Dr. Jill Carnahan on “Mycotoxins and Your Brain”
Jill Carnahan, M.D., wrote an article for her blog called “Mycotoxins and Your Brain: How Invisible Fungus Can Cause Brain Fog and More.”
From the article:
Neurotoxicity refers to brain or peripheral nervous system damage. As you can imagine, it’s incredible dangerous and even deadly in some cases.
Toxins that cause neurotoxicity, or neurotoxins, can alter your brain activity through disrupting or even killing neurons.
This important review examined four mycotoxins known to induce neurotoxicity in rodent models, including:
T-2 toxin – Known for inducing neuronal cell death in both fetal and adult brains.
Macrocyclic trichothecenes – Causes neuronal cell death and inflammation in the olfactory system.
Fumonisin B1 (FB1) – Causes neuronal degeneration in the cerebral cortex and disrupts ceramide synthesis (and important lipid in the brain).
Ochratochin A (OTA) – Induces acute depletion of striatal dopamine, which has shown to cause cell death in the hippocampus, substantia nigra, and striatum (different parts of the brain).
These mycotoxins cause neurotoxicity, especially in oxidative stress-associated pathways. Oxidative stress-associated pathways are areas in your body that are particularly vulnerable to the imbalance between damaging free radicals and neutralizing antioxidants.
Because each of these mycotoxins are dangerous to your brain, let’s take a closer look at where they exist, how you can avoid them, and what they do to your body.
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