Frantically, you begin searching for the source of leakage into your home.  Lifting up the carpet, you notice water is all over the floor-base and sections of the wood molding are dry while one long patch under the speckled portion of the wall is completely saturated.  The problem could be that the actual leakage is coming from within the wall and not from an easily detectable area such as a patio doorway.  You wonder how long this has been happening and what can be done about itfast!  You and your wife are elderly and maneuverability is difficult, so tackling this problem could be beyond your physical capabilities.  What can you do

You and your wife have been having sinus problems over a six-month period with constant attacks of flu-like symptoms.  Is there a connection between your discovery of mold contamination and the health problems you are experiencing  Is mold exposure hype or really dangerous

According to research offered by the Medical Mycology Research Center, Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch, there are several known diseases and/or infections caused by human exposure to toxic fungi.  Some of these are:

 Aspergillosis, Blastomycosis, Candidiasis, Chromoblastomycosis, Coccidioidomycosis, Cryptococcosis, Histoplasmosis, Lobomycosis, Mycetoma, Otomycosis, Paracoccidioidomycosis, Penicilliosis marneffeii, Phaeohypomycosis, Rhinosporidioisis, Sporotrichosis, Zygomycosis.  Also, eye infections, hair, nail, and skin diseases.

This is not isolated research, but what does it all mean  Compelling research offered from reputable laboratories throughout the world strongly supports the fact that fungi exposures can be cause conditions dangerous to human health, which can lead to death.

Detecting water intrusion that results in fungal growth, especially in a dwelling occupied by the elderly should never be handled personally.  This is a job for professional environmental hygienists who test for contamination levels of various fungi and remediation experts who repair and restore contaminated sites.  After the age of 30, the human immune system gradually becomes weaker and so a person who is elderly may have fixed the problem, but also could very likely cause health problems that can lead to very costly medical expenses.  Is it worth it

 The first remedy in finding a solution is to check your Homeowners Insurance Policy for coverage relating to plumbing and building construction problems and then call your insurance provider for more information or a home inspection.  If you rent, or your home is owned by someone else, inform your landlord of the mold contamination and insist it be explored and remediated it to your satisfaction promptly.  Normally, you do not have to become angry to get things done, but be firm.  Some fungi are able to grow and multiply within 24-48 hours under compatible conditions.  Many types of fungi occupy your home already and are found in carpeting, heating and air conditioning units, air ducts, and in other areas where they can go undetected.  Several types are also in your body living normally and even helping your immune system.  They are referred to as opportunistic fungi, and from time to time they can disturb your body, but your immune system keeps them in-check enough to work in harmony with natural metabolism.

Generally, when indoor fungi (or their reproducing particles called spore) are approximately two times or more greater in comparison to outdoor levels, and indoor humidity is often greater than 50 percent consistent with warmer indoor temperatures anywhere from any low-level temperature up to about 90 degrees, fungi contamination is possible.

The consensus of many environmental authorities indicates that humidity levels lower than 30-45 percent combined with normal room temperature settings at approximately 70 degrees, where water infiltration is not evident, is a somewhat safer environmental condition.

The idea of this article of course is not to place any fear into the hearts of anyone, but to inform people in this particular age group of the health problems involved with a fungi-contaminated environment and that if detected and corrected effectively, this whole problem can be prevented.  It does not have to be a health problem, but if it is, very few medical doctors we have consulted know of, or even want to be involved in treating it.  The associated costs of medicine and treatment are astronomical monthly and can range anywhere from two to five thousand dollars depending on the severity and complications involved!          

Due to advanced medical research capabilities, fungal infections have emerged as a major cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly in persons with cancer, AIDS, or disorders of the human immune system.

There are certain immune disorders to be concerned with characterized by fungal ailments, these are: Autoimmune disease, an Immune Compromised or Suppressed system, and/or an Immune Deficient or Depressed system.    

Autoimmune disease is a medical condition characterized by the subversion or alteration of the function of the immune system of the body, resulting in the production of antibodies against the bodys own cells treating them as if they were external intruders (pathogens) attempting to invade the body.  Some recognized autoimmune diseases include:

Addisons disease (affecting the adrenal gland) Autoimmune hemolytic anemia (affecting red blood cell membrane proteins), Chrons disease (gut), Graves disease (a toxic nodule goiter associated with hyperthyroidism), Hashimotos disease (goiter associated with hypothyroidism), Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (platelets), Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus I (pancreatic beta cells), Multiple sclerosis (affecting brain and spinal cord neural systems), Myasthenia gravis (affecting nerve and muscle synapses), Pemphigus vulgaris (affecting skin), Pernicious anemia (gastric parietal cells), Poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis (kidney function), Psoriasis (skin rashes), Rheumatoid arthritis (connective tissue), Scleroderma (affecting heart, lungs, gut, and kidneys), Sjns syndrome (affecting liver, kidneys, brain, thyroid, and salivary gland), Spontaneous infertility (Sperm), and Systematic lupus erythematosus (affecting DNA, platelets and other tissues).

