#466 Affordable Mold Testing Is Finally Here with Ariana Thacker of MoldCo

MOLDCO DISCOUNT:
Use code LESSSTRESSED20 for 20% off the Complete Panel and Home Dust Test. Find those tests here https://www.moldco.com/testing.

Mold exposure can feel like an expensive and overwhelming rabbit hole, especially when symptoms span multiple systems and conventional testing keeps coming back normal. This week on The Less Stressed Life, I’m joined by Ariana Thacker of MoldCo to talk about making mold and CIRS testing and treatment more accessible and less overwhelming. We cover the symptoms and environmental clues that may point toward mold exposure, MoldCo’s $56 starter blood panel, home and genetic testing, and why some people are more susceptible than others. Ariana also walks us through their simplified approach to the Shoemaker Protocol, including prescription binders, nasal sprays, and VIP, and shares an important reminder for anyone navigating mold illness: there are solutions, and people do get better.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
🦠 Common signs and symptoms of mold exposure
🧪 Affordable blood, home, and genetic testing options
🏠 HERTSMI vs. ERMI testing
🧬 Why some people are more susceptible to mold
💊 MoldCo’s detox, clear, and repair approach
🌿 Using symptoms to track recovery
💡 There are solutions for mold-related illness

ABOUT GUEST:
Ariana Thacker is the founder and CEO of MoldCo, a healthcare technology platform focused on identifying and treating mold toxicity. With a background in chemical engineering and experience as a venture capitalist, she co-founded Conscience VC, investing in early-stage, science-driven startups. Her personal health journey with mold inspired MoldCo, where she combines technical expertise and entrepreneurial insight to improve care for overlooked conditions. Ariana is dedicated to advancing patient-centered, data-driven solutions and continues to support innovative companies shaping the future of health and technology.

WHERE TO FIND GUEST:
Website: https://www.moldco.com/
Testing: https://www.moldco.com/products
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themoldcompany
Free Questionnaire: https://access.moldco.com/signs
MoldCo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moldco/
Ariana's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianadthacker/
Dr. Scott's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-mcmahon-b97191357/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themoldcompany/
Ariana's X: https://x.com/m0ldilocks
MoldCo's X: https://x.com/themoldcompany

SPONSOR:
Thank you to Jigsaw Health for being such a great sponsor. 😎  Try their Electrolyte Supreme in the crowd-favorite Fruit Punch flavor this summer.🍓🍹Use code LESSSTRESSED10 on every order for 10% off! 

NUTRITION PHILOSOPHY OF LESS STRESSED LIFE:
🍽️ Over restriction is dead
🥑 Whole food is soul food and fed is best
🔄 Sustainable, synergistic nutrition is in (the opposite of whack-a-mole supplementation & supplement graveyards)
🤝 You don’t have to figure it out alone
❤️ Do your best and leave the rest

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
More Links + Quizzes: https://www.christabiegler.com/links
Protocols: https://www.christabiegler.com/protocolshop

❓Questions for Christa? Submit them here: https://www.christabiegler.com/questions

Transcript

[00:00:00] Christa Biegler, RD: So after Ariana and I recorded this episode, I just mentioned how I really appreciated what she's doing. This is a tough arena to enter, and she's doing ... I think she's delivering a really easy-to-use product in an effective, easy-to-use manner in a world that was otherwise a lot. So she wanted to pass along a discount for my listeners to use.

[00:00:25] Christa Biegler, RD: I get nothing from this, but I wanted to share it for you in case it is helpful to you. So when you use the code LESSSTRESSED20, you can save 20% on a complete blood panel or a home dust test. So it does not apply for the starter panel. That's only $56, which is, that's the current price that they have, which is wholesale pricing.

[00:00:47] Christa Biegler, RD: So understandably, they could not take 20% off that. But LESSSTRESSED20 will get you 20% off a complete panel and home dust test. If you find this really useful, you can check that out 

I'm your host, Christa Biegler, and I'm going to guess we have at least one thing in common, that we're both in pursuit of a less stressed life. On this show, I'll be interviewing experts and sharing clinical pearls from my years of practice to support high-performing, health-savvy women in pursuit of abundance and a less stressed life.

[00:01:29] Christa Biegler, RD: One of my beliefs is that we always have options for getting the results we want, so let's see what's out there together.

[00:01:47] Christa Biegler, RD: Today on The Less Stressed Life, I am joined by Ariana Thacker, who is the founder and CEO of MoldCo, a healthcare technology platform focused on ID'ing and treating mold toxicity. With a background in chemical engineering and experience as a venture capitalist, she co-founded Conscious VC, investing in early-stage science-driven startups.

[00:02:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Her personal health journey with mold inspired MoldCo, where she combines technical expertise and entrepreneurial insight to improve care for overlooked conditions. Ariana is dedicated to advancing patient-centered data-driven solutions, and continues to support innovative companies shaping the future of health and technology.

