Hello everyone and thank you for joining us. I'm here with my co host Erik Johnson. I'm Alicia Swamy and we are exposing mold. We have Dr. Tamara Tuuminen joining us today. She is a microbiologist from Finland and she is highly knowledgeable in dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome. She has many publications on this issue and is doing a really good job at trying to raise awareness of what's going on in the mold community and today she's going to be just giving us a really awesome presentation on some of her work and what she knows. This podcast is brought to you by Michael Rubino, The Mold Medic and all American Restoration, the first and only mold remediation company in the country specializing in remediating mold for people with underlying health conditions or mold sensitivities. They quickly become the most recommended remediation company from doctors and mold inspectors nationwide. Check out our show notes to pick up your copy of Michael Rubino his book, The Mold Medic an expert guide on mold remediation, or visit allamericanrestoration.com To get your home assessed and get your health back on track today. This podcast is brought to you by Mymycolab. Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Have you gone from doctor to doctor had lots of tests, tried many supplements, medications, vitamins and still feel awful. You and many others like you could be suffering from exposure to mold and mycotoxins where you live or where you work. Mymycolab is the only blood test available that tests immune system reactivity to mycotoxins. Visit my Mymycolab.com to order your test today.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Good evening or good morning, everybody, depending where you're living. So I'm going to share with you my knowledge about dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome. I'm a medical doctor, I got my degree in the First Moscow Medical Institute and I made my PhD dissertation at Helsinki University. I have been studying this issue mold related disease since 2014. So I have gotten the question from your community. So these are the questions I'm going to go through in this lecture. So your question was what dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome means to me personally. So this is, in fact, my conflict of interest. I got personally involved into this when I was working in the Central Hospital in Mikkeli, that is 250 kilometers from Helsinki. I was a chief doctor in the laboratory of clinical microbiology and I have been working there already for years. And then in 2014, I started to feel very strange symptoms. As a medical doctor, I could not understand what kind of disease I have. And my colleagues, infectious disease specialist, they also could not understand I was coughing, and I always felt worse when I came back in the beginning of the week of starting my work. And I continue to work even without voice because I was responsible for the laboratory. But when suddenly, the technicians found these growing mushrooms on the walls, this is the inner wall of their laboratory, that raised their interest and the company was called and they open the walls and then they found there was infestation with toxic molds all over. So I was sitting in that very toxic aquarium at that time and that explained my disease. And so that was in 2014 I had to quit my work as a clinical microbiologist in the lab because I got sensitized. I was four years unemployed and sick and trying to collect my health. I wanted to work and then that time I read everyday something about a mold related disease and slowly I got this knowledge what it is all about. Then in 2018 I started to see patients with similar symptoms and I was treating them and doing some research. Now I'm retired and now I'm more focused upon COVID issues and in fact, I'm quitting my research in this topic and I think we have made a good start and younger doctors will continue to dig the problems and find treatment for these patients. So, this disease dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome, it has a very big impact on a person and on a society, we can say it is a neglected disease, there is no ICD 10 and no ICD 11 code. Now when we are all overwhelmed with the COVID pandemic, it seems that the medical community has forgotten about all other diseases. We actually have a lot of other problems even more debilitating and I would say that dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome is a hidden by pandemic because there are a lot of morbidity in UK, in Nordic countries, in the USA, and so on. Businesses may lead to a complete disability. It has a very inverse impact on the patient's quality of life, his or her competitiveness and survival. It leads to poverty, marginalization, higher morbidity, and even mortality, and suicides because the patients they are not understood by their relatives by their spouses by the doctors and they feel as if being left outside of society. It is very expensive, because it's not only about healthcare, it's also about construction of new buildings. So the time when I got this disease, it was 2014. I got an invitation from the Journal Frontiers in Immunolog and they asked me if I can make a research topic. And then I was thinking, what would be an interesting topic. And then we coined the term dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome and this is one of the article published in this research topic by Professor Ville Valtonen, and I would say he made a very big contribution to this field. He is an infectious disease specialist and he treated several 1000 of patients as an infection disease doctor. He saw a lot of patients and when he interviewed these patients, he found that they had in their analysis, they had exposure to molds. And I recommend to many of you to read the paper because you will find the description of the clinical criteria he developed for this disease. And here is my paper, I wrote it together with one colleague. So here we demonstrate the clinical presentation of this disease into Finnish cohorts and this is another paper from the same research topic. One colleague found that there is a very high association of so