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True, but mycotoxins can still cause effects that are less severe than acute poisoning, says J. David Miller, Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council Industrial Research Chair and professor of biochemistry at Carleton University in Ontario. "If I take a drop of sulfuric acid and put it in a gallon of water, I could dump it on you, and it wouldn't make any difference. But if I were to put that drop of acid right on your skin, it would burn a hole. The way to think about the toxin issue is that when you inhale a particle that contains a toxic material--let's say the amount in one spore--the concentrations in that spore are often in the millimolar range, quite high in terms of concentration. So when that one spore lands on one alveolar macrophage, it is going to significantly damage that cell, kill it maybe. Can you afford to lose one cell? Yes." But once a number of cells are damaged, Miller says, "it would start to matter biologically." "We have a lot of tolerance," he adds. "But it's always about how much. The fact is, we don't really know where the line gets crossed now. If it is true that mold and dampness is associated with exacerbating asthma and increasing upper respiratory disease, which I believe that it is, then there's the critical question: How much mold does that take?" Many researchers agree with Miller that there is a growing body of evidence showing that indoor mold does cause illness. Miller believes chemists need to be involved in this work because their research on mycotoxin and mold spore metabolism will lead to establishing biomarkers of human exposure to mold. With a biomarker for mold exposure, health officials will be able to measure how much mold exposure is too much and establish standards that can be used in both legislation and litigation. |
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