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Robin Daly
Hello and welcome to the Yes to Life show. I’m Robin Daly, host for the show and founder of the UK charity Yes to Life that helps people with cancer understand the benefits of integrative medicine and supports them in accessing integrative approaches. If you’re unfamiliar with the name integrative medicine, it’s a very broad view of what elements to consider when approaching health and will, in addition to the conventional services offered by the NHS, include a whole raft of other approaches that are supportive of mind, body and spirit, for what you call a holistic approach. My guest this week is a regular on the show who is a functional medicine practitioner, a discipline that’s primarily concerned with getting to the root causes of disease. I’m talking to Mark Bennett about a subject that’s getting its first airing on this show Mycotoxins. I’m speaking to Mark at his home in Berkshire over the internet.

Mark Bennett
Hello Robin, it’s a real pleasure to be back. Thank you.

Robin Daly
So today we’re talking about a subject that we penciled in a little while back, something that concerns you, maybe more than other practitioners, mycotoxins and their effects on our health. So let’s weigh straight in by being clear about what we’re talking about here. What are mycotoxins?

Mark Bennett
Okay, well, that’s a very good question. What are market toxins? So, I mean, before I answer that question, I’ll just just just to expand on the on the comment you made, I mean, you understand, obviously, you know, from from our previous chats that as a functional practitioner, I’m looking at causation, I’m looking at the reasons why chronic disease, not just cancer, but any chronic condition manifests. And mycotoxins have become a very large part of my clinical practice in the last couple of years, as I became more and more aware that they can have, and I’ll discuss obviously what these are in a minute, they can have a considerable impact adverse impact on human biochemistry, and therefore could be energizing any number of conditions and including cancer. So there is there is real evidence in the literature base that these things can really cause significant problems okay in human biology and hence, as my approach functional approach to helping people get control of chronic conditions long term health conditions. This is a, an elephant in a room that we need to address. And it’s not saying that everybody’s got issues with mycotoxins I’m not saying that what I’m saying is is that often if you cannot explain why somebody’s not achieving the goals they should be through diet and lifestyle changes. Okay, then there’s, there will be other things going on and this is something that I’m very much more aware of as a practitioner in the last couple of years. So, going back to your to your opening question what are mycotoxins, I mean mycotoxins are essentially toxic chemicals that fungal organisms fungi basically produce Okay, these are defense chemicals. And the reason they produce them is because these organisms are fighting amongst each other for dominance in an environment. So they release these chemicals as sort of warfare, okay against each other, and these mycotoxins, as I said, are incredibly, actually are incredibly potent and the science on this is also, you know, evolving at a rapid rate, and we still don’t have a complete view on you know how many mycotoxins are are, but what we do have an understanding of is there are certain species of fungi that produce certain mycotoxins that in the literature are correlated with dysfunction. Okay. And these are incredibly toxic substances so I mean if you just mean I don’t want to over egg this but if you think about there is evidence that, for example, the Russians the Soviets okay we using effectively a mycotoxin in Afghanistan in the 70s and 80s is a weapon, you know, so, you know, these are, I mean, you know, there’s even evidence that these things could be used as as weapons against humanity so it’s they’re not they’re not friendly things. But we as a species have evolved alongside fungi, I mean fungi are one of the oldest sort of kingdoms on earth in terms of life forms okay.

Mark Bennett
And, you know, you also know from previous discussions about mushrooms for example mushrooms are part of the fungi kingdom mushrooms medicinal mushrooms can be exceedingly useful used intelligently in cancer treatment supporting integrative oncological treatments you know supporting or reducing or even sometimes eliminating side effects of chemotherapy radiotherapy and enhancing the impact of these these treatments so it’s not that all fungi are bad but it’s these it’s these certain toxins that certain fungi produce. Now, there are, you know, the classic black mold is stuck in boy trees charterium is the AKA black mold which you see in lots of bathrooms or in, you know, the drums of washing machines or in corners that you don’t tend to clean that often or where there’s a bit of water that’s being well studied and we understand that this can create sick sick building syndrome, it can create all kinds of horrors in recipients. And what is interesting is that certain people are far more susceptible to these market toxins and others so it doesn’t mean that everybody within a particular environment is going to have a major problem. Okay, it may be that certain people are going to go down a lot quicker than others, and they are like the sort of canaries in the mind, so to speak. And actually telling you there’s an issue there, but these micro toxins are. I mean when you start to look at the World Health Organization themselves I mean they’ve published research on this I mean really interesting food science nutrition 2020 a study shows that, you know, there’s 25 25% up to 80% of staple foods are actually contaminated with micro toxins. I mean, this is this is staggering information, you know, it’s like, okay so what are we talking about cereals nuts spices dried fruits coffee beans I mean there’s a big issue on coffee. that companies even advertise their coffee in that world as microtoxin free, you know, low mold coffees. Right. Okay.