called nonthyroidal illness and exposure to mold. This is hyperthyroidism at the tissue level and the many doctors may not be aware of this association. So if we speak about the definition, what is important to know it's severe, it's a chronic disease, and it is multi organ disease. Today only involvement of respiratory system is acknowledged and asthma is linked to the disease, but in fact, it is a disease of the whole body it is a progressive disease, especially when the exposure will be continued. And as I said, Professor Ville Valtonen has set clinical criteria to describe this syndrome. So the criteria, the patient has a history of water damage in the building, either it is a home or workplace and then he or she may develop sick building syndrome and at the beginning it is a reversible condition. When the patient exits the building, the symptoms may disappear. But the term sick building syndrome, it's very imprecise because the patient may feel not healthy in any buildings with for example, whether the temperature is too high, whether it is too noisy, it is sick building, but here we use this terminology in relation to mold infestation. Then, these patients who are exposed to indoor air molds, they have increased rate of common infections. For example, they may have more than three sinusitis per year. This is unusual. The observation of Professor Ville Valtonen is that approximately 50% of cases with prolonged exposure, they may develop multiple chemical sensitivity, and some may develop sensitivity to electromagnetic field. And what is interesting many patients they develop a scent sensitivity so they can smell the moldy smell from a bystander. So it's a kind of a precaution to the patient that there is mold around. I think it's an interesting, interesting feature. Okay, so these are the five clinical criteria, there is no single laboratory method to confirm this disease. So when I speak about dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome, this is the terminology that we developed for this research topic, and I want to explain you what does it mean. So the first two words, dampness and mold referred to indoor air dampness microbiota, and we should here underline that is not commensal microbiota, because the people who criticize us they say, Oh, we have microbes everywhere. So it's really not true. But here we have to understand that these microbiota, mostly toxin producers, so the people are exposed to toxic products. It's not something that surrounds us every day. And the central word here is hypersensitivity. So there are multiple hypersensitivities that can occur. There are immunological hypersensitivity, activation of type one immune response, for example, asthma that is well known, and type four hypersensitivity, pneumonitis. All the "itis" depends how you use terminology. In some patients that could be vasculitis, it's type three hypersensitivity. Then we have also olfactory sensitization, as I said, enhanced mold sensing multiple chemical sensitivities, activation of TRP Y1 and TRP A1 receptors, sensitivity to common infections, intolerance to some antigens, allergens, food intolerance, irritable bowel syndrome, toxic continues loss of tolerance, sometimes it is it can be connected with this syndrome, hypersensitivity to pain, hyperalgesias and so on. So hypersensitivity can be in very many different organs and systems and it is a syndrome, meaning that it is a systemic condition. And when we got interested in this disease, we got in contact with the Finnish midwives. This is the picture of the Helsinki obstetric hospital that was shot many midwives and nurses they complained about very strange symptoms. And finally, it was found that this building was infested with molds. That we studied the cohort of the Finnish midwives, something about 100 persons, they participated in our study, and we found that there is increased risk for neurological symptoms and multiple chemical sensitivity. And then we were contacted by Finnish policemen. This is from Ola in the North of Finland, the policemen, predominantly men who are not hysterical, who are very well trained, and they have good nerves. So their complaints were real. And it was found that the building where they worked, it was also infested with them this microbiota, and they volunteer to participate in our in our study. So we studied, made the questionnaire to this cohort and we found, interestingly, that they also had approximately three fold risk of having neurological complications. This is men cohort, also about 100 persons. And after that we were contacted by parents of pupils from the Northern Finland from one of the school and they were told that these pupils have very strange symptoms. They were tired and they cannot attend school, a lot of gastro intestinal problems and so on and then we started to study although, although there municipality of this place did not want us to study this place because as I said, this condition is very downplayed. Here is the petri dish with the collected molds from the air and the results of the microbiological work. We also use a new method of collection indoor air, this is a metal plate and when the air condensates on the this cold metal plate and then we have a water condensate that can be tested in toxicological studies. So, we use this new method to study the air of the school and here on the right hand side you will see the growing mold and as you see, there are bubbles. Mold expels small vesicles and these vesicles they contain more toxins than the spores. So, it is very important to study the vapor in the building, even more important than to count how many spores they are. And these effects of air contamination was described in Finland by the group of Professor Maria Sakina Solomen. And so my view is that this disease is so it's, as I say, it's a natural cause of the disease. At the beginning, as I said, it is a kind of sick building syndrome, that person might have some symptoms and when the exposure is finished, then the symptoms will disappear. But there is a kind of priming and when we have a new booster, now booster is a very fashionable word. But here booster that means that a new exposure