T3 (liothyronine/Cytomel) Relieves Mold Exposure With Fatigue & Brain Fog

aguilaroja

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Non-Thyroidal Illness Syndrome in Patients Exposed to Indoor Air Dampness Microbiota Treated Successfully with Triiodothyronine. - PubMed - NCBI
“A retrospective study was carried out in nine patients with a history of mold exposure, experiencing chronic fatigue, cognitive disorder, and different kinds of hypothyroid symptoms despite provision of levothyroxine (3,5,3',5'-tetraiodothyronine, LT4) monotherapy.”

“During the therapy, all nine patients reported improvements in all of the symptom groups. Those who had residual symptoms during T3-based therapy remained exposed to indoor air molds in their work places. Four patients were unable to work and had been on disability leave for a long time during LT4 monotherapy. However, during the T3-based and supportive therapy, all patients returned to work in so-called "healthy" buildings.”
 

DesertRat

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Mar 10, 2014
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This does not surprise me given my experience with indoor mold. The T3 really helps me, but I couldn't take enough to offset the mold and algae in the air in the DC area last month.
 

Xemnoraq

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Oct 3, 2016
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This interests me because i believe my symtpoms may be mold/aflatoxin related due to my overconsumption of foods contaminated with mold and aflatoxin can anybody provide any tips on a broad range of antifungls that may work?
 

LeeLemonoil

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Selfhacked has some thorough article about conditions described there as "Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome or CIRS" (is a condition coined by Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker that encompasses a wide range of health issues that can be triggered by a toxin.)
Mold exposure is one such CRIS condition and covered in depth. It's really insifghtful how the artile explains the connection between these inflmmatory conditions and how poor cellular energy/ NAD+-status figues in and infuences vice versa.


Causes of CIRS/ Mold Illness: SOCS3, SIRT1 & Hypoxia - SelfHack

There also presented is the Drug Cholestyramine which some claim is especially effective for helping get rid of mold toxins.
 

LeeLemonoil

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CIRS, Hypoxia, and Low NAD+/SIRT1

When you have low oxygen (hypoxia), your mitochondria don’t work as well and for good reason. Oxygen needs to be there to accept electrons in the mitochondria. When you have low oxygen, it can’t accept electrons, so your body wants to slow mitochondrial function down.

When you have low oxygen, your body responds by slowing the conversion of NADH to NAD+ (less oxidation). Therefore, you have a buildup of NADH and a relative reduction of NAD+.

The more NAD+ levels increase, the more SIRT1 is active (on the other hand, Nicotinamide blocks SIRT1 activity) [14].

When you have high NAD+ levels, it means you likely have been using your energy up and have a negative energy balance – you’re expending more calories than you’re consuming. It also likely means you’re well oxygenated.

Low NAD+ is called “pseudohypoxia,” because the body sets in motion some of the same responses to low NAD+ that’s caused by low oxygen, even if you have adequate oxygen levels.

The Importance of NAD+
NAD+ is important for DNA repair, stress resistance, and cell death [15, 16].

So the less NAD+ you have, the less you will repair your DNA when it’s damaged.

NAD+ and NADH protect you from damaging/burning your skin in the sun and skin cancer [17, 18]. NAD+ absorbs mainly the UVB spectrum and NADH absorbs mainly UVA spectrum [19].

I’ve noticed in CIRS clients (and other people who I would suspect to have low NAD+ levels) burn easily from the sun. This indicates low MSH and/or low NAD+.

Fatigue, low physical and mental energy are also signs of lower NAD+/SIRT1.

Levels of NAD+ largely control the “redox potential” because NAD+ has the ability to acquire electrons.

The higher the redox potential of the cell, the better the mitochondria work and the more it can fight infections and function the way a cell is supposed to function.

NAD+ levels also control mitochondrial function, as it’s needed to safely move electrons through the mitochondria.

Lower levels of NAD+ reduce mitochondrial function, with fewer energy-rich ATP molecules being produced, and fewer mitochondria produced.

