Dr. Joseph Brewer at ILADS 2013

Dr. Joseph Brewer gave a smashing talk on Mycotoxins and ME/CFS. Dr. Brewer is an Infectious Disease physician from Kansas City, MO, who has a longstanding interest in chronic illness. Dr. Brewer should be included in any serious discussion of these complex illnesses. He has great curiosity - which he backs up with science.

Dr. Brewer began by giving a general overview about mold, presenting a 2011 study of mold in water damaged buildings, a 2009 study of water damaged buildings after Katrina and a recent study out of Texas Tech.  He illustrated stachybotrus chartarum, one of the most notorious forms of mold.

He presented mycotoxins as extremely toxic, secondary metabolites. The three big ones, measured at Real Time Lab, are Aflatoxin, Ochratoxin A and Trichohothecene. 

Dr. Brewer and Dr. Hooper published a very important paper in April, 2013 on “Mycotoxins and ME/CFS”. Amazingly, they found 93% of 104 patients tested positive for one or more mycotoxins, compared to 0% in 52 controls.  Some have all three - the mycotoxins trifecta.

The clinical associations with mycotoxins poisoning are dysregulation of the immune system and especially dysregulation of mitochondria.  Mycotoxins are potent mitochondrial poisons. Mycotoxins produced the same symptoms as ME/CFS - and also as Lyme.

It is Dr. Brewer’s supposition that mold takes up residence in the body, particularly in the sinuses. He cited scientific studies that led him to this conclusion. This exposure can be current - or it can be longstanding from living or working in a moldy environment, ten, twenty or twenty-five years ago.

Dr. Brewer presented his treatment strategy for getting at the mold and getting rid of it. The first step is to reduce input. The second step is to enhance output. This can be through improving glutathione, increasing sweating, using binders like Cholestyramine or activated charcoal (his particular favorite) - and developing an antifungal strategy. 

The main approach that he uses is a mist delivery of Ampho B.  The instrument of delivery is a Nasa Touch . 

I asked Dr. Brewer about nasal colloidal silver. He said that he thought that colloidal silver was a promising treatment.

It was wonderful to see Dr. Brewer drop the mold bomb on this Lyme conference. He walks into a room and, when he is finished his delivery, things have changed. Dr. Brewer needs to be heard in more places. Meanwhile he goes about his work of helping patients. This clinician/researcher is among the very best.