Robin Daly
I don’t know whether that’s something you’ve come across or not, but… I haven’t come across that. They’re very interesting. Yeah.

Mark Bennett
And then you’ve got, you know, so it’s the storage conditions. It’s dairy, certain dairy. You know, if you’ve got animals that have been fed grains that are moldy, then basically the mycotoxins will get excreted in their dairy output. So it’s the storage conditions, it’s how these things are stored. So if you think about the Ukraine situation, and the fact that grain was stuck in these warehouses for a very long, long time, then they suddenly start to ship the grain that’s been in warehouses maybe in a warm climate for some time in the summer or something. You could argue that that may have extra mycotoxic load in it. So the World Health Organization themselves are really aware of this problem. I mean, it’s a big problem. And there is a, there’s actually a group called JECFA, which is an international body responsible for evaluating the issue with mycotoxic load in the food supply. So they’re toxic chemicals, and it is a known problem. And it’s even recognized by the World Health Organization themselves. So when you start to join all that information together, is it any wonder that we would be you know, maybe we might want to take this slightly seriously when it comes to people’s health and wellbeing.

Robin Daly
Fair enough. Okay so life is bugs basically as we’re finding out these days you know they’re inside us outside us in our environment in fact some people even think they are us and so some of these you say are giving off these toxic chemicals these are in in what kind of form I mean you gave the example of black mold is that a vapor that’s coming off them what’s

Mark Bennett
it is is the gas it’s effectively these are it is it’s a it is a gaseous exposure but I mean fungal organisms will create volatile organic compounds which give the musty smell that you can sometimes so you walk into a room and you say oh this smells very musty damp those are the volatile organic compounds actually mycotoxins are odorless okay but but if you’ve got a room that it has has poor ventilation or has had water damage in the corner or there’s a leaking roof I mean look lots of things will cause these issues and I’ve actually got a list here of you know just the key things that you would look for I mean most houses have had water damage at some point in their life I mean it’s very unusual I mean we all have leaks somewhere at some point in time whether it’s under the sink or the you know the the loo or you know there’s there could be a bit of water ingress because a tile has come loose on the roof or the gutters are overflowing and as I said washing machines classic I mean lots of people will leave their washing machine door closed once they’ve used the washing machine that is a perfect environment for molds to grow you know underneath the drum and you know these things can be I’ve had multiple clients in the last two years who have had major issues with a washing machine now it sounds ridiculous doesn’t it sounds ridiculous that the humble washing machine could be harboring something that’s exactly. Look at your toothbrush. I mean, not your toothbrush, but I’m talking about, you know, people’s toothbrushes. Um, you know, toothbrushes can, once the head gets a little bit manky, you know, that would harbor mycotoxins in their molds, which would then potentially release these mycotoxins. So I don’t want people to become paranoid about, about molds. It’s like you, you want to try and do as much as possible to mitigate exposure to molds. So if you do have water damage, get it sorted very quickly. If your carpet floods, don’t just dry it off, you know, and expect it to be all right. Get rid of the carpet, get it on insurance or whatever you can do and replace it. So, you know, the thing is you don’t want water damage that’s lying around is historic water damage is never resolved completely. And these issues really do, you know, these, these, these problems within a building can absolutely change the environment of the building to something that is toxic to certain people that are in that building. And that can then lead to chronic issues, including, including actually energizing even cancers. So let me give you an example. I mean, zero-lenon, which is an actually, which is a particular mycotoxin that we can measure in tests has estrogenic properties. So you can imagine what that might do for estrogenically receptive or driven cancers, you know, very uterine, prostating men, those type of things.

Robin Daly
Exactly like the plastics drive it in the same way.

Mark Bennett
And also, what one has to understand is that these mycotoxins are incredibly chemically stable. They do not get removed through fruit processing. If the food is contaminated, it is contaminated. You won’t get rid of it by, you know, drying it out. The residue is there. So you’ve got to stop the stuff growing in the first place.

Robin Daly
Okay, so cooking though, what does that do?

