Newsletter 19

Addendum to News 18:

In yesterday’s newsletter, when talking about the cholesterol-lowering drugs, I stated that, “Many of them simply suppress the intestine’s ability to absorb cholesterol.” While that is true, I should have also mentioned that some of them cause the liver to stop producing cholesterol. I think that type should be removed from the market because that’s very likely to cause damage in other parts of the body. Your liver is supposed to make HDL. There’s also another type. It used to be called an antifungal, but when the labs discovered that it lowered your LDL levels, they changed the name, the packaging, the advertisements, and, of course, the price increased. It is now marketed only as a cholesterol-reducing drug (these are the statin drugs, which do have some possible nasty side effects). It is still just an antifungal. Doesn’t that tell you where the LDL cholesterol is coming from?

Note Regarding the Foods List in News 14

At least one of you has made this mistake, so I want to caution everyone. I hope I did not cause this error by mentioning my own weight loss in with this discussion on the mycotoxins in our food. That list of foods was only a list of low-mycotoxin and antifungal foods. It was not meant to be a list of weight-loss-type of diet foods. For example, just because sausage or cheese was mentioned as a (reasonably) safe food, if you eat a lot of that stuff, you’re going to put on pounds because it has a lot of fat. You must use your own intelligence with regard to that foods list before assuming that just because it is a safe food, that doesn’t make it a diet food.

Reader Q&A:

Q: Should we really be trying to totally eliminate all fungi from our bodies?

A: No. Or at least, I don’t think so. I think that what you need to achieve is a balanced immune system.

Unless you subscribe to the “fungi was introduced from space in recent history” conspiracy theory (I don’t), then it is extremely likely that fungi were here on Earth long before humans. But again, as a generalization, the ancient hunter-gather societies had a better balance in their diet than we currently do. It is only since the advent of grain stored in mold-inducing storage containers*1 or left out in the open to be rained on, plus the extreme use of antibiotics-for-everything craze of modern doctors that we humans have become so seriously unbalanced in or immune systems.

This is entirely correctable with dietary change. You do not have to totally eliminate any food, but all things in life should be taken in moderation. If you are trying to defeat a specific ailment, total elimination of one or more specific foods might be necessary, but only until that ailment has been conquered. You should know, however, that all people are different and a specific diet for one might not work for another. Add foods back into your diet gradually and stay aware of any changes. Your body will let you know (via new pains or weight gain, etc.).

Note 1: Think back to those old Charelton Heston movies and breaking open the grain bins in ancient Egypt. What were grain bins made of way back then? Sun-dried mud-bricks, filled with sun-dried grains, stored in a low-humidity climate. They might have been rat infested, but they probably had no mold.

Q: Do mycotoxins/fungi affect vision?

A: Yes, they can. Once fungi is in your system, it is capable of adversely affecting all body parts. My vision has actually improved since we moved here. I have asked myself “why” many times and I can only credit the lack of junk food and increase in physical exercise (i.e., improved circulation, etc.). But, think about this: the eye is a warm moist area, a perfect breeding ground for moldy critters.

Q: Does Tee Tree Oil have a place in the removal of fungi in the body? Or is that mainly for topical fungi?

A: This is a bit outside the domain of our nutritional discussion, but many people on this list are also into herbals, so I’ll put it here anyway. Tea Tree Oil is antifungal, but only use it topically at full strength. Most essential oils are too concentrated for internal use, though there are a few that are OK. But here’s a way to get around that: Heat a few drops in a bowl of water and breathe the steam. The essence should get into your blood through your lungs. Don’t go overboard because I do not know the extent of any possible side effects (yet), but it hasn’t hurt us.

Intestinal Disorders and Fungi

Doug A. Kaufmann

As the title indicates, I am expounding on intestinal problems in this section. There are those of us who feel that seemingly harmless prescriptive drugs (e.g., antibiotics, cortisone, and birth control pills) can alter the terrain of the bowel enough to initiate an intestinal yeast infection. So often the intestines are the first tissues that are damaged by these activated yeasts, or fungi. For that reason, I thought you should learn how to identify whether your gut problems are really a serious disease for which you are relegated to a life of medicines, or whether your doctor may have been unaware that intestinal fungi can mimic serious intestinal disorders.

What serious gut diseases can these gut yeasts mimic? Of equal importance is that you understand that the portal of entry of these disease initiators is, in this case, the mouth. Not only is there significant evidence that molds and their mycotoxins occur in our food supply, but once these devious little mold spores become activated (remember, antibiotics can activate them), everyday foods within our diet may feed them and keep them proliferating throughout the intestines. Of course, once flourishing within our intestines, they can make life miserable. In these cases, it is quite common to have bloating, belching, intestinal gas, constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, and esophageal reflux. You can imagine what happens when these fungi escape the intestines via “leaky gut” – a condition that is actually common once these fungi become active in the intestines.

Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are very serious intestinal disorders. The dictionary states that sections of the alimentary (digestive) tract become inflamed, thickened, and ulcerated with these diseases. Crohn’s disease is also known as regional enteritis, regional enterocolitis, and inflammatory granulomatous bowel disease. I will never understand why one set of symptoms had to be called by four different names, but such is allopathic medicine! You do not suppose that a disease so complex as to have four names might actually be a fungus in the gut and not really a disease at all, do you?

Two testimonial letters in this chapter are very thought provoking. I would not say that either case is cured of bowel disease; however, both found significant relief in addressing an underlying fungal condition. I often wonder what would have happened if I had met these people before the gastroenterologists met them. Could I have prevented further deterioration of the bowel? Was surgery really necessary? What role did carbohydrates or antibiotics play in the beginnings of their gut problems? More than their wonderful letters, I have begun to love both these contributors and I thank them for the courage in apprising others of the fungal link to their diseases. Could fungus be contributing to your stomach and intestinal problems also? You bet it could!

