Education
Not every mycotoxin comes from your walls. Some come from your plate.
Mold grows on crops long before food reaches your kitchen, and the toxins it leaves behind show up on the same urine panel we use to look for mold in your home. Here is how to tell the two apart.
The short version
Three things worth knowing before you read a lab report.
01
Mold grows on crops
In the field and in storage. Grains, nuts, coffee, and dried fruit are the usual carriers. Contaminated food looks and tastes normal.
02
Its toxins travel with the food
Roasting, baking, and cooking do not remove most mycotoxins. What was on the crop ends up in the cup and on the plate.
03
They show on the same panel
A urine test measures what is in you. It has no memory of the route it took, which is why a result should never be read alone.
Plate to panel
Tap a food. See what it can raise. Tap a marker. See where it leans.
The eleven markers on the Vyro panel each sit somewhere between pantry and property. This is how a physician sorts them.
Common foods
Food
Coffee
Green coffee beans pick up ochratoxin A in storage and shipping. Roasting reduces it but does not remove it. A daily habit keeps the marker detectable because the body clears it slowly.
Can raise on your panel
Leans diet
Either, or both
Leans home
Reading the pattern
No single marker proves a source. The pattern does.
Diet markers up, home markers quiet
Aflatoxin, zearalenone, or enniatin B with nothing from the home side. The first conversation is about the cupboard, not the drywall.
Next step: food review with your physician, then retest.
Any home marker up
Trichothecenes, chaetoglobosin, sterigmatocystin, or gliotoxin. These do not come from breakfast. This is the pattern that sends an assessor to open walls and pull dust.
Next step: on-site assessment, air and dust sampling.
Only ochratoxin A
The most common result, and the most ambiguous. Coffee and grains can do this alone. So can a damp AC closet. Your home history and a short food log decide where to look first.
Next step: both. This is what the Comprehensive Panel is for.
What you can do
Lower the food side of the equation.
In the kitchen
- Buy small, buy fresh. Mold grows in storage. Smaller bags of nuts, flour, coffee, and cereal turn over before anything grows.
- Store dry, cool, and sealed. Florida humidity is the enemy of an open bag of rice. Airtight containers, out of the garage.
- Rotate your staples. The WHO's strongest advice is a varied diet, so no single contaminated lot becomes a daily dose.
- Toss what looks off. Shriveled nuts, discolored grain, a soft spot on fruit. The toxin spreads beyond the visible mold.
Before your kit
- Collect first-morning urine, as the kit instructs. It is the most concentrated sample of the day.
- Note three days of food and drink, especially coffee, peanut butter, dried fruit, cereal, and aged cheese.
- List supplements and medications, including red yeast rice and any mycophenolate prescription.
- Do not clean up your diet first. A normal week gives a truer baseline than a perfect one.
Why we test both
A body test alone can point you at the wrong problem.
Vyro is the only company that tests your environment and your body in one coordinated process. When the two agree, you know where to act. When they disagree, you just learned something important, before paying for remediation you may not need.
This page is educational. Vyro's testing services provide exposure and environmental information and are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. Source tendencies reflect where each toxin's producing molds are most often found and are interpreted by a licensed physician in the context of your home assessment, diet, medications, and symptoms. Sources: World Health Organization mycotoxins fact sheet; U.S. FDA, Mycotoxins in food; Eskola et al., Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 2020; Mosaic Diagnostics MycoTOX Profile.
Stop wondering. Start knowing.
Two minutes of questions. The right test. A physician who explains everything.