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Diabetes & Mold: Are You At Greater Risk?

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Diabetes & Mold: Are You At Greater Risk?

Food comes from a wide variety of sources. You might get some of your vegetables from your local farmer’s market, supplement that with more produce from a grocery store, and round out your week-to-week shopping with a healthy dose of nuts, grains, and seeds. While a well-rounded diet is pivotal in maintaining health, some foods may promote neurological trouble.

Diabetes and Neurodegenerative Disorders

Increasing bodies of evidence are suggesting that neurological issues may stem in part from high blood sugar in diabetes patients, with some researchers going so far as to classify Alzheimer’s as “Type 3 diabetes.” The link between diabetes and these disorders is certainly there, but many doctors and researchers are still largely stumped as to why the two are so often related, with some merely assuming that increased blood sugar causes brain damage directly.

One study has found a clear link between neurodegenerative disorders and diabetes, and the link isn’t quite what you might expect. Rather than blood sugar itself feeding into neurodegenerative problems, this study suggests that excess sugar provides the perfect breeding ground for mycotoxins—by-products of mold and fungus—which can cause the eventual shutdown of most major bodily systems.

Mycotoxins and Food

This same study found that most mycotoxin exposures came primarily from food sources rather than actual mold spores. The most common sources of mycotoxins were grains, coffee, alcohol, and processed foods, including processed meats such as bacon, lunch meat, and sausage.

Consuming mycotoxins increased study participants’ risk of developing a myriad of health complications, neurodegenerative diseases among them. Although this news is unsettling, the study also found that eliminating the most common sources of mycotoxins was able to reverse some symptoms and improve health outcomes.

Mycotoxins and Diabetes

Diabetes patients are particularly susceptible to the proliferation of mycotoxins because they have higher levels of sugar in the body and a depressed or less effective immune system due to inflammation typically associated with the condition.

To avoid mycotoxins and their potentially damaging effect on health, diabetics should consider removing high-mycotoxin foods from their diets such as processed foods. Using fresh, whole foods to make up the bulk of your diet will help keep your blood sugar more stable, improve your energy, and limit or altogether eliminate your exposure to mycotoxins and contaminated foods.

References

Clinical Microbiology Reviews. Accessed 8/27/17.

Journal of Molecular Sciences. Accessed 8/27/17.