Episode 227
Peter Osborne:Why Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Are Really Mold Poisoning
Peter Osborne:
Why Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Are Really Mold Poisoning
Dr. Peter Osborne exposes how mold toxicity is behind fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and other autoimmune conditions often missed by traditional medicine. He shares his journey from VA rheumatology to functional medicine, the three ways mold affects health, and practical steps for assessment and prevention including his six non-negotiable fundamentals for health.
First Aired on: Jan 19, 2026
Episode 227
Peter Osborne:Why Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Are Really Mold Poisoning
Peter Osborne:
Why Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Are Really Mold Poisoning
Dr. Peter Osborne exposes how mold toxicity is behind fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and other autoimmune conditions often missed by traditional medicine. He shares his journey from VA rheumatology to functional medicine, the three ways mold affects health, and practical steps for assessment and prevention including his six non-negotiable fundamentals for health.
First Aired on: Jan 19, 2026
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Introduction
Dr. Peter Osborne is the clinical director of Origins Health Care, a doctor of chiropractic, functional medicine, and Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist often called "The Gluten Free Warrior." He's the founder of Gluten Free Society and author of the bestseller No Grain No Pain. In this episode, he joins me to discuss how mold toxicity is a major but often-missed driver of chronic illness and autoimmune disease.
Episode Highlights
The Three Ways Mold Affects Your Health
Dr. Osborne explains the distinct mechanisms by which mold can damage your body and why traditional medicine only recognizes one of them.
- Mold allergy affects about 30% of the population and can trigger histamine release and mast cell activation
- Mycotoxicosis involves toxins that act as free radicals, inhibiting DNA repair and accelerating aging
- Mold colonization (mycosis) occurs when mold grows on or in your body after suppressing your microbiome
- Each mechanism requires different treatment approaches beyond just allergy medication
Why Air Tests Fail to Detect Mold Problems
Most homeowners get misleading results from inadequate mold testing that misses dangerous exposures.
- Air tests are one of the most inaccurate forms of mold assessment available
- The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 27 air tests, but most inspectors do only one or two
- A proper mold inspection takes 2-4 hours and includes visual inspection, infrared imaging, and cavity sampling
- Good inspectors examine HVAC systems, use humidity readers, and understand construction defects
The Neurological Pattern of Mold Toxicity
Mold exposure creates a distinct symptom pattern that often gets misdiagnosed as multiple chronic conditions.
- Chronic fatigue syndrome and brain fog are hallmark symptoms
- Random fevers, systemic skin rashes, and spontaneous joint pain without injury
- Migraines, neuropathy, burning tongue syndrome, and vision disturbances
- Extreme difficulty getting out of bed and persistent exhaustion
The Widespread Construction Crisis Creating Mold Exposure
Modern building practices and aging infrastructure have created a pandemic-level mold problem in our homes and workplaces.
- EPA data shows at least 50% of buildings have water damage that can lead to mold growth
- Mold can grow on any surface in just 48 hours when humidity exceeds 55%
- Construction defects from cutting corners and inexperienced labor create long-term problems
- Military housing, schools, and even new construction are major exposure sites
Laboratory Testing Strategy for Mold Assessment
Dr. Osborne outlines his approach to objectively measuring mold exposure and its effects on the body.
- Ferritin is an inexpensive screening marker that's elevated in 80-90% of mold-exposed patients
- Urine mycotoxin testing can detect specific toxins from different mold species
- Antibody testing measures immune responses to mold toxins
- Additional markers include TGF-beta 1, MSH, and MMP-9 for inflammation assessment
The Six Non-Negotiable Fundamentals of Health
Dr. Osborne shares his framework for the basic requirements that cannot be compromised without health consequences.
- Eat real food, not processed products labeled as healthy
- Get good quality sleep as a priority for healing and repair
- Exercise regularly, focusing on mastering your own body weight through calisthenics
- Get hours of sunshine daily, not just 20 minutes
- Breathe clean air by filtering your indoor environment
- Drink clean water using proper filtration systems
Notable Quotes from this Episode
If you have fibromyalgia as a diagnosis, then you also are in mold. And if you have chronic fatigue syndrome as a diagnosis, then you are also are in mold. Pathognomonic, right?
Dr. Peter Osborne
An air test is not a mold inspection. If you think that because you've had an air test of your house that didn't show mold spores, that you're in a mold-free home, you're sorely mistaken.
Dr. Peter Osborne
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Peter Osborne
Connect with Peter Osborne
Episode Transcript
Peter Osborne:[00:00:00](Teaser) you have been diagnosed with any form of autoimmune disease or chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, that's pretty much a guaranteed mold diagnosis in my opinion there.
So if you have fibromyalgia as a diagnosis, then you also are in mold. And if you have chronic fatigue syndrome as a diagnosis, then you are also are in mold
Julie Howton:(Intro) Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Howton.
And [00:01:00] today I'm joined by Dr. Peter Osborne, a.k.a. "The Gluten-Free Warrior" to talk about something that could very well be the cause of your chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or other autoimmune symptoms that just won't go away.
Trust me when I say this conversation could literally save your life if you suffer from chronic fatigue.
(Main interview) Dr. Osborne, welcome to the podcast.
Peter Osborne: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Julie Howton: I am so excited for this conversation because you have been j just shouting from the rooftops things that people with autoimmunity need to hear. Um, and I, I know we both know wellness is wellness and, and so I know you do more than just autoimmunity.
Um, but I would love to know how you got into this world of functional medicine, how you became such a, a voice in, you know, the concerns around [00:02:00] gluten and nutrition and, and, um, you know, can you share your journey a little bit with us?
Peter Osborne: Yeah, sure. I, I was actually originally training in the va, uh, in Houston.
Uh, I was doing an internship in rheumatology there. And, um. They gave us this big, thick book on the first day of the internship. It's called the Primar on Rheumatic Disease, and said, if you don't read it, don't come back. And that was on a Friday. And so you imagine, you know, you go home over the weekend and you know that's what you're doing this weekend.
So I did, I did and I took copious notes. I'm, I'm a voracious reader, so I, I like to learn. So when I, when I came back on Monday and I, I just sat into the internship and just, just watched, I just observed, right. I observed the attending docs and how they would. You know, question patients and treat patients and what they were doing.
And so after a couple of weeks, I was really confused and one of my first questions was, why did you ask us to read the book? [00:03:00] Um, because you're not doing the things in the book. You're not, you're not actually pursuing some of the things that the book taught me, right? So the book talked about triggers for autoimmune disease, and you're not looking at triggers at all.
You're just treating symptoms. You know, if you, if you had a diagnosis of ra, for example, they give methotrexate or Plaquenil.
Julie Howton: Yep.
Peter Osborne: Um, and lupus ankylosing spondylitis really didn't matter what, what rheumatological diagnosis they gave. It was really the same handful of what are called DMARDs disease modifying anti rheumatic drugs.
I'm like, if we're not gonna look for why they're sick and we're just gonna medicate 'em, why read anything? And I didn't say it like that. I was respectful. Sure. But that was what I was thinking in my mind is like, why are we, why are we doing this? And, um, but the book taught me, and I, this is not me, I didn't figure this out, but the book just kept going back to, depending on which disease you were reading about, like as an example.
You know, multiple sclerosis is tremendous research on pesticide exposure. Right? So as a trigger and like these people that have [00:04:00] this disease have this as a historical background trigger and heavy metals were, were triggers. And there were research studies on rheumatoid arthritis being triggered by gluten and being very common in people that have celiac disease.
And so I'm like. Why aren't we measuring for, you know, triggers? To me, to me it makes sense to just measure for triggers and, and so what I just succinctly did that, the book didn't do the book, talked about a lot of different types of triggers depending on the autoimmune disease, but there was a pattern there.
And so the pattern for me was the triggers very commonly categorically are food, chemicals, microbes. Nutritional deficit, um, as being things we can measure, right? Sure. And so I, I just begged the doctors, let me take some people aside, let me measure these things and, and let's see how they respond and let's compare outcomes.
And I was told no multiple times.
Julie Howton: We
Peter Osborne: don't do that here. I kept, so I, then I just kept going back to the library at Jesse Jones, the medical library in Houston, and I just kept [00:05:00] basically drawing research out on. You know, it started with gluten. You know, look at all the connections between gluten and ra.
Look at all the connections between gluten and autoimmune, period. Um, yeah, why aren't we testing for that? Let's just try that. And I brought stacks of literature to my attending and he said, no, we're not gonna do that. And then I went back and said, okay, well what about fish oil? We can treat. Patient's pain with fist oil.
I mean, look comparatively to NSAIDs, it works just as well. Why would we wanna damage their gut when we're treating them with NSAIDs? When we have another option? Now we're not gonna do that. And then I went back again and I, I pulled the literature on fasting and I'm like, look, patients with rheumatological disease have less pain in like 48 hours just by not eating.
What does that tell us? Maybe it's something in the food. It's not rocket science. And I was told again, no, we're not. Oh, they must have
Julie Howton: hated you.
Peter Osborne: I, I think toward the end, they didn't like me very much after leaving the VA in frustration. And, and I started my own practice. You know, one of my first private practice patients was a little girl, 9-year-old little [00:06:00] girl named Ginger.
And, um, she came to me because for seven years she had been being medicated. She had, she had been diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of two. And so for seven years they had this little 2-year-old from two to nine on methotrexate. Imagine a cancer medication for seven years of your life.
Right? And then at, at age time as you're
Julie Howton: developing, like,
Peter Osborne: yeah, as you're developing.
Julie Howton: Ugh,
Peter Osborne: she had a permanent, uh, port embedded because of pain. She was in and outta the hospital so frequently for pain management and. At, at nine years old, the rheumatologist looks at the little girl's mother and says, she's gonna die.
You got maybe six months, go home and get your, get your affairs in order.
Julie Howton: Oh, goodness.
Peter Osborne: And so when, when she brought her daughter into me, she was crying and just it, it was total desperation. Right. And I think it was, I think it was a God thing. I think God sent them there and. Prepared me for this. And so what happened was she was allergic to blueberries and she was gluten sensitive.
And um, we changed her diet and she was, had some nutritional [00:07:00] deficiencies, vitamin D and C and some other things. And um, once we did that, you know, the port came out within six months. Medication, um, came, we were able to get peeler back off medication and within a year she was in relative remission. And that was, you know, that was over 20 years ago.
She's still alive. She didn't die.
Julie Howton: Yeah. She
Peter Osborne: went on and, you know, went to school and graduated college, and now she's out in the world, you know? Having a life. And that was really my first endeavor in, into this realm of gluten sensitivity and into autoimmune disease. And you know, it was because of that experience that I started gluten-free society as a foundation to raise awareness about, uh, the impact of gluten on autoimmune disease.
Not just celiac disease, but all forms of autoimmune disease. And that's why I wrote No Grain, no Pain. And, um, and so that, that was it. That was the story that started it for me. It was just that. That experience both at the VA and, and with that young lady.
Julie Howton: Amazing. And I, I [00:08:00] can't, as somebody who was treated for RA for over a decade, um, I, I just can't even imagine.
I. With somebody so young and, and just, you know, what that family went through with, you know, what she, what Ginger went through, but also what the family went through. I, I remember being diagnosed and basically, you know, it's told the same thing, like, you're gonna decline till you get you die. Right? We'll, we'll try to slow it down as much as we can.
Um, at, at the time, you know, as a, a mom with young kids, that was devastating. So I can't even, even imagine. Being a parent, basically being told the same thing about, about your child. Um, and, and you know, some, and I just remember asking some of the same questions as a patient, right? Like, well, what about, you know, what about gluten?
