Mold

Wooden fish (keumamah) is a traditional food made from tuna (Euthynnus affinis) coated with wheat flour and be drained. During the process of storage and marketing of wooden fish is often contaminated by certain types of mold, especially Aspergillus sp. The presence of mold contaminants would reduce the wooden fish quality and dangerous for consumption. It is therefore necessary natural ingredients that can act as a preservative, one of which is chitosan. The purpose of this study was to analyze the long wooden fish optimum soaking in a solution of chitosan to produce wooden fish that have a longer shelf life than fish-covered wood flour. The study begins by preparing chitosan from shrimp shells. Chitosan is extracted from shrimp shells, with a solution of NaOH and HCl and dried at a temperature of 65°C. Wooden fish with chitosan coating is done by soaking the fish in a timber with 1.5% chitosan larutam time variation of 0, 15, 30, 45, 60 and 75 minutes. The fish dried in the sun to harden fish such as timber, stored at room temperature (± 30°C). Test storability of wooden fish is done until a certain time limit (4 weeks), namely on days 0, 7, 14, 21, and 28, through organoleptic (color, texture, aroma and taste) and mold on the fish population analysis of timber. The results showed that soaking the fish for 60-75 minutes in a solution of chitosan 1.5% (w/v) to produce the most good organoleptic value, with no evidence of mold growth on the shelf life of 28 days so that the wooden fish unfit for consumption.

The Tragedy of Toxic Mold. Santa Barbara Independent 2003. You might be dying and not even know it. That hacking cough you’ve had, that weird skin rash, those “allergies” that seem to come outta nowhere. Even your recent forgetfulness, your constant fatigue, your headaches. These could all be signs that your house or office is slowly killing you. You may be one of the countless thousands—perhaps even millions— around the world suffering from the wide ranging, unpredictable, frightening, and possibly deadly effects of toxic mold. From the mansions of Beverly Hills to the studio apartments of the lower Westside, people of all ages and social strata are slowly realizing that toxic mold—Aspergillus, Stachybotrys, and other less prevalent species—may cause widespread health defects. What’s worse, if left untreated, these molds— prevalent wherever water intrudes into a building and then dries out—may eventually lead to cancer, brain damage, and death. Or maybe not. The insurance industry is scrambling to defend cases —typically settling for confidential amounts out of court—and at the same time rewrite homeowner policies to drastically reduce, or simply eliminate, coverage for mold-related damage to health or home. According to insurance companies, the sensationalist mold cases are merely the latest rage in America’s litigious society, the result of imaginative and moneygrubbing personal injury attorneys and equally opportunistic doctors who base their opinions on questionable science. And the insurance industry, which paid out $3 billion in 2002 alone for mold problems, has assembled their own phalanx of attorneys and medical experts to roundly dismiss plaintiffs’ claims as toxic mold hysteria. Such vigilance is hardly surprising, as big insurance companies such as Allstate and State Farm are left holding exorbitant bills when tenants sue landlords and homeowners sue construction firms over mold-related health problems.

Abstract. Microbiological characteristics of dried sapropel of Lake Rušona and Lake Ubagova and concrete containing sapropel and hemp sheaves (Ubagova Lake) have been studied. The antimicrobial activity was studied by the reference test cultures Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, Salmonella enteritidis ATCC 13076, Enterococcus

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G-Ordog replied on Tue, 09/01/2020 - 14:18
What was the saying we had in the Department of Medical Toxicology? Something like: Everything ends up being Mold. (I also wonder about the difficult to eradicate Aspergillus that appears to be in many hospitals, all it takes is one spore or hypha in an immuno-compromised patient in the ICU, and you have a problem. Gary Ordog, MD September 01, 2020.
COVID19 DG Doctors Guide Alerts Mold invasion Comments September 01 2020 by Ordog: in Invasive Fungal Disease is a Significant Complication of Severe COVID-19, Increases Mortality: Study; after: A National Strategy to Diagnose COVID-19 associated Invasive Fungal Disease in the ICU; from Clinical Infectious Diseases. September 01, 2020.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
Invasive fungal disease is a significant complication of severe COVID-19, increases mortality: Study
By Denise Baez

NEW YORK -- September 1, 2020 -- A study evaluating a national, enhanced testing strategy to diagnose invasive fungal disease in intensive care patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) found that invasive fungal disease represents a significant complication associated with severe COVID-19 infection, which resulted in increased mortality.

The study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, also found that use of early antifungal therapy, directed by strategic mycological testing, inferred a survival benefit.

“Antifungal prophylaxis may be warranted in certain patients,” stated P. Lewis White, PhD, Public Health Wales Microbiology Cardiff, UHW, Cardiff, United Kingdom, and colleagues.

The researchers undertook the study due to an increasing number of small studies describing aspergillosis in patients with COVID-19 with severe respiratory distress. Dr. White and colleagues screened 135 adults with severe COVID-19 who were being treated in intensive care units. All patients that were screened had refractory severe respiratory illness or deterioration of respiratory function 1 week post-COVID diagnosis.

The screening strategy involved obtaining both blood and deep respiratory samples for mycological investigation of both yeast and mould infections. Antifungal therapy was administered at the clinicians’ discretion. The incidence of fungal infections was 26.7% (14.1% aspergillosis, 12.6% yeast infections).

The overall mortality rate was 38%. Among patients with invasive fungal disease, the mortality rate was 53% compared with 31% among patients without fungal disease.

Of the patients who received antifungal therapy, the mortality rate was 38.5% compared with 90% among patients who did not receive therapy.

There was a significant association between patients with positive mycology and patients diagnosed with or treated for a solid malignancy. Among the 57 patients where corticosteroids data was available, there was a strong association between patients with multiple Aspergillus/BDG (≥2) positive results and the use of high-dose systemic corticosteroids. There was also a significant association for patients with an underlying chronic respiratory condition to have multiple positive Aspergillus/BDG tests results.

Procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, total leucocytes, neutrophils and lymphocytes were similar across cohorts.

“The proposed systematic screening programme using a combination of markers from easily obtainable samples provides a sufficiently sensitive and specific way of identifying invasive fungal disease in patients with COVID-19 and has the potential to reduce mortality from this relatively frequent complication,” the authors wrote. “Screening using a strategic diagnostic approach and antifungal prophylaxis of patients with risk factors will likely enhance the management of patients with COVID-19.”

Reference: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1298/5899192
SOURCE: Clinical Infectious Diseases
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Comments
G-Ordog replied on Tue, 09/01/2020 - 14:18
What was the saying we had in the Department of Medical Toxicology? Something like: Everything ends up being Mold. (I also wonder about the difficult to eradicate Aspergillus that appears to be in many hospitals, all it takes is one spore or hypha in an immuno-compromised patient in the ICU, and you have a problem. Gary Ordog, MD September 01, 2020.