Mark Bennett
Cooking won’t, they’re heat stable. They won’t change anything. I mean, what you’ve got to do is not eat food that is being contaminated in this way. So how the grain is harvested, where it’s stored, these are really important factors in terms of working out how to reduce the exposure to these things. Now, as I said a minute ago, we have developed multiple systems to be able to eliminate and control these things. It’s not that we don’t expect as an organism to deal with micro- I’m just-

Mark Bennett
Now we can’t live in a zero market toxin environment. That’s not real, okay? But certain people genetically are predisposed to under excreting these particular toxins. And this then segues into the work done by Dr. Richie Shoemaker in Australia. He actually runs a website called survivingmold.au. It’s a great resource. And there is actually, I know we’re probably jumping ahead here, but there’s a really great test that you can do in the comfort of your own home on your computer called the visual contrast sensitivity test, which is basically an online test that checks for contrast sensitivity in the eyes. And okay, it’s not, you know, clearly it’s a very blunt tool, but what he is saying is for 15 Australian dollars, you can just log on, pay your 15 Australian dollars, do the test. And if you fail that test, it gives you a left and right eye, you know, tick box, and it shows you where you failed, and it say fail or pass. And then it asks you a number of, you know, when you’re presenting with key symptoms that may be associated with, for example, mycotoxic exposure, and you either pass or fail the test. Now, if you fail that test, then it’s sort of implying that this could be, this might be, not it is, you know, it might be an issue for you, and therefore it probably worth investigating a little bit deeper. And to do that, you would then look at urine tests. So you can then use, I mean, I use labs in the US, and you can do a mycotoxin urine panel, and they’re looking for excretions above a standard range of these mycotoxins coming out in the body. And if you find that that is elevated, then you’ve got a problem. So that is then when you step in and start to look at how do we resolve this? But, you know, the point here is that there’s a cheap way into this without having to spend fortunes to understand if that’s a problem. You look at your symptoms as well. And, you know, let me just run through, I mean, these symptoms, a lot of these symptoms, I’m going to say, could be caused by other reasons. It’s not to say that you’re presenting with fatigue, it’s because of mycotoxins. No, yeah, but let me just, you know, read some of these things. So fatigue, brain fog, loss of motor function, muscle wasting, depression, blood pressure issues, anxiety, insomnia, night terrors, weight gain, poor appetite, food sensitivities. When I see clients with disproportionate food sensitivities going, I mean, literally they are reacting to 50 foods. It’s like, why? You know, what’s going on there? It doesn’t make sense. Why would the body have lost tolerance to so many food products, okay? And it’s like, so weight loss, asthma, shortness of breath. I mean, chronic muscle pain, sneezing, vertigo. These are, I mean, I could go on, there’s 50 of them. I won’t bore you with them all, but what I’m saying, isn’t it surprising how, you know, those things of course can be caused by other issues.

Mark Bennett
Of course they can. And I’m not saying that people who are presenting with depression are all got mycotoxic issues, but what I’m saying is if you do a sensible intervention to help with depression and you end up there not resolving the problem, there probably is a series of other things going on. And one of the things, one of the elephants in the room could well be met.

Robin Daly
Interesting. Okay, so can we jump back to, we were talking about exposure and it seems you’ve got two sort of major variables here. One is the amount of exposure and the other one is your sensitivity. And so on the amount of exposure, first of all, as you said, we’ve all got built-in systems for this stuff and so a moderate amount of exposure is neither here nor there. So so that’s the reason to not go berserk about worrying about these things intensity. But a kind of chronic exposure, which might come from living in a room, which has got this happening all the time, for example, that’s a different thing and anybody’s system could get overwhelmed like that. Is that correct?

Mark Bennett
That is correct. And certain people, as I sort of implied, are genetically on the back foot when it comes to detoxification. Production of glutathione, for example, internally can absolutely be central to conjugating these toxins and then removing them from the body. In terms of detoxification systems, your liver is going to be working well, you’ve got to have good lung capacity, you’ve got to have good output, digestive output. I mean, when people are constipated, this is a problem. It’s a big problem. If you’re not going on a regular basis, then you’re not eliminating efficiently. And that is an issue. And so often you will see people with chronic constipation with these type of issues. Okay, that’s not to say everybody has those issues. Yes, some people do also have loose output, but I’d much rather, in this instance, that people had loose output and were going regularly in maybe even in an uncontrolled manner, because at least they’re eliminating. But there is a genetic predisposition and it comes down to how strong you are from the point of view of your biochemistry and looking at things like gut permeability, aka leaky gut, these things. So what we know is that these mycotoxins can actually start to cause changes in the microflora. Now, we know you know any chronic disease and especially cancer. I mean, there is a statement by I think Dr. Zack Bush, who’s an extraordinary man in the US and an oncologist himself, who said that there is no cancer that’s not connected to a microflora imbalance. Yeah, so it’s like, well, you know, that’s quite a statement coming from a gentleman like him. You know, it’s like saying, okay, you know, the balance of a microflora can be perturbed by the mycotoxic exposure. And that would then potentially cause any number of issues, possibly even cancer, it could contribute to energizing that condition. So it is something to be very aware of. And something that, again, you don’t want to over egg it. But at the same time, if you go and do a test, you know, you fail the VCS test I just mentioned, and then you do a urine test and you find you and I will often see, you know, five or six mycotoxins that they’re measuring, which are the ones that we know through the literature cause the greatest harm. And then what we find is they are literally swimming in these things, literally swimming in these things, that bodies are literally overflowing with these things. You’ve got to start thinking about ways to get rid of it. And, you know, the first thing you said about exposure, you’ve got to avoid avoidance, avoidance, avoidance, and somebody, you know, I mean, if you’re living in a house with overt mold on the walls, and you’ve got a chronic condition, you can’t just clean it up. You can’t just go, Oh, I’m going to paint it over, or I’m going to just, you know, mop it down. I mean, mopping it down would also create loads of issues potentially by disturbing these mycotoxins and actually increasing the amount that you might inhale.

