In this episode of Mold Money, Daniel Stih breaks down a controversial, scientifically sound truth: all molds have the potential to produce mycotoxins, not just a few that “toxic” species.
Learn why the common belief that only certain molds are dangerous is misleading and leads to false assumptions. This is a problem when people find mycotoxins in their urine and try to trace them back to specific molds in their home, something that can not be done that way.
Daniel clarifies what he means by "potential" and "toxic", when and why molds produce mycotoxins. Whether you're a practitioner, inspector, or dealing with chronic mold symptoms, this episode will help you think clearly, test intelligently, and avoid myths that cost people their health, time and money.
The Mold Money Podcast
TRANSCRIPT
I'm going to dive into my explanation of why I said, made the statement, all molds are capable of producing a mycotoxin. Break the words down. What's mycotoxin?
If you look in the dictionary, you'll find a sentence, an explanation. But if you just ask probably someone who studies language, myco, mold, toxin, toxin, it's a mold toxin. Give me an example.
I'm like, what would be an example of a mold that can't make a toxin? Something easy, like even cladosporium and Alternaria, they can make mycotoxins technically, but give me a real easy one. Here's an example.
I'm using AI. AI is just a super Google to me. I asked it, what species of mushroom do we buy at the grocery store that we can put on our salads and eat?
The easy one would be, there are toxic mushrooms people take for hallucinogenic experiences, even for certain therapies. Those mushrooms, that's technically a toxin. If you eat mushrooms on a salad, they're not toxic?
Actually, they are. Or I'll try to pronounce it - Agricus bisporus. This species comes in several varieties. White button mushrooms, the most common, baby bella and portobella ones. All three are the same species at different stages of maturity. I didn't know that.
So then I asked, are they capable of producing toxins? Yes. In fact, there's a compound, it's naturally occurring, of course.
I don't know why we need to say naturally occurring. It's a mushroom. Agarotene. It's classified as a potential carcinogen in very high dosage in lab rats. Risk to humans, quote, the level of found in mushrooms consumed in a normal diet are extremely low.
This is what catches my attention, though. Extremely low? How low?
On this show, I'm probably speaking to people who are sick or have mold in their house. A lot of them are seeing their doctors. A low level of a toxin is kind of significant.
It says cooking significantly reduces levels up to 90%. Raw consumption, you should be cautioned, eating large quantities of raw button mushrooms over long periods may not be ideal.
When I say “all molds are capable of producing mycotoxins”, people who argue over what's defined as a toxic mold, what compound chemically is, can or cannot be classified as a mycotoxin.
Everybody agrees that even the bad molds, the worst molds, they don't always grow mycotoxins. It's a secondary metabolite, meaning the mold grows first and it may not produce the mycotoxins unless it has to, unless it's fighting, which means you can't literally connect the dots between a mycotoxin and a mold capable of producing it.
I was thinking when I thought this was, could a button mushroom, even though let's say we eat them all time in salad, normally be okay, but then all of a sudden I get some from the grocery store that for whatever reason that mushroom, when it was picked or grown, it did produce a toxin that we don't even know about yet, because we don't know about all stuff. And then it would be a quote, toxic mushroom.
In this case, it's a lot easier because it just spit it out like, oh yeah, we know about this and it's a potential carcinogen as well. Throw it back to you listeners. If you want to give me a species that you say cannot produce a mycotoxin, I'd love to see it. Put it in the show notes, because there's so many other important things to know about mold and how to get rid of it in your house and how to find it in your house and things in molds affecting your health besides the toxins and the spores.
My point in all these episodes on the mycotoxins is why? Who cares? It's the fact that you're sick and the there's mold in your house that matters. That's all that matters. I think people get pulled into a conversation about “mycotoxins” because doctors diagnosis your fatigue due to mycotoxins. Really it could be mold you eat in your food and doctors have a difficult job.
If you're sick and one of those have mold, kind of don't get stuck on this word, mycotoxin. And if you wonder, why is there so much talk about it? Am I missing something?
No, you are not. They're hung up on something that's a distraction. It not a productive use of time to focus on it.
On my other show, The Daniel Stih Podcast, I have an episode with the functional medicine doctor. We talk a little bit about mold and she gets it. On the Daniel Stih Podcast, I also talk about how I break words down, to dive into this in an intelligent manner - think in terms of words and logic.
So in my textbooks, this one I'm sure cost a pretty penny and I'm just glad I could even find it. These books are made to last. Introduction to Food and Airborne Fungi, a book the food industry uses study molds. It is by CBSU, the Institute of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science. Got a chapter here, mycotoxin production by common filamentous fungi.