from indoor air molds, then the symptoms may get worse. There are more symptoms and they're more severe, and then the recovery is very uncertain. And here in this book, we describe multiple chemical sensitivity and how it is related to exposure to molds. And here you see that many clinical conditions they are like intervals, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome and so on, they are all interconnected, the person may experience all of them or partly of the symptoms and also multiple chemical sensitivities linked to these disorders. And this is a busy slide, but here we describe that what mechanisms we have the damage in different organs and this is also related to mold exposure and multiple chemical sensitivity. So, I was asked what is the difference between dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome and CIRS and chronic fatigue syndrome. And as I tried to explain that there is no clear border between this syndromes. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is often associated with many diseases often it comes after viral disease, but it has been recognized there is an ICD 10 code for this disease. And many patients exposed to molds, they experience also chronic fatigue syndrome. And as we know post COVID syndrome and post vaccination syndrome, they can have the features of chronic fatigue syndrome and the clinical criteria for this disorder they have been published. Then you ask about chronic inflammatory response syndrome. This term was coined by Dr. Richard Shoemaker, who made a big contribution to study this disease. But in my opinion, it's a kind of general name for many clinical conditions. And this name is true for dampness, true for the exposure to dampness microbiota, but also, for example, or hematic diseases and both they can fall into this category so it's less precise. So there are other acronyms and definitions for example, tilt toxicon induced loss of tolerance that happens in mold exposed patients, but it is also the term that can be linked to for example, Gulf War Syndrome, iron toxic syndrome, exposure to pesticides, pots, it's post Postural Tachycardia Syndrome, some patients with advanced dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome, they have pots and then we have here ARDS roots, these are reactive airway dysfunction syndromes, and they are linked to multiple chemical sensitivity. So as you see, it's quite big. I would not say it's a mess, but a lot of definitions and a lot of abbreviations. So in the first place, this syndrome is a biotoxin causes that how we see it. And it is by toxic causes because the person is exposed to fungi and gram positive gram negative bacteria. It's an ecological system that is changing all the tim and there are different species and different toxin producers that can participate their action of each other. Also molds can emit betaglucans and the person can be exposed to fungal spores and nanoparticles and many volatile and semi volatile organic compounds. And there are very many different chemical substances that can be found in the air. Also, the building material can emit some impurities, for example, formaldehyde in the air. So it's a multiple of different irritants and xenobiotics. So, very often, there is an exposure to mycotoxins, and many different mycotoxins have been described. And we have a lot of knowledge about the effects on the cellular level. They were described for food intoxication, but the same toxins were found from dampness microbiota. Our latest finding was we found mycophenolic acid in the urine of patients with dampness and mold hypersensitivity syndrome. This is a very intriguing finding this should be repeated and studied on a larger scale, because mycophenolate mofetil is immunosuppressant and can give a hint by those patients who have been exposed to molds for a long time and there is increased risk for oncological diseases and there are multiple effects on our immunity. Some mycotoxins are carcinogenic, it's a known fact. They disturb antigen presentation and inhibit adaptive immunity, they can cause cytokine production, they can break blood and brain barrier, and they can also inhibit the function of innate immunity, there are multiple, multiple effects on the body. And when we think about the effects on the cellular level, it's an oxidative stress reaction that our cells will experience and impair of function of mitochondria that are cellular energy factories, and therefore, patients will have a cellular energy deficit that might explain that some will experience chronic fatigue syndrome and immunological effects. As I said, there are different types of hyperreactivity: type one, type three and type four. It's also activation of mast cells. There is increase of histamine and also imbalance between T helper one and T helper 17 arms of adaptive immune system, what are their long term health effects? So Asthma is a known outcome. If a person is exposed for a long time. But neurological conditions, neurological symptoms, they're less studied and less known. But in our studies, at least three fold increased risk to have neurological conditions and in both men and women, we found that multiple chemical sensitivity may develop. We didn't find it in children yet. Maybe it needs more prolonged exposure, and there is this autonomia of the peripheral nervous system. We published this paper, we did a study on auto antibodies together with an Israeli group and that can explain why some patients might have heart palpitations and pots. That there is an association with autoimmune diseases, especially of the thyroid, and there are rare autoimmune diseases and association with increased in the incidence of cancer, but this is very difficult to study because if you think from the ethical point of view, you cannot make a control group and the observation time is very long. So, to answer the question to confirm or refute whether or not, there is an association you need to do epidemiological studies. So I want to thank you for your attention and I hope that young doctors will promote the knowledge of this disease, and that we definitely need the ICD 11 code for this chronic condition. Thank you.
