Mold: Is This Quiet Predator Making You Weak?
DAVE ASPREY
Without knowing it, hundreds of millions of people are exposed to toxic mold every single day by touch, breathing or ingestion—and they don’t even know it.
Mold is silent, shifting and threatens our well-being. It can grow behind walls, below floors and even makes a home in our food. What you might not realize is, mold can make you very sick and in some cases, even be deadly.
People often underestimate the crippling effects that mold has on our bodies. If the growth of mold is unmanaged, it can overload and break down your immune system. When someone is suffering from mold toxicity, they are often left confused and frustrated trying to figure out the root cause of their illness.
Mold Attacks Your Performance and Health
Some molds release poisonous, invisible chemicals known as mycotoxins that are difficult, but not impossible, to kill. These mycotoxins will make their home all around your environment, contaminating everything you own from furniture to your clothes. These biotoxins travel through the body distressing immunity, joints, the nervous system, and more. They change how you think, how you feel and even how long you live.
Apart from mycotoxins, molds also generate irritants and allergens that trigger reactions often related to a person’s sensitivities. For example, studies show that 25-28% of North Americans are genetically predisposed to have problems with water-damaged buildings.
What Are The Symptoms?
Chronic mold toxicity is repeatedly misdiagnosed because of its collection of symptoms that resemble other diseases and syndromes. It's habitually mistaken for and pooled together as Lyme Disease, Celiac Disease, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and more.
Research shows that exposure to mold can cause:
- Neurocognitive problems
- Brain Fog/Confusion/Memory loss
- Mood issues
- Sleep issues
- Auto-immune issues
- Inflammatory problems
- Joint pain
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- GI problems/food sensitivities
- Weight fluctuation
- Numbness and tingling
- Blurred vision
- Sensitivity to light
If you have a compromised immune system, certain opportunistic infectious diseases from the mold can also affect the lungs, skin, eyes and more.
Where Does Mold Hide?
About 50% of the buildings in the United States have water damage, so there's a good chance you and mold have been in the same room. Mold flourishes in damp, poorly ventilated areas. Sometimes it starts with a plumbing problem, a leak in your roof or the aftermath of a flood. Any place water travels, mold can unexpectedly develop behind drywall, underneath carpeting, in wood and poor construction materials.
Also, dirty HVAC systems collect dust and moisture, making them a perfect Petrie dish for mold to grow, even if you don’t have a leak.
Shockingly, mold isn’t just happy to multiply in damp, dark places. Some of the toughest strains grow in dry, arid climates.
Apart from molds in the environment, there are also molds in food. Foods that are higher in mycotoxins are grains, nuts, chocolate, coffee, and wine. If you are sensitive to mold in your surroundings, you’re more likely to be vulnerable to the mold or yeast in your food.
Molds are one part of the total environmental load put on your body. On a daily basis, we're exposed to pesticides, solvents, chemicals, various bacteria, and viruses. So many things can happen to our bodies when our environments aren’t optimal, making us weak. If you are looking for high-performance, high energy, and high focus, eliminating toxic mold exposure is critical.
What Do I Do Now?
The general medical community is not entirely aware of mold's effects and symptoms. Although conversations and research around mold are growing and mold is getting more mainstream media coverage. If you suspect mold might be a problem for you, getting informed is the first step to tackling mold. The good news is that, once you remove the threat of mold, your body will likely respond with a recovery protocol and return to normal.
As mold awareness grows, so have the resources, check these out:
Test For Mold In Your Environment
The most widely used test is the ERMI (Environmental Relative Moldiness Index), initially developed by the EPA. Take samples from your office, home and wherever you spend time. Test your space before you do anything; disturbing mold spores can make the situation worse.
Work With A Professional Mold Remediation Expert
If your test comes back positive, work with a mold remediation professional to identify all of the sources of mold in your space and find where the humidity is trapped. You'll also need to use a contractor grade drying system. After repairing leaks, clearing air exchanges and mold removal, you’ll need to test once again to make sure all of the spores are absent before rebuilding or moving back in.
Find The Right Doctor
Look for a doctor trained in the Shoemaker Protocol or one familiar with mold illness. Your body will need to go through a detoxification process.
Support Your Body
Stay away from foods that feed or contain yeast, mold and fungus like carbohydrates and sugars. You can add supplements that aid in the recovery and removal of toxins like Glutathione, activated charcoal and products that help you rebuild and restore your mitochondria.
Get Informed
Watch Moldy the Movie, a comprehensive documentary that covers mold diagnosis, treatments, experiences and resources straight from patients, the world's top mold experts, professional contractors, and doctors.
Whether you’re experiencing minor to major immune responses, contact with toxic mold always comes at a biological cost. Our bodies respond to our surroundings and by eliminating those toxins, you can free up your biological resources to do something else in life.
Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof and author of New York Times bestseller The Bulletproof Diet, is a Silicon Valley investor and technology entrepreneur who spent two decades and over $300,000 to hack his own biology. Dave lost 100 pounds without counting calories or excessive exercise, used techniques to upgrade his brain by more than 20 IQ points, and lowered his biological age while learning to sleep more efficiently in less time. Learning to do these seemingly impossible things transformed him into a better entrepreneur, a better husband, and a better father.