What about this, what, you know, read about that. And, and, um, you know, was mostly told poo-pooed. And I am one of those people. [00:09:00] Even though the RA was diagnosed first, I, I had undiagnosed celiac. I had no idea. Right. So, um, I, I love that you've really kind of carried that flag of, you know, putting, getting that information into people's hands.
Um, and I, for one, I'm glad you had to read that book when you were at the va, um, because obviously nobody was using the information, at least in, you know, in, in that system of rheumatology. Unfortunately, the, the story isn't that much different now. As far as treatment approach, if you could even call it that, um, in the classic Western rheumatological.
System. And, and so listeners know my position on, on gluten, I have pretty much a hard line. Like if you have autoimmunity, it's not gonna be your friend period.
Peter Osborne: Yeah.
Julie Howton: Um, but like you said, there's, there are, there's not, it's not just one driver and it's never one driver. Even for one [00:10:00] person. Right. And, and so I, I would love to explore kind of the evolution of, as you've been practicing this way that, you know, I know one of the things that, that you're focused on as well is, is truly educating people about the, the role that, that mold toxicity can play with driving chronic illness and autoimmunity.
Um, and I really wanna kind of talk about that overlap because. People tend to think when you, when they hear mold, they think, you know, black mold on walls that they can see or, you know what I mean? Like, I, I think we, we get this picture in our head, um, but I, I kind of, to me directly connects to your book of, you know, no grain, no pain, because I don't think people realize how much mold is in our food system.
Peter Osborne: Yeah. I mean, I mean, mold is. The way it's stored, the way it's produced, it's commonly contaminating grains. I [00:11:00] think a last major study on this found it's between 20 and 30% of the world's. Grain. Crop is contaminated with mold. So, um, it's a major problem. That's why you have, you know, a lot of companies and a lot of governments require testing on a lot of these, um, crops to, to try to reduce or minimize mycotoxins, which are the toxin derivatives of mold, right?
Not quite the same thing, but they're the derivatives of mold. So, for example, black mold produces it. Type of toxin called triazine and aspergillus mold can create several types of toxins like gliotoxin and um, and Acra Toin. So it's, it's those things that can be present in grains that can also drive illness, not just environmental mold.
It's, it's both. Um, and, but from what I see in my own clinic. Most of the people nowadays, because I've been practicing 25 years, they, they're coming to me, they've already read my book. They're already grain free. Um, [00:12:00] now they're still struggling and they don't know why. And part of the reason why is because they're being exposed environmentally to mold, which is not quite the same thing, right?
So you have food-based molds, commonly grains, commonly coffee, you know, sugar, sugar processed, ultra processed foods are contaminated with mycotoxins. It's a, it's a frequent problem. Um. Those are some of the main things. And then of course, any alcohol is gonna be contaminated with mycotoxins. Um, any, any form of, especially fermented like wines and beer cider, that kind of thing.
But for, for the vast majority of of autoimmunity that, that we see when people have changed their diets and they're, and their problem and they're still struggling, um, we find a lot of environmental mold exposure.
Julie Howton: Wow. And, and again, it is back to the not necessarily visible, right? Like I know you're humid where you are.
I live in Colorado, and, and 20 years ago, 22 years ago when we moved here, we were told, oh, there is no mold here. It's so dry, so not true. [00:13:00] Um, but, you know, how do you, uh, is it testing, like what is your approach with, you already clarified like you're, you're specifically f. Giving the example of people who've already made the changes, right?
They're already grain free. They're, you know, their, maybe their nutrient levels are supported, but the needle's not moving. Um, are, are you just relying on testing? Is it history? How are you looking under the hood?
Peter Osborne: Always. All of the above, right? Yeah. There's no one test that's, that's com you know. A hundred percent foolproof, right?
As, as you know, lab technologies are great. They're great guides. Um, and, and I do use them. Um, I believe in testing, not guessing. And, but part of not guessing too is a great history. You know, if somebody says, I had, you know, I had, you know, two roof leaks and, you know, in a five year span that. Yeah, that's an important piece of the puzzle.
If somebody says, you know, when I walk in my laundry room, it smells like must. You know, that's also [00:14:00] an important piece. So part of it is history taking you, you probe properly and you'll find sometimes you'll find that evidence of either water damage to a person's home or office building or vehicle.
Those are the three common places we're gonna find it. Um, and so you just have to ask the right questions. And then secondarily, symptoms, you know, that's also history taking. What kinds of symptoms are these people presenting with? Because mold very, very commonly re represents, uh, a symptom pattern around neurological toxicity.
So, you know, chronic fatigue syndrome, brain fog, uh, neuropathy, migraine headaches. Um, burning tongue syndrome or scalding mouth syndrome can be a manifestation. Loss of vision or visual disturbance is a common manifestation. Oftentimes, these people are having random fevers, uh, for no obvious reason.
They're having, uh, systemic skin rashes that come and go without obvious reason. A lot of joint pain [00:15:00] without injury or trauma. So just kind of spontaneous aches and pains. They really, really struggle to get out of bed. They're tired all the time. Um, and so they just, they just have these patterns, right. Of symptoms.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: And then when you see that kind of pattern, and they're non-diet responsive or non-nutritive responsive, now you know, you have the history, you have the symptoms. Let's, let's corroborate the next step would be to corroborate. Objective data, do they have, uh, evidence of mold allergy that, so you can measure immune responses to mold as an allergy, which isn't the same thing as as mold toxicity,
Julie Howton: right?
Peter Osborne: Um, you can also measure mold toxins. Urine testing can be very valuable in that regard. You can measure antibodies to toxins. You can also measure, um. A number of different inflammatory mediators or markers that can signify potential for mold. One of my, one of the cheapest markers that I see most frequently that any doctor can [00:16:00] order is ferritin.
Uh, ferritin is, is, you know, oftentimes used as a marker for iron status or storage. Mm-hmm. But if ferritin's elevated at high levels. It's an acute phase protein, so it's an indicator for inflammation, and I probably see it in 80 to 90% of people who have mold exposure. So it's one of those screening tools too.
Sometimes just on basic blood work and you're running into ferritin being elevated, now you have, you know, you have at least an insider, a clue that, hey, maybe that's part of the problem, and you can inspect or investigate a little deeper. There's other markers. You know, TGF beta one and Ms. H are markers, MMP nine is a marker.
So there's, there's just a variety of different markers. I'm more in the camp of. I like to measure as much objectively the actual exposure to the thing I'm suspecting than, yeah, looking at some generic marker that could mean something, right? It's like,
Julie Howton: sure,
Peter Osborne: the driveway's wet, maybe it rained, but maybe somebody washed their car.
Maybe the hose was on, or maybe the sprinkler's turned on. [00:17:00] There's, there's multiple possibilities, right? So with mold, it's, is, is is more as I can be specific. I, I try to gravitate in that direction and once we find hard objective evidence, then we can prompt an inspection. Um, a mold inspection of a person's home, you know, can be costly if it's done well.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: So you always want to go in with, you know, evidence that says we need, we need to justify this. Right. I don't want to just, you know, cause a person that's a bunch of money, right? So, yeah. We have enough data, then, then, then now it's just a matter of a good inspection. And, and look, mold inspectors are like doctors.
There's good ones. There's bad ones.
Julie Howton: Sure.
Peter Osborne: You know, there's ones that don't understand mold even though they're inspectors. Just like there's doctors Yeah. Who don't understand mold. Right. So an air test is not a mold inspection. Um, and I think that's one of the most important messages anyone suspecting mold could walk away from this interview with is if you think that because you've had an air test of your [00:18:00] house.
That didn't show mold spores, that you're in a mold-free home, you're sorely mistaken. Um, air test is one of the most inaccurate, misrepresentative and misleading types of testing you can do to assess mold in a home. It's not to say that you can't find it. But you can oftentimes not find it. Sure. And even, even the who, the World Health Organization, if you look at their, their guide on dampness, their recommendation for air testing, um, is that a minimum of 27 air tests is, are required to assess indoor airspace.
So most mold inspectors do one or two, and then they do an outdoor comparative. And so that's a far cry from 27th. But there's, there's other tools. So, I mean, you can do an air test. There's wall cavity sample testing that can sometimes be more accurate. You know, a good mold inspector will look at the air conditioning system.
They'll look at the plenum. They'll look at the coils because sometimes you see microbial growth directly. Um, a good inspector will have a, an infrared camera where they [00:19:00] can detect potential for massive temperature variances that might lead to condensation. They'll have humidity readers or hydrometers.
Uh, that they use as tools. Um, they'll understand construction well enough to see defects that might lead to moisture or condensation. They'll, so they'll do a visual inspection of the home and outside of the home. They may do some air testing. They can do. Cultures where they swab Yeah. Surface areas to determine whether or not there's mold spores or species that aren't being seen with the naked eye.
'cause they're microscopic at first.
Julie Howton: Right.
Peter Osborne: Um, and if they do find what they find, uh, looks like microbial growth, they can directly sample that with tape lifts or, or swabs. So it's a comprehensive approach. Right. And it's just like with anything else. And if they're doing all those right things and they're coming to some kind of conclusion where they find it, then now.
Their job is to assess why it grew. Um, that's step two in the process. 'cause if you know that it's there, you can remove it. But if it, if it, if the reason that it's there isn't fixed, it'll just grow [00:20:00] back.
Julie Howton: It's just like the health, it's like our bodies, right? Like if we don't address how we got here, um, and I love the, the.
If somebody, you know, hires someone to come do an inspection and they're in and outta your house in 20 minutes, half hour, you did not get a mold inspection. Like it, it, it is a, it is a complex, you know, it should take some time and like you said, they should be going everywhere. It shouldn't just be a quick in and out.
Peter Osborne: Yeah. Two to four hours is a reasonable bidding on the size of your house and the nature of. Of things, but that's, that's, that's pretty typical for a good mold assessor to, to, to, that's about how much time they'll need. Yeah. So it's comprehensive. This, and that's why it'll cost a little bit more than those guys that come out for 20 minutes and do an air test.
Right?
Julie Howton: Yeah, yeah, I know. Which, like you said, it may seem more cost effective, but if you're missing, you know, then you're missing the whole point. [00:21:00] Um, it ends up, it ends up biting you in the, in the end.
Peter Osborne: Well, you end up spending the money on a good one if you get a bad one, right?
Julie Howton: Yeah, absolutely.
Peter Osborne: Yeah. I mean, and if look, and if it's not mold, you can move on and you can really feel confident that you ruled it out.
But if you've, if you've had a, an air test and it was normal, you know, don't, don't dismiss it as a potential, especially if you're testing through your doctor's office, shows a bunch of objective findings that that point to mold as, as part of what's driving the illness.
Julie Howton: Yeah. And I, I imagine because we're talking about this today, that, that this is a more common contributor than, than people typically think.
Like I, I, I think a lot of people have now bought in to, you know, diet and some other lifestyle components and contributors. Um, but, you know, do you, do you see this as a, as a really pretty common driver? [00:22:00]
Peter Osborne: Extremely common, much more common than we originally thought. I mean, just according to EPA data, if you look at the pool data of many research studies, the prevalence of water damage in buildings of our infrastructure just in the US is at least half.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: Uh, in Europe it's just as bad. A lot of people think that because they have better construction techniques over there, they have less prepon to mold and that's not true. Um, maybe. Maybe five or 10% less, but not, not a significant amount. It's still a problem there. Um, and it has to do with aging infrastructure.
It has, yes, construction matters and the techniques of construction, but look, when you build a home, when you build a building. It's subjected to weather and aging and
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: You know, leaks and, and problems and, and big part of it is the maintenance. Um, and the way people flip homes and move from home to home.
And you've got 25 people lived in a house that's only, you know, 10 years old. How many spills, how many problems occurred in that house that didn't really get fixed. Right. [00:23:00] And, you know, so, so homes break and, and I think it's important for people to realize that just because you've had it put together, um.
