Mold: Your Mood, Warning Signs & Clean-up Environment

Below is a good article. There was another post that I made on toxin binders and another one on clean-up tips. Both of those posts are good to read.


http://aromatherapy4u.wordpress.com/2007/08/30/mold-and-mood-could-your-depre...


Mold and Mood - could your depression be caused by mold

This morning CNN's, Sanjay Gupta, spoke about a Brown University study on mold and it's link to depression. In recent years, a number of scientific studies have shown us that our exposure to environmental toxins is steadily increasing, and that we are absorbing them at an increasingly alarming rate. It may surprise you to know that the greatest danger of exposure occurs in the home. We absorb toxins from personal care products, household cleaners, various manufactured products, pharmaceuticals, food, water, and mold the air of our homes that we breathe.

"Growth of mold in buildings is no longer just a cosmetic problem but is a potential threat to human health." — American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA).

The Harvard University School of Public Health studied 10,000 homes in the US and Canada and found that half of them had "conditions of water damage and mold associated with a 50 to 100 % increase in respiratory symptoms."

Read Mold FAQ's.

The misinformation circulating about toxic mold is not deliberate, for the most part. For example, professional cleaning companies offering mold remediation services commonly advise owners of mold infested buildings to "save money" by foregoing sampling and instead go straight to cleaning and removal. The truth is that this practice can actually cost you a lot more money. A few hundred dollars of proper sampling will tell you what you are dealing with and may allow you to avoid thousands of dollars in costs for removal and replacement of building materials.

Practices for dealing with toxic mold, like cleaning infested areas with bleach and fogging with toxic chemicals, recommended by the EPA only a few years ago, are now known to be ineffective, or even counter-productive, and are potentially as harmful to your health as the mold itself.

Even material safety data sheets (MSDS) that, by law, must be provided by chemical manufacturers can be misleading. There are some MSDS sheets that display the words "NON-TOXIC INGREDIENTS" in bold capital letters on the first page, but when you read the fine print much further down or on the second or third sheet, it includes instructions to avoid breathing the fumes, avoid direct contact with skin or eyes, and often provides antidotes for accidental ingestion. They can do this because, under EPA rules and regulations, a product can have non-toxic ingredients and still be harmful to human health.

One of the most important findings of the more than 20 case studies completed by Dr. Edward Close is that diffusing the essential oil blend not only destroys mold spores, but also removes mold spores, dead and alive, from the air. This is a very important finding.

There is indirect evidence from these case studies that suggest that exposure to the toxins released by molds may also be eliminated by diffusing the essential oil blend called Thieves.

See the chart of diffused essential oils and their affect on toxic mold.

All studies identified thus far, that have assessed the antifungal effects of essential oils, utilized between 1 and 100 or more single essential oil species, however none were found that used a blend or blends of essential oils for assessing impact on fungi even though it is well known by professionals in the essential oils industry that blending will tend to magnify or minimize, strengthen or quench, the effects of an individual essential oil and/or some of its components.

EARLY WARNING SIGNS:

Cough
Cold
Flu-Like Symptoms
Headache
Fever
Dermatitis
Nose Bleeds
Sinusitis
General Malaise
and many more!

These signs are often misdiagnosed by doctors.

Don't ignore these Early Warning Signs of Exposure to Toxic Mold!

Bleach, Ozone, Chemicals and Other Biocides are Not Effective and They are Hazardous to Your Health

Using Bleach and other chemicals is bad advice!

Here is what the experts say:

US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

In the past, even the EPA recommended cleaning mold infested areas with bleach and water, and you can still find this advice on some websites dealing with mold. On their website in an article entitled "A Brief Guide to Mold, Moisture, and Your Home", the EPA now says:

"The use of a chemical or biocide that kills organisms such as mold (chlorine bleach, for example) is not recommended as a routine practice during mold remediation."

The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA)

In answer to the question of whether bleach should be used in mold remediation, the AIHA says:

1) Biocides like bleach do not remove allergens that can lead to allergies in sensitive individuals nor do they remove other metabolites from mold that can cause adverse reactions in some people.

2) Commonly used chemicals do not effectively kill molds. For example, active fungal growth on a surface may produce a spore density of 1 million spores per square inch. Treating this site with a biocide that has an effectiveness of 99.999% would still leave an estimated 10 viable spores per square inch. As such, mold growth may recur if the underlying moisture problem is not resolved.

The California Department of Health Services evaluated ozone and had this to say:

"Ozone is a strong oxidizing agent that is used as a disinfectant in water and sometimes to eliminate odors. However, ozone is a known lung irritant.

Ozone generators have been shown to sometimes produce indoor levels above the safe limit. Furthermore, it has been shown that ozone is not effective in controlling molds and other microbial contamination, even at concentrations far above safe health levels. Also, ozone may damage materials in the home, for example, cause rubber items to become brittle.

For these reasons, the California Department of Health Services strongly recommends that you NOT use an ozone air cleaner in any occupied space."

Reference: The CDHS IAQ Info Sheet: Health Hazards of Ozone-generating Air Cleaning Devices (January 1998), available on the CDHS-IAQS web site.
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