Mold as a possible cause of CFS

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Update from Ron Davis April 2019 Interview with BenH

I never understood why CFS researchers weren't interested in the mold clue.
This was no idle speculation or wild hypothesis cooked up by snake oil salesmen looking for a score.
It was the very clue that started the "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome"

Dr Scott McMahon at the January Mold Congress in Fort Lauderdale Florida

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zqiPNnqvOA

 

Dear Erikmoldwarrior,
The whole lecture is not on that clip; just the introduction. I no longer know what to think about this volatile disabling disease. Mold is hard to be rid of too, if it is in the body. Many CFS patients have high mercury, and that is a nightmare to shake, if not impossible with the high sensitivity of folks.

 

It seems like there are numerous triggers and we can't detox properly. Maybe mold is the cause for a small cohort but not in the main. Didn't Julie Reyhmor (sp?) recover once she removed herself from mold environment. It seems like beating a dead horse to me. There is a lot more going on in this disease and mold does not seem to be a key player.

 

That may or may not be true. It is unclear.

What is, however, clear is that it was not the clue that started ME.

This is potentially dangerous territory.

 

I warned researchers as they were quarreling over the evidence that it was a mistake to ignore the mold that was making us sick.
That they should look into the mold before there were millions of people sick with mold.

Doctors refused, and now here we are.
Toxic mold went from "impossible" to everywhere in 30 years, and doctors still can't see how badly they screwed up.

 

Perhaps post something that has evidence, so it can be discussed?

Personally I consider the Mould theory to be fairly insubstantial in terms of evidence (from what I’ve seen) ......rife with correlation equals causation.

A bit like sugar in the diet being demonised because there is a loose correlation between people who drink a lot of sugary drinks and obesity.

There is no further evidence that the calories from sugar are any more responsible for obesity than those from flour, butter, eggs cheese or anything else.


The only evidence that I’ve seen so far regarding mould can be summarised as follows:

My house has been found to have mould in it ....I eradicated mould from my house (very unlikely btw)..... I got a little bit better ...therefore it must be a factor in ME.

Could you provide something more tangible than this to explain why you appear so certain that this is ‘a thing” at all and why researchers should waste scarce research funds on this?

I’m also a bit confused by the assertion that ‘doctors’ have screwed up ..what doctors?

I agree that researchers should listen to patients and their symptoms, onset history etc. ...however I don’t think they should blindly follow unscientific corellation = causation assertions from patients ...that appears very unscientific.

Perhaps I have missed something?

 

My house is full with mold but nonetheless I have improved a lot,

Maybe it is the mycobiome causing problems.

 

I understand some moulds make people ill. I don't think there's any argument about that. But I don't think they're the cause of ME/CFS. They cause different sickness(es?).

None of which are looked at of course, rather like ME/CFS.

My parents had a flat with bad mould over ceiling, after they died we found water was coming in from the flat above (which the so and so bloke above always said it wasn't a or the problem). I suspect that that black mould may have hastened their deaths. But they didn't believe anything I told them about mould.

I believe (some) mould is very bad for people's health. But I don't think it's the cause of ME/CFS. It's just a cause of sickness for some people.

 

Anyway there are loads of causes.. I think it's more important to try solving this disease and figure out what goes on once it kicks off rather than focusing on all the different causes that have led us to the same tipping point.

 

It would be good to go through the scientific evidence for mould involvement. But as far as I know there is no formal evidence for mould involvement. It also seems very unlikely if the recent report that ME/CFS does not correlate with zip code is reliable. Mould exposure must correlate with certain housing types or climatic zones. With something like TB the prevalence is about 100 times higher in high risk areas with poor living conditions than it is elsewhere.

 

About three months prior to onset, I had a fairly massive exposure to mold. I was assigned to move some huge bolts of fabric in a beachfront warehouse attic space. They smelled of mold and the air was thick with "dust" (mold spores?) when I moved them. I remember thinking that this was probably not very good for my lungs, but I didn't develop any respiratory symptoms.

As I say, this was three months before what I would consider my onset, although during those months I feel like there may have been some precursor ME symptoms.

Unfortunately, I can make a case for about half a dozen other possible "precipitating factors," including a nasty upper-respiratory infection that was much more proximate to my "onset."

ETA: When it comes to fungi, I'm most suspicious of the strains living in the gut's microbiome. I'm not sure if those could get to the gut from inhalation, though. It seems like they'd have a hard time making it past the hydrochloric acid in the stomach (but they must get there somehow).

Ian Lipkin has said on several occasions that he intends to look into the fungi in the gut as part of his microbiome study. It will be interesting to see if he finds anything unusual.