The industry quickly established harsh chemicals as the solution for killing mold and removing stains.
The Dark Side of Mold Removal
Common chemicals used in chemical cleaners and disinfectants are bleach, ammonia, and formaldehyde.
These harsh chemicals are water soluble and start evaporating within minutes of being administered. Disinfectants produce volatile organic compounds. VOCs are a large group of chemicals that off-gas and release into the air we breathe. They're small enough to travel through tiny spaces and cause serious health problems.
“Farmland in America is being sprayed with a chemical that's killing the bacteria and fungi that would make the communication network that would function as the medicine to prevent disease. The bacteria and fungi are the foundation of human health. We must stop killing the soil.” - Zach Bush MD
The effects of breathing in toxic chemicals such as bleach, ammonia, and formaldehyde are wide spread. Formaldehyde poisoning can cause eye irritation, breathing problems, skin irritations, headaches and restlessness. Large exposure can cause loss of red blood cells, abnormalities of heart rhythm, irregular breathing and coma. Exposure to a high concentration of ammonia causes burning of the eyes, nose and throat, blindness, lung damage or death.
Health Effects of Toxic Chemicals
It’s no wonder why mold remediation technicians wear hazmat suits when spraying large amounts of these harsh chemicals.
Now if we compare the effects of mold to that of harsh chemicals, we can ask the question: is it worth replacing one for the other?
Mold Symptoms
Mold toxicity can cause a myriad of symptoms: chronic inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, leaky gut, chronic pain, immune suppression.
Some of the most alarming symptoms of mold toxicity are related to the effects on the central nervous system and the brain.
Brain fog, inability to concentrate, depression, difficulty sleeping, irritability, anxiety, and loss of executive function are all symptoms of mold toxicity. Mycotoxins (chemicals released by molds) can cause cellular mutations and inhibit protein and DNA synthesis. Studies have also shown that a significant number of dementia cases are actually caused by chronic mold exposure.
The right balance of bacteria and fungi in your body is necessary for proper digestion and even mood stability. Your intestinal microbiome produces up to 90% of serotonin and 50% of dopamine used by your brain.
The inhalation of both mycotoxins and disinfectants disrupts these processes and is why mold illness has such a myriad of symptoms. Your internal microbiome is greatly affected by the biome of the air in your home.
Questionable Practices
Some of the typical practices are scrubbing, sanding and vacuuming with HEPA filters. While these practices have been the standard and considered safe, there are some serious hazards.
Scrubbing or sanding moldy surfaces releases mold spores into the air, which can travel through tiny openings and negatively impacts your health.
Using a negative air vacuum with HEPA filters will help to trap mold spores that have not already settled on surfaces, but won’t clean more than 90% of the air. HEPA filters, like disinfectants, kill both the good bacteria with the bad, leaving your environment sterile.
Still Using Bleach
Using bleach on mold can have a similar side effects to using pesticides on plants. Using chemicals that only kill 99% of mold or bacteria mutate the surviving 1% into a super bacteria or mold, making it more difficult to kill after each attempt. Bleach has the ability to tackle surface mold, but lacks the ability to clean below the surface. When bleach is applied to mold growing on wood sheathing, we are left with the appearance of a clean surface, but the mold remains.
People suffering from mold in their homes are suffering from the effects of mycotoxins and are now more vulnerable to toxic chemicals. Conventional remediation does not address mycotoxins or VOCs in your air space. They may attempt to use a negative air vacuum with a HEPA filter, but that does not deal with surface contamination or clean more than 90% of the home’s air.
Dry Ice Blasting & Dry Fogging
Some newer methods have brought us “dry ice blasting” and “dry fogging.” Though dry ice blasting is a much safer approach to deal with visible mold than harsh chemicals, it continues to use HEPA Vacuums to deal with mycotoxins.
Dry fogging uses a sterilizing formulation to kill mold and neutralize its toxins. The approach is still used to clean dialysis machines and sterilize hospital operation rooms. Clearly, the sterilization of our environments is a problem. We need healthy bacteria to keep our airspace in balance and our bodies healthy. Dry fogging’s biggest limitation against mold is its inability to penetrate water. Mold grows from moisture and therefore is wet unless dormant. If the mold is wet than the dry fogging is useless.
I spoke to a gentleman who moved from his home after experiencing a metallic taste in his food shortly after dry fogging. He was told the metallic taste and smell would go away after 3 months.
Chemicals impact your home biome, destroying the healthy benefits of having truly clean air.
The Solution
Why is walking in nature so relaxing?
A huge part of the relaxation is due to the fresh air. The billions of thriving and healthy bacteria found in nature are what makes air “fresh”.
Probiotics are nature’s way of combating air contaminants and creating an adverse environment for mold.
That is why we harness the power of probiotics to kill mold and mycotoxins leaving billions of healthy bacteria in your airspace. The healthy bacteria devours the mold and neutralizes the toxicity of its structure.
Using our probiotics eliminates mold and promotes a balanced environment that prevents future growth.
We employ billions of nature’s healthy bacteria to eliminate harmful bacteria, mold mycotoxins, and other pathogens that pose a risk to your health.
Our proprietary, plant-based, full-spectrum probiotic is unrivaled in its ability to eradicate mold and re-establish a lush home biome.
