Quiz: Toxic Mold Illness: Could you have it?

In this Nutrition Bite we share a super-fast quiz so that you can find out if you could have health issues created by (even unseen) toxic mold. Fingers crossed you don’t, but just in case!

Simply put, mold is a naturally occurring fungus that we find everywhere in nature. With that said, there are over hundreds of thousands of variations of mold, each with their own colors, characteristics, and more particularly, levels of biotoxicity to humans.

When it comes to illness and mold, people may understandably fail to connect the dots that small unseen mold spores floating in the air or in our food could be the culprit behind many forms of illness.

Although overlooked, over 4 million people have asthma due to mold exposure, 45 million buildings in the US have unhealthy levels of mold, AND up to 25% of the US population is genetically sensitized to mold, making them more likely to become ill from overexposure to mold [1]. These little fungi don’t just float around in the air we breathe, they hang around in the food we eat such as grains and fresh produce.

Of course, not all mold is deadly, but this stuff certainly is something you want to keep out of your system!

To help wrap your head around the hazards of mold, certain mold species like Aspergillus, Cladosporum, Alternaria release mycotoxins (toxic metabolites) that have been harnessed as bioweaponry!

From allergies to infections to more severe toxic mold sickness, mold has been known to give anything from mild sniffles to diarrhea, to full on respiratory infections such as pneumonia.

To add, toxic mold sickness covers many physical and mental ailments such as mood swings, temperature dysregulation, brain fog, vertigo, depression, confusion, and joint pain, etc showing that inhaling or ingesting mold affects so much more than our respiratory and digestive health.

The tricky thing about mold is it goes about affecting our health while we often remain unaware until toxic mold sickness becomes severe.

This is because mold can easily go undetected in indoor environments like our home.

Seemingly clean surfaces can host mold spores (visible mold is already a sign of high levels), cleaning products such as bleach exacerbate the spread of mold spores, and mold growth tends to be in hard-to-reach and less visible places such as behind walls and sinks.

Toxic mold is everywhere but often does not get the concern it should have.

Take the quick quiz below to find out if you could be affected.

Please note: Toxic mold illness is best diagnosed through testing of both home and body. But the following short quiz highlights some common signs and symptoms of both a moldy home or body.