Harness Fasting To Combat Mold & Mycotoxins

Lauren Tessier, ND

Oh, I’m so excited to be here. I think this is going to be a great, great opportunity for people to drink from the firehose that is mold, and mycotoxins. So thank you.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Do you mind saying a few words about yourself to introduce yourself to the listeners?

Lauren Tessier, ND

Sure. So, Dr. Lauren Tessier, I’m a Naturopathic Physician licensed here in beautiful Vermont, potentially pending in California sometime soon, which is very exciting. I’ve been helping people with mold issues, really starting right when I hung my shingle ten years ago and as the time marched on, you know, underwent numerous certification ends and then kind of broke out on my own and started also teaching. I became involved with a nonprofit called ICI, the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness. Move through their through vice president, president, secretary, you know, danced around the whole executive board there. And the reason why I mentioned that nonprofit is it’s a really wonderful place for physicians, and practitioners alike to really learn the ins and outs of mold illness. So I’m here in beautiful Vermont. Ironically, I did lose my office to the Vermont flooding. The irony here is absolutely not lost on me. So now I’m doing a little bit more of a virtual thing. But nonetheless, I’m still here and I’m still kickin’. And yeah, I’m really excited to chat with you today.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Appreciate you very much. And do you mind here for our listeners a little bit maybe start by categorizing, you know, what is mold and toxin? And can you give us a little bit of a general categorization and then before we start tackling the sub-four categories if you want, and then how fast thing can help?

Lauren Tessier, ND

Sure, sure. So we’ll start off with fungi. Fungi is a really big kingdom, just like we have our plant kingdom, our animal kingdom. We have a whole entire fungi kingdom. Within that kingdom, we have quite a few groupings. And within those groupings, we have a handful of molds that are really impactful on human health. And a mix of or I should say fungi that are impactful in human health. And the reason why I correct that is because we have both single cellular fungi, also known commonly as like yeast. So, you know, Candida is one everyone knows. And then we also have our multicellular, many cellular fungi that we commonly refer to loosely as molds. And so these are the organisms. And not all of them are dangerous. In fact, we do have some wonderfully beneficial fungi out there. However, when they start to be a problem is when we are confined in them, with them in a small space. So whether that small space is our indoor living environment or that small space within our body, that’s when we have a little bit more trouble kind of keeping up with their impact. So mold themselves, they are the organism, and mycotoxins are the toxins they produce. And a lot of people will hear myco, excuse me, they’ll hear micro like small rather than myco, which is that kind of root word for fungi. 

So mycotoxins are toxins produced by fungi. And these are non-living, right? They’re chemical substances. And these have a really big affinity for anything that has fats and lipids. And that’s part of the damage that they do is through lipid oxidation. So anything is lipid peroxidation. Any place in our body that we have a good amount of fat is going to be most impacted by these mycotoxins. And the biggest body systems there are your brain, right, and your nervous system. That’s 70% fat I believe. And we have our liver and kidneys, which also happen to be our detox organs. So these mycotoxins are phenomenal for messing with your natural detox processes. And they’re also going to, you know, the mainframe computer and causing issues there. But it doesn’t just stop at your tissues that are rich in fats. All of the cells in your body have that lipid membrane. Right. And then even more so, we have all of the machinery in the cells, our organelles that also have that lipid membrane. And so those mycotoxins can get into the Salisbury easily and cause a lot of damage for the machinery that is inside all of our cells, no matter if it’s in the brain, the liver, kidneys, or if it’s in the cardiac tissue, or you know, in the lining of the bladder, what have you. So mycotoxins are obviously problematic. The one thing I do want to offer to people, a ray of sunshine and hope in all of this is that not all molds produce mycotoxins. And even some molds that do have the ability to produce mycotoxins, they might not necessarily do it unless they’re stressed or unless, you know, they’re increased temperature or there are other bugs in their niche that are causing them stress. So not all molds produce mycotoxins, but when they do mycotoxins are problematic to the system. So it’s kind of the 20,000-foot view of those two different terms of molds and mycotoxins.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Thank you for helping us understand that. And I know you have the philosophy of like categorizing the toxicity and all the molds in like for disease or four verticals. Do you want to talk a bit more about that?

Lauren Tessier, ND

Sure, sure. So I have low-tech visual support here. Hopefully, people can see that. So, there we go.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Can you keep it up a little bit so that we can take enough time?

