Mold Toxicity: Symptoms, Testing, and Full Detox Protocol

Everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe. And each and every week on this show, we explore the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. Did you know that there are millions and millions of people that have unexplained fatigue, sneezing, neurological issues, brain fog due to mold exposure?

And there are so many people today living in moldy homes that have mold inside their bodies, their lungs, their microbiomes, and they don't know it. And most doctors, when I say most, I'm talking about 99% of doctors, don't know how to treat mold effectively.

I've had so many people I've known, personal friends of mine, even well-known individuals like Michaela Peterson, a friend of mine that's a doctor of functional medicine, Peter Osborne, Dr. Greg Lohmann. I mean, these are really well-known, some of them famous doctors, individuals who have been impacted by mold toxicity.

And I can tell you from working with thousands, tens of thousands of patients, many more people have mold and those are causing their symptoms than they realize. Let me give you the prevalence here. According to the National Institutes of Health, mold may be present in as many as 70% of homes, and 28% of people may be genetically susceptible to health conditions related to mold exposure.

In fact, one of the things I used to test for in my functional medicine clinic is we would test people to see if they were one of that 28 to 30% of people that don't genetically detoxify mold very well. Have you heard of the MTHFR gene variant for methylation, for creating methylfolate in your own body? Well, it's a very similar thing here.

Some people genetically can't clear mold from their system very well. It's nearly 30% of people, and those people, when they get exposed to mold, They'll be walking through an area, you know, and their sinuses could get stuffy, they could get brain fog, they could get fatigue, hormones off, achy joints. They just start feeling terrible and they don't know why.

And sometimes they get misdiagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. Sometimes it's a neurological issue, even MS. I had a patient come in years ago who was diagnosed with MS. It was so bad she eventually was put in a wheelchair. After doing some testing myself, I discovered that she had mold. Well, we ended up doing a whole mold detoxification diet plan, supplements, and everything.

And 2 weeks later, she was out of the wheelchair, and all of her MS symptoms over the course of the next month or 2 were completely gone. And later they said, we misdiagnosed you. You didn't have MS. You had mold toxicity going on. And so mold is a much bigger issue than most people realize. And so, I'm going to dive in here.

I'm going to talk about the top foods, supplements, air filters, all the things you need to do to detoxify your body from mold and doing it the right way. Before I dive in though, make sure to subscribe here to the podcast and sign up for my weekly newsletter at the link in the show notes. When you subscribe, you're going to see more of this just on occasion pop up in your feed.

The most popular episodes. And we've had people on the past year, you know, Carrie Underwood, we've had, you know, Vani Hari, we've had Casey Means, we've got, you know, Jillian Michaels coming up and so many others. And so make sure that you subscribe so you don't miss out on this podcast that is growing by leaps and bounds. Also, I want to mention we have an episode sponsor.

I did this episode, and then somebody reached out and said, hey, I actually want to sponsor it because this mold content's great. It's a company called Vibrant Wellness. You can go to vibrant-wellness.com.

I wanted to partner with a company that actually does mold testing, because there's a lot of you that have mold issues going on within your own body, and you don't know how to figure out if you— if that's actually it or not. And so, it's actually called a mycotoxin test that you can get done. So, if you're a person that wants to know for sure, okay, do I have mold? Do I not have mold internally?

Then you can actually do a test, and the one that I recommend, I personally have done this test is why I'm recommending it. It's vibrant-wellness.com, and you can actually get a mold test there if you wanna do a mold test. And I've got other friends of mine like Dr. Will Cole, lots of other doctors, this is what they have their patients do to test for mold.

All right, a little bit more of a mold overview before we dive into the practical steps to cleanse your body of it. There are certain types of mold and fungus which can produce toxic substances known as mycotoxins. Now, mycotoxins are dangerous because they suppress the immune system, trigger inflammation, and damage your cells and even certain organs like your liver and your lungs.

