| ECOLOGY |
Molds themselves are not toxic. However, many molds do, under various circumstances, generate mycotoxins. "Mycotoxin is a big catch-all word," says Bruce B. Jarvis, professor of chemistry at the University of Maryland. "All mycotoxins are fungal metabolites that pose a health risk for humans and animals." Fungi use the toxins as a defense mechanism against other species while competing for space and food. Whether a fungus produces a mycotoxin depends on environmental triggers, including drying or loss of nutrients.
THE BEST KNOWN mycotoxins may be the carcinogenic aflatoxins, which are infamous in agriculture for causing liver failure and even death when humans and animals eat moldy corn or peanuts. No indoor mold has been clearly documented to induce such a drastic response from airborne exposure. Yet molds common to the indoor environment are capable of making hundreds of biologically potent compounds, some of which may play a larger or smaller role in causing human health effects than we now realize
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