Lauren Tessier, ND

So the one thing I just want people to kind of grasp from that is there’s four overlapping circles, patterns. Each major circle is going to represent a kind of the body’s response or a classification of that illness. So we have an infection, infection pretty widely accepted in the allopathic medical paradigm. A lot of studies will say people have to be immunocompromised to have fungal growth that actually has a good amount of evidence against that. There are plenty of people who have a healthy, well-functioning, immunocompetent system that does have fungal infections. In what that circle, I also lump colonization because that circle represents to me that the bug is in the body, and the fungi are in the body. So that’s kind of one picture. One of the other circles there I labeled with allergy. So allergy is going to be the immune system’s response to a lot of the carbohydrates and the polysaccharides of the fungal cell wall, the fungi, the mold, what have you. And the body’s response to an allergy is going to be exactly what you think of, dry eyes, itchy eyes, watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, shortness of breath, tightness in the throat, cough, you name it. Right. 

So we have that circled in there. Another circle that I work with there for people is the toxic reaction. And that’s actually going to be a lot of what we end up talking about today. Speaking about today, the toxic reaction is from those mycotoxins that I mentioned and this is less widely accepted. So infection and allergy totally widely accepted. Mycotoxins not so much. We won’t get into why I suspect that that’s the case but there is a lot of evidence in the food systems from developing nations, a lot of animal evidence, cellular evidence. However, we can’t ethically expose people to something we know will harm them and collect data. So that’s why we don’t have a lot of these randomized controlled trials of mycotoxin exposure. So mycotoxins because they go into all the cells in the body that get into all the tissues, they cause oxidative damage. A lot of the systems in the body, pretty much all the systems are going to have symptoms. So if you can name it, it’s probably going to happen or at least I’ve seen it with clients. And these are often the folks that they go into their primary care with a list of 20, 20, or more symptoms. They get told they have fibromyalgia and depression and they kind of get sent on their way. So if that’s you don’t give up hope just yet. That’s final.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

That’s very important. I wanted to ask you about, there’s a lot of people listening to us today, if they’re not physicians or they’re not from the medical community or are practitioners, they’re wondering, like, what is a potential taboo? What is a potential presentation of symptoms that they should think in soliciting their doctor or coming to people like yourself, experts like yourself to think that, hey, I might have an infection or mold or mycotoxins in my body. And you just probably said it, right? You get a syndrome like a lot of symptoms happening together. And in each one of them is like almost subclinical, right? With a traditional way of practicing medicine, says, well, your immune system shows, okay, you maybe have a little bit of high CRP but it’s not all the way up there. You look fatigued but I tested the TSH it’s normal. I tested your, you know, everything is looking subclinical and subnormal. And this is where and this is why you have fibromyalgia, or maybe you’re feeling down, you’re depressed, or is anxiety. And actually ends up in many cases be exactly what you’re addressing. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt but it’s important to help patients and or people listening to us here can understand how it starts or what are the symptomatic of the symptoms of what we’re discussing about here.

Lauren Tessier, ND 

For sure and I appreciate that. Because the biggest symptom that I see for folks is fatigue, fatigue, and brain fog. I mean, that’s anything, that’s everything. That gets you like, you know, all of your labs covered are insurance because it could potentially be anything, fatigue. Oh, my goodness. Likes to stop the presses, we need to do a CBC, we need to do all these rollouts. Right. So fatigue and brain fog tend to be the biggest complaints that I have people come into or come to see me for. However, these folks have also gone through that, oh, it’s Lyme. Oh, it’s this coinfection. Oh, it’s, you know, X, Y, Z. And the last thing that they’ve actually looked at is, you know, mold or environmental impacts in their home. So, you know, folks who have gone through Lyme treatment for ten and 15 years with minimal improvement, minimal bugging, like, you know, think about the home for sure. So the symptoms really do overlap. And that’s like the whole point of all that circle looks. The symptoms do overlap. And so when we’re chatting with someone, we kind of, you know, put what symptoms could go in what circle. And then based on that, we do treatment and workup. So our workup for the toxic reaction is going to look a bit different from our workup for an allergic reaction. I should mention the final circle there is something called chronic inflammatory response syndrome. This was popularized by Ritchie Shoemaker in the late nineties and early aughts. And it’s pretty much the theory that these biotoxins get into the system and they cause immune system chaos and confusion that keeps burning like a wildfire long after the kind of starting flame has gone out. And so, you know, that has a whole entire workup, but that one also overlaps with all the other symptoms. So I’m sure people are wondering, so what does fasting have to do with this?