An immune compromised or suppressed system can occur as the result of an injury or medical surgical operation that has required the natural immune response to overproduce and then heal over time.

An Immune deficient or depressed system can occur as the result of an ailment acutely (suddenly) or chronically (lingering or recurring) affecting a person that could be implicative of major medical problems that the natural immune system is constantly having to fighting off.  (Conditions involved might include flu symptoms, colds, sinus problems, allergies, etc.)

Generally, any condition or illness relating to the immune system over an extended period suggestive of one or more weeks should involve professional medical attention.  This is just good common sense.

Much has been said and written about the Black Mold, or a fungus called Stachybotrys chartarum (atra), and how dangerous it can be in a contaminated environment.  According to research conducted at the University of Minnesota, as follows:

The [multiple] potent mycotoxins [trichothecenes and atranones] produced by the fungus [Stachybotrys chartarum] will suppress the immune system affecting the lymphoid tissue and bone marrow.  Animals injected with the mycotoxin from this fungus exhibited the following symptoms: necrosis (localized tissue death that occurs in groups of cells response to tissue disease or injury) and hemorrhage within the brain, thymus, spleen, intestine, lung, heart, lymphnode, liver, and kidney.

Affects by the absorption of mycotoxins (or fungal secondary poisonous chemicals) on the lungs, is referred medically as pneumomycosis.  Most of the attention given to the Stachytbotrys mold rests on investigative studies involving infant deaths, cancer patients, and severely ill HIV/AIDS patients, and little that we could find has been directed toward the elderly.

Research data compiled by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine attained at a medical symposium held on January 29, 2000 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, and information now certified for continuing education of physicians by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), indicates the following alert to medical professionals in its training curriculum:

Mortality is higher when the diagnosis of fungal infection is not made early.  In one study, patients with lymphoma were housed in a protective environment — single-patient rooms under positive pressure with high-efficiency particulate air filtration– while undergoing bone marrow or peripheral stem cell transplantation.

Despite these protective measures, 5.2% of patients developed nosocomial [hospitalization-related] aspergillosis.  Although mortality rates among the patients with localized or pulmonary disease were substantial (42%), they were better than those of the patients who began treatment after the disease was already disseminated [spread to specific organs and/or tissues of the body).  In fact, none of the patients with documented disseminated disease survived.

Immunosuppressed persons, persons with known autoimmune disease(s), and/or immune compromised persons who develop new or progressive pulmonary infiltrates while receiving broad-spectrum antibiotics, present major problems for differential diagnosis.  These people are prime candidates for combined opportunistic fungal, bacterial, and viral infections and diseases with multiple medical complications.  But, some evidence has surfaced recently that non-immune impaired individuals could also be at risk.

It is imperative that physicians in all disciplines of medicine consider current research findings (preferably starting with the 1999 Merck Manual, 17^th Edition, Chapter 158, Pages 1209-1226, Systemic Fungal Diseases/Systemic Mycoses), in conjunction with any case where high-level fungal exposures are suspected.  In the past, it could be that some or even most medical doctors tend to discount this and as a consequence often the serious illnesses are not immediately recognized or properly diagnosed.  The only answer to this medical field phenomena would be speculative at best since some of the worlds most prominent experts have written on this subject, so hopefully medical doctors will begin to enlighten themselves with future symposiums on the subject.  Also, the Centers for Disease Control and other government agencies might want to be highly supportive in their budgets for more dedicated research in this vital human interest medical campaign.

One thing is very accurate.  Fungal microorganisms in being Eukaryotic, or single-celled organisms containing a distinct membrane bound by a nucleus observed in all higher organisms are considered neither animal nor plant cells.  This is why they have their own Kingdom as a species occupying the earth.

Unlike plants, fungi cannot make their own food, and must absorb it from dead organic matter or other living organisms.  When fungi nutrition is derived from dead mater it is called substrate, and from a living entity it is called the host.  Hence, a human being is a human host to the fungi eating what it eats.

When healthy, the fungi as stated earlier live in harmony with their human host, but if nutrition becomes scarce or this delicate balance disrupted by a weaker pathogen, e.g., Stachybotrys that is not normally found in the human host the trouble starts.   Neither bacteria nor viruses are similar to fungi in composition, but fungi lean characteristically more toward functioning as animal cells.