And this matters because mold in your home isn't just about unsightly spots on your walls. It is a major health concern if you're exposed to this. And listen, you can be exposed to mold in your home. Now, there are certain foods like peanuts that are grown on the ground, can get damp. They can have mycotoxins. And it's found a lot in our food supply as well, and that can cause issues as well.

But in your home, it's an even bigger deal. So let me mention the most common symptoms for those people with mold toxicity. The first is respiratory issues with the sinus and lungs. That's the most common issue. It could be, you know, trouble breathing. It could be like you don't feel like your, your lungs are as strong as they were.

You can't get a full breath, or maybe you're getting a lot of sinus infections and colds on a regular basis. That can be due to mold. Mold exposure. Another one here is musculoskeletal issues. It could be issues with your muscles and your connective tissue where your joints just ache and don't feel good. Some of the biggest symptoms are around your nervous system, brain and nerves.

Now, brain fog is one of, if not the most common symptom I see with people with mold issues within their own system. And then the last one would be, you know, I do see a lot of people with issues related to gut microbiome, Candida, digestive disorders. But I will say that the issues with the nervous system, with the joint aching, with the respiratory system tend to be the most common.

Now, sometimes people think, oh, I've got Lyme disease, or some people think I've got MS. I mean, there's all kinds of things where people are misdiagnosed when mold is actually the issue.

And the other big thing about these mycotoxins from mold is they impair the body's immune response by damaging the cells that form protective barriers and organs, disrupting normal immune function and basically leading to systemic inflammation throughout your entire body.

When you have inflammation throughout your entire body, that's when your joints can ache and you can have neurological issues like brain fog. Again, here are some more symptoms. Fatigue is very common, especially you wake up in the morning and you still feel exhausted even after feeling like you slept okay.

Allergic reactions, breathing difficulties, persistent cough, wheezing, headaches, aches and pains in your joints, mental health and cognitive changes. I mean, again, this is part of it too. People can feel sort of depressed or discombobulated. Digestive issues like irritable bowel disease and bloating is a big one.

Mold can also exacerbate conditions like allergies, asthma, chronic inflammatory diseases, and autoimmune disease can also be affected and connected there. And as I mentioned, symptoms are often general and vague, and they're confused with other health issues. According to, again, a friend of mine, Dr. Osborne, some develop neurological issues that could even be mistaken for multiple sclerosis.

As I mentioned, that past patient, Cheryl, that I had many years ago. Now, people with poor immune function are most susceptible to mold toxicity. So I found this again, the 2 big things. If somebody has the gene variation, okay, those genetic issues where they don't cleanse mold properly, those people tend to have mold issues.

And the other group of people are people with already weakened immune systems. As I mentioned earlier, there's a well-known influencer, and her and her dad is Jordan Peterson. She's really an amazing health expert. She founded something called the Lion's Diet. But she's shared on her podcast She has dealt with mold issues, and you could follow her, Michaela Peterson, on YouTube and on Instagram.

But she was diagnosed with chronic fatigue, severe joint pain, depression, skin rashes, autoimmune issues, and she didn't know the cause. And so she started following a strict diet known as the Lion Diet, which basically was all— was beef, lamb, and bison, and salt and water. Okay. Which she credits to significantly improving her symptoms.

And my friend as well, Dr. Osborne, He had mold, and he found a carnivore diet, or a lion diet, was the only thing that really helped his symptoms. Now, here's the reason why. When you've got mold internally, it's very similar to a condition like SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

What happens is, if your body gets any sort of carbohydrate, especially anything that it can feed off of, what starts to happen is— It feeds off of it. The mold and the mycotoxins feed off of it. And so you have yeast overgrowth, or you have fungal overgrowth, mold overgrowth in your body, so you feel even worse.

Now, when you eat meat only, there's nothing for the mycotoxins and the mold to feed off of. Now, even fat sometimes isn't as good, because what happens with fatty acids is They create more dampness in the body, which then creates more mucus and fungus buildup.

And so really eating lean beef and bison and lamb or venison, those sort of meats with just salt and water, is the only diet if you're doing carnivore where these mold and mycotoxins have nothing to feed off of. Now, let me say this. I don't think following a lion diet or a carnivore diet for your entire life, for 50 or, you know, 100 years, is ideal for most people. Okay.