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

That was the next big question is. You know, within this fasting and longevity summit, what fasting has to do with all this, working on the root cause and the symptoms and on the cells directly, which I expect is the direction you’re going to take it.

Lauren Tessier, ND

And the beautiful part about fasting is it does something that no other supplement or medication can do. That process can kind of be patchwork then with a lot of different things. But there’s behavioral change, this modification that’s free to do. Or if you have trouble with that, you can go through different dietary systems that help support that, too. You know, this whole entire process, it’s phenomenal for mold and mycotoxins exposure. So I’m sure we’ve already gotten a good amount of rundown about the benefits of fasting. But we know that we have an increase in a process called autophagy, which is cleaning up the problematic cells in the body. In a similar vein, that fasting calorie restriction, I’m kind of lumping all of these together, also has induced a process called mitophagy, which is the cleaning up of the damaged mitochondria. We see that it is supportive for nervous system inflammation, and oxidative damage throughout the body, specifically also in the nervous system. We also see that it can help support and enhance your detoxification pathways and even help to balance your immune system functioning. So if we hold that for a moment and then we wonder about how molds and mycotoxins come into it. 

I have to say there’s a very strong connection there and there are even some studies that have looked specifically at the impact of some of these things on Mycotoxins. It’s not just approximating two edges, you know. So the concept of allergy, right? We talked about that as one of the circles for mold. There is a study that shows that asthmatics who are reactive to dust when they undergo a fasting process, they drop their allergic, allergy stimulating cells, you’re TH2 helper cells. You drop that count and you also drop your allergic signals, your allergy-related cytokines. And so if we are applying that again to our four circles, we’re seeing a direct impact on that allergenicity, that allergic reactivity to mold. So that’s kind of one circle that we’re navigating there. Going into more of the mycotoxin world, which is the world that I love spending a lot of time and research. And we see that autophagy is obviously going to clean up a lot of these damaged cells, these damaged tissues. But what we know about mycotoxins is they severely damage our mitochondria. The reason why our mitochondria are a huge target for mycotoxins is because it has an extra layer of membranes, and it has extra fat in it. Even more so than what we see on the exterior of the cell. And so your mitochondria really get targeted. 

We’ve seen that when we can enhance mitophagy and we know that we can do that through fasting and caloric restriction, and time to eating in these things. We see that we’re cleaning up these damaged mitochondria. Normally mitochondria have a half-life to like 10 to 25 days, but we’re going in and we’re making it happen quicker. We’ve seen in some studies that when we induce mitophagy, we actually increase the cell’s ability to trichothecenes. Trichothecenes are one of the most toxic mycotoxins that are produced by many different molds. And it’s amazing to think that a piece of very specific literature has actually been created, that shows that. And it’s not to say I want people who are living in mold to stay in mold and not eat, like that’s not what I’m saying. A cornerstone to any type of mold treatment is to get out of exposure and then we start fixing things after that. So fasting just from that perspective can be so helpful. And as I mentioned, fatigue is a huge component of mycotoxin exposure. And what did the mitochondria do that they lose? Right. They’re the powerhouse, as you know. And so when you are.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

We know very well that fasting can support either majorly with mental clarity and energy versus fatigue and brain fog.

Lauren Tessier, ND

Absolutely. And we know that mycotoxins cross the blood-brain barrier and they cause lipid peroxidation in that tissue up there. And as you mentioned, there are tons of studies that show poor blood flow to the nervous system is improved or the impacts of low blood flow to the nervous system are improved with fasting. I mean, the list goes on and on. And I think the Coup de grâce of all of this really lies in the detoxification process. Mycotoxins need to be removed from the body, they need to be cleared out. And we really need to support these processes. The problem is that they have the ability to go into your phase one and phase two. But phase one is detox pathways and step on the brakes. So they slow down your CYP pathways, numerous of them. What we’ve seen with fasting, intermittent fasting, is that fasting will increase these processes. And so where mycotoxins are coming in and they’re stepping on the brakes for these detox pathways, fasting can come in and step on the gas, kind of move that forward. And that’s something that we absolutely need to get this stuff out of the body. So, I mean, the list goes on and on, but I would say that those are really the high points of the benefits that we can see from fasting when it comes to mold illness.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

And Dr. Lauren, does that apply to COVID long haulers as well?