NAD+ controls metabolism (along with hormones like T3) and lower levels of NAD+ and T3 will make you feel cold. In frog cells, NAD+ increases free T3 [20].

NAD+ and the Immune System
People with CIRS commonly have infections that they can’t get rid of and chronic inflammation.

Increasing NAD+ in animal models reverses autoimmune disease through various means, which demonstrates that low NAD+ is one cause of a deregulated immune system and why autoimmune conditions often coexist with chronic mold issues. This works mainly by increasing an anti-inflammatory variety of Th1 and Th17 cells (which are usually bad, but NAD+ changes them to increase TGF-b and IL-10). So NAD+ levels can turn Th1 dominance from being bad to being good [21].

Just like we saw with SOCS3 and TGF-beta, the cellular environment can take something good and make it bad and vice versa.

SIRT1 is important for the immune system to clear pathogens in part via MHC II activation. Hypoxia or low oxygen prevents MHC II from activating by decreasing SIRT1 activity (oxLDL also decreased SIRT1 in macrophages) [22].

NAD+ (and by extension SIRT1) seems like one of those molecules that creates an optimal and balanced environment for your immune system to fight infections, while also dampening inflammation.

What Affects NAD+ Levels?
NAD+ levels decline with age and they are caused in part by oxidative stress over time [23].

Having high blood sugar levels results in higher NADH and lower NAD+ [24]. Insulin also increases the NADH/NAD+ ratio [25].

Having low oxygen in your cells also results in higher NADH and lower NAD+.

Blood sugar dose-dependently worsens (increases) your NADH/NAD+ ratio in the same way as low oxygen. When you combine excess carbs/sugar and low oxygen, you become fatigued.

This is one of the most significant reasons why sugar/carbs make people with mold issues feel worse.

In fact, you might feel worse after eating anything because eating decreases NAD+ levels and fasting increases it. Of course, inflammation will also make you fatigued by shutting orexin down.

Fasting, calorie restriction, and exercise help mold sufferers because they all raise NAD+ levels [26].

On the other hand, some people do worse in the short term because skipping meals causes hypoglycemia and when I was in a bad state, I’d feel like crap if I skipped meals. And then I’d eat a meal and crash because there weren’t enough energy-related molecules (ATP levels) in my lateral hypothalamus from fasting, which results in the shutting down of orexin down.

CIRS people also do very poorly with alcohol, since alcohol decreases NAD+ [27, 28].

Alcohol has a host of other negative effects, but they don’t explain the rapidity by which people feel worse from it. NAD+ explains the almost instant effects in CIRS people.

This is also why a lot of my clients claim to do better with niacin/nicotinamide in the short term: because it increases NAD+ [29].

People often claim to do better with amphetamine usage as well. Amphetamines use up energy, ATP and also deplete dopamine in certain parts of the brain (striatum in rats) [30].

When rats were given Niacinamide to increase NAD+ levels, the negative changes caused by amphetamines were reduced [30].

So we see that lower levels of NAD+ will decrease brain energy and dopamine, and people will start to need amphetamines to keep up. This happened to a mold client of mine who started to use amphetamines a bit before the mold crash hit because of attention problems. But what this really reveals were low NAD+ levels that started to cause brain changes that were partially reversed by amphetamines. However, the root cause (lower NAD+) wasn’t addressed and it was only time before exposure to mold caused some kind of crash. And if mold exposure didn’t do it, some other biotoxin would have.

Saunas are also considered a panacea and have been a part of every historical culture. We think it’s because we’re sweating out toxins, and that might have something to do with it, but saunas and heat shocks also increase NAD+ levels [31].

Fermented foods and beverages such as kombucha contain NAD+, which is one reason why it energizes me. Fermentation uses NADH to produce lactate, and the byproduct is NAD+.

However, some fermentation byproducts cause problems in mold/histamine intolerance and Th2 dominant people.
 
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