I think there's a small, small 1% percentage of the population where for a few years as they're healing, the lion diet can be good. Now, even Paul Saladino, who was one of the pioneers of the carnivore diet, he switched from going carnivore only to now he consumes honey and fruit and raw milk. Okay. So, so he's added in especially fruit.

And part of the reason you want to do that is and not only do carnivore over time, is that it can imbalance your electrolyte levels, especially being too low in potassium and certain other nutrients, and it's gonna cause your body to become too acidic over time, which usually is not an issue, but with this extreme of a diet, it can be.

But I do think the Lion Diet or a carnivore diet for a short period of time, 3 months or so, while you're doing a detox and healing from mold, is appropriate for a lot of people. So again, it is a diet I recommend in certain cases for certain individuals. Following this Lion Diet if there are things— if you need to starve some of these microbes and mycotoxins within your own body.

And one of the things that I know Michaela and Dr. Peter Osborne and many of the other people I know have experienced when they were able to do a carnivore-based diet and then get the mold out of their house, reduce their exposure, and do some natural treatments that allowed them to finally kill off the mold in their body.

And also, when they were able to strengthen up their own immune system, they were able to add other foods back in, and all of their symptoms started to clear up over time. But just know, again, mold exposure is something that— again, think about this— 70% of people have mold in their home. 30% Of people nearly do not detoxify that mold well.

So you've got to do really something very specific in order to heal, which we're going to get into. I want to dive into a study here. This is a study published in the Journal of Clinical Therapeutics, and it found that 80% of patients exposed to mold displayed abnormalities in their T cells and their B cells. So these are their natural immune cells and natural killer cells.

Symptoms included respiratory issues in 64% of the patients, neurological dysfunction like memory issues, judgment issues, brain fog in 70%. Again, that's the number one thing, brain fog, memory issues in 70% of patients. Wow. And gastrointestinal issues in about 24% of patients.

But again, you can see here, it's lung issues, it's breathing could lead to fatigue, and the brain fog, the memory thing in 70% of people. Almost all patients tested showed abnormal autonomic nervous system responses. And here's the reality that you need to know is that both in your body and in your home, mold likes a very specific environment.

Now, we've had a lot of flooding over the past few years. Think about the hurricanes that have come through in the past year or two in places like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina. In the past, I know it was Tennessee. There's Louisiana. When you have those things happening, you get flooding in your home. Well, people tend to have a lot more mold overgrowth because there's more moisture.

You know, in those states like Florida, there's more mold issues because there's more moisture there versus you're gonna have less if you're in, you know, North Dakota, and areas out west where it's dry. Not to say it can't happen there, because I've seen plenty of mold issues out west as well, but it's just definitely more prevalent in the south. But mold likes a moist, damp environment, okay?

So it likes moisture and dampness. Now, it's the very same thing in Chinese medicine. They diagnose people, TCM practitioners, with something called dampness, which is our equivalent to Candida, or mucus, or phlegm, or snot, or ulcerative colitis. There's mucus in your colon.

This damp mucus or coating like yeast, that's an environment that mold loves to grow in, and the same thing happens in your home. This is why mold tends to accumulate in air ducts, like our ventilation where there's no sunshine at all. And so, in order to prevent mold, sunlight, movement, and a lack of humidity is ideal.

You know, mold is usually found, as I mentioned, in the most poorly ventilated areas such as basements, in bathrooms, in areas where there could be a water leak.

There's an article published in the Journal of Environmental Research, and it found risks for mold in your home include having an older home, a leaky roof, a basement that's flooded, damaged showers, tubes or pipes, or little to no air conditioning. Now, I mentioned this before, this is about 10— no, this is more like probably 14 years ago in Nashville. This is my first few years of practice.

And there was a big flood in Nashville. And I remember for the next 2 years after that, I had so many patients coming in with mold toxicity, and they didn't know it. They thought they had chronic fatigue syndrome. Some thought they had Lyme disease. Some thought they had neurological issues like MS. Some thought it was allergies, and it turned out to be mold.

