Fungal Toxins for Breakfast?

One of the few food contaminants found at higher levels in those eating plant-based diets are mycotoxins, fungal toxins in moldy food ingredients, such as oats.

In France, exposure to dietary contaminants was compared between vegetarians and meat-eaters, and the results showed that exposures to persistent organic pollutants like PCBs and dioxins were dramatically lower among those eating more plant-based foods. This was due to their avoidance of foods of animal origin, though they did have higher estimated exposure to some mycotoxins, fungal toxins present in moldy food.

There are many types of mold on the planet, possibly millions, and the vast majority are harmless. However, over the last several years, certain mold toxins, such as aflatoxin and ochratoxin, have been popping up in breakfast cereals. Hundreds of samples were taken off store shelves, and about half were found to be contaminated with ochratoxin, but those store shelves were in Pakistan, which has a sub-tropical climate with monsoons and flash floods, leading to fungal propagation. Similar results have since popped up in Europe, in Serbia, for instance. They’ve also been found in Spain and seen in Portugal. Then, mycotoxins were discovered in breakfast cereals in Canada. What about breakfast cereals sold in the United States?

Researchers collected 144 samples and, similar to other countries, found that about half contained ochratoxin, but only about 7% exceeded the maximum limit established by the European Commission. What is the significance of finding ochratoxin in U.S. breakfast cereals? In the largest study to date, which included nearly 500 samples of cereal off store shelves across the United States, overall detection rates were about 40%, though only 16 of the samples violated the European standards. All the cereals with ochratoxin were oat-based; however, about 1 in 13 of the oat-based cereal samples tested were contaminated.

Ochratoxin has become increasingly regulated by many countries to minimize chronic exposure. Shown below and at 2:23 in my video Ochratoxin in Breakfast Cereals are the current regulations for mycotoxins in cereal-based baby foods, for example, worldwide.

Some countries are very strict, like in the European Union; other countries are less so, and one country in particular has no standards at all. Ochratoxin is not currently regulated at all in the United States.

What about sticking to organic products? One might expect them to be worse due to the fact that fungicides are not allowed in organic production. However, “mycotoxin concentrations are usually similar or reduced in organic compared with conventional products.” For example, in one of the breakfast cereal studies, researchers found similar contamination, and the same was found for infant foods. It cannot be concluded that organic is better than conventional from a mycotoxin perspective. “Despite no use of fungicides, an organic system appears generally able to maintain mycotoxin contamination at low levels.” But how much is that saying, given how widespread it is? How concerned should we be about the public health effects from “long-term exposure to this potent mycotoxin”?

If you look at blood samples taken from populations going back decades, sometimes 100% of people turn up positive for ochratoxin circulating in their bloodstream. In some sense, mycotoxins “are unavoidable contaminants of food,” since they are not easy to detect and many of them can remain hidden. And, once foods have become contaminated, mycotoxins aren’t destroyed by cooking. So, are there some foods we should simply try to avoid due to a higher risk of contamination? That’s exactly the question I’m going to address next.

Doctor’s Note

This is the first video in a four-part series on mold toxins. Check related posts below for the other three.