Mark Bennett
But at the end of the day, you’ve got to get out. And I know that sounds dramatic. But if your house is moldy, you’ve got to resolve it and you can get people to come in and actually resolve the mold issue. So I’ve actually found a company that will do this in a non-toxic way. So uncertain clients of mine have brought them in and use this company, and they spray a non-toxic substance, which is called parasitic acid, which basically breaks down into oxygen, water, and vinegar. But it’s a dry fog, and they will dry fog the whole house. They do a test before they do anything. So they measure the mycotoxins in the environment. And then what they do is they dry fog the whole house. And it takes a day, you know, literally from morning to evening, they will do this whole process. And then a molecule made out of carbon and nitrogen that coats all the surfaces is non-toxic. And it creates like little spikes. And minuscule, you can’t feel these things, you can’t know it’s there. But it’s like what they what it does is it stops any mold spores from landing on the surface and taking hold. So it’s a really clever system. And the feedback I’ve had so far with this particular approach has been really, really good.

Robin Daly
Well, that is a very interesting resource. We’re happy to share the name of the company.

Mark Bennett
I am indeed, and the name of the company is Pure Maintenance. online. I mean, they’re a great outfit and the problem is a lot of companies are using toxic chemicals to basically do mould remediation and that’s actually, I would argue, you’re just coming from the prime pan into the fire, that’s really it.

Robin Daly
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. Okay, so keeping on the exposure line here then, so we’ve established that a moderate amount of exposure with a healthy person who hasn’t got a particular genetic weakness is neither here nor there. For somebody who’s sick, it may not have a genetic weakness, but their immune system is depleted because they’re sick. Now I assume that they are people who should be much more concerned about this.

Mark Bennett
you’ve mentioned the key point here, which is what are the key things that excessive mycotoxic load does to the body? It suppresses immune function. That’s one of the key things it will do. So these mycotoxins will literally bash your immune system down. And that is a problem from any perspective, for any reason. I mean, especially, we know with regard to cancer that you need your immune system functioning as well as it can do. So is that also a reason why that contributes to the manifestation of certain cancers in the body? But it means people get constant infections. There’s lots of issues. I mean, thyroid dysfunction is another classic one. Thyroid suppression by mycotoxic load, yes. So there is a correlation, as I said, between the body’s ability to actually efficiently make glutathione, which can be compromised on a certain genetic basis. There are also these HLA genes, which are often correlated with things like gluten-related disorders, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, those type of things, ankylosing spondylitis, those type of issues. So there are certain genetic predispositions that will mean you have a greater chance of developing excessive mycotoxic load in the body. And this is because the body is unable to efficiently eliminate these things. You actually recycle the mycotoxins. You might actually bundle it up and try and get rid of it, but then what happens is the body doesn’t eliminate it properly, and you recycle it, like a hepatic recirculation of toxins going on. And the kicker on this, Robin, is the fact that you may not have a current exposure in your environment. You may have had this exposure years ago. And in another environment, many times you would take a life history, I take a life history of my clients, and they go, oh, when I was in, I don’t know, university in, I don’t know, Edinburgh, let’s say, I lived in a moldy flat. And when you think about what happens in health-wise, it was ever since I lived in that moldy flat that my health took a complete downturn. And it’s like that eureka moment of knowing that that was a pivotal moment, you hadn’t thought about it, because no one had actually raised it to your attention. But actually, that was the moment within a few months of living and moving into that flat, oh, my mental cycle change, or I started to get chronically fatigued, or I started to have brain fog or whatever it was. But then once you leave that environment, unless you actually physically remove those things from the body and help the body to detoxify them, they just get shunted around within the body, recycled.