And so, I've seen this in clinical practice, and I'll let you know, there are very specific ways you need to treat this. And the reality is most doctors have no clue how to treat mold today. Now, I wanna talk about how to spot mold in your home. Here's what you wanna look for. Look for visible mold growth, any musty smell or odor. Those are signs of water damage and mold.

So, if it's a musty smell, is one of the biggest indicators. Mold in your home typically appears as patches. It can range in colors. I mean, black is one of the worst, but it can be black, green, even white or tan, orange. You'll see these spots in your home, and the reality is this: you want to go and fix that immediately if you have an issue.

You want to call a mold inspector and someone to come and test and be able to determine if there is mold in your home and do everything you can to get rid of it. Now, the other thing you want to do is test for mold inside your own body.

And I mentioned this earlier, the one that I personally have used, and Dr. Will Cole— I know a lot of physicians, functional medicine doctors, this is what they have their patients do. And it's called a mycotoxin panel. And again, the brand is Vibrant Wellness. You can go to vibrant-wellness.com, do a mycotoxin panel, which again, I highly recommend.

It measures different levels of 29 different forms of mold and mycotoxins like aflatoxins that might be making you sick. And this test is done at home using a urine sample. So it's super easy. I just did this a few weeks ago. And sent it in, and you get it back in a couple weeks, and it tells you what bacteria or what specifically mold or fungus you have in your body.

So then you can determine a treatment plan to undergo. Also, I know we've got a lot of medical doctors and chiropractors and osteopaths and naturopaths and acupuncturists. There's a lot of functional medicine and integrative medical providers that listen to the podcast and show. I know because Yeah, a lot of you guys are sending me messages and commenting.

And I want to mention, you can also get an account if you're a physician and you know that you might have patients with mold toxicity. You can go and open a provider account and be connected with— or you can become a provider if you're a doctor, or you can be connected with a provider who can order your test for you if you'd like. But again, go to Vibrant Wellness. Vibrant Wellness.

In order to do that. Let's start talking about how to truly heal your body from mold. Step number 1 is this: clean out the mold, remove the exposures. Okay? You first need to remove the mold from your environment to heal because continued exposure to mold and mycotoxins will keep your body from recovering. Okay?

It'd be crazy to think that you can, you know, You know, detoxify mold while living in a moldy home. It's just not going to work. So, the first thing you need to do is get the mold out of your environment or remove yourself from that environment. I mean, by the way, this goes back so far, mold toxicity causing issues in health people in their homes, goes all the way back to Leviticus 14:33-45.

So, did you know that mold is referenced in the Bible. And here's what it says. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, when you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as your possession, and I put a spreading mold in a house in that land, the owner of the house must go and tell the priest, I have something that looks like a defiling mold in my home.

The priest is to order the house to be emptied before he goes in to examine the mold. So that nothing in the house will be pronounced unclean. After this, the priest is to go in and inspect the house.

He is to examine the mold on the walls, and if it has greenish or reddish depressions that appear to be deeper than the surface of the wall, the priest shall go out of the doorway of the house and close it up for 7 days. On the 7th day, the priest shall return to inspect the home.

If the mold has spread on the walls, He is to order that the contaminated stones be torn down and thrown out and into an unclean place outside the town. He must have all the inside walls of the house scraped and the material that is scraped off dumped into an unclean place outside of town. Then they are to take other stones to replace these and take new clay and plaster the house.

If the defiled mold reappears in the house after the stones have been torn out, And the house scraped and plastered, the priest is to go and examine it. And if the mold has spread in the house, it is persistent defiling mold. The house then is unclean. It must be torn down, its stones, its timbers, and all the plaster, and taken out of the town to an unclean place. Think about this.

I mean, going back, we're talking about nearly 4,000 years here in the Bible is talking about if you have mold in your tent, in your home, And if you can't get rid of it after treating it one time, your, your home must be torn down and removed. God knew, the people of Israel knew that mold is that bad for your health. And there are a lot of people today living in moldy homes.

