Recently, I was reading some reports on mold health effects and I saw a new disease listed among the many others – multiple sclerosis. This is the first time I remember seeing multiple sclerosis associated with mold so I decided to do a little digging and see if and where there is a connection. The information I found is a little confusing, so I’m going to break it down as best I can.
First, let’s go over what multiple sclerosis is and what it does to the body. MS is a disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This demyelination affects the ability of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord to communicate with each other. This results in various neurological symptoms ranging from physical to cognitive disabilities, including muscle weakness, loss of balance and coordination, speech problems, fatigue, depression, and memory loss.
If you are familiar with toxic mold like Stachybotrys and Chaetomium, then you should recognize those symptoms as common cognitive effects of toxic mold exposure. So are these effects often confused with multiple sclerosis or does mold actually cause multiple sclerosis?
We’re not quite sure yet. Perhaps both. Multiple sclerosis is simply the name for what happens when demyelination occurs in the brain and spinal cords. This can happen for a number of reasons both known and unknown. Doctors do not know exactly what causes MS but have attributed it to a number of genetic factors, environmental factors, and infections. It can also happen when certain people are exposed to toxic mold. In this case, you could say that mold is one of the causes of MS.
Yet, because the effects of multiple sclerosis can vary from many different cognitive and physical symptoms, it is often misdiagnosed. In fact in 2005 it was named one of the top five illnesses recognized as misdiagnosed. Most doctors will not realize that what appears to be MS is actually a result of mycotoxicosis and prolonged exposure to toxic fungus.
In fact, MS has mysteriously spiked significantly over the last two and a half decades. This correlates to the same spike in mycotixicosis and mold poisoning. It also correlates to the changes in building design that occurred 20 to 30 years ago that has resulted in more mold in newer buildings. Is this all a coincidence, or is mold actually behind this MS epidemic?
Some time ago, I wrote about how Alzheimer’s patients were often misdiagnosed, their symptoms resulting from toxic mold exposure. It seems that when it comes to neurocognitive disorders, the science is very unstable and possibly misleading.
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