Doesn't mean that it can't develop a leak or can't develop a problem. And then, you know, even beyond the breakage aspect, homes oftentimes are built incorrectly. And that's really the bigger crux of the problem today, because you know, the vast majority of builders, what do they do? They hire, they, they want cheap labor, right?
They want maximum profits and they want cheap labor. So what do they do? They hire illegals. And so then illegals who don't have a skill set, they, they, they know how to do certain things, but. They skimp guidelines and they, and they in, in, in an attempt to build it faster, they make mistakes and some of these mistakes can be catastrophic to the health of your family and to the health of yourself.
And, you know, considering that most people's number one investment is their home, you, you better make damn sure that it is built properly and you better take an interest in it and not just, not just assume.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: In this day and age, I, I just [00:24:00] don't recommend that anyone buy a home. Whether used or new without having a mold inspection first, like separate from a building, inspection building, building inspectors are not trained to sniff out mold.
You, you, if you wanna, if you wanna protect your investment and protect yourself, have a mold inspection before you sign the dotted line and invest all, all that money into a home and get into a home that's safe.
Julie Howton: I think that's, that's brilliant advice that, you know, it used to be. We used to think, well, it, it was an older home problem, right?
Like you mentioned aging infrastructure as part of, of, you know, the, the, the process. But with, even with new construction, for all those reasons you just mentioned, and just simply, you know, was the lumber dried out, you know, the, like the house was framed. Did it sit in the rain? Then they, you know, like, again, back to the, the right way to do things and.
The newer homes are, you [00:25:00] know, better for energy, right? So they're a little more airtight. So when you're growing mold in your home, you know, the homes just don't breathe like they used to. Um, which can be a positive, but it's also something we need to be aware of. Um, and so I, I think that that's a really big piece that people tend to overlook is, is, you know, they think, well, it's a new home, so I can't have mold.
Peter Osborne: It only takes 48 hours for it to grow.
Julie Howton: Yeah,
Peter Osborne: I mean there's an entire brand new base in Florida, a military base that, um, is riddled with mold because they didn't install WA water vapor barriers properly or even at all. There's a major law suit getting ready to happen. Um. If you've looked or paid attention, I mean, this was, I think last year it was, um, rolling Stone, published a piece on the mold problem in the military housing.
Yeah. A lot of people don't realize military housing outsourced. They, they, they contractually gave 50 [00:26:00] year contracts to third party. Um. I call 'em poverty pimps because they're unethical companies that have been, you know, awarded these massive financially incentivized contracts to maintain military housing and build military housing.
And they're doing it wrong. And our soldiers are sick, very, very sick. And it's not a small amount, it's in. Many, many bases across the country, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. But if you've seen the commercials for Camp Lejeune, and you've seen recent here I'm in Texas, we've had recent lawsuits where multimillion dollar settlements have come out of bases in San Antonio at Lackland Air Force Base.
And um, at the army base there, the army. So, um, it's a pro, I mean, it's not just a military problem, it's, it's a construction problem, right. We have, you know, we, we have a, a wide scope of this and, and I think it's the next step. I, well, it's not the next epidemic, it is epidemic already, actually. Um, pandemic would probably be a [00:27:00] better word, but, um.
If you don't have a water plan, if you don't have a mold inspection plan around your house or a maintenance plan around preventing mold, it can happen to anyone. Um, and the problem with mold is this, you know, I, I lost a house to mold and one of the reasons I know so much about it is, you know, it'd almost kill my wife.
It did kill my dog. Um, wow. Sorry. It made my son extremely sick. It made me sick. Um. We, we, we, we almost lost everything. We lost everything. We lost our physically, we lost all of our possessions, um, because our house was so bad. Um, and it was two years old that, uh, we had to walk away from it. We had to walk away and rebuild and tear it down.
And, um, so that, that part and part of that journey was me wanting to understand why, because I didn't want to, yeah. You know, I didn't wanna jump out of one home into another home and have a similar problem.
Julie Howton: Right.
Peter Osborne: Um, and so I [00:28:00] hired a bunch of forensic guys to come out. I hired architects and engineers and, um, I hired HVAC experts and, um, and I had them deconstruct why my house grew old in the first place.
And, uh, in my case it was very unique. 'cause I, I, interesting story. I was. I was praying to God, this is years ago. I was, I was seeing a lot of mold in my office, in my practice, and, um, I don't like to see mold. And the reason why it's a tough conversation, right? Imagine being the doctor that says, you know, Mr.
Jones, your wife is dying and it's mold and. Mr. Jones is a skeptic, and he says, well, why am I not sick? And I'm like, you, you work 16 hours a day and you're not in the house as much, and your wife is, and now your wife is smaller and she's also more susceptible genetically. And there's all these other factors, right?
Julie Howton: Sure.
Peter Osborne: Um, but you are sick. You're just dismissing your illness. You're, you're just Stokely pushing through what you say, oh, I'm perfectly healthy except for. You know, these aches and pains that I have that Yeah. [00:29:00] You know, so there's that conversation where you have to tell somebody their house is, is either responsible for deteriorating their health, and of course that's an expensive conversation.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: A lot of people wanna put their head in the sand and just keep going and ignore that conversation. So it's just a tough one to have. And I was having, so I was having 10 of these conversations a week. And, um, I'm, I'm the kind of doctor I, I, I, I, I look at myself. I'm pretty empathetic. I take my work home with me when, when somebody's sick and, and they've trusted me to help them, I carry that, I carry that weight.
Sure. And, um, anyway, when they're not getting out of it, that weighs and weighs, and weighs and weighs on you. And they're getting, and especially if they're getting sicker and they're struggling and they're not listening. I was praying to God, I said, please, Lord, quit sending me chronic mold cases. Careful.
Please send me, please send me instead. You know, the traditional cases where people respond tremendously well with their diet change [00:30:00] and, you know, and it's, you know, relatively easy and let me, let me live out the rest of my. My, um,
Julie Howton: easy street.
Peter Osborne: Sure, yeah. My practice in, in, in on Easy Street. And anyway, that, my answer was pretty clear.
God gave mold to me and he gave it to me in every way you could give it. I mean, he made everyone sick.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: And he also, it's
Julie Howton: like a parent praying for patients.
Peter Osborne: Yeah.
Julie Howton: Don't do it. Yeah.
Peter Osborne: But, but he also gave me every forensic problem you could have. So like we had in our house, for example, um, the foundation was, the vapor barrier was installed improperly.
So our foundation was part of the problem. The brick work was laid improperly. So our brickwork. Was part of the problem. The vapor barrier was installed improperly, so that was part of our problem. The HVAC system was installed improperly, so that was part of our problem. The roof ridge vents and the attic were in and not adequate at all.
Uh, and that was part of the problem. So we had, we had, you know, a dozen or more. Yeah, like the, the, the, the, the inspectors that we [00:31:00] hired said your house was, was built with good material. It's just that it was built to properly in so many ways, it was a death by a thousand cuts. There's no way it could control the moisture.
And so mold was able to just spontaneously grow behind our wall cavity. And it wasn't a visible, obvious mold growth. It wasn't like, oh, there it is, it's on the bathroom wall, right? It was actually, you know, you had to tap the wall cavity and you had to look at the back of the sheet rock. And on the back of the sheet rock you could see fractal patterns of mold growth.
Um, with the right, with the right lighting, it's called a flashlight test. And a good mold inspector understands how to do that, where they will shine a high powered LED light at, at the right angle. You can see it growing. Um. So, so that was my answer. That's how I, I really said, okay, I can't retire and I can't, I'm in it now seeing these people, so I better, I better understand it better so that I can be of better use to them and a better service.
And so that's, that's why I'm, I'm out advocating about it. It's why we're creating a, a, a, a [00:32:00] documentary series on it because it's such a vast topic. It's such a problem and it's so under-recognized. And I think if, if, um. If you're struggling watching this and you have been diagnosed with any form of autoimmune disease or chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, those are two big ones that that's pretty much a guaranteed mold diagnosis in my opinion there.
What, there's a term called pathognomonic, meaning that if, if X is true, then Y is true, right? So if you have fibromyalgia as a diagnosis, then you also are in mold. And if you have chronic fatigue syndrome as a diagnosis, then you are also are in mold path monic, right? So. Um, if you're watching this, and this is the first time you're hearing it, welcome, welcome to the world of Mold, and, and I hope you, you take this information seriously and investigate it because it could save your life.
I know my, my wife almost died. I, as I said, she was on the couch most days in the depth, in the depth of our mold exposure. And I would come home from work and of course, I, I work [00:33:00] 12 plus hours a day, so I was the least affected of my family. Okay. But in her case, you know, I would, I was really frustrated because I would come home and she would be lying down and she was tired all the time.
And you can imagine how that would affect a relationship. And, you know, I, I would try to have a conversation with her. And her words were so foggy. Her head was so foggy
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: That she, she, she wouldn't be able to finish the sentence and I would be like, anticipating and trying to finish the sentence for her.
Of course it wasn't her fault. And, you know, I was frustrated, not necessarily with her, but I was just frustrated and
Julie Howton: Sure.
Peter Osborne: You know, by the, by the end of it all, you know, she came to me. This was after we moved out because when, when we, when we got the forensic inspection done, we walked outta the house that day.
Julie Howton: Wow.
Peter Osborne: Yeah. We went to a hotel and for two months we stayed in an extended stay hotel to try to recover. And when, when she got her brain back, one of the things she shared with me that I never knew, uh, before was she said, I didn't wanna live. I just, I [00:34:00] didn't wanna kill myself, but
Julie Howton: Right.
Peter Osborne: She said, I, I just imagined walking out in the yard.
And, uh, and if, you know, if I had a pistol just ending at all, not because I wanna die, but because I just don't want to keep living. There was just a, a lack of. Lack of desire to wanna live that way and feel that way. And, and then after she shared that with me, my son shared the same thing with me. He felt the same way.
I mean, mold creates a cloud and
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: Um, it can wreck your life if you let it, if you're not aware that it's even there. And I, again, I would just. Encourage any of you that are struggling and you don't know why and your diet's clean, please, please, please look at mold as the next potential, um, for what might be behind your health ailments.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Uh, so important and I I wanna highlight, we're, we're still in a place as, as widespread as this, this impact is for people. Um. It, it is very likely that somebody might listen to this and then go ask [00:35:00] their PCP, Hey, do you think, you know, mold could be my problem? And, and, and I think we're still at that point where a lot of providers are gonna say, now.
You know, it's not really a real problem. Are you seeing a tipping point, or, or no? Is that a fair warning for people that, that, you know, in the, I'm talking about in the traditional Western medicine system.
Peter Osborne: So in the traditional system, I, I've, so we're shooting a documentary right now on mold. It's called Mold Jacked.
If you wanna learn more about it, you can go to mold jacked.com. But I've interviewed 40 hours worth. Some of the world's leading practitioners on environmental medicine and mold exposure and, and the number one question I asked them all is, what kind of training in medical school did you receive for mold literacy and mold illness?
And the answer for every single one of 'em was, we didn't receive training.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne:[00:36:00] And if you look at the position of. Uh, the main organizations, like the immunology groups, you know, their, their belief is that mold is not a problem unless you have an allergy to mold. And so I think it's important that people watching, I'm glad you brought this up, 'cause there's three ways mold can affect you, three broad ways.
Number one, yes, you can be allergic to mold. And when we think about allergy, we generally tend to dismiss that as not a big deal, right? Like, take some Claritin or take some, you know, Benadryl and get over it. Um, mold allergy is, is estimated to be about 30% of the population. So if you look at the, you know, the research, the statistical data on, on millions and millions of patients says that it's about 30% of the population is allergic to at least one type of mold.