And if that's you, do everything you can to cleanse the mold from it and get yourself out of the environment. And if it still keeps coming back, Then do everything you can to move out of that house into something else, okay? Because again, a moldy home will destroy your neurological health, it'll destroy your respiratory health, your immune health, your gut health.

It can destroy your life and the life of your family. And you would do everything you can to remove the mold from your home. So, here's how to clean out mold. Number 1, determine if you need professional help. If the mold area is less than 10 square feet, the EPA says you can tackle it yourself. Find first the source.

Find and fix the source of moisture that has allowed the mold to grow in the first place. This is getting to the root cause, such as leaks in pipes, roofs, and walls. Wear protective gear like gloves and goggles and an N95 mask to avoid inhaling the spores and touching the mold with your bare skin.

Now listen, I'm the sort of person that this is so serious, even if it's 10, even if it's a 1 square foot, I'm probably going to call a professional and have them try and tackle it because I want a professional doing that sort of work. Clean mold with a mixture of detergent and water. Use a mold-specific cleaner.

Avoid using bleach on the porous surfaces because actually bleach can't effectively kill mold that's beneath the surface. Now, a few other natural things that we've used in our home for preventing mold, like in our showers, Is we do a blend of tea tree oil and vinegar, and we spray this in our shower. Now, tea tree oil is one of several natural mold killers that you can employ instead of bleach.

And if you want to put tea tree oil's natural fungicide power to work, combine 2 teaspoons of tea tree oil with 2 cups of water and shake up well. Now, I also like to do some vinegar in there as well. And then baking soda is another great option. It has anti-mold properties. You can mix a teaspoon of baking soda with 2 cups of water. In a spray bottle as well.

But I like mixing, again, tea tree oil and vinegar and water, and then baking soda and water, and using those to clean shower curtains and area inside a home. If you're battling fatigue, brain fog, headaches, digestive issues, trouble sleeping, joint pain, or even unexplained skin problems, it could be your body's way of telling you it's carrying a toxic load.

I've seen so many times with my patients hidden toxins like mold, heavy metals, and everyday chemicals silently building up in the body, wreaking havoc on their energy, digestion, hormones, and even brain health. Here's the good news: you don't have to guess what's causing these symptoms anymore.

The Total Tox Burden Test from Vibrant Wellness gives you real answers so that you can find a practitioner that can help you create a personalized detox plan that works for you. This at-home test measures 87 key toxins, including 29 mold toxins, 20 heavy metals like mercury and lead, and 38 environmental chemicals found in everyday products.

Plus, you can add PFA chemicals to evaluate forever chemicals. What I love about this test is that you can take it from the comfort of your own home, no lab draw required, no waiting in line, and Results are processed in just 7 days. It's never been easier to uncover your body's toxic burden and create a personalized detox plan with your practitioner. Take control of your health today.

Visit vibrant-wellness.com to learn more and start your journey toward feeling your best. A couple other good things for cleansing mold from your home, but also your body, are grapefruit seed extract and hydrogen peroxide. Now, in a moldy area in your home, you can combine 20 drops of grapefruit seed extract with 2 cups of water in a spray bottle and spray that.

But I also like grapefruit seed extract internally to help cleanse mold from your body. And with hydrogen peroxide, I don't recommend taking that internally, but putting it in your ears or doing a hydrogen peroxide bath. What I like to do is lay on my side, put hydrogen peroxide in my ear, leave it there for about 5 minutes, and then drain it out and do each side of my— each ear. Okay.

And that has anti-mold properties to help your body heal from mold. Another thing you want to do is get an air filter. Okay, a good quality air filter can trap mold spores circulating in the air and prevent them from settling and growing, growing on surfaces in your area. There are brands I like, like IntelliPure, Air Doctor, and Jasper. I mean, Jasper is one of my favorites.

That's spelled J-A-S-P-E-R, Jasper. And these filters are designed to effectively get rid of these airborne particles. And Jasper not only filters, but it also monitors the number of particles in your home, giving you real-time feedback. So if you want to get a really amazing air filter for cleansing mold, get a Jasper air filter.

