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"Almost one in five people with mold in their homes is depressed, a figure more than twice as high as among those who don't live with the stubborn, sometimes foul-smelling fungus, a study found." (Chicago Tribune)
Advancing a mold theory on depression
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-mold_re_10-28oct28,1,518780.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
By Elizabeth Lopatto | Bloomberg News
October 28, 2007
Almost one in five people with mold in their homes is depressed, a figure more than twice as high as among those who don't live with the stubborn, sometimes foul-smelling fungus, a study found.
The link between mold and depression remained strong even after researchers from Brown University in Providence, R.I., took into consideration physical illnesses that may be caused by the mold, and a homeowner's feeling of helplessness in controlling his environment. This surprised the authors, who said they set out to prove that factors beyond the mold may be responsible for the connection.
"We were surprised that we found we cannot explain all of the association between mold and depression by those two elements alone," said Edmond Shenassa, an assistant professor of epidemiology Brown and the study's lead author.
The data were taken from surveys of 2,982 households in eight cities, including Angers, France; Bonn; Bratislava, Slovakia; Budapest; Ferreira do Alentejo, Portugal; Forli, Italy; Geneva; and Vilnius, Lithuania.
The study wasn't designed to determine whether depression causes mold, as patients become too debilitated by the disease to properly clean; whether mold causes depression; or whether another factor was underlying both, Shenassa said. These weaknesses should be addressed in follow-up studies, he said.
"The type of message we want to send is that healthy homes can promote healthy lives," he said.
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