Beyond that. So there's mold allergy. How could that impact a person? Well, it can cause histamine release and that it could contribute to elevated histamine responses and, and ultimately mast cell activation [00:37:00] syndrome, which is not a fun disease to live with. But, but allergies can also weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to things like asthma.
And if we look at asthma rates and mortality rates from asthma, it's, it's sky high. And we estimate that 40 to 50% of all cases of asthma are actually mold induced. So it's not a small thing to be allergic to mold. It's a big thing, right? And it, and it has big ramifications, but that's just one aspect of mold.
The second aspect of mold is something called mycotoxins. And um, and actually mycotoxins is, is just a fancy way of saying that the toxins that molds produce, that penetrate and permeate into your air, you can breathe them in, you can absorb them through your mucus membranes. Um. Those toxins. And there's a large representation of, we know of hundreds of these that, and then there's many that we can measure and many that we can't.
But, um, these toxins, if we look at kind of the [00:38:00] basis for how they do damage, they're free radicals. If I simplify it, um, they're free radicals. They basically, they rip apart yourselves. And um, and one of the hallmarks of mold exposure is the inhibition of D-N-A-R-N-A and protein synthesis in the human body.
So what that means is you don't heal very well, you age faster, right? Mold toxicity. In this regard, mold toxin toxicity acts as an age accelerator that mimics radiation, slow poison radiation exposure, right?
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: Um. Then beyond that, so you got mold, mold, toxins that are just damaging to all humans. You don't, I mean, they're, they don't spare anyone, right?
Okay. And then you have what's called mold colonization. Well, one of the side effects of mold, where do antibiotics come from, right? They, they come from mold toxins. Penicillin is a mold toxin,
Julie Howton: right?
Peter Osborne: And, and so imagine you're living in an environment where you're breathing in aerosolized mold, [00:39:00] toxins that act like antibiotics.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: So what happens is you wipe out your flora,
Julie Howton: yeah,
Peter Osborne: your microbiome, and now you become colonized by mold. Um, when your immune system and big part of your immune system is your flora, when it's suppressed, you can now be susceptible to the mold growing on you or in you. This is one of the reasons we'll see in people that are living in mold toenail fungus.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: And it won't go away. And they're like, I don't know why I have this toenail fun yet. You might be in mold. Yeah. Um, we see very commonly chronic sinusitis where there's a mold growing in their sinus cavity. And if you culture them, and most doctors don't do cultures anymore, they just, it's, it's an art that, that.
Medicine should do, but many don't. Um, you'll find aspergillus and other forms of mold in people's sinuses. It's, it's actually one of the most common causes of chronic recurring sinusitis. So mold can colonize your body and cause mold infection, right? Mycosis is what that, that formal name for that is. So you [00:40:00] have mold allergy, you have Myco Toxicosis.
And you have Mycosis, right? So those three things, and then there's, there's additional things too. So there's, there's other researchers that are studying some of the other things that molds can produce. So, so one of the thoughts is, as the mold is eating your home, it's digesting the materials of your home and it's releasing other toxins that are not mycotoxins.
Those are like VOCs, volatile organic compounds and other Yeah. You know, other particulate. We're finding these are also damaging to human health. So, so I just kind of put that in the micro compounding toxicosis category, right? It's just a byproduct of the, of the mold eating your home. But these are all ways that mold could affect you.
And maybe you're being affected in one way. Maybe you're being affected in all three ways. Um, and this is why it's important that you hire a mold literate doctor. Who knows more than just mold allergy because the solution for mold allergy is either over the counter allergy [00:41:00] medicines, prescriptive allergy medicines or allergy shots where they, where they, you know, where they induce you, uh, they inject you with low dose, you know, low dose inoculate you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Howton: It's great.
Peter Osborne: And, and that's fine. I mean, you, you can do those things, but if you're living in mold. And the mold is driving the illness. Um, and you don't, and you don't know it. This is where the long-term problems set in because mold is a great mimicker. It mimics so many other conditions. You know, from, we've seen cases of rheumatoid.
One of the first cases of mold toxicity in my office I ever saw 20 years ago was a school teacher. She was, um, diagnosed with migraines and rheumatoid arthritis. And every, you know, we changed her diet and it, what happened was it, when she came to see me, her diet change coincided with the summertime. So she got better and we thought, oh, her diet's doing the great job and she's getting better.
And then when school started again, she started becoming symptomatic [00:42:00] and she, she tanked. And we ultimately, we found above her, uh, above her ceiling tile in her, in her, in her office. You know, the vents, the air, AC vents, black growth on 'em, and. When we, when we, um, got her to approach the, the powers that be at the schoolhouse, they dismissed it all.
And
Julie Howton: yeah.
Peter Osborne: Um, ultimately what happened was, you know, we tested it, it was, it was black mold. We got her outta the school. She quit her job. Right. Ultimately, she had to quit her job. Sometimes
Julie Howton: it takes a really drastic, you know, change. Right? Yeah. And, and you know, schools, I mean, you talked about military housing.
Um, again, back to government contracts like schools are, are, it's a huge exposure risk. Um, it, it's definitely super common. You know,
Peter Osborne: they shut down the air conditioning unit all summer. I mean, how would, if you live in a southern state, uh, you know, especially near the Gulf [00:43:00] Coast or any state for that matter, when you don't control humidity in a, in an airtight building.
You know, and that humidity relatively goes up above 55%. Welcome, welcome mold,
Julie Howton: right?
Peter Osborne: Mold is coming. Yeah. It's just a matter, it's just a matter of of fact, I mean, mold needs water. The, the building itself is already mold food, no matter how you build it.
Julie Howton: Yeah,
Peter Osborne: it is mold food, mold can grow on really pretty much any substance.
It prefers organic material 'cause it can eat it more readily. But mole can grow on concrete and you know, all you have to do is walk outside on a sunny day and look at, look at that. Uh, look at that sidewalk. It's got mold on it. And if you took a power washer to it and you see how wide it turns after you power wash it, it's 'cause you just washed all the mold off of it,
Julie Howton: right?
Peter Osborne: So, mold will grow on concrete and bright sunshine. UV lights don't stop it. You have to control the water. The humidity is the piece that, um, that, that, you know, when you're thinking about construction and building, that if you don't control for humidity, then you're not gonna control for mold.
Julie Howton: Yeah, it is so true.
Um, sorry, I just, I had to jump in [00:44:00] 'cause the, the schools are such a common exposure place. Um, so I, I'd love that. You know, even if you weren't aware early on, you were learning that. Before you finally embraced that you, this was part of the path you needed to take, um, was the, the deep dive in the mold world, um, and, and the mycotoxin world.
So you, you know, we've, we've talked a little bit about, or a lot about people who've already made good changes and, and haven't moved the needle. Um, I, I'm guessing at this point though, this is part of your assessment. If somebody walked into your, your clinic tomorrow. Presenting with autoimmune symptoms, including fatigue and, and whether they're labeled, not labeled.
I tend to think sometimes of like chronic fatigue as and, and fibromyalgia as like, we don't know why. Right. Which is where you're like, yeah. Think mold. Um, I'm, I'm guessing [00:45:00] you're not waiting six months and having people do all these changes. That, that, that assessing from old is part of your. You know, pulling your lens back and, and really getting a good history and, and testing or not testing as far as what's going on.
Peter Osborne: I mean, testing is, testing is, I mean, I don't test everyone. Just because I usually part of the history first.
Julie Howton: Yeah,
Peter Osborne: yeah. If, if they're telling me, yeah, I've got this long exposure to water damage and yeah. I, I wanna measure that. I want to definitely test for it. And if they're telling me no, I, I don't suspect that at all.
I'll start with other things. I mean, we start with what I, what I spoke about earlier. Food, chemicals, microbes, and, and nutritional deficits are gonna be always the four categories of, of measurement to discern, you know, trigger points for autoimmune disease 'cause. You know, autoimmunity is multifactorial.
There's never one trigger. It's always usually a dozen or more. So we measure the those triggers in everyone. And then if we have a background of mold suspicion, we're gonna definitely deep [00:46:00] dive on mold too.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Amazing, amazing. So for listeners that are trained, they know this question is coming. What is one step, and this could be unrelated to mold if you want, it doesn't matter.
Um, just one step that, that you feel that everybody can take starting today to support health. So it, it could be anything.
Peter Osborne: So there's six, um, what I call the six non-negotiable fundamentals of, of being healthy and you, and if you try to negotiate with these six things, you will lose and there will be a consequence.
And the first is you have to eat real food. You have to define what real food is to understand how to eat real food. Uhhuh real food is not potato chips. Real food is not like going to the processed food and, and just because the bag says organic and whatnot, that's not necessarily real food. You've gotta start with fundamentally eating real food.
Number two, you gotta go to bed and get good rest. Now, [00:47:00] now a lot of people are like, well, I can't sleep. That's part of my problem. Well, we gotta figure it, we gotta figure that out. Right, right. But sleep is a priority for health. It's a priority for, for, um, healing and repairing. Number three, exercise is not negotiable.
And exer, you don't have to join a CrossFit gym or become a bodybuilder, but you need to, um, be not sedentary. Yeah. And you need to move weight. And when I say move weight, you don't have to lift heavy weight. Calisthenics body weight is a great thing to move, move your body.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: Um, and you need to master your body weight.
You should be able to do a pull up and a pushup and a sit up and a squat and a lunge. These are fundamental things. I mean, look at any young child that's relatively physically active, can do all of these things, and only as adults do we lose the ability because we endeavor to be sedentary for many, many years, and our body atrophies.
And when your body atrophies, that means it's shrinking and your health is shrinking with it. So know that you need to move your body. Start where you can. Don't necessarily, you don't have to. Start with something you're not capable of. So if you can't [00:48:00] do a pushup, then do a wall pushup. Or if you can't do a squat, sit against the wall and hold a half squat.
Like there's a lot of different things you can do to kind of Sure. Move your way into that. Number four. Sunshine is required. Mm-hmm. Your, your body works off a photo. Biomodulation, sunshine's, sunshine doesn't cause skin cancer, sunburn does. It's just like water causes drowning, so quit drinking it. I mean, the, the, the medicine I.
Approach is, is just really backwards. We evolve in the sun, we require sun. There's UV light, there's red light, there's yellow and green light. There's all different types of wavelengths of light that have medicinal benefits in our bodies and are required by our bodies to function appropriately. So you've gotta make sure that in 20 minutes, a day's not enough.
Look, you've gotta work on hours a day if you can, and, and so you know, you've gotta arrange your schedule as if you want your life to be healthy. And so work on that. Um, you also need number five. You need clean air, and this goes back to mold. If, if [00:49:00] you've got mold and mold, toxins going, blowing through your air.
You're gonna have a problem if, if you've got a, a burning a bunch of chemically, um, lain candles in your house, right, to make it smell nice, but you're breathing those chemicals in that mimic estrogen and other hormones are endocrine disrupting. Your health's gonna suffer from that.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Um,
Peter Osborne: so, so clean air.
And then clean water would be number six. Yeah. And you know, if you live in any major metropolitan area, I live in the Houston area, there are 42 prescription drugs that we can measure in our drinking water after the city's done filtering it.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: So if you don't wanna involuntarily take 42 prescription micro doses.
Every time you drink a cup of water, you have to filter your water. Um, there's great filter devices that aren't relatively inexpensive, but you should be filtering your water and filtering your air. If you do those six things consistently and those things are top of mind, um, even if you're not perfect, you're gonna improve your health.
And that those are all, for the most part, free. I mean, [00:50:00] yeah, you might pay for an air filter and an air, right. But, you know, filter that part's not free. Um, but Sunshine is free.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: You know, gosh, you, your time going to bed on time is free. Exercise is free. You don't need a gym membership. Just do calisthenics.