Lauren Tessier, ND

And there’s a huge discussion theorem there is some theory that when we induce fasting we are cleaning up and turning over the macrophages and the macrophages containing the spike protein and that has trouble clearing is supposedly one of the the underscoring issues of long haul. Another thing I just want to put out there for people, when we were going through COVID, where were we? We’re stuck in our home. So, you know, you also wonder about the dance and the intersection of exposures of mold in the home, suppressing the immune system, getting your body, you know, all out of whack with this virus. But, yeah, I have seen data that one of the best ways to clear out that spike protein is through fasting. And then you get all the added benefits of balancing the immune system too. Including moving the body away from an autoimmune pathway back onto the straight and narrow, moving it away from that TH 17 pathway and back onto that T red pathway. And you know that chronic inflammation that we see with COVID, with Lyme, with mold, with all these complex chronic illnesses, that’s really underscored by an imbalance in your T helper cells in your T reds. And so yeah, I think fasting is an integral part of complex chronic illness recovery above and beyond mold.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

And there are theories, some meaning. I’m trying to understand when you use fasting, in active phase, and in the late phase as a prevention. There’s some theory saying, well if you do fasting in the active phase and maybe the toxin and the protein spike, where do you want to get the macrophages up? Do you want to detox? It could be maybe, and again, I’m just thinking out loud here. You’ll help us through that, work through that. But I’m wondering, would you use fasting, and what kind of fasting is in active mode, in the latter mode? When and how to implement fasting with these conditions?

Lauren Tessier, ND

You know, it depends on I would have to say what the person is capable of doing. You know, someone who I would say tends to have a lower constitution, might not be, might not have the cellular reserves, I guess is what I would say. To go into those unfed states. I would be more inclined to hold off or at least get them a little bit more balanced to move into that phase. You know, for some time I really like doing, or for the people that it’s helpful for, I really enjoyed doing ketogenic work. And we also saw, you know, the keto diet and intermittent fasting kind of came together at some point and they have overlapping benefits but there’s plenty of people who cannot tolerate that ketogenic diet. And so in those cases, those would be the folks that I would start to employ the intermittent fasting with. And, you know, I’ll say I might not be the fasting pro, I’m more of the mold pro. So I’m not too clear on, you know, the perfect implementation for each person. But I have seen fasting in general be beneficial for people if they have that constitutional oomph to carry them forward.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yeah. So here you have to explain if you feel like their body and their condition can handle going through cycles of passing, this is where you would think more about it versus if they already are frail or too fatigued or do not have a lot of reserves, this is where you try to get them in a better shape and then maybe afterward, you know, use as a face two or face three than the fasting intervention.

Lauren Tessier, ND

Yeah, I think that there’s an important part to having someone in a fed state to have those resources. In general, I find that people who have a little bit of weight tissue, tissue, weight on them, who can actually go into those reserves and pull from it, by all means. But someone who’s 98 pounds soaking wet isn’t probably going to be someone who I’m going to really push on that with. Or if we do it, it’s going to be modified and, you know, look like an 18 six or something rather than like a full three-day fast. One of the other issues with mold exposure is brain fog and a lot of people will have difficulties with remembering to diet plan. They’ll have difficulties with cooking and, you know, remembering to shop. So sometimes fasting can almost be a double-edged tool there for folks. But I always want to make sure that people are in, I guess that’s the best way to put it. They have the resources. They’re in a Fed state before we move into it, they have something to pull from.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Well, I appreciate you very much. This has been a wealth of information. First categorization of the issue, anthropology, and then expressions and symptoms. And then, you know, how fasting could potentially help. I think the concept of autophagy, we talked a lot about it in this summit but the concept of mycophagy, which is really important in this case and how the body can gain back the energy from fatigue and from this, you know, chronic state is an important topic that that you kindly covered with us today. Any other, any final thoughts or somebody before we depart here?

Lauren Tessier, ND

Sure. I think, you know, the overall take home if you’re someone who you think you’re a mold exposed, you know, you can always head over to my website for more resources. I have a free e-book that’s lifeaftermold.com. Go ahead over there. But aside from selling myself in this moment, you know, don’t lose hope. You know, it’s a long path. It’s a long process to get your space safe and then to clean out your body but only you know how crummy you feel. And so don’t listen when people tell you that it’s all in your head or you know that social isolation point. So I know it’s a little bit of out of the box from this discussion, but it’s a little bit of like keep hope in your heart, keep moving forward and things will absolutely get better.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Well, appreciate you very much, Dr. Tessier. And thank you for this really thoughtful and informative talk. Thank you very much.

Lauren Tessier, ND

Thank you so much for having me.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Thank you.