If an outside organism such as a flea, mosquito, or tick were to inflict their toxins into a human this would certainly be easier to detect in preventing illness.  Likewise, if a person should run across an orange, banana, or other vegetation covered with fungi a healthy person would not want to eat it 

Some forms of mushrooms and plants are deadly when eaten.  This is how they protect their species ecologically in survival.  These mushrooms are fungi very similar to their microscopic counterparts.  The basic differences lie with size, capacity, and metabolism.  The question that arises is that if everything in the natural sciences conclusively demonstrates this, why is it so difficult to understand it medically  Thousands of elderly people will be medically treated for sinusitis this year with antibiotic drugs that could be potentially harmful to their immune systems if fungal exposures are at the base of their illness.  Most antibiotics do not work with fungal disorders.

Hopefully soon, national health legislation in congress will begin to address both the medical training that is lacking, proper treatment, and research that is greatly needed to make medical professionals more aware and accountable for any misdiagnosis.

The following precautionary alert was offered to physicians attending the symposium:

There are no rapid, accurate diagnostic tests that can confirm with certainty the presence of invasive fungal disease.  Unless the clinician considers fungal disease early, disease can progress rapidly while the patient is treated aggressively with broad-spectrum antibiotics.  Not only are fungal infections difficult to distinguish from bacterial [because bacteria are environmentally-adaptive to fungi] or other infections, but the clinical manifestations of many fungal infections are shared among a variety of fungal pathogens as well.

Standard microbiology is often adequate to provide diagnosis.  Short of tissue biopsies, fungal cultures are not always positive in the presence of invasive disease.  Moreover, positive cultures do not definitively signify invasive disease; they may be represent colonization.  Nonetheless, in patients who are immunosuppressed, a positive culture and invasive disease are highly correlated.  A high-risk patient with a positive culture should be considered to have invasive disease until proven otherwise.  

According to several laboratory studies involving the study of antibiotic medicines, persons suffering from fungal (mycotic) infections are often misdiagnosed and the continued use of antibiotics is shown to suppress the natural immune system in fighting disease.

 Dr. Luther E. Lindner, a Pathologist on the faculty of Texas A&M University, College of Medicine and involved with private research with Pathobiotek Diagnostics, Inc., located in Houston, Texas indicates the following according to his research on antibiotics: 

 We have found that under certain circumstances antibiotics can actually stimulate bacterial [fungal] growth and make the patient worse

It is common and well-established medical knowledge that over use or inappropriate use of antibiotic can increase the number of resistance factors in our environment.  A full course of antibiotics prescribed is chosen to maximize the destruction of the targeted pathogen and minimize the generation of resistance factors.  Today, in science, there is an ongoing race between the wealth of genetic material available to control bacteria and/or fungi and in the antibiotics being discovered and adapted by people.

The black mold Stachybotrys chartarum, for which Center for Disease Control has issued a statement requiring further investigation, is documented scientifically as a known cause of immunosuppression in otherwise healthy people!  This is an alarming observation because the health risks of contamination in the elderly of great concern now!

Recent medical research from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota implicates fungus as the cause of chronic sinusitis, in as many as 96 percent of the cases.  In researching 210 patients known to have chronic sinusitis, they identified an average of 2.7 kinds of fungi exposure.  They also identified over 40 variants of fungi species during their controlled research project.

Scientific research using sophisticated and highly technical advances into human pathology is very specific about the destructive molecular health consequences that antigens cause in known autoimmune diseases mentioned in current medical studies.

Scientific American magazine devoted its September 1993 issue to this research and listed Graves Disease (and Hashimotos disease as well) as an autoimmune disease.  Reference: Scientific American magazine, September 1993, Author; Lawrence Steinman, Professor of Neurological Science and Pediatrics, Stanford University; Title, Autoimmune Disease, Research experiments, Daniel P. Gold, San Diego Regional Cancer Center, and Halina Offner and Arthur A. Vandenbark, Oregon Health Sciences University School of Medicine, Pp. 109.

In an animal model of multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease called Experimental Allergic Encephalomyeltis (EAE), researchers proved the value of the model, which is induced by autoimmunizing animals against myelin basic protein and which produces the clinical symptoms of multiple sclerosis: paralysis and demyelination.  The model can thus test therapies for the human illness.  In this experiment, the following was postulated:

            In autoimmune disease, what turns the T cells against the self  Infection [recall that bacteria and mold growth are normally found together which are causation of infections] often precedes the onset of autoimmune disease, and so scientists have closely scrutinized the tactics that pathogens commonly employ to elude T cells.  The answer appears to lie in molecular mimicry, and evolutionary adaptation whereby viruses and bacteria [and, therefore toxiciogenic fungi also, because it is the oldest and chemically strongest in adaptive microorganism survival, feeding viruses and bacteria] attempt to fool the body into granting them free access.  Such mimicry works by showing the immune system stretches of amino acids that look like self.  For example, adenovirus type 2 has amino acid sequences like those in the crucial fragment of myelin basic protein.  In responding routinely to this virus, the immune system may become primed to attack the corresponding self-component myelin.  An autoimmune response can begin even if the molecular mimicry is not quite exact.