You can do that at home. Right, you are going to eat anyway. So not eating processed food is not costing you more than eating real food. Uh, at the end of the day, people will argue, well, organic food is more expensive than non-organic food. And, and it is, but it isn't more expensive in the sense that you're not gonna pay a health bill that you know that ba your family one day or that you're not gonna be an invalid, that your children are now required to take care of you for the last 10 years 'cause you can't remember their name.
And you put them all through such grief because you're, you know, you're demented. So. Your health is your responsibility, and those six things are part of, you know, your, think of it as your blueprint to better health, and you should take them seriously, um, because your life is at stake.
Julie Howton: So well said. And, [00:51:00] and so much of it is back to nature and, and compensating for living in the modern times.
Really, like if we, we can just simplify it that way. Um, so you mentioned the documentary coming out, mold jack.com. People can go there for people that are listening and, and they're on the go and they're not gonna click the show notes. Where's the best place to find more of you?
Peter Osborne: Uh, there's a couple places they could go to dr peter osborne.com or they could go to, uh, my foundation, gluten-free society.org if they wanna get a bunch of free, fantastic information about diet, lifestyle change, and Auto autoimmune disease.
Gluten-free society.org, uh, is where we house. I mean, there's thousands of articles and thousands of free videos, tons of information that they can tap into that. Um, would help them navigate all these confusing issues.
Julie Howton: And I know you're also [00:52:00] really good at putting out content and showing up on social as well.
So, um, just lots and lots of ways for, for people to just, you know, get, get this incredible information that you're putting out. Um, so appreciate your time, your wisdom and, and the work that you're putting into helping us all get healthier.
Peter Osborne: Well, thank you so much for having me. It was, it was a pleasure to be here and I, I really appreciate your sharing your platform to help me get this message out.
Julie Howton: Absolutely. And for everyone listening, remember, you can get those links and transcripts by Visiting Inspired Living Show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
[00:53:00]
So if you have fibromyalgia as a diagnosis, then you also are in mold. And if you have chronic fatigue syndrome as a diagnosis, then you are also are in mold
Julie Howton:(Intro) Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Howton.
And [00:01:00] today I'm joined by Dr. Peter Osborne, a.k.a. "The Gluten-Free Warrior" to talk about something that could very well be the cause of your chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or other autoimmune symptoms that just won't go away.
Trust me when I say this conversation could literally save your life if you suffer from chronic fatigue.
(Main interview) Dr. Osborne, welcome to the podcast.
Peter Osborne: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Julie Howton: I am so excited for this conversation because you have been j just shouting from the rooftops things that people with autoimmunity need to hear. Um, and I, I know we both know wellness is wellness and, and so I know you do more than just autoimmunity.
Um, but I would love to know how you got into this world of functional medicine, how you became such a, a voice in, you know, the concerns around [00:02:00] gluten and nutrition and, and, um, you know, can you share your journey a little bit with us?
Peter Osborne: Yeah, sure. I, I was actually originally training in the va, uh, in Houston.
Uh, I was doing an internship in rheumatology there. And, um. They gave us this big, thick book on the first day of the internship. It's called the Primar on Rheumatic Disease, and said, if you don't read it, don't come back. And that was on a Friday. And so you imagine, you know, you go home over the weekend and you know that's what you're doing this weekend.
So I did, I did and I took copious notes. I'm, I'm a voracious reader, so I, I like to learn. So when I, when I came back on Monday and I, I just sat into the internship and just, just watched, I just observed, right. I observed the attending docs and how they would. You know, question patients and treat patients and what they were doing.
And so after a couple of weeks, I was really confused and one of my first questions was, why did you ask us to read the book? [00:03:00] Um, because you're not doing the things in the book. You're not, you're not actually pursuing some of the things that the book taught me, right? So the book talked about triggers for autoimmune disease, and you're not looking at triggers at all.
You're just treating symptoms. You know, if you, if you had a diagnosis of ra, for example, they give methotrexate or Plaquenil.
Julie Howton: Yep.
Peter Osborne: Um, and lupus ankylosing spondylitis really didn't matter what, what rheumatological diagnosis they gave. It was really the same handful of what are called DMARDs disease modifying anti rheumatic drugs.
I'm like, if we're not gonna look for why they're sick and we're just gonna medicate 'em, why read anything? And I didn't say it like that. I was respectful. Sure. But that was what I was thinking in my mind is like, why are we, why are we doing this? And, um, but the book taught me, and I, this is not me, I didn't figure this out, but the book just kept going back to, depending on which disease you were reading about, like as an example.
You know, multiple sclerosis is tremendous research on pesticide exposure. Right? So as a trigger and like these people that have [00:04:00] this disease have this as a historical background trigger and heavy metals were, were triggers. And there were research studies on rheumatoid arthritis being triggered by gluten and being very common in people that have celiac disease.
And so I'm like. Why aren't we measuring for, you know, triggers? To me, to me it makes sense to just measure for triggers and, and so what I just succinctly did that, the book didn't do the book, talked about a lot of different types of triggers depending on the autoimmune disease, but there was a pattern there.
And so the pattern for me was the triggers very commonly categorically are food, chemicals, microbes. Nutritional deficit, um, as being things we can measure, right? Sure. And so I, I just begged the doctors, let me take some people aside, let me measure these things and, and let's see how they respond and let's compare outcomes.
And I was told no multiple times.
Julie Howton: We
Peter Osborne: don't do that here. I kept, so I, then I just kept going back to the library at Jesse Jones, the medical library in Houston, and I just kept [00:05:00] basically drawing research out on. You know, it started with gluten. You know, look at all the connections between gluten and ra.
Look at all the connections between gluten and autoimmune, period. Um, yeah, why aren't we testing for that? Let's just try that. And I brought stacks of literature to my attending and he said, no, we're not gonna do that. And then I went back and said, okay, well what about fish oil? We can treat. Patient's pain with fist oil.
I mean, look comparatively to NSAIDs, it works just as well. Why would we wanna damage their gut when we're treating them with NSAIDs? When we have another option? Now we're not gonna do that. And then I went back again and I, I pulled the literature on fasting and I'm like, look, patients with rheumatological disease have less pain in like 48 hours just by not eating.
What does that tell us? Maybe it's something in the food. It's not rocket science. And I was told again, no, we're not. Oh, they must have
Julie Howton: hated you.
Peter Osborne: I, I think toward the end, they didn't like me very much after leaving the VA in frustration. And, and I started my own practice. You know, one of my first private practice patients was a little girl, 9-year-old little [00:06:00] girl named Ginger.
And, um, she came to me because for seven years she had been being medicated. She had, she had been diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of two. And so for seven years they had this little 2-year-old from two to nine on methotrexate. Imagine a cancer medication for seven years of your life.
Right? And then at, at age time as you're
Julie Howton: developing, like,
Peter Osborne: yeah, as you're developing.
Julie Howton: Ugh,
Peter Osborne: she had a permanent, uh, port embedded because of pain. She was in and outta the hospital so frequently for pain management and. At, at nine years old, the rheumatologist looks at the little girl's mother and says, she's gonna die.
You got maybe six months, go home and get your, get your affairs in order.
Julie Howton: Oh, goodness.
Peter Osborne: And so when, when she brought her daughter into me, she was crying and just it, it was total desperation. Right. And I think it was, I think it was a God thing. I think God sent them there and. Prepared me for this. And so what happened was she was allergic to blueberries and she was gluten sensitive.
And um, we changed her diet and she was, had some nutritional [00:07:00] deficiencies, vitamin D and C and some other things. And um, once we did that, you know, the port came out within six months. Medication, um, came, we were able to get peeler back off medication and within a year she was in relative remission. And that was, you know, that was over 20 years ago.
She's still alive. She didn't die.
Julie Howton: Yeah. She
Peter Osborne: went on and, you know, went to school and graduated college, and now she's out in the world, you know? Having a life. And that was really my first endeavor in, into this realm of gluten sensitivity and into autoimmune disease. And you know, it was because of that experience that I started gluten-free society as a foundation to raise awareness about, uh, the impact of gluten on autoimmune disease.
Not just celiac disease, but all forms of autoimmune disease. And that's why I wrote No Grain, no Pain. And, um, and so that, that was it. That was the story that started it for me. It was just that. That experience both at the VA and, and with that young lady.
Julie Howton: Amazing. And I, I [00:08:00] can't, as somebody who was treated for RA for over a decade, um, I, I just can't even imagine.
I. With somebody so young and, and just, you know, what that family went through with, you know, what she, what Ginger went through, but also what the family went through. I, I remember being diagnosed and basically, you know, it's told the same thing, like, you're gonna decline till you get you die. Right? We'll, we'll try to slow it down as much as we can.
Um, at, at the time, you know, as a, a mom with young kids, that was devastating. So I can't even, even imagine. Being a parent, basically being told the same thing about, about your child. Um, and, and you know, some, and I just remember asking some of the same questions as a patient, right? Like, well, what about, you know, what about gluten?
What about this, what, you know, read about that. And, and, um, you know, was mostly told poo-pooed. And I am one of those people. [00:09:00] Even though the RA was diagnosed first, I, I had undiagnosed celiac. I had no idea. Right. So, um, I, I love that you've really kind of carried that flag of, you know, putting, getting that information into people's hands.
Um, and I, for one, I'm glad you had to read that book when you were at the va, um, because obviously nobody was using the information, at least in, you know, in, in that system of rheumatology. Unfortunately, the, the story isn't that much different now. As far as treatment approach, if you could even call it that, um, in the classic Western rheumatological.
System. And, and so listeners know my position on, on gluten, I have pretty much a hard line. Like if you have autoimmunity, it's not gonna be your friend period.
Peter Osborne: Yeah.
Julie Howton: Um, but like you said, there's, there are, there's not, it's not just one driver and it's never one driver. Even for one [00:10:00] person. Right. And, and so I, I would love to explore kind of the evolution of, as you've been practicing this way that, you know, I know one of the things that, that you're focused on as well is, is truly educating people about the, the role that, that mold toxicity can play with driving chronic illness and autoimmunity.
Um, and I really wanna kind of talk about that overlap because. People tend to think when you, when they hear mold, they think, you know, black mold on walls that they can see or, you know what I mean? Like, I, I think we, we get this picture in our head, um, but I, I kind of, to me directly connects to your book of, you know, no grain, no pain, because I don't think people realize how much mold is in our food system.
Peter Osborne: Yeah. I mean, I mean, mold is. The way it's stored, the way it's produced, it's commonly contaminating grains. I [00:11:00] think a last major study on this found it's between 20 and 30% of the world's. Grain. Crop is contaminated with mold. So, um, it's a major problem. That's why you have, you know, a lot of companies and a lot of governments require testing on a lot of these, um, crops to, to try to reduce or minimize mycotoxins, which are the toxin derivatives of mold, right?
Not quite the same thing, but they're the derivatives of mold. So, for example, black mold produces it. Type of toxin called triazine and aspergillus mold can create several types of toxins like gliotoxin and um, and Acra Toin. So it's, it's those things that can be present in grains that can also drive illness, not just environmental mold.
It's, it's both. Um, and, but from what I see in my own clinic. Most of the people nowadays, because I've been practicing 25 years, they, they're coming to me, they've already read my book. They're already grain free. Um, [00:12:00] now they're still struggling and they don't know why. And part of the reason why is because they're being exposed environmentally to mold, which is not quite the same thing, right?
So you have food-based molds, commonly grains, commonly coffee, you know, sugar, sugar processed, ultra processed foods are contaminated with mycotoxins. It's a, it's a frequent problem. Um. Those are some of the main things. And then of course, any alcohol is gonna be contaminated with mycotoxins. Um, any, any form of, especially fermented like wines and beer cider, that kind of thing.
