For those not aware of our Mold Symptom Therapy Guide website, let this “Rewriting Mold” series serve as a reminder of both what we offer our patients and what we offer the general public in terms of understanding mold toxicity illness. Over the coming weeks, I will be reviewing and reposting sections of our Mold Symptoms Therapy website one or two at a time. It has been over 3 years since I first wrote this 30 plus page guide and posted it online. A few things have changed since 2020 (yes, an understatement), but the basic principles emphasized in 2020 continue with minimal change.
As this provides me an opportunity to update any advancements, it also offers the opportunity for you to ask questions and even contribute to edition number 2 of the Mold Guide. By leaving comments and questions, I can identify areas where I can offer even more to patients and the public in terms of education and empowerment over mold. Please take 2-3 minutes to be a part of helping others restore healthier more abundant lives with your questions and feedback. You can leave comments on Facebook or our website not only for each week’s section, but any section off the website which I have not addressed yet.
This week: Mold and the Immune System
Not only does it have a central role in ongoing inflammation, the immune system can have its defense mechanisms altered by mold toxins. Under mold toxicity, the defense system, which is supposed to protect the body from outside invaders, becomes confused and imbalanced. In one respect, the defense function is weakened. In another, autoimmunity, it is amplified. In no sense is the change good for a person’s health.
Under normal conditions, our immune system balances tolerance and intolerance. We rely on our immune system to discriminate between the countless molecules, both structural and functional, which make up our various organ systems and the foreign molecules of viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi, and toxins. We need the immune system, in all its complexity with cells, antibodies, and communication systems, to correctly identify our molecules and tissues as belonging to us and leave them alone most of the time. The only time our immune system needs to respond to our cells is when our cells are infected or chemically marked for turnover, i.e. trash. Otherwise, the immune system needs to stay out of the way and let our other systems do their work.
On the other hand, our immune system must quickly and correctly identify foreign molecules and organisms before they do any damage. Once identified, our immune system must react with adequate force to eradicate the threat while not causing significant damage to our own nearby cells and tissues. Setting off shotguns and grenades at a molecular level in our body is not a good way to handle invaders. Sharpshooting the microbes or toxins limits secondary damage such as oxidative stress. Balance is the key factor in all of these processes. A well-functioning immune system needs to both discriminate self from non-self and then remove the legitimate targets without collateral damage.
This balance is lost when mold toxins, by themselves or in combination with other toxins, push the immune system off balance. An off-balance immune system can mistakenly identify self as non-self as well as improperly respond to invaders (i.e. non-self).
In one instance, the immune system can lose discriminatory ability and initiate autoimmune processes, or attacks on our own tissues and cells. Autoimmune diseases are many and varied depending on which cells or tissues or organs are affected. A common example includes Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis as the immune system develops antibodies to our own thyroid tissue. The destruction of thyroid hormone producing tissue eventually leads to hypothyroidism with all its unwanted symptoms. Other auto-immune diseases result from other antibodies against our own cells such as Anti-Nuclear Antibodies (ANA) which may mimic or trigger a variety of classical autoimmune diseases like Lupus. With mold toxicity, gluten antibodies may arise and trigger symptoms when gluten is eaten. The list goes on. Basically, the immune system sometimes becomes the aggressor against its own body.
Meanwhile, with the ongoing inflammatory state triggered by excessive mold toxins, the immune system appears to grow lax in its intended role as defender of our bodies. New microbes, such as bacteria, parasites, or viruses have an easier time getting into and staying in the body, causing disease in the process. Old microbes, ones which have sat around in a latent or dormant state, can also reawaken to multiply and wreak havoc. These infectious “friends of mold” will be discussed later, but for now just know that mold distracts and suppresses our immune system. Consequently, we become more susceptible to both simple infections, like colds, and chronic infections, like Lyme. In addition, the healthy balance of helpful body microbes (such as gut bacteria) can become imbalanced because of poor immune system controls. Having left the patient with an unhealthy balance of microbes, this altered microbiome then leads to various disease states.
In summary, mold toxins, when they reach a threshold in mold sensitive patients (those who cannot degrade such toxins internally) can trigger either an underactive and/or an overactive immune system. The balance of our immune system recognizing our “self” tissues versus “non-self” tissues is disrupted and either autoimmune diseases or various infections can develop. Restoring health requires removing the mold toxin trigger and restoring the balance that has been lost.
TAKE HOME POINTS
Immune System
Normal balance
Identify self and not attack
Identify invaders and remove
Neither dysfunction is good for our health
Immune dysregulation – Off-balance
Increases autoimmunity –
Mostly through antibodies
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or ANA antibodies
Lowers defenses to invaders
New and old microbes
Lyme, yeast, EBV, Parasites can flourish
If mold toxins reach a threshold
Autoimmune disease OR
Chronic and Acute infections can result
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