Chelsea and I have 2 of them in our home right now, one upstairs, one downstairs, that's constantly cleansing our home. And again, that's J-A-S-P-R, Jasper air filter. This is also good for seasonal allergies. It's just good for cleansing air in your home on a regular basis. A few other things that can help is you want to discard anything that is infected.

Infected by mold in the material, as the Bible talked about, just get rid of it. Wet blankets, wet carpeting, wet pillows, especially if you had flooding. You want to dehumidify and ventilate areas, having fans blowing, dehumidifiers going on a regular basis. And you want to aim to keep your indoor air humidity low, between 30 to 50%, and consider getting an HVAC in your home to purify the air.

And allow in fresh air and sunlight, especially if it's low humidity and a breezy day where it's not 20 degrees out. As long as it's 50 degrees or more, open up your home and allow that fresh air to come in. Now, as I mentioned earlier, mold growing within your own body in Chinese medicine is related to a condition called dampness. And your body can be too dry internally or too damp.

It can be too hot or too cold. Dampness, what we'll start to see is typically there's a white coating on someone's tongue, or there's mucus in their nose or respiratory system or digestive system.

And the coating on the tongue, especially if it's thick, if there's feelings of heaviness, maybe there's even some bloating, a sluggish metabolism, these are all warning signs of dampness according to Chinese medicine. And there are certain foods that help combat dampness and remove mold from the body.

Now, in ancient Asian medicine and Western medicine, the foods that are most helpful tend to be white foods like radishes. Radishes are very, very effective at cleansing mold from the system. Bitter foods are very good for this, and green leafies like steamed kale and spinach are also good. You want to boost something called lung qi in Chinese medicine, but radishes are very good.

Apples are very good. Mushrooms are very good for this. But again, I would say radishes, miso, like white miso, chickpeas, a lot of the white foods, organic meat is going to be very good as well. But I would do meat and a lot of vegetables, and then rice to cleanse mold. Antioxidant foods can also be good, things like berries.

Grapefruit is something you definitely want to eat that's also good for cleansing mold from your body. And then light and dry foods that reduce fluid. I would say whole grains like rice, lean proteins, diuretic vegetables like celery is very good, pumpkins and onions, garlic, scallions, oregano, thyme, those herbs have really, really strong anti-mold properties.

Just to go through this again, a few other foods, immune-boosting foods, echinacea, horseradish, chicken soup and rice congee are very good. You want to avoid dairy products. Because they create more dampness. Fried foods, sugary foods, overly rich meals, stay away from that stuff. That's going to make your mold symptoms worse.

You also want to minimize foods that tend to have a lot of mycotoxins like peanuts, wheat, corn, alcoholic beverages, certain beans, and conventional bread. And you want to do herbs like astragalus, ginseng, we mentioned echinacea earlier, Because those are going to help cleanse the lungs. Andrographis is another good one for that. And then supplement-wise, I really like probiotics.

You want to take a food-based probiotic that has things like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. Those have been shown in studies to help kill aflatoxins, a form of mold in the gut. And then also soil-based probiotics are very effective at cleaning the gut out from mold. Certain other nutrients are helpful at cleansing mold.

Vitamin D3, zinc, magnesium, and B vitamins are the most effective at cleansing your body of mold toxicity. And I also want to mention here supporting your detoxification pathways of your lungs, but also your liver. Things that support glutathione production like milk thistle, dandelion, or an N-acetylcysteine supplement are also beneficial.

Now, if you're one of the 30% of people that don't detoxify mold very well, you may also, for about a 2-week period of time, might want to do what we call a binder when you're doing a mold detox. This could be activated charcoal, it could be bentonite clay, or it could be even something like a cholestyramine, okay? Now, I really like bentonite clay and humate and humic and fulvic acid.