But for, for the vast majority of of autoimmunity that, that we see when people have changed their diets and they're, and their problem and they're still struggling, um, we find a lot of environmental mold exposure.
Julie Howton: Wow. And, and again, it is back to the not necessarily visible, right? Like I know you're humid where you are.
I live in Colorado, and, and 20 years ago, 22 years ago when we moved here, we were told, oh, there is no mold here. It's so dry, so not true. [00:13:00] Um, but, you know, how do you, uh, is it testing, like what is your approach with, you already clarified like you're, you're specifically f. Giving the example of people who've already made the changes, right?
They're already grain free. They're, you know, their, maybe their nutrient levels are supported, but the needle's not moving. Um, are, are you just relying on testing? Is it history? How are you looking under the hood?
Peter Osborne: Always. All of the above, right? Yeah. There's no one test that's, that's com you know. A hundred percent foolproof, right?
As, as you know, lab technologies are great. They're great guides. Um, and, and I do use them. Um, I believe in testing, not guessing. And, but part of not guessing too is a great history. You know, if somebody says, I had, you know, I had, you know, two roof leaks and, you know, in a five year span that. Yeah, that's an important piece of the puzzle.
If somebody says, you know, when I walk in my laundry room, it smells like must. You know, that's also [00:14:00] an important piece. So part of it is history taking you, you probe properly and you'll find sometimes you'll find that evidence of either water damage to a person's home or office building or vehicle.
Those are the three common places we're gonna find it. Um, and so you just have to ask the right questions. And then secondarily, symptoms, you know, that's also history taking. What kinds of symptoms are these people presenting with? Because mold very, very commonly re represents, uh, a symptom pattern around neurological toxicity.
So, you know, chronic fatigue syndrome, brain fog, uh, neuropathy, migraine headaches. Um, burning tongue syndrome or scalding mouth syndrome can be a manifestation. Loss of vision or visual disturbance is a common manifestation. Oftentimes, these people are having random fevers, uh, for no obvious reason.
They're having, uh, systemic skin rashes that come and go without obvious reason. A lot of joint pain [00:15:00] without injury or trauma. So just kind of spontaneous aches and pains. They really, really struggle to get out of bed. They're tired all the time. Um, and so they just, they just have these patterns, right. Of symptoms.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: And then when you see that kind of pattern, and they're non-diet responsive or non-nutritive responsive, now you know, you have the history, you have the symptoms. Let's, let's corroborate the next step would be to corroborate. Objective data, do they have, uh, evidence of mold allergy that, so you can measure immune responses to mold as an allergy, which isn't the same thing as as mold toxicity,
Julie Howton: right?
Peter Osborne: Um, you can also measure mold toxins. Urine testing can be very valuable in that regard. You can measure antibodies to toxins. You can also measure, um. A number of different inflammatory mediators or markers that can signify potential for mold. One of my, one of the cheapest markers that I see most frequently that any doctor can [00:16:00] order is ferritin.
Uh, ferritin is, is, you know, oftentimes used as a marker for iron status or storage. Mm-hmm. But if ferritin's elevated at high levels. It's an acute phase protein, so it's an indicator for inflammation, and I probably see it in 80 to 90% of people who have mold exposure. So it's one of those screening tools too.
Sometimes just on basic blood work and you're running into ferritin being elevated, now you have, you know, you have at least an insider, a clue that, hey, maybe that's part of the problem, and you can inspect or investigate a little deeper. There's other markers. You know, TGF beta one and Ms. H are markers, MMP nine is a marker.
So there's, there's just a variety of different markers. I'm more in the camp of. I like to measure as much objectively the actual exposure to the thing I'm suspecting than, yeah, looking at some generic marker that could mean something, right? It's like,
Julie Howton: sure,
Peter Osborne: the driveway's wet, maybe it rained, but maybe somebody washed their car.
Maybe the hose was on, or maybe the sprinkler's turned on. [00:17:00] There's, there's multiple possibilities, right? So with mold, it's, is, is is more as I can be specific. I, I try to gravitate in that direction and once we find hard objective evidence, then we can prompt an inspection. Um, a mold inspection of a person's home, you know, can be costly if it's done well.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: So you always want to go in with, you know, evidence that says we need, we need to justify this. Right. I don't want to just, you know, cause a person that's a bunch of money, right? So, yeah. We have enough data, then, then, then now it's just a matter of a good inspection. And, and look, mold inspectors are like doctors.
There's good ones. There's bad ones.
Julie Howton: Sure.
Peter Osborne: You know, there's ones that don't understand mold even though they're inspectors. Just like there's doctors Yeah. Who don't understand mold. Right. So an air test is not a mold inspection. Um, and I think that's one of the most important messages anyone suspecting mold could walk away from this interview with is if you think that because you've had an air test of your [00:18:00] house.
That didn't show mold spores, that you're in a mold-free home, you're sorely mistaken. Um, air test is one of the most inaccurate, misrepresentative and misleading types of testing you can do to assess mold in a home. It's not to say that you can't find it. But you can oftentimes not find it. Sure. And even, even the who, the World Health Organization, if you look at their, their guide on dampness, their recommendation for air testing, um, is that a minimum of 27 air tests is, are required to assess indoor airspace.
So most mold inspectors do one or two, and then they do an outdoor comparative. And so that's a far cry from 27th. But there's, there's other tools. So, I mean, you can do an air test. There's wall cavity sample testing that can sometimes be more accurate. You know, a good mold inspector will look at the air conditioning system.
They'll look at the plenum. They'll look at the coils because sometimes you see microbial growth directly. Um, a good inspector will have a, an infrared camera where they [00:19:00] can detect potential for massive temperature variances that might lead to condensation. They'll have humidity readers or hydrometers.
Uh, that they use as tools. Um, they'll understand construction well enough to see defects that might lead to moisture or condensation. They'll, so they'll do a visual inspection of the home and outside of the home. They may do some air testing. They can do. Cultures where they swab Yeah. Surface areas to determine whether or not there's mold spores or species that aren't being seen with the naked eye.
'cause they're microscopic at first.
Julie Howton: Right.
Peter Osborne: Um, and if they do find what they find, uh, looks like microbial growth, they can directly sample that with tape lifts or, or swabs. So it's a comprehensive approach. Right. And it's just like with anything else. And if they're doing all those right things and they're coming to some kind of conclusion where they find it, then now.
Their job is to assess why it grew. Um, that's step two in the process. 'cause if you know that it's there, you can remove it. But if it, if it, if the reason that it's there isn't fixed, it'll just grow [00:20:00] back.
Julie Howton: It's just like the health, it's like our bodies, right? Like if we don't address how we got here, um, and I love the, the.
If somebody, you know, hires someone to come do an inspection and they're in and outta your house in 20 minutes, half hour, you did not get a mold inspection. Like it, it, it is a, it is a complex, you know, it should take some time and like you said, they should be going everywhere. It shouldn't just be a quick in and out.
Peter Osborne: Yeah. Two to four hours is a reasonable bidding on the size of your house and the nature of. Of things, but that's, that's, that's pretty typical for a good mold assessor to, to, to, that's about how much time they'll need. Yeah. So it's comprehensive. This, and that's why it'll cost a little bit more than those guys that come out for 20 minutes and do an air test.
Right?
Julie Howton: Yeah, yeah, I know. Which, like you said, it may seem more cost effective, but if you're missing, you know, then you're missing the whole point. [00:21:00] Um, it ends up, it ends up biting you in the, in the end.
Peter Osborne: Well, you end up spending the money on a good one if you get a bad one, right?
Julie Howton: Yeah, absolutely.
Peter Osborne: Yeah. I mean, and if look, and if it's not mold, you can move on and you can really feel confident that you ruled it out.
But if you've, if you've had a, an air test and it was normal, you know, don't, don't dismiss it as a potential, especially if you're testing through your doctor's office, shows a bunch of objective findings that that point to mold as, as part of what's driving the illness.
Julie Howton: Yeah. And I, I imagine because we're talking about this today, that, that this is a more common contributor than, than people typically think.
Like I, I, I think a lot of people have now bought in to, you know, diet and some other lifestyle components and contributors. Um, but, you know, do you, do you see this as a, as a really pretty common driver? [00:22:00]
Peter Osborne: Extremely common, much more common than we originally thought. I mean, just according to EPA data, if you look at the pool data of many research studies, the prevalence of water damage in buildings of our infrastructure just in the US is at least half.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: Uh, in Europe it's just as bad. A lot of people think that because they have better construction techniques over there, they have less prepon to mold and that's not true. Um, maybe. Maybe five or 10% less, but not, not a significant amount. It's still a problem there. Um, and it has to do with aging infrastructure.
It has, yes, construction matters and the techniques of construction, but look, when you build a home, when you build a building. It's subjected to weather and aging and
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: You know, leaks and, and problems and, and big part of it is the maintenance. Um, and the way people flip homes and move from home to home.
And you've got 25 people lived in a house that's only, you know, 10 years old. How many spills, how many problems occurred in that house that didn't really get fixed. Right. [00:23:00] And, you know, so, so homes break and, and I think it's important for people to realize that just because you've had it put together, um.
Doesn't mean that it can't develop a leak or can't develop a problem. And then, you know, even beyond the breakage aspect, homes oftentimes are built incorrectly. And that's really the bigger crux of the problem today, because you know, the vast majority of builders, what do they do? They hire, they, they want cheap labor, right?
They want maximum profits and they want cheap labor. So what do they do? They hire illegals. And so then illegals who don't have a skill set, they, they, they know how to do certain things, but. They skimp guidelines and they, and they in, in, in an attempt to build it faster, they make mistakes and some of these mistakes can be catastrophic to the health of your family and to the health of yourself.
And, you know, considering that most people's number one investment is their home, you, you better make damn sure that it is built properly and you better take an interest in it and not just, not just assume.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: In this day and age, I, I just [00:24:00] don't recommend that anyone buy a home. Whether used or new without having a mold inspection first, like separate from a building, inspection building, building inspectors are not trained to sniff out mold.
You, you, if you wanna, if you wanna protect your investment and protect yourself, have a mold inspection before you sign the dotted line and invest all, all that money into a home and get into a home that's safe.
Julie Howton: I think that's, that's brilliant advice that, you know, it used to be. We used to think, well, it, it was an older home problem, right?
Like you mentioned aging infrastructure as part of, of, you know, the, the, the process. But with, even with new construction, for all those reasons you just mentioned, and just simply, you know, was the lumber dried out, you know, the, like the house was framed. Did it sit in the rain? Then they, you know, like, again, back to the, the right way to do things and.
The newer homes are, you [00:25:00] know, better for energy, right? So they're a little more airtight. So when you're growing mold in your home, you know, the homes just don't breathe like they used to. Um, which can be a positive, but it's also something we need to be aware of. Um, and so I, I think that that's a really big piece that people tend to overlook is, is, you know, they think, well, it's a new home, so I can't have mold.
Peter Osborne: It only takes 48 hours for it to grow.
Julie Howton: Yeah,
Peter Osborne: I mean there's an entire brand new base in Florida, a military base that, um, is riddled with mold because they didn't install WA water vapor barriers properly or even at all. There's a major law suit getting ready to happen. Um. If you've looked or paid attention, I mean, this was, I think last year it was, um, rolling Stone, published a piece on the mold problem in the military housing.
Yeah. A lot of people don't realize military housing outsourced. They, they, they contractually gave 50 [00:26:00] year contracts to third party. Um. I call 'em poverty pimps because they're unethical companies that have been, you know, awarded these massive financially incentivized contracts to maintain military housing and build military housing.