Alicia Swamy:That was wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Tuuminen and a lot of the stuff was pretty mind blowing, because I'm not sure if you know, but Erik, and I and Kealy have also been highly mold injured. And that's why we started exposing mold. Because when we were sick, we were hitting, you know, brick walls, no one could help us and we had to help ourselves and go rogue. And so that's how we got all connected together. And you mentioned that you were sick, and it took you about four years to get well. And I'm just very curious as to what you did to get well from this illness?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Okay, it's really very, very hard when you feel physically ill, and then you're not accepted. The doctors do not believe even I am a colleague, I am experienced, and I'm a researcher. And then you have this attitude that nobody really believes you. But what I did, first of all, I found that being on the fresh air, and breathing exercises, they're very important, it's very important when your family supports you. If you have at least somebody who will take care of you then I found that in my case, sauna was very good remedy and I went to sauna every other day. Thanks to Finland, we have a lot of sauna. And it was in summertime when my disease started and I was in this in our summer place. And my husband did sauna for me almost every day in the beginning. So the perspiration, then detoxification. The sweating and mycotoxins they might penetrate from your skin and I think it's important. And also, I went to so called salty rooms and I have a publication on that if you're looking at the Google, what kind of positive effects the exposure to salt in the air, how much relief it will give to the patient. So we have written with one researcher, the treatment in this salt, so called salt drums. So these were my important remedies and certainly I started to treat my asthma. But I didn't want to go with a steroid treatment for a long time. At the beginning I needed and certainly I want to say to patients, if you need to take medicine, I think it's good, but the minimum time the best because your body is not capable of the detoxication of many compounds. And certainly then I started to put attention to my D vitamin level, I was not so interested in that before. Unfortunately, from that time, I started to use large doses of vitamin D and Ubiquinone and micro elements and I got to theirselves for all micro elements. And I started to supplement my food and I was cooking before myself I didn't use junk food before but even more focus I put on what I was eating. And I think time and avoidance that is very important when you know what is not good for you, you have to believe your body. And staying at home and open opening the windows so I want to do have the fresh air all the time. And when I started to work, I always opened the air even there was minus 20 outside, I thought I will better feel cold then I don't have a fresh air. It was very important for me, especially when I had patients who came from moldy homes, I reacted on them. And they understood that I had my symptoms and we have a very, very good discussion and you know when the person is exposed to mold, he feels when there is a new explosure, he might lose his voice is the matrix with them with voice. So I think it's important to have a fresh ventilation to have fresh air. That is what I did.
Alicia Swamy:Wow. You know, that's pretty spot on with what we've all done to to figure out what to do for ourselves. You know, I find even the doctors that are quote on quote, mold experts, they don't understand the hypersensitivity aspect, right? Well, yet at least. So they you know, provide many protocols and supplements and whatever and it you see people get worse and it seems that yes, fresh air and avoidance is. I mean, that's that's step one.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:This is the this is the code, avoidance and fresh air and I think this salt rooms and perspiration in a sauna, this is the quote on quote treatment. And if you take as less chemicals because drugs or chemicals, this is better. But if you're really in need, you have to take but for a short time. Then the exercise, I always talk to my patients do not do very extensive exercise, you can just walk around and what is also important to take care of your stomach, maybe you need to make some tests, because as I said, intolerance to some food products may develop. So you should know what is good for you to eat. And I use some you know clay, but you you know how to use it between their dinner between the feeds. And not to absorb some important elements. A silicum compounds just to expel all the toxins from the intestine.
