Okay, we talked about what to eat. There are ochratoxin specific, mycotoxin neutralizing spices that you can add to your food. You can add rosemary, mint, sage, and thyme. So if you have any dish that you're eating that those would go with, spike it, because they will neutralize those particular fungi their ability to make ochratoxin to defend themselves. It's kind of a cool effect. Lycopene is also. That's in the red color band. So if we're, we're looking at the things that are specific in the bioflavonoid color band that's specific for ochratoxin. We've got the oranges in the middle, but yellows and reds also help. So yellows is quercetin, rutin, luteolin, fisetin, myricitin, and red is lycopene. So all of those have been shown in animal studies to be effective. And like I said earlier, I'm typically needing to boost that amount through supplementation when my patients have an elevated ochratoxin. Okay, let's get back to questions. How do you kill mycotoxins? So mycotoxins are technically not a living thing. They're a chemical that comes off of the mold. So they need to be degraded. What we do when we kill the mold, unfortunately, the mold will try to spit out more mycotoxins to defend itself. Little mold and that's what makes it so hard to fight in buildings. So the as far as how to take care of it on your stuff or your buildings, I am not a building expert. I highly recommend checking out the Michael Rubino and Mold Finders and Mold Finders Radio is really great podcast and he answers some of these questions about how to deal with mycotoxins on stuff in buildings. And then Mold Finders also has a what to do about my stuff handout that I find very, very helpful. It's so old school mold healing needs, modern faster technology approach. Maybe somebody develops something that's a wearable. I know old school eat the herbs. That's so old school. But it's very effective. Could mold have come from me or it has to be from a water damage. Building people don't tend to have mold. That's not a normal human state. Our sinuses, our gut microbiome, we have some fungi that's part of a healthy commensal microbiome. But if you're finding mycotoxins, that's that difference. There's something fundamentally that changes in that microbiome when you're exposed to water damage building either the spores, the spore fragments or the chemicals from mold send a message into your microbiome of the sinuses of the gut, the respiratory passages, the lungs that says molds moving in. And then your body has this change from being commensal and sharing to being defensive and spitting out its own defensive toxins. So what makes us sensitive to oxalates that because that's usually colonization or fungal infection. Because the fungi make oxalates. That's one of their metabolic byproducts. Once you a lot of my patients who can't tolerate oxalate high foods because I use antifungals with almost all my patients can think of any. I mean if they're coming in, if they get through the first steps of treatment, in my book, they don't need to come see me. And if they're better after that, people that come see me, they're not better after that. So we use antifungals and I'm using them pretty much all patients I know never say never and never say all. But I'm trying to think of an example. Let's say the majority and get them on as soon as possible. Especially if they're oxalate or histamine sensitive or salicylate sensitive. Because we know then that there are fungi in their microbiome that spitting out that metabolic byproduct like crazy. And that's causing an overload. I don't have an opinion on that binder because I'm not familiar with it. I'm sorry. Any suggestions for vitamin B supplements not made from mold sources? I am very sensitive. That is really tough. A lot of the bees are made from. From mold. That's because they. That's one of the things they do really well is they ferment foods in and create B vitamins and they need B vitamins. So a lot of moltic people are really deficient in vitamin B. I have had a lot of luck with my moldic patients using the brand Vital Nutrients. It seems to be whatever they're sourcing their beef from tends to be very tolerated by my patients, but not always. What bioflavonide brand do I say I liked? I like a light health color guard. It's a. It's a combined like specific for the different things that mold depletes. And full disclosure, I. I am medical director for them. So, you know, I have interest in it. So if you're looking for something that's not me, Douglas Labs Ultimate Ultra Ultra antioxidant is another one. Can schizophrenia ever be from underlying mold? Yes, very. Yes. Yes, it can. Also parasites. So it's that one, two punch of mold and parasites. I appreciate you too. I appreciate you being here. I am not taking new patients. I have a membership for that. I'm trying to train more doctors. So there's like every community can have a mold literate doctor. That's my goal. When do you know if the colonization is resolved? Such a great question. Typically what I'm doing is I am retesting their. This is one of the few times I provoke mycotoxins. I will retest their urine. Mycotoxins provoking which because every mycotoxin uses a different pathway, I don't do it with glutathione. Typically I'm using sauna and then collecting the urine from the sauna for the next six hours and then sending that in. And if we don't see mycotoxins, they're done and we can start weaning off everything. How do you know when to start treating the sinuses? Asap. Asap. Asap, asap. If you're sensitive to melatonin, that is an indicator that you're low on the membrane lipids such as phosphatidylserine and choline. What is mpa? MPA is mycophenolic acid. It's a secondary metabolite of mold. When mold is actively growing and metabolizing. And so it's not a mycotoxin. It's not made to defend itself. Mycotoxins are only made when the. When the mold is trying to defend itself. But MPA will be growing whenever or secreted whenever mold is growing. Okay, last thing. Let's make sure we talk about ochratoxin symptoms before our lunch and learn is over. So, symptoms that I see specifically with ochratoxin is fatigue, brain fog, headaches, migraines. That's because it can cross up. Low appetite, nausea, chemical sensitivity, itchiness, frequent urination. Or it may progress as your kidneys become damaged to infrequent urination. Like your body doesn't make enough pee edema, especially in the lower limbs. High blood pressure, chest pain, muscle weakness and or cramps. Exercise intolerance, and frequent infections or delayed infections. When you get an infection, you can't get over it. And that's that immunotoxic part. It will actually activate a certain immune cell called neutrophils and then kill them. So mold sly. That way. All right, so that is ochratoxin. We will talk about gliotoxin tomorrow. Hope you can join me for the lunch and learn. Thanks, guys. Bye.