And they're doing it wrong. And our soldiers are sick, very, very sick. And it's not a small amount, it's in. Many, many bases across the country, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. But if you've seen the commercials for Camp Lejeune, and you've seen recent here I'm in Texas, we've had recent lawsuits where multimillion dollar settlements have come out of bases in San Antonio at Lackland Air Force Base.
And um, at the army base there, the army. So, um, it's a pro, I mean, it's not just a military problem, it's, it's a construction problem, right. We have, you know, we, we have a, a wide scope of this and, and I think it's the next step. I, well, it's not the next epidemic, it is epidemic already, actually. Um, pandemic would probably be a [00:27:00] better word, but, um.
If you don't have a water plan, if you don't have a mold inspection plan around your house or a maintenance plan around preventing mold, it can happen to anyone. Um, and the problem with mold is this, you know, I, I lost a house to mold and one of the reasons I know so much about it is, you know, it'd almost kill my wife.
It did kill my dog. Um, wow. Sorry. It made my son extremely sick. It made me sick. Um. We, we, we, we almost lost everything. We lost everything. We lost our physically, we lost all of our possessions, um, because our house was so bad. Um, and it was two years old that, uh, we had to walk away from it. We had to walk away and rebuild and tear it down.
And, um, so that, that part and part of that journey was me wanting to understand why, because I didn't want to, yeah. You know, I didn't wanna jump out of one home into another home and have a similar problem.
Julie Howton: Right.
Peter Osborne: Um, and so I [00:28:00] hired a bunch of forensic guys to come out. I hired architects and engineers and, um, I hired HVAC experts and, um, and I had them deconstruct why my house grew old in the first place.
And, uh, in my case it was very unique. 'cause I, I, interesting story. I was. I was praying to God, this is years ago. I was, I was seeing a lot of mold in my office, in my practice, and, um, I don't like to see mold. And the reason why it's a tough conversation, right? Imagine being the doctor that says, you know, Mr.
Jones, your wife is dying and it's mold and. Mr. Jones is a skeptic, and he says, well, why am I not sick? And I'm like, you, you work 16 hours a day and you're not in the house as much, and your wife is, and now your wife is smaller and she's also more susceptible genetically. And there's all these other factors, right?
Julie Howton: Sure.
Peter Osborne: Um, but you are sick. You're just dismissing your illness. You're, you're just Stokely pushing through what you say, oh, I'm perfectly healthy except for. You know, these aches and pains that I have that Yeah. [00:29:00] You know, so there's that conversation where you have to tell somebody their house is, is either responsible for deteriorating their health, and of course that's an expensive conversation.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: A lot of people wanna put their head in the sand and just keep going and ignore that conversation. So it's just a tough one to have. And I was having, so I was having 10 of these conversations a week. And, um, I'm, I'm the kind of doctor I, I, I, I, I look at myself. I'm pretty empathetic. I take my work home with me when, when somebody's sick and, and they've trusted me to help them, I carry that, I carry that weight.
Sure. And, um, anyway, when they're not getting out of it, that weighs and weighs, and weighs and weighs on you. And they're getting, and especially if they're getting sicker and they're struggling and they're not listening. I was praying to God, I said, please, Lord, quit sending me chronic mold cases. Careful.
Please send me, please send me instead. You know, the traditional cases where people respond tremendously well with their diet change [00:30:00] and, you know, and it's, you know, relatively easy and let me, let me live out the rest of my. My, um,
Julie Howton: easy street.
Peter Osborne: Sure, yeah. My practice in, in, in on Easy Street. And anyway, that, my answer was pretty clear.
God gave mold to me and he gave it to me in every way you could give it. I mean, he made everyone sick.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: And he also, it's
Julie Howton: like a parent praying for patients.
Peter Osborne: Yeah.
Julie Howton: Don't do it. Yeah.
Peter Osborne: But, but he also gave me every forensic problem you could have. So like we had in our house, for example, um, the foundation was, the vapor barrier was installed improperly.
So our foundation was part of the problem. The brick work was laid improperly. So our brickwork. Was part of the problem. The vapor barrier was installed improperly, so that was part of our problem. The HVAC system was installed improperly, so that was part of our problem. The roof ridge vents and the attic were in and not adequate at all.
Uh, and that was part of the problem. So we had, we had, you know, a dozen or more. Yeah, like the, the, the, the, the inspectors that we [00:31:00] hired said your house was, was built with good material. It's just that it was built to properly in so many ways, it was a death by a thousand cuts. There's no way it could control the moisture.
And so mold was able to just spontaneously grow behind our wall cavity. And it wasn't a visible, obvious mold growth. It wasn't like, oh, there it is, it's on the bathroom wall, right? It was actually, you know, you had to tap the wall cavity and you had to look at the back of the sheet rock. And on the back of the sheet rock you could see fractal patterns of mold growth.
Um, with the right, with the right lighting, it's called a flashlight test. And a good mold inspector understands how to do that, where they will shine a high powered LED light at, at the right angle. You can see it growing. Um. So, so that was my answer. That's how I, I really said, okay, I can't retire and I can't, I'm in it now seeing these people, so I better, I better understand it better so that I can be of better use to them and a better service.
And so that's, that's why I'm, I'm out advocating about it. It's why we're creating a, a, a, a [00:32:00] documentary series on it because it's such a vast topic. It's such a problem and it's so under-recognized. And I think if, if, um. If you're struggling watching this and you have been diagnosed with any form of autoimmune disease or chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, those are two big ones that that's pretty much a guaranteed mold diagnosis in my opinion there.
What, there's a term called pathognomonic, meaning that if, if X is true, then Y is true, right? So if you have fibromyalgia as a diagnosis, then you also are in mold. And if you have chronic fatigue syndrome as a diagnosis, then you are also are in mold path monic, right? So. Um, if you're watching this, and this is the first time you're hearing it, welcome, welcome to the world of Mold, and, and I hope you, you take this information seriously and investigate it because it could save your life.
I know my, my wife almost died. I, as I said, she was on the couch most days in the depth, in the depth of our mold exposure. And I would come home from work and of course, I, I work [00:33:00] 12 plus hours a day, so I was the least affected of my family. Okay. But in her case, you know, I would, I was really frustrated because I would come home and she would be lying down and she was tired all the time.
And you can imagine how that would affect a relationship. And, you know, I, I would try to have a conversation with her. And her words were so foggy. Her head was so foggy
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: That she, she, she wouldn't be able to finish the sentence and I would be like, anticipating and trying to finish the sentence for her.
Of course it wasn't her fault. And, you know, I was frustrated, not necessarily with her, but I was just frustrated and
Julie Howton: Sure.
Peter Osborne: You know, by the, by the end of it all, you know, she came to me. This was after we moved out because when, when we, when we got the forensic inspection done, we walked outta the house that day.
Julie Howton: Wow.
Peter Osborne: Yeah. We went to a hotel and for two months we stayed in an extended stay hotel to try to recover. And when, when she got her brain back, one of the things she shared with me that I never knew, uh, before was she said, I didn't wanna live. I just, I [00:34:00] didn't wanna kill myself, but
Julie Howton: Right.
Peter Osborne: She said, I, I just imagined walking out in the yard.
And, uh, and if, you know, if I had a pistol just ending at all, not because I wanna die, but because I just don't want to keep living. There was just a, a lack of. Lack of desire to wanna live that way and feel that way. And, and then after she shared that with me, my son shared the same thing with me. He felt the same way.
I mean, mold creates a cloud and
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: Um, it can wreck your life if you let it, if you're not aware that it's even there. And I, again, I would just. Encourage any of you that are struggling and you don't know why and your diet's clean, please, please, please look at mold as the next potential, um, for what might be behind your health ailments.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Uh, so important and I I wanna highlight, we're, we're still in a place as, as widespread as this, this impact is for people. Um. It, it is very likely that somebody might listen to this and then go ask [00:35:00] their PCP, Hey, do you think, you know, mold could be my problem? And, and, and I think we're still at that point where a lot of providers are gonna say, now.
You know, it's not really a real problem. Are you seeing a tipping point, or, or no? Is that a fair warning for people that, that, you know, in the, I'm talking about in the traditional Western medicine system.
Peter Osborne: So in the traditional system, I, I've, so we're shooting a documentary right now on mold. It's called Mold Jacked.
If you wanna learn more about it, you can go to mold jacked.com. But I've interviewed 40 hours worth. Some of the world's leading practitioners on environmental medicine and mold exposure and, and the number one question I asked them all is, what kind of training in medical school did you receive for mold literacy and mold illness?
And the answer for every single one of 'em was, we didn't receive training.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne:[00:36:00] And if you look at the position of. Uh, the main organizations, like the immunology groups, you know, their, their belief is that mold is not a problem unless you have an allergy to mold. And so I think it's important that people watching, I'm glad you brought this up, 'cause there's three ways mold can affect you, three broad ways.
Number one, yes, you can be allergic to mold. And when we think about allergy, we generally tend to dismiss that as not a big deal, right? Like, take some Claritin or take some, you know, Benadryl and get over it. Um, mold allergy is, is estimated to be about 30% of the population. So if you look at the, you know, the research, the statistical data on, on millions and millions of patients says that it's about 30% of the population is allergic to at least one type of mold.
Beyond that. So there's mold allergy. How could that impact a person? Well, it can cause histamine release and that it could contribute to elevated histamine responses and, and ultimately mast cell activation [00:37:00] syndrome, which is not a fun disease to live with. But, but allergies can also weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to things like asthma.
And if we look at asthma rates and mortality rates from asthma, it's, it's sky high. And we estimate that 40 to 50% of all cases of asthma are actually mold induced. So it's not a small thing to be allergic to mold. It's a big thing, right? And it, and it has big ramifications, but that's just one aspect of mold.
The second aspect of mold is something called mycotoxins. And um, and actually mycotoxins is, is just a fancy way of saying that the toxins that molds produce, that penetrate and permeate into your air, you can breathe them in, you can absorb them through your mucus membranes. Um. Those toxins. And there's a large representation of, we know of hundreds of these that, and then there's many that we can measure and many that we can't.
But, um, these toxins, if we look at kind of the [00:38:00] basis for how they do damage, they're free radicals. If I simplify it, um, they're free radicals. They basically, they rip apart yourselves. And um, and one of the hallmarks of mold exposure is the inhibition of D-N-A-R-N-A and protein synthesis in the human body.
So what that means is you don't heal very well, you age faster, right? Mold toxicity. In this regard, mold toxin toxicity acts as an age accelerator that mimics radiation, slow poison radiation exposure, right?
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: Um. Then beyond that, so you got mold, mold, toxins that are just damaging to all humans. You don't, I mean, they're, they don't spare anyone, right?
Okay. And then you have what's called mold colonization. Well, one of the side effects of mold, where do antibiotics come from, right? They, they come from mold toxins. Penicillin is a mold toxin,
Julie Howton: right?
Peter Osborne: And, and so imagine you're living in an environment where you're breathing in aerosolized mold, [00:39:00] toxins that act like antibiotics.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: So what happens is you wipe out your flora,
Julie Howton: yeah,
Peter Osborne: your microbiome, and now you become colonized by mold. Um, when your immune system and big part of your immune system is your flora, when it's suppressed, you can now be susceptible to the mold growing on you or in you. This is one of the reasons we'll see in people that are living in mold toenail fungus.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: And it won't go away. And they're like, I don't know why I have this toenail fun yet. You might be in mold. Yeah. Um, we see very commonly chronic sinusitis where there's a mold growing in their sinus cavity. And if you culture them, and most doctors don't do cultures anymore, they just, it's, it's an art that, that.
