Mold Toxicity: Signs, Symptoms, & Treatment | Dr. Roger Seheult & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | A number of people I know have mold issues.

00:00:05.960 | They claim or they believe that mold has infiltrated their lungs.

00:00:12.040 | Some doctors tell them they're crazy.

00:00:13.520 | Some doctors tell them that they're not crazy about that idea.

00:00:18.520 | Is mold toxicity a real thing?

00:00:20.820 | Can it be treated?

00:00:22.040 | Maybe we do an entire episode about this another time, but is it a real thing?

00:00:27.040 | And what is the kind of primary treatment for mold toxicity?

00:00:30.640 | It is a real thing.

00:00:32.120 | And mold is a substance that can have multiple different effects on the body.

00:00:39.320 | Let me give you an example.

00:00:41.400 | There's a fungus called aspergillus.

00:00:44.520 | And there's two ways that aspergillus can affect the human body.

00:00:48.920 | One is if it just sets up shop in your lungs and it doesn't invade, you could become allergic

00:00:55.040 | to it.

00:00:56.040 | And the symptoms are allergic.

00:00:57.240 | Actually, there's a condition called allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis.

00:01:00.840 | So it's kind of like an autoimmune situation.

00:01:02.600 | Exactly.

00:01:03.600 | And so you have symptoms of asthma.

00:01:05.320 | You have symptoms of inability to breathe.

00:01:08.920 | And the primary treatment, ironically, there is steroids because you need to reduce the

00:01:13.200 | inflammation, but also antifungals to get rid of the thing that's inciting in the first

00:01:17.760 | place.

00:01:19.000 | That's as opposed to invasive aspergillosis.

00:01:22.300 | That's where the fungus comes in and starts to invade and create a cavitary lesion, usually

00:01:27.640 | with a fungus ball sitting in the middle of it.

00:01:29.560 | Oh, yeah, it's pretty bad.

00:01:31.680 | Sometimes it's so bad that you actually have to do surgery to cut out that thing because

00:01:35.000 | you can't cure it.

00:01:37.840 | The way that this often happens is mold and fungus are in the air all the time.

00:01:46.980 | So here's this understanding of there's germ theory and there is terrain theory.

00:01:52.720 | And today, and I almost hate to even get into it, but people think it's one or the other.

00:01:58.640 | And I can tell you as a physician, it's both.

00:02:01.100 | There are certain diseases, it doesn't matter what your terrain is, it's going to, like

00:02:05.680 | Neisseria meningitidis, if you get that, it's going to cause a bad meningitis, no matter

00:02:10.560 | how healthy you are.

00:02:13.560 | There was just, I remember reading about a young Japanese star, I think, or Taiwanese

00:02:19.500 | star just recently here that died of influenza, 48 years old, no medical problems.

00:02:25.680 | So it's possible no matter how good your terrain is, you could get a bad bug, a bad germ, and

00:02:31.160 | it could kill you.

00:02:32.160 | On the other hand, there are certain bugs that are just sitting out there and they will

00:02:35.560 | go in and your immune system will just kick it out like it's nothing.

00:02:38.720 | Why?

00:02:39.720 | Because your terrain is good.

00:02:41.880 | So I can talk about different types of infections that could do that.

00:02:46.200 | So that's where we are with molds.

00:02:49.280 | So typically, you're breathing in all sorts of molds and fungus spores all the time.

00:02:55.920 | But if your immune system is good, it'll just kick it out and won't have a chance to survive.

00:03:00.400 | Where you have a problem is if you have a situation where your immune system is compromised.

00:03:06.640 | To give you an example of that, practically, there are some biological medications that

00:03:11.920 | people get when they have rheumatoid arthritis.

00:03:15.980 | If we get to that point where you have rheumatitis so bad that we have to put you on a biologic,

00:03:19.920 | that means there's an antibody there that's suppressing the immune system so that you

00:03:23.960 | don't have the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.

00:03:26.400 | That's actually suppressing your immune system.

00:03:28.380 | In those patients, we'll always check them for tuberculosis because certain people walking

00:03:33.960 | in the population will have an inactivated tuberculosis.

00:03:37.240 | They're infected, but their immune system has walled it off.

00:03:40.080 | Then we put them on a biologic, and the tuberculosis pops up.

00:03:44.040 | So all of that to say that, yes, it is possible if you have mold in your house versus if you

00:03:49.240 | don't have mold in your house.

00:03:50.320 | That just increases the burden of mold that you're inhaling.

00:03:53.720 | And to the degree that it's going to match against your immune system, that could depend

00:04:00.760 | on whether or not it jumps in and actually causes a problem.

00:04:03.320 | So we're coming up--this is the time of year where we're coming up to the Super Bowl.

00:04:07.220 | So it's the question about terrain theory versus germ theory.

00:04:13.060 | And the question is, whoever wins the Super Bowl, did they win the Super Bowl or did the

00:04:17.080 | other team lose the Super Bowl?

00:04:19.200 | And that's--who knows?

00:04:21.880 | So this is where this thing--it's not or, it's and.

00:04:25.920 | And really what determines whether or not you get infected is how good is your immune

00:04:29.440 | system and how virulent is the burden of a pathogen that's going in.

00:04:34.240 | The reason I asked, is it a real thing, is that people that I know who believe they have

00:04:40.320 | a mold infection or they did do seem to have symptoms that last a long time.

00:04:45.720 | And there doesn't seem to be any general agreement about what specific treatment to use for this

00:04:52.600 | unless maybe they need surgery or something.

00:04:55.580 | So do you give people antifungals?

00:04:58.400 | Are there--is there anything over the counter that can help?

00:05:01.460 | Will the sauna protocols and steam protocols we were talking about earlier help?

00:05:04.540 | I would imagine a lot of warm, moist air is exactly what fungus loves.

00:05:09.080 | Yes, it does.

00:05:12.000 | If someone came to me with mold, with a mold complaint or thinking they had mold, there

00:05:17.400 | are a number of tests that you can do to see whether or not there's antibodies to those

00:05:20.400 | things and you can see whether or not that may or may not be there.

00:05:22.840 | It's not definitive.

00:05:24.540 | But if somebody actually, truly has mold growing in their lungs, we should be able to see that

00:05:29.380 | on a CAT scan.

00:05:30.440 | We should be able to identify it.

00:05:32.200 | We should be able to go and biopsy it.

00:05:33.720 | We should be able to go and collect it.

00:05:35.320 | And if that's exactly what grows out in the culture after we take a biopsy or a culture,

00:05:40.240 | then we can tailor antifungals for that particular thing.

00:05:44.340 | In the sense, though, that someone may be having symptoms of some sort of infection

00:05:48.580 | or something and there's nothing on the CAT scan, it's harder to really isolate exactly

00:05:53.440 | which one it would be and what would be the right treatment.

00:05:56.040 | Although, there are some syndromes known as RADS or reactive airways disease, where you

00:06:04.200 | can have an exposure to something that's so egregious that even though you don't get exposed

00:06:10.400 | to that thing again, it can still cause persistent difficulty with breathing.

00:06:15.320 | It's very similar, by the way, to asthma.

00:06:19.360 | So for instance, let's say someone's working in a vat and there's a chemical that's spilled

00:06:24.560 | and they get an incredible amount of inhalation of that chemical.

00:06:28.880 | It's well-known that these people can go on and have these types of problems, even though

00:06:34.240 | their lungs may image correctly and they may never be exposed to that chemical again.

00:06:38.580 | [Music]

Mold Toxicity: Signs, Symptoms, & Treatment | Dr. Roger Seheult & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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