Mould illness is a term that covers all of the health problems that can arise from a water-damaged building. We know about mould spores and their health effects, but there is a whole host of other microbes and toxins which can impact our health in different ways. It can also be called mould toxicity, toxic mould syndrome, mould sickness, chronic inflammatory response syndrome and biotoxin illness.

At least half of NZ houses are water-damaged and have mould issues, and the number is similar in other countries like the USA and Australia. While mainstream medicine and society does acknowledge that this is a problem, most people are unaware of how much illness mould can cause.

When there is water damage, it takes around 24-48 hours for mould to start growing (so dry those leaks and floods fast!). But bacteria also starts moving in and soon there is a big microbial party which is often called the "microbial soup". When there are multiple mould species indoors, the mould will often get hostile towards each other and produce mycotoxins which are very potent (military have studied them as biological weapons). Because of their tiny size, they can escape more easily from behind building materials, pass through our own defense mechanisims and wreak havoc in our bodies.

Mould is one of the oldest organisms on the earth, and criticial for life on this planet. We can't live without it, but we just dont want to live with it in our homes. Mould is a terrible flatmate- it can destroy your home, destroy your health and it will pay for none of it!

  • MOULD SPORES

    3-40 microns in size (human hair is 70 microns wide). Sprore fragments are much smaller

    One square inch of visible mould has approximately 1 million spores

    Produced for reproduction and survival

    Not toxic or carcinogenic

    Moves into lungs and sinuses where immune system recognises (destroy or cough out)

    Spore fragments are much smaller can move deeper into lungs and get stuck making it harder for your immune system to remove. One spore can break into approx 300-500 fragments.

  • MYCOTOXINS

    0.1 to 3 microns in size

    Chemical, gas like

    Produced as a defense weapon against other mould species with the intent to harm.

    Can move much deeper into lungs and traverse body linings into body (gut, eyes, skin, sinus, lungs)

    Toxic to immune system, nerves, skin, kidneys, liver, genes

    Carcinogenic

    Very potent. Studied by militaries as bioweapons

    Odourless

  • THE OTHER PLAYERS

    includes bacteria, actinobacteria, endotoxins, VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and beta glucans

    Can cause immune dysregulation and infammation in body

    Creates a biofilm (protective slime layer) which can impact our own flora and biofilms

    Creates the smell in a water damaged environment

Who does mould affect?

Indoor mould can affect anyone, but some people are more suceptible. Approximately 1 in 4 people have a genetic variation where their immune systems aren't able to recognize the mould toxins and they accumulate in the body.

Aside from genetics, people may have problems with their detoxification pathways, which means that they can't eliminate the toxins effectively. Other factors such as infections, trauma, immunity, lifestyle and nutritional status can also impact how people deal with mould and its toxins.

This means that there is a huge variation in how people are affected by indoor mould. You may have 4 people living in a mouldy house, 2 might be unwell but wtih different symptoms and the others feel fine. But if there are high levels of indoor mould, it will eventually affect everyone who lives there to some extent.

What do mycotoxins do in the body?

In a water-damaged building, mycotoxins follow this path into your body

Breath >> Respiratory linings >> Soak into blood vessels >> Go anywhere in the body that blood goes >> Any not filtered out by kidneys go to the liver >> Get packaged up in bile >> Go to the gut >> Either reabsorbed or picked up by bile binder >> Poop! (credit Dr Crista)

If you have the HLA-DR genetics where your adaptive immune system isn't identifying mycotoxins, then you can have an increased response from the innate immune response which causes increased inflammation in the body. This causes an ongoing immune cascade and increased cytokines (similar to long covid).

The mycotoxins themselves are mainly lipophilic, which means fat-soluble. They are easily absorbed into the body and also into cells, due to the lipid layer around cells, causing disruption to the cell. The parts of our bodies which are oil-rich such as gut lining, cell lining, nervous system and brain are particularly affected by mycotoxins

Mycotoxins can also damage mitochondria which impacts energy production and healing in the body.

Mycotoxins are carcinogenic and have been shown in studies to be toxic to the immune system, nerves, skin, kidneys, liver and genetics.

There are tons of studies showing these toxic effects on animals but not many clinical trials on humans. This is because its not very ethical to give people a known carcinogen and toxic substance so that it can be studied.

Analogy: Clearing out your rubbish

Getting rid of toxins in your body is like getting rid of rubbish in our house. You identify what is rubbish and put in the bin. When that's full you take it to the wheely bin, and then take it out to the street to be collected.


You may get blocked in one or more of the steps, resulting in a backlog of rubbish. This could happen in the following ways

  1. You are unable to indentify what is rubbish and it doesn't go into the bin (adaptive immune system is unable to recognize the toxins)
  2. You are not able to bring the rubbish from the inside bin to the outside wheely bin (poor detoxification, lymph and bile flow)
  3. As you bring the wheely bin out to the road, the lid is open and rubbish blows out back into your house. Or your kids look in the bin and take things back in the house! (bile is reabsorbed in the gut carrying the toxins with it. Using binders for detox is like keeping the lid down on the wheely bin)
  4. The rubbish truck never comes and the wheely bin full of rubbish ends up back in your property (being constipated and not able to get the toxins out into the toilet)
  5. There is just so much rubbish that even with the other 4 steps working well you can't deal with it (living in a very mouldy house)

 

Mould ilness can be......

Symptoms of mould illness

The symptoms in the table below have been reported in mould illness patients, and many are used in Dr Jill
Cristas mold questionnaire , Not all symptoms have been proven in studies, but it has been found that the number of symptoms you have correlates with the possibility of having mould-related illness

Diagnosed conditions that may have a mould component are

Want to learn about testing?

Testing for mould illnessTesting a home or building