Common Toxic Black Mold Symptoms  

(1) "Cough, rhinitis, burning sensation in the mouth, (throat) and nasal passages, and cutaneous irritation at (points) of toxin contact"

(2) Nosebleeds are also common, and tracheal bleeding was occasionally reported. Whether such mycotoxin effects explain the symptoms seen in common building exposures has been disputed. It has been pointed out that, although the mycotoxins are often associated with disseminating fungal conidia, the quantities present may not be sufficient to explain the effects observed.

(3) A number of mycotoxins or conidia of mycotoxigenic fungi, however, have also been shown to have effects such as activation of pulmonary alveolar macrophages (PAMs), DNA fragmentation in PAMs, inhibition of the oxidative burst killing mechanism in PAMs, and slowing of respiratory ciliary beat

(4) Such interactions with immune mechanisms may explain some symptoms not explained by toxicosis. Careful study of occupants of contaminated buildings suggests an association between inhalation of toxigenic fungi and nonspecific respiratory symptoms

(5) Moldy Odors are released from actively growing fungi may also pose a health risk. Not all molds produce mycotoxins, but numerous species do (including some found indoors in contaminated buildings). Toxigenic molds vary in their mycotoxin production depending on the substrate on which they grow (Jarvis, 1990). The spores, with which the toxins are primarily associated, are cast off in blooms that vary with the mold's diurnal, seasonal and life cycle stage (Burge, 1990; Yang, 1995). The presence of competitive organisms may play a role, as some molds grown in monoculture in the laboratory lose their toxic potency (Jarvis, 1995). Until relatively recently, mold poisons were regarded with concern primarily as contaminants in foods. More recently concern has arisen over exposure to multiple mycotoxins from a mixture of mold spores growing in wet indoor environments. Health effects from exposures to such mixtures can differ from those related to single mycotoxins in controlled laboratory exposures. Indoor exposures to toxigenic molds resemble field exposures of animals more closely than they do controlled experimental laboratory exposures. Animals in controlled laboratory exposures are healthy, of the same age, raised under optimum conditions, and have only the challenge of known doses of a single toxic agent via a single exposure route. In contrast, animals in field exposures are of mixed ages, and states of health, may be living in less than optimum environmental and nutritional conditions, and are exposed to a mixture of toxic agents by multiple exposure routes. Exposures to individual toxins maybe much lower than those required to elicit an adverse reaction in a small controlled exposure group of ten animals per dose group. The effects from exposure may therefore not fit neatly into the description given for any single toxin, or the effects from a particular species, of mold.

Few toxicological experiments involving mycotoxins have been performed using inhalation, the most probable route for indoor exposures. Defenses of there respiratory system differ from those for ingestion (the route for most mycotoxin experiments). Experimental evidence suggests the respiratory route to produce more severe responses than the digestive route (Cresia et al.,1987). Effects from low level or chronic low level exposures, or ingestion exposures to mixtures of mycotoxins, have generally not been studied, and are unknown. Effects from high level, acute sub-acute and sub-chronic ingestion exposures to single mycotoxins have been studied for many of the mycotoxins isolated. Other mycotoxins have only information on cytotoxicity or in vitro effects.