Medicine should do, but many don't. Um, you'll find aspergillus and other forms of mold in people's sinuses. It's, it's actually one of the most common causes of chronic recurring sinusitis. So mold can colonize your body and cause mold infection, right? Mycosis is what that, that formal name for that is. So you [00:40:00] have mold allergy, you have Myco Toxicosis.
And you have Mycosis, right? So those three things, and then there's, there's additional things too. So there's, there's other researchers that are studying some of the other things that molds can produce. So, so one of the thoughts is, as the mold is eating your home, it's digesting the materials of your home and it's releasing other toxins that are not mycotoxins.
Those are like VOCs, volatile organic compounds and other Yeah. You know, other particulate. We're finding these are also damaging to human health. So, so I just kind of put that in the micro compounding toxicosis category, right? It's just a byproduct of the, of the mold eating your home. But these are all ways that mold could affect you.
And maybe you're being affected in one way. Maybe you're being affected in all three ways. Um, and this is why it's important that you hire a mold literate doctor. Who knows more than just mold allergy because the solution for mold allergy is either over the counter allergy [00:41:00] medicines, prescriptive allergy medicines or allergy shots where they, where they, you know, where they induce you, uh, they inject you with low dose, you know, low dose inoculate you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Howton: It's great.
Peter Osborne: And, and that's fine. I mean, you, you can do those things, but if you're living in mold. And the mold is driving the illness. Um, and you don't, and you don't know it. This is where the long-term problems set in because mold is a great mimicker. It mimics so many other conditions. You know, from, we've seen cases of rheumatoid.
One of the first cases of mold toxicity in my office I ever saw 20 years ago was a school teacher. She was, um, diagnosed with migraines and rheumatoid arthritis. And every, you know, we changed her diet and it, what happened was it, when she came to see me, her diet change coincided with the summertime. So she got better and we thought, oh, her diet's doing the great job and she's getting better.
And then when school started again, she started becoming symptomatic [00:42:00] and she, she tanked. And we ultimately, we found above her, uh, above her ceiling tile in her, in her, in her office. You know, the vents, the air, AC vents, black growth on 'em, and. When we, when we, um, got her to approach the, the powers that be at the schoolhouse, they dismissed it all.
And
Julie Howton: yeah.
Peter Osborne: Um, ultimately what happened was, you know, we tested it, it was, it was black mold. We got her outta the school. She quit her job. Right. Ultimately, she had to quit her job. Sometimes
Julie Howton: it takes a really drastic, you know, change. Right? Yeah. And, and you know, schools, I mean, you talked about military housing.
Um, again, back to government contracts like schools are, are, it's a huge exposure risk. Um, it, it's definitely super common. You know,
Peter Osborne: they shut down the air conditioning unit all summer. I mean, how would, if you live in a southern state, uh, you know, especially near the Gulf [00:43:00] Coast or any state for that matter, when you don't control humidity in a, in an airtight building.
You know, and that humidity relatively goes up above 55%. Welcome, welcome mold,
Julie Howton: right?
Peter Osborne: Mold is coming. Yeah. It's just a matter, it's just a matter of of fact, I mean, mold needs water. The, the building itself is already mold food, no matter how you build it.
Julie Howton: Yeah,
Peter Osborne: it is mold food, mold can grow on really pretty much any substance.
It prefers organic material 'cause it can eat it more readily. But mole can grow on concrete and you know, all you have to do is walk outside on a sunny day and look at, look at that. Uh, look at that sidewalk. It's got mold on it. And if you took a power washer to it and you see how wide it turns after you power wash it, it's 'cause you just washed all the mold off of it,
Julie Howton: right?
Peter Osborne: So, mold will grow on concrete and bright sunshine. UV lights don't stop it. You have to control the water. The humidity is the piece that, um, that, that, you know, when you're thinking about construction and building, that if you don't control for humidity, then you're not gonna control for mold.
Julie Howton: Yeah, it is so true.
Um, sorry, I just, I had to jump in [00:44:00] 'cause the, the schools are such a common exposure place. Um, so I, I'd love that. You know, even if you weren't aware early on, you were learning that. Before you finally embraced that you, this was part of the path you needed to take, um, was the, the deep dive in the mold world, um, and, and the mycotoxin world.
So you, you know, we've, we've talked a little bit about, or a lot about people who've already made good changes and, and haven't moved the needle. Um, I, I'm guessing at this point though, this is part of your assessment. If somebody walked into your, your clinic tomorrow. Presenting with autoimmune symptoms, including fatigue and, and whether they're labeled, not labeled.
I tend to think sometimes of like chronic fatigue as and, and fibromyalgia as like, we don't know why. Right. Which is where you're like, yeah. Think mold. Um, I'm, I'm guessing [00:45:00] you're not waiting six months and having people do all these changes. That, that, that assessing from old is part of your. You know, pulling your lens back and, and really getting a good history and, and testing or not testing as far as what's going on.
Peter Osborne: I mean, testing is, testing is, I mean, I don't test everyone. Just because I usually part of the history first.
Julie Howton: Yeah,
Peter Osborne: yeah. If, if they're telling me, yeah, I've got this long exposure to water damage and yeah. I, I wanna measure that. I want to definitely test for it. And if they're telling me no, I, I don't suspect that at all.
I'll start with other things. I mean, we start with what I, what I spoke about earlier. Food, chemicals, microbes, and, and nutritional deficits are gonna be always the four categories of, of measurement to discern, you know, trigger points for autoimmune disease 'cause. You know, autoimmunity is multifactorial.
There's never one trigger. It's always usually a dozen or more. So we measure the those triggers in everyone. And then if we have a background of mold suspicion, we're gonna definitely deep [00:46:00] dive on mold too.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Amazing, amazing. So for listeners that are trained, they know this question is coming. What is one step, and this could be unrelated to mold if you want, it doesn't matter.
Um, just one step that, that you feel that everybody can take starting today to support health. So it, it could be anything.
Peter Osborne: So there's six, um, what I call the six non-negotiable fundamentals of, of being healthy and you, and if you try to negotiate with these six things, you will lose and there will be a consequence.
And the first is you have to eat real food. You have to define what real food is to understand how to eat real food. Uhhuh real food is not potato chips. Real food is not like going to the processed food and, and just because the bag says organic and whatnot, that's not necessarily real food. You've gotta start with fundamentally eating real food.
Number two, you gotta go to bed and get good rest. Now, [00:47:00] now a lot of people are like, well, I can't sleep. That's part of my problem. Well, we gotta figure it, we gotta figure that out. Right, right. But sleep is a priority for health. It's a priority for, for, um, healing and repairing. Number three, exercise is not negotiable.
And exer, you don't have to join a CrossFit gym or become a bodybuilder, but you need to, um, be not sedentary. Yeah. And you need to move weight. And when I say move weight, you don't have to lift heavy weight. Calisthenics body weight is a great thing to move, move your body.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: Um, and you need to master your body weight.
You should be able to do a pull up and a pushup and a sit up and a squat and a lunge. These are fundamental things. I mean, look at any young child that's relatively physically active, can do all of these things, and only as adults do we lose the ability because we endeavor to be sedentary for many, many years, and our body atrophies.
And when your body atrophies, that means it's shrinking and your health is shrinking with it. So know that you need to move your body. Start where you can. Don't necessarily, you don't have to. Start with something you're not capable of. So if you can't [00:48:00] do a pushup, then do a wall pushup. Or if you can't do a squat, sit against the wall and hold a half squat.
Like there's a lot of different things you can do to kind of Sure. Move your way into that. Number four. Sunshine is required. Mm-hmm. Your, your body works off a photo. Biomodulation, sunshine's, sunshine doesn't cause skin cancer, sunburn does. It's just like water causes drowning, so quit drinking it. I mean, the, the, the medicine I.
Approach is, is just really backwards. We evolve in the sun, we require sun. There's UV light, there's red light, there's yellow and green light. There's all different types of wavelengths of light that have medicinal benefits in our bodies and are required by our bodies to function appropriately. So you've gotta make sure that in 20 minutes, a day's not enough.
Look, you've gotta work on hours a day if you can, and, and so you know, you've gotta arrange your schedule as if you want your life to be healthy. And so work on that. Um, you also need number five. You need clean air, and this goes back to mold. If, if [00:49:00] you've got mold and mold, toxins going, blowing through your air.
You're gonna have a problem if, if you've got a, a burning a bunch of chemically, um, lain candles in your house, right, to make it smell nice, but you're breathing those chemicals in that mimic estrogen and other hormones are endocrine disrupting. Your health's gonna suffer from that.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Um,
Peter Osborne: so, so clean air.
And then clean water would be number six. Yeah. And you know, if you live in any major metropolitan area, I live in the Houston area, there are 42 prescription drugs that we can measure in our drinking water after the city's done filtering it.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: So if you don't wanna involuntarily take 42 prescription micro doses.
Every time you drink a cup of water, you have to filter your water. Um, there's great filter devices that aren't relatively inexpensive, but you should be filtering your water and filtering your air. If you do those six things consistently and those things are top of mind, um, even if you're not perfect, you're gonna improve your health.
And that those are all, for the most part, free. I mean, [00:50:00] yeah, you might pay for an air filter and an air, right. But, you know, filter that part's not free. Um, but Sunshine is free.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Peter Osborne: You know, gosh, you, your time going to bed on time is free. Exercise is free. You don't need a gym membership. Just do calisthenics.
You can do that at home. Right, you are going to eat anyway. So not eating processed food is not costing you more than eating real food. Uh, at the end of the day, people will argue, well, organic food is more expensive than non-organic food. And, and it is, but it isn't more expensive in the sense that you're not gonna pay a health bill that you know that ba your family one day or that you're not gonna be an invalid, that your children are now required to take care of you for the last 10 years 'cause you can't remember their name.
And you put them all through such grief because you're, you know, you're demented. So. Your health is your responsibility, and those six things are part of, you know, your, think of it as your blueprint to better health, and you should take them seriously, um, because your life is at stake.
Julie Howton: So well said. And, [00:51:00] and so much of it is back to nature and, and compensating for living in the modern times.
Really, like if we, we can just simplify it that way. Um, so you mentioned the documentary coming out, mold jack.com. People can go there for people that are listening and, and they're on the go and they're not gonna click the show notes. Where's the best place to find more of you?
Peter Osborne: Uh, there's a couple places they could go to dr peter osborne.com or they could go to, uh, my foundation, gluten-free society.org if they wanna get a bunch of free, fantastic information about diet, lifestyle change, and Auto autoimmune disease.
Gluten-free society.org, uh, is where we house. I mean, there's thousands of articles and thousands of free videos, tons of information that they can tap into that. Um, would help them navigate all these confusing issues.
Julie Howton: And I know you're also [00:52:00] really good at putting out content and showing up on social as well.
So, um, just lots and lots of ways for, for people to just, you know, get, get this incredible information that you're putting out. Um, so appreciate your time, your wisdom and, and the work that you're putting into helping us all get healthier.
Peter Osborne: Well, thank you so much for having me. It was, it was a pleasure to be here and I, I really appreciate your sharing your platform to help me get this message out.
Julie Howton: Absolutely. And for everyone listening, remember, you can get those links and transcripts by Visiting Inspired Living Show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
[00:53:00]
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Peter Osborne
Dr. Peter Osborne is the clinical director of Origins Health Care in Sugar Land, Texas. He is a doctor of chiropractic, doctor of functional medicine, doctor of pastoral science, and a Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist. Often referred to as "The Gluten Free Warrior", Dr. Osborne is one of the most sought after functional medicine doctors in the country. His practice is centered on helping those with painful chronic degenerative and autoimmune diseases with a primary focus on gluten sensitivity and food allergies. He is the founder of Gluten Free Society, the author of the best seller No Grain No Pain, and the host of the Glutenology MasterClass Series - The Ultimate Guide on Going Gluten Free.
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