Robin Daly
Blimey. So the kind of parallel thing that’s much more commonly talked about in sort of nutrition circles at least would be heavy metals. Your heavy metal exposure could have been when you were 16 but that doesn’t mean it’s gone anywhere. Interesting. I’ve not heard these talked about in the same way. So yeah, serious situation.

Mark Bennett
It’s potentially very serious because it’s just, it’s sort of below the radar and you just wouldn’t think. It’s very difficult to get to the bottom of because there’s no real reason to even think about them, especially if you’re not living in an environment where you think there is any issues going on.

Robin Daly
hmm hmm see that okay so that’s a new kind of flag to be aware of um so uh still banging on about the exposure the worst case scenario is you’re sick and you’ve got a genetic predisposition that means you can’t do anything much with toxins anyway um those people are like it must be an absolute essential that they make sure they’re not exposing themselves

Mark Bennett
Totally. Although, through clinical experience, I have actually seen a scenario whereby an individual, very high levels, I mean, very high levels of mycotoxin in living in an environment where they’re actually building a new environment to move into. So, you know, it’s going to be a lovely, clean, beautiful, you know, mycotoxin free, clean new house. Okay. But he’s, he’s still living in this moldy environment. But actually, when we retested six months later, the mycotoxic load, it had fallen dramatically on the back of the interventions that he’d already done, right? He was still presenting with too much of these mycotoxins, but the numbers have fallen significantly compared to where they were. So the, the approach, you know, the binders, the treatments that he’s using, the natural treatments that he was implementing, are making a difference, but he’s still in trouble. Until he moves out of that environment, you’re not going to get total resolution.

Robin Daly
No, well that’s fairly obvious but it’s very heartening to hear obviously that this is something you can do something about just like heavy metal exposure. You can actually do something about it once you’re aware of the issue and but you’ve got to actually come up with the realisation first. So maybe can we talk a bit about this? You told us what you can do in our house, get the company in, get it treated. What about us?

Mark Bennett
Right. From our perspective, this is, again, it’s, it’s like everything to do with functional approach to health. It’s multi-factorial. There’s no like, you know, single thing like juicing broccoli is going to magically resolve, you know, this issue. It is always multi-factorial. And there are lots of things that I would implore or advise a client to consider doing. So diet is a really big part of this. So one has to think about the food stuffs that typically are contaminated. So going right back to the beginning of this conversation, you know, one has to think very, very long and hard about grain consumption, nuts, seeds, spices, all the things. Now, I’m not saying don’t eat these things. What I’m saying is you got to understand, are they stored in an appropriate way, you know, people put nuts and seeds in the fridge for months, you know, they may not even put them in the fridge, they’re sitting in a cupboard. And the temperature is just inappropriate. And it’s just a breeding ground for issues. So thinking about freshness of food, getting fresh food products into the body, but then certain plant based materials are very good at binding these things or stimulating bar flow, for example. So certain plants will stimulate bar flow, eating fresh meats, making sure that you’re eating awful if you can do it. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But basically making sure that the foods you’re eating are fresh and are stored properly. So that’s a big

Robin Daly
be clear about two things you’ve mentioned there. One is about you talk about things binding. What what are you describing there exactly and why is that important? Yeah and the other one is bile flow. Why is bile flow important?

Mark Bennett
Barflow is important because it will literally bind toxins coming out of the liver and eliminate it from the body. So the liver is ducted into the top of the small intestine. So that is where you start to eliminate. The whole digestive process ultimately is about elimination, elimination of unwanted toxic substances. So if you’re not eliminating properly, are you not eliminating regularly? Clearly the toxic load is going to build up and there’s a greater chance that these things can then be recycled. I mean just going back to binders, if you’re using binders which we haven’t talked about, things like charcoal and clay which you would use depending on the type of mycotoxin that you find out in a test. So look, charcoal will work on certain mycotoxins but not on others. So you might use a binder, you think oh it’s just easy, I just bind these up, I just take a whole lot of clay and charcoal and basically I just bind the mycotoxins. But if you’re not going to the loo regularly, if you are not going every day at least once a day, that is actually potentially going to make it even worse. So you’re going to bind everything up, you’re hurting everything up and then you’re getting to this sort of point where you can’t eliminate and then what’s going to happen is there’s going to be reabsorption. So yes, food is a really big part of this and it comes back down to very sensible, clean, unprocessed foods, trying to keep grain consumption under control, making sure that you’re storing your foods in a very appropriate way. Nuts and seeds should be in a fridge, you shouldn’t leave them, you shouldn’t leave, I mean grain should be kept in a fridge, rice should be kept in the fridge, you don’t want to be keeping it in some sort of warm cupboard, dark cupboard somewhere where these things will, you know, mycotoxins will flourish, I mean fungal organisms will flourish. And then other things you can do, dry brushing for lymphatic drainage, you know, you can go and look online for dry brushing techniques, you know, just to move lymph around the body. Lymph is a unsung hero of detoxification in the body. Exercise, infrared saunas, getting hot, you know, using near infrared saunas and getting the body up to a sweating point. Sweating is a fantastic thing to do, hence exercise. Exercise is a great thing to do in terms of elimination. Breathing properly, you know, it’s like breath work, you know, most of us, I mean, we’ve all got to breathe, otherwise we don’t live, but I mean, for something that we do, and we have to do each and every moment of every day, most of us don’t breathe properly. So it’s like, you know, read the book Breath, it’s an extraordinary book by James Nestor, it’s the most extraordinary journey on how to breathe properly. So these things, these, you know, then you start to add in also the binders, I just sort of briefly touched on things like charcoal, clay, bentonite clay, certain probiotics are also really useful, okay, for binding, but it depends on the mycotoxin,