Those are my favorites for doing this. They're more gentle on the body, they're more natural. But again, you could also do activated carbon or activated charcoal for a while. Again, these bind to mold. Now, they'll also bind to some minerals in the body, especially charcoal, but they will help cleanse the body of some of these issues. Now, I want to mention here cholestyramine.

This is a bile acid that's sequestrant, used primarily to lower cholesterol, but it also binds to a variety of toxins, including mycotoxins that impact the GI tract. It prevents the reabsorption of these compounds from the intestines. The typical dosage of cholestyramine is around 4 grams 3 times per day while also following a really clean diet.

We talked about whether it be a lion diet, carnivore diet, or that TCM diet, which is what I typically prescribe, like what I just shared, which is mostly meat. It might be some steamed vegetables, and it's going to be a lot of those white foods like radishes and horseradish and rice and some of those foods that are also going to help as well.

But I would recommend for most people starting off with bentonite clay, doing about a teaspoon once to twice daily, and then also doing some humic and fulvic acid and high-dose soil-based probiotics. If you still know you needed something a little stronger, then you could do a little bit of activated charcoal and some cholestyramine as well to help your body heal.

A few other things that can be good, chlorophyll, Taurine as well can be good for supporting your body in healing. Now, there are some herbal remedies that will also help kill mold in your body.

So when you're doing some of these things, whether it be cholestyramine or carbon or charcoal or the bentonite clay— when you— now, you don't want to take these with the herbs because they can even bind to that in your food. You want to take those binders by themselves. But you can also do certain herbs. Herbs like olive leaf, oregano, neem, sarsaparilla, and garlic.

These herbs have antimicrobial and antifungal properties. One study reported a 34.1% inhibition of fungal overgrowth when treating with neem leaf extract, indicating its potential for controlling mold infection. So neem has been proven in medical studies to slow and inhibit fungus growth.

In addition to olive leaf, oregano, neem, and sarsaparilla, You can also do things like I mentioned garlic, green tea, propolis found in bee honey, curcumin, licorice root, Manuka honey, cinnamon, resveratrol, ginger, berberine, caprylic acid all have benefits as well. I do want to mention a few of these. Raw garlic also possesses antifungal properties.

It contains a compound called ajoene, also allicin. These compounds have antifungal benefits. Tea tree oil, we know topically is good for this. Thyme or thyme tea or just thyme as an herb has antifungal properties because of its compound called thymol. Oregano has carvacrol, which has anti-mold properties. Cinnamon has benefits. Clove has benefits. Neem has benefits. Licorice root has benefits.

Grapefruit seed extract, there's a study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine that showed that grapefruit seed extract was beneficial against Candida albicans, which is a common fungal pathogen. So that can be beneficial. And then I also mentioned caprylic acid, which is found in coconut oil, also has benefits at killing off Candida and fungal overgrowth.

Now, a couple treatments I like in addition to this would be ozone IV. So ozone kills off harmful bacteria and funguses in your body. And you can go and get an IV, just like you've heard of a vitamin IV where you'll get maybe, you know, a Myers cocktail like vitamin C and B vitamins and, and different nutrients via an IV into your bloodstream. You can also get ozone directly into the bloodstream.

There's different tools for using this, like an EBOO or what's known as a 10-pass machine, where your blood will filter into a machine and ozone will be added, and then that same blood will be put back in your body, and that will kill the toxins and mycotoxins and mold in your bloodstream. So again, ozone treatment is good for this.

Now, remember this, in order to do these treatments though, you want to make sure you get out of the moldy environment or else it's just going to keep coming back. But I think ozone is great. And another thing I love, hyperbaric oxygen therapy. You know, this is used oftentimes to treat issues such as wounds or infections. I did this when I had my spinal infection to treat the infection.

So different infections, whether it be mold or it be bacterial, hyperbaric oxygen therapy creates an environment where a lot of these microbes and mycotoxins can't survive. And in one study, they combined infrared sauna along with hyperbaric oxygen therapy and antigen treatments. And in this study, there was about an 85% improvement and full recovery.

