As you heal from mold illness, you may also need to fight leaky gut syndrome. This is because leaky gut can be a symptom of mold illness. It’s fantastic to see the medical world finally acknowledging autoimmune disorders such as leaky gut and Hashimoto’s – and more open to address the root cause of illness. But also know that often, these autoimmune disorders are symptoms of a larger mold illness issue rather than your root cause!
At the height of my mold illness and due to my leaky gut, I could not eat anything but meat and carrots. While I love both, I didn’t want to eat only those forever! The good news is that you do not have to get caught in this limiting cycle forever.
Why Mold Illness Can Be Mistaken for Just Leaky Gut
Several mold illness symptoms can be attributed just to leaky gut. Let’s compare (this is not an exhaustive list).
| Mold Illness | Leaky Gut |
| Fatigue and weakness | Fatigue |
| Lacking in memory | Confusion |
| Headache | Headache |
| Sinus congestion | |
| Having to go pee often | Skin problems, such as acne, rashes, or eczema |
| Sensitive to light | |
| Struggling with concentration | Difficulty concentrating |
| Tingling and/or numbness in fingers and toes | Joint pain |
| Abdominal pain and bloating | Chronic diarrhea, constipation, or bloating |
| Swings in appetite | Nutritional deficiencies |
| Static shocks |
It’s no wonder why you might think treating leaky gut could solve your health problems, when in reality mold could be your true root cause.
Understanding Leaky Gut
Simply put, your “gut” (a.k.a. “intestinal tract”) is a tube that makes up part of your digestive system. About 70-80% of your immune system is housed around your gut, which is why “gut health” is so important and getting more attention finally.
Your gut is not a simple hose or pipe though. It’s an amazing tube made of live cells tightly bound together. Your gut helps your body absorb fluids and nutrients, digests your food, and houses billions of friendly gut microbes – when it’s healthy.
It’s also selective in what it allows past its barrier. Your intestinal tract purposefully keeps some things – such as harmful microbes and toxins – from being absorbed, so they pass right through to your other end to be eliminated as waste.
Your gut absorbs fluids and nutrients when it allows them through and welcomes them into your blood circulation. This is great – as long as it’s not also absorbing mold mycotoxins. Your blood and lymph carry the nutrients to your liver and then around to the rest of your body. This gives the cells all the way to your toenails the nutrition they need to be healthy and grow.
But scientifically speaking, a “leaky gut” is known as “intestinal permeability.” This means that your intestines (gut) have tiny unwanted holes in them, allowing things through that they normally would keep out. Thus, they “leak.”
As you can imagine, this is not a good thing.
How Can Mold Cause Leaky Gut?
When you have exposure to mold, it can result in leaky gut due to:
- Breathing in mycotoxins
- Ingesting mycotoxins
Breathing in mycotoxins
Your respiratory tracts consist of two zones:
- The upper airway – from your nose to your epiglottis
- The lower airway – from your larynx to your lungs
If you have experienced mold exposure, you have breathed in elevated levels of mold spores and/or mold fragments. In a recent research study on inhaling mold spores, they discovered that the majority of inhaled mold spores land in the upper airway and never reach the lungs.
The mold spores end up in the upper airway where they get stuck to the mucous lining. Once they are embedded in the mucous, the spores are quickly transferred to the digestive tract for elimination later. Have you ever sniffed in deep and swallowed the snot in your throat?
Ingesting mycotoxins
Your intestinal tracts are continually bombarded with serious amounts of mold mycotoxins through your diet when you eat meat, farmed fish, poultry, grains, many fruits, and even coffee. Generally the bulk of mycotoxin exposure through the food chain – at least in the U.S. and Europe – is low enough that your healthy body’s natural detoxification (through your liver and kidneys) can sufficiently clean these mycotoxins from your body rapidly so no harm is done.
But most of us are not healthy enough.
Either way above, the mycotoxins end up in your intestinal tract. They start fighting with your friendly gut bugs (good bacteria), and enlist the help of pathogenic bacteria and parasites. Your friendly gut bugs help you detoxify everything so they are imperative to your health.
How to Aid Your Friendly Gut Bugs and Fight Leaky Gut
First, remember that this is not just a fight for the life of those friendly gut bugs, but for your own life, too. You can’t live without them. In fact, you need a specific number of friendly gut bacteria so you can’t afford to lose many of them.
You can naturally improve your gut health in many ways.
Let’s start with what to stop:
- Grains – Grains are among the highest in molds and those same grains feed mold.
- Processed foods (including most coffee, Bulletproof does test theirs for mold) – They also carry higher amounts of molds and feed them as well.
- High-sugar fruits – Bananas, grapes, melons, mangoes, oranges, and pineapple.
- Fermented foods – Mold spores can readily reproduce in food during the fermentation process. Avoid fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, cheese, sour cream, buttermilk, processed and smoked meats, and alcoholic drinks.
- Dried fruits – Again, mold can proliferate during the drying process especially with all the fiber and sugars (mold’s favorite meals). So avoid dried raisins, cranberries, mangos, figs, and prunes.
Now let’s talk about what to start:
- Bind and remove mycotoxins by eating fibrous plant foods like kale, globe artichoke, pumpkin seeds, cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower), okra, berries, black currants, and carrots. You can also use specific binders like charcoal, GI detox, or Zeolite.
- Rebuild your gut and friendly gut bacteria with probiotics like Megaspore or Bio-Botanical Proflora 4R (I love this one best because it also has herbs to help seal your intestinal lining). Eat high fiber food to feed your friendly gut bugs to strengthen them.
- Make sure you are eating a diverse, nutritious diet.
- If you’re not getting everything you need through your diet (which is hard to do), take the supplements that are right for you at this time. Don’t go without them!
Fight the Good Fight
To fight leaky gut, be sure to watch what you are breathing and ingesting. Stop consuming foods and drinks that contain high amounts of sugar which feeds mold. Eat right, bind those mycotoxins, and take your supplements and probiotics to get rid of mold mycotoxins so your gut can heal.
If you are suffering from leaky gut or mold illness symptoms and want help choosing the best products and steps to help you heal, Click here to set up a complimentary Breakthrough call to see if we could work together.
