Experts Estimate Nearly 50% of ALL U.S. Buildings are Contaminated by Mold
Let’s be honest, mold is far from headline news.
It’s not sexy or dramatic. It’s not going to get thousands of people to raise money. There is no “mold awareness month” campaign with black mold-colored ribbons.
And yet, it is a looming toxic crisis we are only just beginning to comprehend, once considered the domain of alternative medicine but now becoming mainstream.
Mycotoxins, the poisons produced by mold, slowly wear you down, sap your energy, destroy mitochondria, wreck performance, cloud your mind, and poison your immune system.
Millions of people are exposed every day. Most will never know and spend years and thousands of dollars chasing mystery symptoms.
And experts estimate that nearly 50% of ALL buildings in the US have some level of contamination.
However, with the right knowledge, you can heal and protect yourself.
But before we get there, let’s take a deeper look at what mold is and why it’s so harmful to our health.
Mold is an ancient lifeform.
It’s only slightly younger than it’s arch-enemy, bacteria. Over the course of billions of years, bacteria and mold have been engaged in advanced chemical warfare.
They have gotten extremely good at it, and as a result, mold creates some of the most toxic compounds on the planet.
Penicillin is perhaps the most famous product of this war of microorganisms –– this single mold-made antibiotic became the foundation of modern pharmaceutical medicine.
However, because we have a deep co-evolutionary history with bacteria, mycotoxins (the poisons produced by mold) affect much more than petri dishes and bacterial infections.
We humans are, in fact, powered by bacteria.
Not just the microflora in our gut (which are definitely important and also destroyed by mycotoxins), but inside every single one of our cells are dozens, if not thousands, of ancient bacteria.
We call them mitochondria.
They are the little energy factories of our cells.
The firing of neurons, the contracting of muscle, the healing of wounds… all of it depends on the energy produced by your mitochondria.
And what mold makes is the equivalent of kryptonite to mitochondria. Mold poisons your ability to make basic biochemical energy.
But it doesn’t stop there. Mold affects virtually everything in your body.
Mycotoxins damage DNA, leading to cancer [1,3-5].
They can rip apart the myelin sheath protecting your neurons [6], creating and exacerbating neurodegenerative disease [8]. They attack your immune system and deplete your antioxidant capacity [1,2], leaving you vulnerable to other stresses and disease.
Mycotoxins can cause birth defects or cause a pregnancy to abort.
They are toxic to your liver and kidneys and take at least 35 days to flush out [7].
But most importantly, they cause a breakdown in the membrane and electron transport chain in mitochondria that produce all your vital energy [8-10].
As you might expect, something that can affect your entire bioenergy production can have a huge range of symptoms that may manifest. Here is just a partial list of possible symptoms from mold toxicity:
The tricky thing with mold is that everyone has a different susceptibility. The symptoms of mold toxicity will look different for each person. This makes it incredibly difficult to diagnose, and it is far from a high priority for most doctors.
Fortunately, recovering from mold exposure is relatively simple, though it may take some time.
The first and most important step is to immediately remove yourself from the moldy environment.
Unfortunately, this is also often the most difficult step. If the moldy environment is your house or your workplace, removing the mold can be extraordinarily difficult. Especially because it can often hide in ventilation systems, between walls, or in other hidden places.
You can get a home mold test kit to see if you have mold in your home. For a more accurate diagnosis of the exact source and guidance on remediation, consult a mold-elimination professional.
The next step is to detox your body.
Mold exposure is a serious threat to your health. It can be misdiagnosed as Lyme disease, chronic fatigue, an autoimmune disease, a degenerative condition, anxiety or any number of possible “diagnoses” that can be misinterpreted and mistreated by a well-intentioned doctor.
If you know you have been exposed, take immediate action. Get yourself out of the environment and begin a detox protocol as soon as possible.
The importance of having a well-functioning and healthy immune system has become increasingly obvious in recent times.
Sadly, everyone seems to have a different answer as to how you should go about strengthening your immune system. When you go to your local health and wellness shop, you might see twenty or thirty products that tout their “immune boosting” powers. An Amazon search reveals thousands of results.
Well, we’re here to tell you about an effective and ancient remedy that has been in use for over two thousand years: the red reishi mushroom.
We’ve all heard about all the negative effects of stress and the modern lifestyle.
We’re all rushing around, overworked, in a constant state of fight-or-flight and it has disastrous effects on our health.
But what if “stress” wasn’t the real problem?
What if our bodies knew exactly how to cope with the intensity of modern life… if we just gave the body what it needed to thrive?
And the key may be one little mineral.
I hope this finds you healthy and able to still get outside (or inside) for a daily run during this trying time of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many of us are grieving several losses including race cancellations. Though it's a bummer, I want you to know that your hard-earned training is far from wasted.
Those miles are in your legs and all kinds of wonderful benefits have occurred including the addition of mitochondria, adding new capillary beds for increased blood flow, and strengthening the heart muscle for future training.
As athletes, it's important for us to be proactive in maintaining a strong immune system. We're not only doing this for our own prevention but also our loved ones that we spend time with.
Read on for 5 tips to consider as you seek to stay healthy.