Erik Johnson:How about activated charcoal?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:I haven't used it, but I have used Silicium (silica), but this is the protocol I used for my patients. First of all, we talked, I explained what they should not do, and I wrote to them their certificate if they were from the mold in the school that they should avoid. That the school should organize for them home studies or for the workers, they should be transferred to a cleaner place and then I explained that not vigorous physical exercise and then I had to fix the sufficiency of all their micro elements in their body. And for that we have a laboratory so I did very thorough laboratory check and then I put them for example magnesium and manganese. If we have reference values, I put to the upper quercentile of the reference value. So we had different prescriptions, and I titrated them. I tried to figure how to push the sufficiency of all micro elements. And then I used also neurolipids, we have some products to help them with their brain fog is a structural component for neurons. So we gave them neurolipids and antioxidants.
Erik Johnson:About the only thing that could possibly clear be cleared up. It the reason that chronic fatigue syndrome is confusing is that at the time doctors Gary Holmes and John Kaplan, there was nothing about toxic mold in the literature. So they focused on a virus and when they wrote the chronic fatigue syndrome definition, they strictly wrote it with a viral aspect in view and nothing about the associated with sick building syndrome. Simple as that.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have found the same it is connected to viral syndrome. This is because it was not very known that a mold exposure is connected. But in our publications, we wrote that they are very, very much linked. So there are many, many predisposing conditions to develop chronic fatigue syndrome, and mold this mold exposure is one of those. It's true, there are little publications on that. And but I hope that maybe young doctors will one day, be interested.
Erik Johnson:Now this concept of priming was really outstanding because people who had been in water damaged buildings, they could walk into a building that was not necessarily as bad as the one that made them sick, but being primed, it would react anyway and be more susceptible to viral infections.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Yeah, You know, that observation came to us through our own disease and through the clinical experience. Yeah. And you know, when doctors say, oh, that's something strange, why somebody really reacts in one building and the other does not. That can be explained by you know, there are some mold that kindergardens, mold schools, and if the person has been exposed through the young age, he is primed. And when he goes to during the their work to some moldy building, he will react immediately, while the others are not primed, they can stand better. There are many factors, why some will react, and some will not. One is the earlier exposure, the cumulative previous exposure. The other is, as we know, women, they will react probably more likely than men. And there is nothing about that they are more hysterical. This is just because a woman body contains more fatty tissue than the men's body. And we know from the studies on alcohol, that women can stand less alcohol than men. It's normal physiology of human beings. And that has nothing to do with the woman's unstable mind. As we showed, from midwives and policemen, they had similar diseases. Also, I think the genetic factors, what kind of genes we have to detoxify the xenobiotics. This is very important, and also what kind of food people are eating and the sufficiency of many micro elements. For example, Selenium is very important. So I use this to my patients in the beginning, but then if they don't have any food intolerance, then you don't need too much too much different products. But I think at the beginning, I think it's much better than other drugs. Activated charcoal, for example, I think it's a little bit too old fashioned. Yeah, this is very, very well tolerated. And this is produced in Finland, I think. There are many other similar products.
Erik Johnson:I'd just like to point out one thing about the clusters. There was a question if everybody's in a sick building. Why do some people react and others seem to escape with only mild illness. And we found that in certain clusters where building was damaged and the mold would light up, just in one corner, where people who got the sickest who were in closest proximity to a certain colony of mold. There seemed to be a correlation that, like Stachybotrys was far more toxic than anything else that was in the building. When we tested it, we found there were trichothecene producers.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:They were mycotoxins producers?
Erik Johnson:Yeah, they were trichothecene producers such as Stachybotrys, Fusarium, and Chaetomium.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Yeah, I think there are many, many different aspects. But I think because if for example, the pupils are sitting in the classroom, and when they breathe, the air humidity increases. And then these droplets, what I showed to you, the exosomes they're called. Aerodynamically they move across the whole classroom. So I think everybody is exposed. So they are volatile, these toxins and they are found in the vapor not only in spores. Maybe spores they cannot fly too far. But vesicles, they move in the whole classroom.
Erik Johnson:Yeah, these vesicles, the ooze, the sap that comes up. We call them guttation droplets.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:A yes, yes, guttation droplets. Yes.
Erik Johnson:It's the very crystalline structure and when it dries out these guttation droplets fragment and put out a purified form of the toxin, which seems to be so separate that there's a question maybe we're not even picking this up by PCR.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:May I ask you one question? I was interested. But as I said to you now I want to finish this research area. Do you know that people are doing urine analysis using some spectroscopy methods to study toxins in the urine of patients. I think that will lead us to the definitive diagnosis. When we detect mycotoxins in the patient's urine, and also in the collected air, if we can prove that there is a same toxin, then it's proof of the concept. Do you know that in USA, they are doing this mycotoxin detection in patient's urine?