In patients with mycotoxin exposure, and in another 14% saw some improvement. So we're talking about 99% of people saw improvement and 85% of people fully recovered. So here's what you need to do if you want to heal your body from mold toxicity. First off, find out if that's an issue in the first place. Test both your home and your body. Okay?

You can have mold inspectors come and look at your home. You can also do the vibrant-wellness.com. Their test to be able to test if you have it in your own body. So, that's the first thing you want to do is identify, is it in your home? Is it in your body?

Step 2, you want to clean your air, get an air filter, do some things while you're in that environment to cleanse it, or do your best to get out of the environment altogether, okay? Because you have to reduce the exposure to heal. Number 3, consume a diet that helps eliminate mold. It's going to be a diet that's mostly meat. It might be some steamed vegetables.

It might be some immune-supportive foods like rice congee, chicken soup, horseradish, radishes, hummus, those sort of foods, but very, very limited foods. You want to really do lower carbohydrate, mostly protein, and a little bit of good healthy vegetables. And for some people, maybe even going all the way carnivore or lion diet. For a few weeks or months.

And then what you want to do is do the supplements we talked about. Oil of oregano, neem is really powerful. We also talked about things like thyme and garlic and grapefruit seed extract. So you can do these. And then in addition, consider doing an ozone IV or vitamin IVs that support glutathione because that's going to support detoxification in your body.

And then try and do hyperbaric oxygen therapy once to 3 times a week for the period of cleansing, probably just for a month or 2, along with infrared sauna if you can. Now, that's an entire mold protocol, but there are many people that have lived with mold toxicity for years, and it's caused major issues within their body.

And so I want to encourage you, if you can do these things, you're going to be set free from mold and see great improvements. I want to hit on the last case study here. This is published in an online medical journal, and it says this: a 59-year-old male presented with symptoms of mold toxicity and Lyme disease, including aches, headaches, memory loss, wheezing, severe mood swings, and fatigue.

He had significant weight gain and was sleeping on his wood boat, which had high mold spore levels. He underwent Intravenous ozone therapy, receiving 50 cc's of an oxygen-ozone mixture initially 5 times a week and then 3 times a week.

After 2 months, his condition stabilized, and by the end of month 11, he had regained his weight, his symptoms were completely resolved, and he returned to full-time work on a different mold-free boat. There's an interesting case study in an actual medical journal on somebody that saw a improvements from treatment with oxygen-ozone mixture. So know this, your recovery from mold toxicity can vary.

I've seen anything from a few days to several months to fully heal, but if you follow this protocol, your body can completely heal and overcome mold toxicity. As we mentioned, there are so many people today that are dealing with mold toxicity and they don't know that's actually what's causing their issue. And think about, do you live in a home that's older?

Have you ever seen any mold anywhere around your air ducts or anywhere in your homes? Do you have any of those symptoms we talked about? If so, take action now to test your home and your body in order to start to treat and heal from mold toxicity. And just as a last thing, because I get this question constantly, how do I know if I have mold toxicity? Number 1, the symptoms.

Number 2, you can actually do a test for your own body. You can go to vibrantwellness.com. That's vibrant-wellness.com. Okay. Wellness.com, do a mold test, and then do some of the things we talked about in terms of the, the sauna, hyperbaric chamber, and some of the diet and foods and air filtration to help you heal. Listen, there are so many people who don't know the truth about mold.

I just want to encourage you, share this episode, whether it be on Instagram or YouTube, or, or text it to a friend group. There are a lot of people who are dealing with this, and they need to know the truth of how to heal from mold. And by the way, I'd love to hear from you in the comment section. Have you ever dealt with mold toxicity? What helped you? Are you still dealing with, with it today?

Hey, please let me know in the comment section. And also, don't forget to subscribe. We've got so much more great information coming out here and content. And if you're not subscribed, you're going to miss out. I don't want you to miss out on some of the stellar interviews and other single episodes I have coming out here in the future.

Well, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we dive deep different topics on how to truly heal physically, mentally, and spiritually to take your life and your health to the next level. Again, thanks for subscribing. Thanks for sharing. I'll see you on next week's episode.