In recent years, many people, including this writer, have written many articles about many types of environmental problems in our water, air, land, food, workplaces and indoor environments.  However, we can be thankful that major progress has been made on many environmental health fronts including outdoor air quality, water quality and lead abatement.

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In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to indoor air quality in schools.   About 57 million students, teachers and staff attend US elementary and high schools. Types of school buildings used in the USA are quite variable and range from new buildings, which often have poor ventilation, to buildings more than one hundred years old, which may have problems with dust, lead paint, and mold and moisture damage. 

A major impetus for school indoor air quality concerns is the high prevalence of asthma in children and adolescents.

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Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a very common health problem. Blood pressures higher than 140 mm Hg systolic (pumping phase of heartbeat) and/or 90 mm Hg diastolic (relaxed phase of heartbeat) are considered to be hypertension. According to research published in the November 2008 Hypertension, about 29% of all US adults had high blood pressure in the period 1999-2004.

Hypertension puts people at increased risk for many serious health problems including heart disease, strokes, kidney problems and damage to vision. Chronic hypertension is also a major cause of headaches, nausea and mental disorientation.
The early signs of hypertension often give no warning and the hypertensive patient often feels fine. That is why it is important to get your blood pressure checked at least once a year. Many pharmacies and supermarkets have automatic blood pressure testing cuffs that will test your blood pressure for free.

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Article by Luke Curtis, M.D., C.I.H.



Candida is a common mold or fungus. It can exist either as a small single celled or yeast form or as a branched multi-celled form. The most common species of Candida is Candida albicans, but many other species of Candida are found in humans including C. tropicalis, C. glabrata, C. parapsilosis, C. krusei, C. guilliermondii, and C. lusitaniae.
When Candida or yeast is mentioned, most women tend to think of Candida causing unpleasant vaginal infections. While Candida often causes nasty vaginal infections, Candida can infect every part of the body except the teeth (C Kibbler M.D., Principles and Practice of Clinical Mycology, England 1996). The largest area of Candida colonization is usually the intestinal tract, although Candida frequently also infects the sexual and urinary organs (of both women and men), the mouth, and the skin. Candida infections sometimes create a whitish cottage-cheese like discharge in the mouth. Many women, and men, have heavy Candida overgrowth in their intestines without having any symptoms in their urinary or genital organs.

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Article by Luke Curtis, M.D., C.I.H.



A number of toxins produced by molds (mycotoxins) have been shown to cause bleeding or hemorrhage in experimental animals. Hemorrhage-causing molds have been found in a number of different mycotoxins, including the Trichothecene mycotoxins produced by Stachybotrys, the fuminosin mycotoxins produced by Fusarium, and aflatoxins produced by some species of Aspergillus.
Exposure to Stachybotrys, and other molds and their mycotoxins, have been associated with life threatening lung hemorrhage in children. Ruth Etzel, M.D. and colleagues published a paper in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, August 1998 which described 10 cases of infant pulmonary hemorrhage in Cleveland. These infants suffered severe lung bleeding (hemorrhage), difficulties breathing, blue color, and acute fatigue. Infant lung hemorrhage can occasionally be fatal.

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