Erik Johnson:Yeah, I've heard about this research. But so far as I know, they haven't found a direct correlation. I don't think they've done enough work to see what's specifically in the air and in the toxin to find out that they can establish this as a cause of disease.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:I think this is the really the road map, and we try to publish this paper. It's very difficult to publish something like that, and you need to have resources to do the study. And since I started my research in this area, I have never got any, any grant to do this research. And that makes it very, very difficult.
Erik Johnson:Everybody has a vested interest in suppressing this because the economic consequences.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Yeah. But it's easy to deny, not to invest money into study. But in the long run, I think it's a wrong decision because if you make the earlier diagnosis, then you have the proof. And because treating of vhronically ill patient, it's very expensive and losing.
Erik Johnson:If patients only understand that they've been primed by a sick building, that they know to avoid exposure situations that can precipitate them into a severe illness.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Yeah, exactly, exactly. And this is important to understand that for the people and for the medical community, that predisposing exposure, really, it, it means something for the patients, it's not just come and go. Everything that we deal with makes a memory, leaves a memory. I think memory is a very interesting topic, we have our memory, and how we react to many psychological conditions comes from our childhood, but we have also immunologic memory. And it is not only about infectious diseases.
Erik Johnson:Well thank you very much for your work, this has been a fantastic presentation, and you really hit it spot on.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Thank you, thank you. I'm very glad if I can, if I can help. And it would be nice to talk with young doctors and to see that they catch this challenge. Because it's really a challenge to study this topic. Especially when there is such a big denial. It's not easy, and no grants at all. But I hope in the long run, the knowledge will increase. And I also thank you for for inviting me and sorry for not participating earlier. But I decided now, better later than never.
Alicia Swamy:Thank you so much again for offering your time. You know, I really appreciate it. And I'm just really curious, because you said you're more involved with COVID. And this long, COVID phenomenon is so prevalent, and growing rampant. And I'm just really curious, if you suspect a mold component to this long COVID syndrome?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:I have to be honest, I don't read any COVID patients, and I'm not now in the clinical work. But I got a letter from one US doctor and she wrote to me that in her practice, she found that long COVID was with patients who were mold exposed. And maybe one day we will write some paper on that. But it's not my observation. I think it is it is feasible. It is it is very feasible that it is because the weaker the person is the less resources the person has for proper recovery. I think it's very logic to think about this.
Alicia Swamy:Absolutely. And you know, I'm just curious who the doctor is for are you able to share?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:I think I can I cannot tell it because I don't have her permission to tell it. I'm sorry. I cannot tell her name.
Alicia Swamy:Oh, yeah, that's totally fine. Maybe we could ask for permission later and reconnect.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Maybe. Then I have to ask her and then I have to connect you with her.
Alicia Swamy:Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. And then I was just really curious about the hyperthyroidism being caused by mold or there's association with mold. Is that an advanced stage?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:I think also here, nobody really studies. It's also clinical observation of one of my colleagues. And I asked her to pull her data and she presented the clinical data on her patients. She is not a researcher, she is a clinician. And I was very thankful that she raised this question. I hope somebody will study this one day. And this is also logic, because what happens here, it's the loss of energy by the cells. So it is connected chronic fatigue syndrome and nonthyroidal illness. It's on the cellular level. It sounds very logic.
Alicia Swamy:Yea. Wow, that was just really interesting to me to see that connection. I also wanted to probe the hypersensitivity to electromagnetic fields. What do you think is happening there?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:This is another very interesting question also not studied at all. I wanted to study but again, how can you study if you don't get any grant? I tried so many times to get the grant, nothing, not a single penny to do this. But if you think logically, it's a continuum, the disease, it gets more and more severe, the more exposure and the more environmental exposure you have. And this is all about, I think, not only but our sensory system, as I mentioned, this TRP Y1 and A1, there is that continuous activation of this sensory receptors. And clinically, it can manifest into electromagnetic sensitivity. And what I didn't mention some very small portion of this patient, they can develop also hypersensitivity to daily light. I had such a patient, yes, it's even less fraction of this patient and to noise. So there is different types of hypersensitivities. And it's not only by molds themselves. These patients who develop electromagnetic sensitivity, many of them they were exposed to high electromagnetic fields, but not if the person is healthy, and is exposed, it might not develop. So it's, as I said, it's a cumulative exposure from many different environmental factors. And they potentate the effects of each other.