Mark Bennett
and this is why one has to have the information on which mycotoxin is presenting you, or mycotoxins, plural, are presenting you the problem. And once you know, then you say, okay, right, these are susceptible to being bound by charcoal, these are susceptible to a probiotic, and then you can go in with that, make sure digestive system is working well, make sure your inputs are going in terms of food inputs are sensible based on what I just said, and categorically reduce exposure through an environment, you’ve got to get the environment sorted. So if you can’t move house, get professionals in, sort out the damp, get a treatment done, reduce the mycotoxic load, and then you’re in a much better place because obviously, you’re pulling multiple levers and you’re reducing load, you’re increasing excretion. So in theory, you can get on top of this.

Robin Daly
Hmm, interesting. It’s something that I can see for myself and to get my head around from the point of view is like we normally think of these things as the actual mold itself and so you know you’re thinking in terms of something that’s visual or whatever you can see it quite easily but you’re saying no no it’s not that is actually the chemicals these molds are given off which you can’t see you can’t even smell it and those are the things that are kicking around and you’re likely to for them to be there without you realizing it’s all just because of the conditions you’ve created.

Mark Bennett
Well, this is this is exactly the point. And yes, musty, if you’ve got a musty smell going on, there is definitely trouble because there’s other volatile organic compounds coming off. Okay. But it is insidious, you know, it’s like it’s below the radar. And, and also what happened? What can happen? And one has to be very aware of this, you know, if you are living in a moldy environment, and you move to a clean environment, be really careful about what you take with you, how you take clothes will literally be riddled with it. Okay, so it’s like, you got to wash them in a particular way, wash those clothes in a particular way to make sure I mean, vinegar has potent, potent antifungal properties. Okay, so there are certain tricks of the trade that you can use in order to wash your clothes at a particular heat with a particular sort of these natural agents put in. I mean, essential oils are really good burning candles that have, you know, natural essential oils in or using a, a waterless diffuser, you know, with essential oils in is, you know, to actually fill your environment up with, with essential oils that can absolutely be kryptonite to my to, to fungal organisms. These are really sensible, simple, cheap things that you, you don’t have to go crazy with this stuff. He’s just making sensible decisions about what one does, but working with a practitioner who knows what they’re talking about, you know, understanding that this is something that might be a problem. And then what do you do about it? So it’s, yes, it is, it is, it is a bit of a, well, it isn’t warfare, essentially, with with with the microorganisms. I mean, you, you it’s issue isn’t actually the, the molds, it’s what they produce. Yeah, I see that. Yeah.

Robin Daly
It’s interesting, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah, we think of it as being the mould that’s the problem primarily. That’s what I’m saying, is there’s a bit of a shift of attention. Interesting. So can we talk a bit about lifestyle and these mycotoxins? Now, okay, the most sensible lifestyle approach, you just avoid having that stuff around your house, mould or whatever it is, right, that’s number one. But the other things you can do, you just mentioned a few things, which are kind of things that you might do in any house, whether you think you’ve got them or not, just to keep healthy, to make sure it doesn’t happen. So do you want to speak about that a bit?

