I was doing some reading today and I came across a paper looking at the dose-response relationship between fungal spores and various health effects.

Here is a quote from their conclusions:

“In conclusion, the combined evidence from human challenge and epidemiological studies support fairly consistent LOELs [lowest observed effect levels] of approximately [100,000] spores/m3 for diverse fungal species in non-sensitised populations. However, identification of the fungal biota is required in order to document the occurrence of the more toxic mycotoxin containing species and pathogenic species before measurements are evaluated.”

Here is a link to the document: http://gupea.ub.gu.se/dspace/bitstream/2077/4359/1/ah2006_21.pdf.

The Nordic Expert Group for Criteria Documentation of Health Risks from Chemicals 139. Fungal spores by Wijnand Eduard.

I have seen their LOEL value of 100,000 spores/m3 quoted in other published papers.  I’ll be interested to see if future research supports these findings for non-sensitive populations.  When it comes to sensitive populations, all the rules change!