You've heard this all before: mycotoxins are secondary metabolites that in small concentrations can evoke in acute or chronic disease in vertebrae animals when introduced via a natural route. They point out something I've read in a lot of their text, this word mycotoxin, when I think it just means mold toxin. It seems to be more associated as they're saying with the disease in vertebrae animals, because it goes on to say, quote, if other animals were included in the definition of mycotoxins, would probably include all secondary metabolites.
And so the word mycotoxins would lose its anthropocentric meaning. That's what I've been looking for. I have a stack of like 10 or 15 books. I'm looking for someone to explain to me what am I missing? Should mycotoxin just be mold toxin. They've used it, I think, in language back in the day when people were really sick. Horses, horses would die, cows would get sick from eating moldy grain. Cows today are tested for aflatoxin in the milk, because if they eat, you know, moldy food, it'll get passed on to you in the milk.
I think they were trying to use that for things that really caused those types of acute, sometimes could cause death, instances where they really need to tell people, hey, we're dealing with the mycotoxin issue here.
That would not apply at all to people who are sick in their house from mycotoxins, because that's not what the word was created for. It was created for these food-based breakouts. And only humans, by the way.
It's limiting its definition to vertebrates. I think it could do better here on when it says, quote, when introduced to be a natural route. I've just read you previously from the other text where it's saying, from this route, from that route, from that. My gosh, what's a natural route into? If I get cut, is that a natural route into my body? No, I'm bleeding, I'm cut. I banged my head and it's cut. So now, is that “natural” , a natural route?
Technically, I have yet to find anything in literature anywhere. Can you tell me more about the origin of the word? Not what types of mold are included - That we will never really nail down because it's a work in progress. When we have another disease breakout, we'll add another mold to that list of mycotoxin, only because the word mycotoxin is being used in a list of molds that can cause serious food borne or milk or such illness.
Not really, quote, that's a toxin at that mold. The button mushrooms are a good example. The best book I can cite for supporting my idea of mycotoxin being just a mold toxin, is a 800 pages: Dictionary of Fungi by C-A-B-I, Cabean. When you go to the word microtoxins in the index, it sends you instead to “toxin”. Then it says “a non-enzymeic metabolite of one organism, which is injurious to another antibiotic or mycotoxin produced by fungus”. That's my definition!
That's from the Dictionary of Fungi. Everything else you read or see is an extrapolation done with a good intention, I believe, that probably started with outbreak of food disease, those in the government and medicine and whatnot, their emergency response probably started to use the word mycotoxins. Reminds me come to think of it, how Stachybotrys became known as the black mold. It's a perfect example. Is it black mold? Well, you know, there's 70,000 different types of species of mold, only so many colors. A lot of molds can be black.
What do you really mean? - Stachybotrys. The news took it out of context.
Mycotoxins. Oh, it's an aflatoxin. It's a Stachybotrys T-toxin or something like that.
Thanks for listening. As I sit here with my books scattered across the floor, it's much more pleasant than going on AI and having me spit stuff out. Looking in books is great. And expensive.
Till next time, I'm Daniel Stih.
Stay healthy.
If you have mold, don't get stuck up on mycotoxins.
If you're sick, do whatever your doctor says. It's harder to prove there isn't mold in your house than there is because, you know, you can test for a mold spoil, you'll find it. You can test for a bacteria, you'll find it. You can test for mycotoxin, you'll find it. What does it mean? All these studies on what it means, I don't care. I want to find is it in my house and where and do that.
The wall check is the best method because you don't have all this interference with background stuff because if there's mold, there's billions and trillions and countless spores present and it's easy peasy. Yeah, there's mold in this wall. Unfortunately, if you don't have the money for that, because to do it properly, it does cost because you can't just do a simple spore trap or two, or you could just move someplace else. It's another strategy where you just feel better.
Don't get stuck up on the word mycotoxin and think you can evaluate, is there a connection between my health and my house based on it? You cannot. Anybody that wants to put in the show notes why they think otherwise, I'd love to hear your comments.
In regard to mushrooms, because I know it seemed to be a fad that people are taking mushrooms on purpose, and mushrooms are responsible for a lot of healthy things like penicillin, things like antibiotics - did you know mushrooms collected outdoors are rich in vitamin D? Mushrooms grown commercially can become rich in vitamin D by treatment with UV light. Mushrooms collected in nature may contain high levels of heavy metals.
Oops! Might want to be careful about adding mushroom powders and mushroom, you know, this and that, your energy drinks or whatever on purpose, because there's all this fad thing now on how certain mushrooms are good for you. What else are you getting in that diet?
Certified by ACAC • 20+ Years Experience • Author of Mold Money