Mark Bennett
Okay, I mean, there’s some really simple things to do. I mean, modern houses don’t have enough airflow in them. You know, we need airflow, open the windows. You know, okay, when it’s cold outside and everybody’s, you know, turning down their heating because of the cost of living crisis and energy issues, I appreciate that’s not necessarily whatever everybody wants to do. But sleeping with a window open in your bedroom, I mean, I mean, I talk for ourselves. We have the bedroom closed off with a door from the rest of the house. So we’re not sucking heat in, but the bedroom, you know, we leave the window open, even if it’s minus five outside, we still have the window open because I want airflow in the room. So actually having airflow, proper airflow, and modern houses are incredibly sterile from that perspective. So actually having movement of air is really important. Humidity, humidity below 50%, you will not have molds growing, okay? So, you know, if you think about keeping humidity, you know, that can be expensive because obviously you’ve got to put dehumidifiers in rooms and you’ve got to basically get rid of loads of water in the environment. And at certain times of the year, humidity levels go very high. I mean, in the winter, in the UK, I mean, the average humidity in London could be 80, 90%. So it’s like nothing dries. So it’s damp. And it’s really interesting, you know, I’m not talking about cancer patients here. I’m talking about other people I’ve worked with with things like, you know, chronic eczema, unbelievable chronic eczema, asthma, fatigue, those sort of issues, okay? In the summer, they get a lot better, okay? Which is really interesting. Even if they got hay fever, they still feel more energized. You know, their skin problems will actually diminish. They may still have a bit of hay fever going on. And Uncline actually went off to Nevada, which is probably one of the driest places we’ve planted up, yeah? And the message I got back was extraordinary. It was, everything’s better, everything, you know? My skin, my energy levels, my brain fog’s gone, everything. And you know why? Because, you know, she’s in an environment. She was in an environment that basically just…

Mark Bennett
All right. All the chance of these things being there. Right. So, and then within 48 hours of landing back in the UK, it all starts to go a little bit wrong. So it’s very, very interesting how the environment, just the humidity level in your environment. So, you know, if you’re spending a lot of time in certain rooms, then use it to even with the bike. Try and get the humidity levels down and airflow and using, as I said, things like certain essential oils with dry diffusers, not, not the ones that pump out the water, you know, the mist. You don’t want to be putting humidity back into the environment clearly. You want to be, you want to be doing it with a dry diffuser. You can buy them on Amazon. They’re, you know, they’re not expensive things and you can buy the oils. You can burn candles. So, you know, those are really simple tricks. And if you are, if you do find problems with molds in the house, if you do clean them up, make sure you’re wearing an N95 mask, make sure you’re wearing gloves, make sure you’re wearing old clothes. And the minute you finish cleaning any area, you need to wash your clothes thoroughly. You know, you just don’t want to be just sort of assuming you can just, you know, go along in your normal attire and just clean these things up without any sort of, any sort of consideration about the disturbance of these, these micro toxins. And you can also test, yeah, there are certain labs that would test the dust in your house for the presence of market toxins. So you can, you can do this stuff relatively cost effectively by, for example, taking a sample out of your vacuum cleaner. sending it off to the lab and that you know you’ve vacuumed your vacuuming all around the house on top of shelves and stuff. Good yeah.

Robin Daly
It’s going to take us perhaps. Yeah. So just want to compare and contrast. It seems to me that we’ve gone from one set of issues to another one. Anybody of my age grew up in a house that was cold, damp, lots of drafts everywhere. So there’s plenty of movement of air, but there’s condensation all over the windows, all winter, you know, absolutely damp inside. And yeah, quite likely a big mould here, there, everywhere. So given what you said about the stuff hanging on for a long time, that’s an issue potentially for anyone of a certain age who didn’t have so much money they could afford the heating in those days.

Mark Bennett
Totally correct. But there again, what I would say is if you haven’t got any chronic health issues, then don’t worry about it okay, as you know, if you’ve got chronic issues going on and Whatever you do doesn’t resolve those issues then what I’m trying to say is think outside the box and Mucatoxins might be a variable to consider in that equation

Robin Daly
Okay but then you know fast forward to today and you have houses which to me seem to be hot and damp they’re like you know greenhouses really there’s kind of I would think that for these fungi and things they’re marvelous they must love it in some ways because there’s not much air flow as you say and if you’ve got a bit of steam going around for the cooking and the bath and what have you and you cook it all up then it must be a perfect environment.

Mark Bennett
Totally. So you know, fling the windows open, get some air into the house, you know, clearly, that’s obviously easier to do in the summer. Especially if you’re looking, you know, at heating bills and try not to, you know, get too cold. But at the end of the day, maybe, you know, your bedroom is a place where you need ventilation. If you’re spending a lot of time in a particular room, think about what you do in that room, get a dehumidifier for that room, or, you know, use a diffuser for that room. So, or open the window or do all of it, right?

Robin Daly
All right well that’s all really helpful advice. I want to try out my number one weapon against such things. Hydrogen peroxide is the thing that I would go to straight away. Does it work?

