Can mould exposure cause mitochondrial problems

Autoimmunity may be triggered and mitochondrial harm caused by exposure to water and mould-damaged indoor environments. Patients who have been exposed to mould have been found to have high anti-mitochondrial antibody levels. By causing oxidative stress or altering DNA and RNA, mould-produced mycotoxins can cause mitochondrial dysfunction. Additionally connected to juvenile acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS), mould exposure can exacerbate PANS symptoms already present. So it's conceivable that exposure to mould can result in mitochondrial issues.

Why are mitochondria important

The majority of the chemical energy required to fuel cellular processes and biological activities is produced by mitochondria, which are crucial because they are the powerhouses of the cell. They are in charge of creating the ATP that cells use as an energy source. Other crucial jobs performed by mitochondria include generating molecules that communicate...

Kitchen Dangers

According to a recent study by the Agriculture Department Food Safety and Inspection Service, the kitchen items with the most germs include spice jars, cutting boards, the sink, soap dispenser, and faucet handle. The study found that people were not washing their hands or wiping down surfaces during meal preparation, which contributed to the presence of germs. The USDA recommends washing these items with hot soapy water or a bleach-water mixture to avoid cross contamination and pathogens.

Sponges, dish cloths, and other cleaning items were also discovered to be dirty and should be cleaned on a regular basis, such as by microwaving sponges for 1-2 minutes or washing dish cloths every day. To avoid moisture, it's best to replace sponges every day, or at the very least make sure they're completely dry. 

Bacteria of all kinds died in brushes over time. To reduce Salmonella, sponges and brushes were treated with chlorine, boiled, or washed in the dishwasher.

Brushes...

Mould can grow in your home and it can make you and your family sick. A recent study found that building problems are the main cause of mould growing. When mould is in your home, it's important to find out what is causing it and how to make it stop growing.

A professional mould inspector can help you find out if you have mould in your house and what is causing it. The inspector can give you a list of things that need to be fixed to stop the mould from growing.

We can help so get in contact here or here.

Download the Infographic here and keep it for reference.

10 Point Checklist

1. Indoor mould growth can have significant immediate and long-term health effects on occupants of a home or building.
2. A recent study found that building defects are the leading cause of mould proliferation, with water infiltration through leaks in roofs or walls being the top contributor.
3. Mould growth is a common problem, with 20% of homes in the United States and Europe found to have mould growth.
4. Many...

INTRODUCTION

Every year, fungi cause millions of deaths and tens of millions of infections around the world. In immunocompromised patients, fungi are mostly opportunistic, causing moderate to severe illness. Fungal infections are also linked to higher illness rates and high healthcare costs. The risk of serious fungal infection is decreasing, largely due to a reduction in HIV-associated infections. However, patients with certain underlying conditions are increasingly being affected by infections.

The effects of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status on fungal infections and associated patient outcomes have increased in healthcare settings. Previous research has shown a link between health disparities and fungal infections.

This research looked at the demographic and socio-economic factors connected with fungal infection risk in the United States up to 2019. The researchers used hospital discharge data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's National Inpatient Sample...

Mould and mycotoxin effects have been known for a long time. People started to study the effects on animals a lot. Then they did it with people too, but it is less well-known. Most of the time when we talk about water-damaged buildings, it is in the legal arena, but...

People can get sick from being around and exposed to moulds, mycotoxins, and water-damaged buildings. These things can make people have different kinds of signs and symptoms. Some of these look like neurologic problems that people usually get, like pain, movement problems, feeling really confused or not knowing what is going on, having balance or coordination problems, and even dementia. In this article [1], the author talks about how to tell the difference between these things and other neurologic diseases. This is important so that we can learn more about how mould/mycotoxin/water-damaged buildings affect the human nervous system and cause diseases.

Mould is known to cause complexes of local and focused pain...

Science is all about observation and forming hypotheses to answer questions. For scientists like myself, I’m interested in how the environment affects health, and specifically, how water-damaged buildings and exposure to poor indoor air quality can affect quality of life. For this week on The Mould Show, we're going to be talking about fungal mycotoxins and myalgic encephalomyelitis termed ME for short and chronic fatigue syndrome  (ME/CFS).

The reason I've chosen this topic is that I've met a family whom I've now done three separate mould inspections for.  Why this is unusual is that the symptoms experienced by the female occupant and her daughter are classic ME/CFS symptoms.  Across all 3 of the different properties hidden mould problems were discovered.  That information in itself was useful for this family and helped them to break their lease due to the fact that there was verified mould present. However, that's not the point of this podcast and even...

This week on The Mould Show we're going to be looking at the gut microbiome and in particular, some emerging research that is showing that the diversity of microorganisms found in the gut may be linked to different immune responses and may even affect the pathogenesis of conditions like multiple sclerosis, MS.

I'll be reviewing two of the dominant papers in the MS literature around gut microflora and looking at this concept of species diversity. In these papers, the scientists looked at the number of different microorganisms between healthy controls and MS patients.

Multiple sclerosis is a neuro-inflammatory autoimmune disease known to affect two and a half million people worldwide with most patients experiencing what is termed relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis which as the name suggests shows periods of stasis punctuated with symptoms but overwhelmingly moves towards more frequent symptoms as the disease progresses. There are currently no known treatments for...

Imagine that at your workplace - you move to new offices and these offices are sited partially below ground level. Within three months of moving into the new offices, every person who works there has started to suffer from symptoms that are consistent with exposure to a water-damaged building and are reacting to the microbes and moulds that are commonly found in these environments.   

When the symptoms became unbearable, the office staff started looking for answers. This week on The Mould Show, I'm going to be reviewing the research results that carefully examined each of those office workers to work out two things:

Firstly, was the building contributing something toxic that the workers were being exposed to? And secondly, how could this be best measured by the medical doctors who were involved?

We all know that there's a shopping list of common symptoms associated with mould. Typically this includes headaches, fatigue, coughing, irritation, sneezing, the potential for...

If you're dealing with water damage building interiors, or just wondering what is the best way to clean textiles and clothing that might have become mould contaminated - you might be thinking, why can't I just put them all into the washing machine? Your next question might be: is there something I can do to the washing cycle that will help reduce the population of any germs that might be on those textiles?  The answer is yes, there is an optimal way of washing your clothing to remove specific germs like classes of fungi that cause skin and nail infections. These fungi are termed dermatophytes and are superficial fungal infections that colonize the skin, hair, or nails. 

This group of fungi thrive in moist areas of the skin and are easily transferred to clothing and towels and they are also found in soil. The statistics around dermatophytes report that 20 to 25% of the world's population is currently infected with a dermatophyte fungus. 

A paper that was published in...

In Australia, we're currently suffering from torrential rain all along the east coast, affecting Queensland and New South Wales and potentially moving towards Victoria. Regardless of where you're living, unexpected water damage and mould may be a new problem for you to begin dealing with. This live stream and podcast will focus on how to deal with mould and water damage affecting paper documents. We can all imagine sodden books and libraries underwater, but I'll leave that problem for the archivists. This show segment will focus exclusively on how you can deal with mould contamination of paper documents. To do this, I’ll review a recent paper that came out that looked at how to sterilize paper during a crisis. The authors compared two types of sterilization methods called (1) gamma sterilization which uses radiation to perform cold sterilization and (2) dry heat sterilization. Why this paper is interesting is that all of us have access to dry heat using a convection drying...