Mold, Candida, and a Body Out-of-Balance

by Dr. Sparks N.D., MAOM, LAc

‘Tis the season for candida overgrowth. This is because candida thrives on those holiday sweets and alcoholic drinks. Candida (yeast) are single-celled fungi that are normal flora in the human body. But they are also called opportunistic. This means that when the opportunity for yeast to flourish happens, they grow out of balance and begin causing symptoms. Reasons for candida overgrowth include things like antibiotic use, eating a diet high in carbohydrates or fermented foods, hot weather with humidity causing skin folds to hold moisture and become breeding grounds, or mold exposure that depletes the immune system and triggers illness.

Yes, mold can go hand-in-hand with candida. Mold is a multicellular fungus that doesn’t belong in our body. Mold grows in damp conditions, and it uses spores to reproduce. These spores are not visible to the human eye, they are 0.1 microns, and there can be as many as 1 million spores and 500 million spore fragments in a 1-inch square of water damaged building material. These mold spores can get into our respiratory tract and cause allergies, asthma, and colonization of the sinuses.

Mold also produces mycotoxins. These are chemicals that are created by some molds to fight off other molds and bacteria from eating their food. These mycotoxins are 100 times smaller (.001 microns) than mold spores. Imagine how many there can be in a square inch and how easily they can get into the body due to their small size!

The main thing mycotoxins have in common is immune dysregulation. This is important because when the immune system is dysregulated or suppressed, all pathogens can flourish. Latent viruses like Epstein Barr Virus (EBV), opportunistic gut flora like strep or staph, and candida can grow out of control when the immune system is not efficient enough to keep these pathogens in check.

Let me be clear and state that one will not always have a candida overgrowth when exposed to mold and mycotoxins, but it can happen, thus it’s important to work with a mold-literate practitioner who can do a thorough intake and proper testing to see what is going on with you. You can have candida overgrowth without mold being present. While they can go hand-in-hand, both can grow without the other one being present. The most important thing to recognize, though, is that both candida and mold exposure contribute to the total fungal burden of the body. Thus, when both are occurring, both must be addressed for the person to get and stay healthy.

Mold Can Cause Candida, But Not Vice-Versa

Mold exposure is more likely to exacerbate candida because candida is already present in the body. Candida cannot cause a mold infection without mold also being present. Mold always comes from something outside the body whether it be food, drink, or air.

That being said, candida can cause a mycotoxin to be produced inside the body called Gliotoxin; it’s known for its immunosuppressive properties and neurological impacts. Gliotoxin can also be produced by some molds. Thus, if your doctor runs a mycotoxin test, and you only have Gliotoxin present, rather than assuming you have a mold exposure, it would be smart to also run a Candida IgG and IgM, a urinary organic acids test, or my favorite, a GI Effects stool test by Mosaic Labs, to see if there is an overgrowth of candida. You will most commonly see candida issues present in the gut, skin folds or the vagina.

Mold Patients and Candida

Most of my mold patients present with fatigue as their main symptom. Other common symptoms include brain fog, skin issues, anxiety, insomnia, weakness, anger, weight gain, hormonal issues, recurring colds and flus, and sinus congestion. Sometimes I have patients with only gut issues, and we start there, not knowing that mold is the true culprit.

I had a woman come to me with gas and bloating as her main issues. She had irregular bowel movements, but her bloating was painful and made it look like she was 6 months pregnant. We did a comprehensive stool test that revealed dysbiosis, inflammation, and some opportunistic overgrowth of candida. We started there. We changed her diet for 60 days to a candida diet and used antifungal supplements to work on candida while also working on elimination. Her bloating was significantly better after one round but not gone completely. She reported that her gas was smelly, so I did a small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) breath test to see if there was anything there. She did have an overgrowth of methane-producing bacteria in her small intestine.

The next round we decreased antifungals and increased antibacterials. I stopped probiotics for this course and added herbs to address her SIBO. This round she did more of a low FODMAP diet with the protocol. She reported back that her gas and bloating were gone after another round of this protocol.

A few months later she returned with the gas and bloating again. She had started eating more sugars and simple carbohydrates that could have been causing candida overgrowth. She had also had a round of antibiotics from an upper respiratory infection. This time I went back to the candida protocol without retesting to see if that was the cause. It got better.

About 4 months later she was back. At this time, I had finished my mold certification class and decided to run a urine mycotoxin test on her. She had a few mycotoxins including gliotoxin, ochratoxin and trichothecenes. I gave her information on how to find a qualified mold inspector and we switched gears to addressing the mold. I knew, at this point, in order to fully tackle her recurrent candida and gut issues, we were going to have to address the mold as the main cause.

Mold: The Great Disruptor

Mold is more complex, because it can be the underlying cause for so many other issues, and many practitioners are not trained to find or treat it. Other doctors simply don’t believe that it is a medical problem. When I started practicing, I didn’t know what I know now about mold. When my patients had recurrent GI issues, I didn’t know mold could be a trigger. But as more and more people came to me with things that didn’t fully resolve after a good time, I opened my eyes and learned more. I think that’s all we can ask of any practitioner.

Treating mold successfully takes time. It is a stepwise process that shouldn’t be done all at one time. I have many folks come to me from other practitioners who gave them binders when they told them that they found mold in their home, but that was it. Let me tell you now, binders are a very small piece of the mold puzzle, and they can be harmful if used too long or incorrectly.

Now that I have been working with mold-sick patients for a while, I urge new patients to start with the 6-month mold VIP program. The reason is that it typically takes at least 6 months to make a dent on the health of a truly mold-sick person. I start with fundamentals; all Naturopathic Doctors should do this. Fundamentals include diet, lifestyle, basic supplementation, and comprehensive lab testing.

Testing for Mold and Candida

If patients can afford out-of-pocket tests, I usually start with Vibrant America’s urine mycotoxin test; it is done with mass spectrometry. Another good option is MyMycolab’s mycotoxin antibody testing. If a patient can’t afford functional testing, then we can do blood work that includes basics and tests like Mold IgE, Candida IgM and IgG, C4a, TGF-Beta, MMP-9. There is also a type of immune cell called eosinophils that are usually high when parasites and allergies are present, so they can be high when mold is present too. The blood tests are not diagnostic for mold but can give us puzzle pieces to put the picture together.

My Treatment Philosophy

As a vitalistic Naturopathic Doctor and Chinese Medicine Practitioner, I have a firm belief that the body can usually heal itself, if we give it what it needs, take away the obstacles to cure, and if a patient has the energy to heal. Again, this can be a stepwise process when it comes to mold and candida. We are not simply looking to suppress symptoms. I explain it to patients this way:

“Imagine your body is a house, and you have a fire on the stove. The smoke alarm goes off. This would be like a symptom in the body. The fire department comes, and they turn of the smoke detector (symptom) and leave. You still have a fire on your stove. But now, it can grow and spread and cause more alarms to go off. This is why it is always important to look for the root cause while working on the symptoms.”

Treatment is not just about antifungals and binders. It also includes things like diet, lifestyle, your body’s ability to eliminate, drainage at a cellular level, nourishing deficiencies, healing organ systems that are out of balance, balancing hormones, and addressing stress and traumas. You are not just one part, like a thyroid or intestine. You are an integrated whole and should be treated as such when working on your path to health, whether it be mold, candida or both.