Alicia Swamy:Thank you for that. And, you know, that brings to mind. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt's unofficial study of mycotoxins being increased by 600%, when they're near like a router or an EMF source. Do you find some sort of validity in that or or just what is your opinion? I know there's no hardcore research, but I'm just curious as to your opinion?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:I cannot answer. I really don't know. I haven't read and I haven't thought about this. I really don't know.
Alicia Swamy:Okay, yeah, no problem. No problem. One factor on your last slide that I felt was really important is, is getting the WHO to recognize this and enter it as an ICD code. What can we do to make this happen? Should we form a coalition? Should we form a team with us and you and many other doctors that are fighting for this, to get this recognized? Like how do we move forward to get this on record so we could start helping people?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:That's a good question. I really don't know, maybe we need to have a patient organizations, very active around the world, interconnect patients with doctors and writing petitions. But it seems that they are thinking only about COVID. They haven't dropped all other interests, that other diseases are non existent. And everything goes around these variants. And I don't know.
Erik Johnson:I have a very simple solution for that. Yes, this was the offer that I made to the Shoemaker organization is that chronic fatigue syndrome does have an ICD code. It's an official authorized accepted Center for Disease Control research instrument, and if we simply get chronic fatigue syndrome researchers aware that toxic mold was reported and documented in the original cohort, this connects toxic mold in the syndrome, which sort of mandates research into this subject.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:I think any any idea is very valuable. We need to try different ways. My resources are really not enough to do this. I know that the Finnish patient's organization, they tried to reach who and explained and they were not interested at the time. I really don't know if they are, they will become more interested now with a certain situation. But if you don't try, you will never get anything. Keep trying and be persistent and to believe in what you're doing. You just do. You just do even you're alone, you know, as, as David from the Bible, he won Goliath. Even one soldier is important. I think so. And, you know, my research was never supported by anyone, I just did it.
Alicia Swamy:Good for you for being a lone soldier.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:But everybody can be a single soldier. But when there are many single soldiers, then they will be a big army. But it's not that we start, we need to wait that somebody will call us, join us. You start and the other will join.
Alicia Swamy:Absolutely it reminds me of that photo on the internet, where it's a bunch of it's a school of fish, and they've formed themselves into a large fish and they're swallowing the shark, you know, and like, that's where we're at. That's where we're going. We're getting our school of fish together to swallow the shark.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Being organized in patient organizations and trying to have international network overs for international and then bombarding them with letters and demanding them that there should be because they are getting your tax money. So they need to serve the citizens around the world. If there is increasing disease, increasing demand for that. Maybe I'm too naive to think about but if you don't try you don't get.
Alicia Swamy:Exactly, exactly and my co host Kealy, who was unable to join because she had to work today. She wanted to ask you a question I'm going to ask on her behalf. She wanted to reference Stachybotrys here and that particular mold and she's wondering if is it possible that Stachybotrys can prime the immune system to make it more susceptible to the other factors? And how do we narrow the focus of identifying hypersensitivity causes? I guess that's a two in one question.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:I think there are two questions in one. So the first question is, if Stachybotrys Chartarum can sensitize us to other substances? I think it's correct, because we have receptors to different compounds. We don't have receptors to each possible compounds. There are so many different compounds. How many? I don't know 10,000, 100,000. I don't know how much but we we have a limited number of receptors. So if our sensory receptors are hyperactivated, then they can react to whatever other insulting agent, so their receptors are not specific to any compound. They are polyspecific. I think it's possible. But I cannot show you the data. It's only just logical thinking. Are you satisfied?
Alicia Swamy:Yes. I mean, I, you know, with every conversation that we have, I mean, we've had so many people on the show so many physicians and researchers and it seems like every conversation we have just sets the bar, you know, and this conversation with you today really has set the bar really high.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:The second part of the question, because from from your question, I can divide this into two. So, I think the first has been we have discussed but what is the second part?