Mark Bennett
Yeah, well, hydrogen peroxide would make a lot of sense, because I mean, the body’s immune system obviously dumps hydrogen peroxide in front of any pathogen that is affecting the body. So, you know, hydrogen peroxide is a fantastic catchall, isn’t it, from all kinds of angles?

Robin Daly
I love it, it’s because it’s not toxic.

Mark Bennett
Absolutely. So it’s, it’s, you know, and you, you know, there are lots of ways to use it, as you know, I mean, nebulizing diluted food grade hydrogen peroxide can be extraordinary from a point of view of spiritually tracked issues as well.

Robin Daly
Okay well that’s good to pass the test that’s great. All right so just about coming to the end so kind of to sum up I mean I started out by suggesting that you’re maybe more concerned about the part that mycotoxins play in health than many other practitioners. In your experience thinking about the number of people affected and the amount it affects them how important would you say that paying attention to this area is to people with cancer?

Mark Bennett
I would say, with cancer, my view, my humble opinion on working with people who want an integrated approach to dealing with this type of condition, I would say that one has to take it pretty seriously because you need to look at every single possibility as to why that condition happened in the first place. And it’s the multi-factorial approach, isn’t it? It’s about pulling all the levers, the marginal gain stuff, which I know I’ve written about in the past, you know, doing as many things as you can justify doing in order to tip the balance in your favor. And so it’s not, you know, clearly it’s not always going to be present in anybody who’s got any chronic condition. But by taking a detailed life history, by asking the right questions, by maybe running the online VCS test, which is 15 Australian dollars, you know, you might start to then start to see scenarios where this needs to be investigated more. And what I often will put in a client report is, you know, if we’re not getting the results that you deserve on the back of doing the dietary changes, the lifestyle changes, you know, not talking about market toxins at all, if not, then we might need to consider looking at this in order to increase the chances of you achieving your health goals. That’s how I see it.

Robin Daly
Okay, very helpful. We’re going to wrap it up there, Mark. Thanks very much, Edita. What a fascinating topic and one I realise I know very little about. I know a bit more now. Have you got some sort of go-to man-in-the-street book to get on this subject, which would make them better informed? Yeah, I mean, there’s a great… book written by Dr. Jill Christa, C-R-I-S-T-A. She’s a naturopathic doctor, and it’s called Break the Mold, but the mould’s spelled in U.S. M-I-L-D.

Robin Daly
Okay, excellent. Thank you very much and thanks for a great interview, Mark.

Mark Bennett
Real pleasure, Robin, and I’m glad to have been of some use.

Robin Daly
What an interesting topic. I hope you got as much from that chat as I did. I want to tell you a bit about the yes-to-life events that are coming up this year. We have two important conferences in particular that I want to mention. These both come under the same banner of You and Your Cancer Team. The first is online on the 17th of June and the second is in person on the 7th of October and will be held at the same lovely venue as last year’s annual conference, Finding a Deeper Connection, at the Friends House in Euston, London. We’ll be looking to make the most of both platforms, online and in person, in their respective ways so the two events will have distinct differences. You can book for both at once, at a bargain price, and, as usual, the cost of attending is as low as we can make it to make them as accessible as possible. Also, as usual, we’re bringing together a stunning lineup of top speakers and workshop leaders. I’ll mention some of them. Helping me develop the programmes is the amazing Kirsten Chick, well known to you for her work in nutrition and her marvellous book, Nutrition Brought to Life, and then the Sophie Trew, also well known for her epic arrival on the integrated medicine scene via her Trew Fields holistic cancer events. There’s health coach Isabel Galliano, exercise specialist Scarlett Roberts, medical director of Penny Brown UK, Dr Catherine Zollman, holistic chef Hayley North, founder of Cancer Options and the Pete Institute Patricia Peat, Dr Brick Cordy, wheat grass advocate, Dr Sam Watts, Ayurvedic practitioner and lifestyle consultant, Aga Kehinde, cancer coach, Catalina De Ana Portella, mycologist or in plain English mushroom expert, and Ajit Madan, developer of specialist teas for those with cancer. That’s the list so far, but there will be more. The subtitle for the online conference is Building Your Integrative Team, a practical introduction to the resources available to those diagnosed with cancer. While the in-person event focuses on working with your integrative team, meet the experts and join our incredible line-up of workshops. So basically there will be an immense amount on offer at a very low cost and in addition to all of that there will be a wide range of stands at the October event where you can meet various representatives and find out about their offerings. There’s a dedicated website for the two events, yestolifeannualconference.org which you can also access via our main website yestolife.org.uk Just look in the events menu. So give both those dates in your calendar. That’s the 17th of June and the 7th of October and take advantage of the early booking prices while you can. Thanks so much for listening today. I’ll be back again next week with another expert guest and another Yestolife show.