While inhaling black mold holds many adverse health effects for humans, they don't include toxic illness. Rather than the mycotoxins that Stachybotrys chartarum produces, irritating and allergenic mold spores pose the main risks, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over time, continual mold exposure can damage the respiratory system. People who work in moldy environments are subject to chronic disease. Those with allergies and breathing conditions face the greatest harm. Long-term contact with S. chartarum and more common indoor-growing fungi can produce serious or fatal organ damage.
Allergies
Black mold generates consistent symptoms in people with allergies who breathe air that contains mold spores. The Mayo Clinic explains that their immune systems mistakenly react to mold allergens. Without medication management, these individuals will suffer varying degrees of coughing, sneezing, itching, runny noses and congestion every time they inhale certain levels of mold. Because allergies cannot be cured, many patients seek long-term treatment for health effects with nasal corticosteroids or other allergy medicines.
Asthma
The CDC reports that black mold can trigger breathing symptoms in people who have asthma, another condition that persists for life. Long-term mold exposure places these patients at constant risk for serious health effects beyond the upper respiratory symptoms of allergies. Breathing mold doesn't cause asthma, but it does make possible emergency respiratory conditions that can be fatal. The Merck Medical Library notes that symptoms of coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath can escalate to respiratory failure.
Pneumonitis
People with allergies can develop an inflammatory lung condition called hypersensitivity pneumonitis from repeated contact with black mold, reports the CDC. After a certain degree of re-exposure, delayed symptoms of fever, chills, coughing and difficulty breathing may occur. Weeks, months or years of high amounts of mold exposure can cause this condition to become chronic, with no way to repair the tissue damaged by inflammation. According to the Merck Medical Library, long-term hypersensitivity pneumonitis gradually reduces pulmonary efficiency.
Infection Risk
People who inhale mold spores risk fungal lung infection, but it is most likely to affect people with previous lung damage, the CDC notes. Individuals who have had infections, surgery, asthma or other lung conditions have the greatest likelihood of getting aspergillosis, or infection of the lungs. Health effects range from lung tissue damage and blood clots to an invasive spread of infection to other organs. The Merck Medical Library reports that, in rare instances, infections from mold exposure can cause organ failure in the liver and kidneys.
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