According to the article, This research suggests that molecular mimicry between viruses or bacteria [to include toxiciogenic fungi] and self may be critical in initiating autoimmune responses. 

This research also tends to explain why exposures to Aspergillus and Penicillium are usually undetectable in blood serum tests, and why DNA tests of these deadly fungi in the biological system are required in order to conclusively detect their mimicking presence within the immune system.

Stachybotryotoxicosis documentation researched by Harvard School of Public Health, Michael L. Muilenberg, Research Associate/Instructor, indicates:

Some strains of Stachybotrys [chartarum] produce potent toxins with a variety of health effects.  Particularly nototious, are cases in the Ukraine about 60 years ago [actually the late 1920s] where livestock, especially horses, became very sick, developing ulcers around the mouth, inflammation of the respiratory track, fever, and blood clotting failure.  Many died within days to weeks after onset of symptoms. A number of similar cases (including a case involving sheep in Hungary) have been reported since that time.

In addition, Michael Muilenberg continues:

The toxins which can be produced by this fungus are classified as [macrocylic] trichothecenes [highly toxic compounds] and include; satratoxin[s] f, g, h, [trichoverrols/trichoverrins], verrucarin J, and roridin E.  Symptoms of exposure can include skin and respiratory tract inflammation, fever, malaise, immunosuppression, among others.

The Clinical Pharmacology and Nursing Management manual Second Edition (1986), Systemic Fungal Infections Pg. 307, indicates the following:

Although systemic fungal infections are serious, life-threatening conditions, most escaped notice until relatively recently due to misdiagnosis.  The lung diseases, blastomycosis, coccidioidomycosis, and histoplasmosis, mimic tuberculosis so closely that they could not be differentiated from that condition.  When effective tuberculosis chemotherapy was developed, some tuberculosis clients who failed to respond to the new drugs were found to be suffering from entirely different diseases the fungal infections.  Fungi can affect tissues other than the lungs, causing pleural, peritoneal, ocular, urinary, and meningeal infections.

The medical manual Human Pathology; An Introduction to the Study of Disease Author: David T. Rowlands, Jr., M.D. (1986), Neoplasms Pg. 383, Paragraph 1, indicates the following:

Aflatoxins, metabolic products of saprophytic fungi (e.g., Aspergillus flavus) known to be hepatic carcinogens, are especially common in parts of Africa and Asia, where hepatomas are most often seen.  It is also possible that cirrhosis itself may encourage hepatoma formation.  The hepatitis virus, aflatoxins, and cirrhosis have in common prolonged inflammation of the liver.  None of these are, by themselves clearly causative.  Hormonal stimulation is important in some cases, since hepatomas have been recognized in patients on sustained androgen therapy.

In summing up all of this, when symptoms and medical indicators provide evidence of fungal contamination at high levels of exposure in the human body, it is very evident that health is greatly disturbed, and time is short for finding answers and effective treatments.

Doctors who are not well informed or continue to disbelieve that fungi exposure can threaten human life often pick, probe, harass, and in some cases even delay any promise of swift medical treatment.  As a patient, or even a concerned person wanting answers your best hope at present is to obtain medical advisement and assistance from those few medical professionals who exist whom are most appropriately equipped with the specific knowledge and experience to research and properly diagnose this medical condition.  This help is available mainly through Environmental and Occupational physicians preferably specializing in allergy and immunology at this juncture.

If you suspect fungi contamination do not delay in contacting professional help in eliminating the potential for illness.  Seek medical attention early in evaluating whether or not fungi contamination is adversely affecting your health, but above all do not hesitate.  If your doctor indicates that he or she does not really understand or know much about fungal illnesses, ask to consult with a specialist who does.  The idea is not to contradict or offend your doctor, but to team up in ruling out the possibility that fungal exposure is adversely affecting your health.

We have found that a blood-serum test cultured with agar agents known as the Multiple Antigen Simultaneous Test (MAST) CLA, Environmental IgG, Panel #15, conducted by Hitachi Chemical Diagnostics, Incorporated of Mountain View, California, and a genetic Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing process conducted by ImmunoLabs, Inc., in the Los Angeles, are both very helpful in detecting fungi levels in the human body.

There are also certain blood-serum tests available through blood laboratories for the Stachybotrys species.  These can be expensive.  Consult with, and work through your medical doctor if you are going to have them ordered.

According to several authorities involved with mycotic (fungal) disease investigation, serum tests rarely provide any clear evidence of contamination from the two most notorious destructive and deadly opportunistic fungi strains, those being Aspergillus (fumigatus, flavus, niger, etc.), and Candida albicans.  Normally either a biopsy or more recently DNA tests are most effective for optimal diagnosis.  Remember, you are the only one who is able to understand and relate to your body.