The saddest part of these debilitating gut diseases remains that many gastroenterologists have absolutely no idea that there exists a fungal pathology in many cases of Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. By treating a pathogen (fungus) rather than a disease, it is very likely that many patients with gut diseases will get better faster. And most importantly, if a fungal condition exists after a short course of antifungal medicines, the patient can initiate an antifungal herbal approach. You might want the doctor to prescribe a systemic and gut antifungal medicine for a few weeks just to ascertain whether your gut problems are really a serious gut disease or fungus. If you feel better within two to four weeks, get to a health food store and inquire about natural antifungal remedies.

Mycotoxins – Fungal Byproducts Found in Food

Patrick Kwan, M.Sc.

I have been following Doug Kaufmann’s theory of the possible link between fungi and certain health disorders with interest for several years because I believe that what he says makes a lot of sense. When Doug asked me to write an article for him, I was slightly taken aback and jokingly asked him, “What does a food scientist know about fungi?”

Doug replied, “You must have a lot of dealings with molds and yeasts in your work with food products. Just think about it. I’m certain that you know more about fungi than you think.”

After pondering Doug’s suggestion for a while, I decided that Doug was right. I do deal with mold and fungus in my business… or should I say it deals with me!

I almost got into medical mycology (the study of fungus) when I first started graduate school years ago. I was already a licensed medical technologist specializing in microbiology, and it always intrigued me that nobody seemed to be concerned with or knew much about fungi and their relationship to human beings, except for vaginal yeast infections. Partly because I could not find a good mentor in medical mycology, I ended up studying food science.

Back in the early 1970s, aflatoxin was one of the growing concerns for food scientists. It had first come into prominence in the early 1960s when several flocks of turkeys suffered from acute aflatoxin poisoning in England. Yes, large doses of this fungal poison can cause death, even in people! In this case, over 100,000 turkeys died of aflatoxin poisoning. Later, scientists would learn that the aflatoxins that caused the deaths were traced to peanut meal in the turkeys’ feed mix. It turned out that the peanut meal was stored in an old silo with a window on one side. As the sun beat down on the feed mix through the window, evaporation occurred and the resulting moisture migrated to the cooler side of the silo, away from the sun. The increased moisture on the cool side then allowed the mold Aspergillus flavus to proliferate and produce the mold poison called aflatoxin. Since that time, much research has been done on aflatoxin and its tumor-causing effects on human beings and various fish and animals.

The actual risk of these fungal poisons in our food supply might be higher than we think. Literally any whole grain or nut, if not handled properly during production and storage, may lead to mold growth and, therefore, mycotoxin production. Besides aflatoxins, food scientists are also concerned with ochratoxin, which causes kidney function disorders. It is produced by Aspergillus mold found commonly in soil and commodities like grains, nuts, beans, coffee, fruits, and tobacco; pautin, which is mutagenic and carcinogenic as well as acutely toxic, comes from Penicillium mold found commonly in soil and many fruits including apples (apple cider has been implicated many times) and even dairy products and meats; zearalenone, which has been implicated in estrogenic disorders, is a byproduct of a Fusarium mold that is very common in grains, corns, and even tomato plants.

There is no doubt that aflatoxin receives and deserves the most attention from the government agencies and the food industry. This is because of its common occurrence (especially in ground nuts) and its carcinogenicity. Once this mold poison is in a product, it is very difficult to remove without destroying the product. Even very high temperatures, as in roasting, would only reduce its level slightly. Basically, the maximum level of aflatoxin allowed by the USDA is 15 ppb (parts per billion), which is about as far down as scientists can go in detecting its presence.

I will never forget when I began working in the food industry. I was paid to crawl inside hot, stuffy boxcars to sample peanuts for aflatoxin. And I do mean SAMPLE! Sometimes I had to take up to 48 one-pound samples per lot. You see, out of a bag of peanuts, there may be only a few contaminated nuts, and I really had to make sure that a statistically valid number and size of samples were taken. Then I would mix and grind 48 pounds and take a sample for testing. Can scientists guarantee 100% aflatoxin-free nut products by testing? Not really. Unless I used 100% of the peanuts for testing, I would never guarantee a 100% non-toxic product. Obviously, that is not practical.

As the good doctors are now saying, prevention is the key to everything. To minimize aflatoxin contamination, we relied on very tight controls during all stages of the production of grains and nuts. This included proper agricultural practices to ensure dry conditions in the field and minimize mechanical damage to the kernel as well as proper storage conditions after harvest. Climate obviously played a big role during this whole process. Most importantly, communication at all levels was essential so that each player along the line knew what to observe in the product. Laboratory testing was only the last line of defense.

Are food products in the market safe from mycotoxins? I would say a qualified “yes.” The safety record thus far has been very good. Will anyone guarantee it? Absolutely not! That said, peanut butter and roasted nut products on the market from reputable suppliers are quite safe from aflatoxins because every batch is usually tested either at the raw ingredient or finished product stage – and often at both stages. If you buy nut products, especially peanut butter, from a small supplier, make sure the supplier knows what he or she is doing. Shriveled and discolored nut kernels as well as cracked kernels should be avoided.

Grain testing is not done as vigilantly as nut product testing. Although the risk for mycotoxin in grains is smaller than in nut products and the safety record has been good, we should never let down our guards. When dealing with grains, use the same precaution as for nut products. You can never be too careful when it’s your own health that you are dealing with. Like Doug says, “Your health matters!”