Alicia Swamy:The second part is how do we narrow the focus of identifying hypersensitivity causes?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Narrow the causes? I think we cannot narrow because many different types of environmental factors can cause hypersensitivity syndrome. For example, that first description of multiple chemical sensitivity was described in a hairdresser. She used different type of dyes and substances to color the hair and so different types and for example, pesticides, some people living near their fields where pesticides have been in higher use, they can get multiple chemical sensitivity, I think very many different things. substances can cause the same reaction in humans. We cannot narrow and there is no need to narrow. Many petrochemical substances, they can cause the same syndromes.
Alicia Swamy:How can you feel like there's no need to narrow?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:But why should we? Why should we put ourselves into into cages? We should be open minded. Everything what is unnatural, if it is excessive exposure, I think many different types can can cause hyper reactivity. I don't feel uncomfortable with this. I think that our environment should when we leave or work somewhere, we should have as much fresh air as possible. And we don't even need to study all possible compounds aecause a priori, we have to work and live in a healthy environment. That's all. Maybe I'm speaking to unscientifically. This is the basic logic. Yeah and we can study certainly, we can study but then we need to have a laboratory, we have to have laboratory animals. We have to make experiments. Why not? The if we want to put money onto that, why not? We can study. But I think if we have an excess of money, we can do something more fancier things, develop better treatments.
Alicia Swamy:Absolutely. I agree. We need to look into it. We need to study it and you know, like you said, it's the money is going elsewhere. And right now it's COVID. And if you'e not talking about COVID, then you're irrelevant. And so yeah, yeah. You know, the virologists have taken over again, you know, it's all about the viruses. And that's where you go. Thank you agian. Was there anything you wanted to tell our audience before we do the closing?
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:The audience, so I'm really very happy that you organized this webinar, and to the patients, I always say to the patients, we have the proverb we say, Look at the mirror, but it has the meaning if you say something bad about other people, look, how do you look yourself. But I use it in another meaning, I always say to my patients, look at the mirror and say to yourself, What a wonderful day I have today, you have to smile to yourself, you have to be good and say I will win it one day or another and start your day when you brush your tooth, you have to smile and you will say that you will overcome if you have difficult times, but you should believe and you should be persistent with the treatments, what I have mentioned. And that's all.
Alicia Swamy:That was that was really touching. Thank you so much. We all know how soul sucking mold illnesses. So just having a bit of encouragement is always important.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Yeah, but I survived. I had very difficult times but if you believe and you really work on it, and you know what you're doing, and you have even one friend or your spouse or your child or somebody or your friend who supports you, I think that's enough, you will win it. One day or not, it will take time.
Alicia Swamy:Thank you so much.
Dr. Tamara Tuuminen:Okay, I wish you all the best and you're also doing a great job. You're so you will distribute this knowledge. And I will try to help you to collect more knowledge. And when we have this last article, I think this is the most important, I will send you them the PDF file because this is the road way how to prove causality to detect mycotoxins in the urine and in the air. And if you have the same substance, then it helps in many legal questions. But certainly the doctors should be aware of the disease. And if the doctors can diagnose at the earlier stages. This is really very important for the patient's further survival and life. Not to have continuous exposure. I think it's a core. Eeverything is in medicine, I think it's very simple. Actually. It's not complicated. Yeah. If you use common sense, I think it's enough. And believe what the patient is telling you. This is what I have been taught when I was studying medicine in Moscow medical institute. This how our professors taught us, if you don't know how to help, you can take the hand. Look at the eyes and listen. That's enough what you can do. And also, my advice to medical doctors here. If we don't know anything, we have no remedies, you have to listen. It will help the patient.
Alicia Swamy:Absolutely. And, you know, I hate to be a negative Nancy, I don't know where that's gone. I think everyone wants to talk. No one wants to listen, you know. Thank you, everyone for joining us today. It was a lovely conversation with Dr. Tamara Tuuminen from Finland. She is a Finnish microbiologist and has a lot of interest in mold simply because she was mold injured herself. And today's presentation was rockin. Again like I said every conversation just seems to just lift the bar out one inch higher, you know, so who knows what's gonna happen next in the future. But stay tuned. We have a lot more cool interviews coming up, with a lot of information and you know, interesting stuff. So stay tuned. Please find us on all podcasting locations. We're on all the social media platforms. And please please support us on GoFundMe and Patreon to keep this podcast rolling. Also, stay tuned for our upcoming educational courses we will be launching that is all in the works and we look forward to providing that for you so we can help you with your mold issues and get well. Thank you again and we'll see you next time.