As some of you know, I’ve been trying to stay active with my writing since the birth of my son — keeping the mind sharp to prevent entropy and all that.
Recently, something’s been playing on my mind that I felt deserved some input. It concerns Chris Williamson’s current health situation — particularly given its virality in the media, and how deeply it crosses into my domain of expertise.
For context, Chris is best known as the host of the Modern Wisdom podcast — a platform that’s influenced millions of people exploring the intersection of philosophy, health, and human performance.
But recently, Chris went viral for something far more personal: his struggle with multiple overlapping health conditions, including Lyme disease and mold illness.
Before I go any further, I want to be clear — this isn’t a post to exploit Chris’s situation. It’s an attempt to clarify what might have actually led him down this path, and why the internet’s usual “detox and fix it” advice completely misses the mark.
Everyone’s Got an Opinion — Few Understand the Terrain
Scroll through any comment section and you’ll see the usual suspects:
“It’s mold.”
“It’s seed oils.”
“It’s heavy metals.”
“Just detox, bro.”
The reality is — it’s never that simple.
Having worked directly with clients suffering from CIRS (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome), mold exposure, and mycotoxin illness, I’ve seen firsthand the complexity of these cases.
Mainstream medicine has often dismissed mold illness as a pseudo-condition, and as a result, the literature is only now starting to catch up to what functional and integrative clinicians have been observing for years.
Mold: The Silent Immunosuppressant
Mycotoxins — the toxic compounds released by mold — have a wide range of damaging effects on the body:
Hepatotoxic: damaging the liver
Nephrotoxic: impairing kidney function
Neuroinflammatory: driving fatigue, anxiety, and cognitive decline
Immunosuppressive: weakening our front-line defenses
One of the first systems affected is secretory IgA (sIgA) — a key antibody in the gut and mucosal barriers. When sIgA drops, opportunistic bacteria such as Klebsiella, Citrobacter, and Enterobacter can begin to overgrow.
These species are normally harmless when balanced, but in an immune-suppressed terrain, they create an entirely new layer of dysfunction.
And this immune collapse doesn’t stop at bacteria.
When the body’s surveillance systems are compromised, latent viruses that were previously dormant can begin to reactivate — most commonly Epstein–Barr Virus (EBV), but sometimes Cytomegalovirus (CMV) or Herpesviridae family viruses.
I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly in clients with mold-related illness:
Mold exposure weakens the immune system →
Latent viruses reactivate →
Opportunistic bacteria overgrow →
Systemic inflammation deepens.
It’s a vicious cycle — and one that rarely responds to “detox” protocols alone.
Chicken, Egg, or Terrain?
This brings us to the question:
What came first — the chicken or the egg?
Or in this case — the mold or the Lyme?
Trying to isolate a single “cause” in functional medicine is near impossible. As I often tell clients, it’s like asking what killed Lincoln — the bullet or the man who fired it?
In reality, it’s the terrain that dictates the outcome.
When the immune system has been chronically suppressed by mold exposure, it leads to:
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