[00:02:26] Christa Biegler, RD: Welcome to the show, Ariana. 

[00:02:28] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Thank you, Krista, for having me. 

[00:02:29] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, I was just telling her before we hit record that this was very serendipitous because we had really just started using MoldCo panels in practice within the month or two before we received an email from her company to come on the show.

[00:02:45] Christa Biegler, RD: And the banter inside the practice was, "This is incredible what they're offering," because the other clinician in my practice was describing how she spent $900 on essentially the test that you charge $56 for, plus one more, right? And so just I share that for the necessary shock value, that this topic really is under-recognized, overlooked.

[00:03:10] Christa Biegler, RD: Most people don't even understand it, and I'm sure we'll hear in her story, it's like the internet is this kind of a terrible rabbit hole for this topic. And so we're always trying to find ways to streamline it and de-escalate. We're trying to de-escalate the fear and overwhelm in our clients around it, and a lot of the overwhelm just starts with that Google rabbit hole.

[00:03:30] Christa Biegler, RD: Anyway, so I'm very excited to talk just about what the solutions that you're bringing into this space. So let's hear about your story a little bit. Where did this all come from? What was your story? What was your experience that led us here? 

[00:03:43] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah, happy to kick it off there. So I was living in my apartment in Miami, Florida, and I didn't know this at the time, but my HVAC system was full of microbial growth.

[00:03:54] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And eventually had a mold inspector come after going through the referral ping pong system- ... meeting with tons of specialists having several of my labs and tests show up as normal. And essentially no doctor in standard medical care being able to accurately diagnose what I was experiencing, which was a multi-system response to mold in my environment, from brain fog to debilitating fatigue where I felt like I only had a few really functional hours in the day 'cause my energy just felt so depleted to memory issues, gastrointestinal issues, and more.

[00:04:25] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And essentially that inspired MoldCo because that journey was really complicated really confusing, just a lot of misinformation and wasted dollars spent one, trying to understand what the problem was, and two, trying to then get better. Turned pain into what's essentially now MoldCo to help others navigate that journey in the highest signal way, and also the most affordable and efficient path possible.

[00:04:48] Christa Biegler, RD: I love that because those words don't usually get put in the same sentence as mold, the most efficient and cost-effective way. And that's, I think, one of my core values is efficiency, and I struggle with this exact same thing. It's very frustrating. So we're always looking for what is the easy button?

[00:05:04] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay, there's not a great easy button, but the way you've even formatted this is awesome, and you give tiers, right? And I wanna talk a little bit... my goal is not really to say "Oh, go check this out," but it really is a phenomenal needed light in this space.

[00:05:18] Christa Biegler, RD: And so you have it separated into a few sections of just how we need to consider mold in the body is what's going on in the home. Now, some people literally do leave that place, right? But a lot of people wanna verify or validate before, so you have some options for home, for body. You have different tiers, so it literally starts at $56.

[00:05:35] Christa Biegler, RD: So I'm curious about, and then you've got some other panels from there You generally talk about it from a mold perspective, but just yesterday I was interviewing our other clinician about CIRS. And CIRS is the multi-systemic really reaction of the body even after you get out of mold overall.

[00:05:52] Christa Biegler, RD: And a lot of times there's overlap. They're a little bit different, but there's a lot of overlap. A lot of times mold will trigger that overall. But I bring this up because your starter panel is a few markers that are often used in CIRS, CIRS evaluation. Is that correct? How did you land... I'd like to just get into how you landed on these panels and decided on these markers first, and will you tell us what the markers are in this low-cost panel, blood panel?

[00:06:19] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah, absolutely. So the markers that were selected actually stem from Dr. Shoemaker's and Dr. Scott McMahon's work. So Dr. Shoemaker's our founding physician, Dr. Scott McMahon's our full-time medical director. And what they've done was really analyze what are the health impacts of mold and microbial growth in these water-damaged buildings on human health.

[00:06:39] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And what we've seen from their real-world data Dr. Scott specifically was very meticulous in that he collected 10 years of real-world data from his clinic, and what we noticed was that the top markers that were consistently off in these patients were MMP-9, MSH, and TGF-β1. And I know that sounds like I'm speaking Greek to a lot of folks.

[00:06:59] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: It was Greek to me until I got sick. But essentially these are the key markers that become dysregulated, and on their own they're, I would say they're not specific to mold, but together they paint a picture of being specific to mold, because there's not another illness that we're aware of where this combination of markers being having the patterns that they do indicate something else.

[00:07:20] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So what we normally see in patients is MSH being very low, sometimes undetectable. And MSH is this, we call it this master hormone regulator in the body. It helps control your pain response, how you sleep, your circadian rhythms, and also how you, like even urinate. So it controls a lot of different bodily functions.

[00:07:40] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So that's usually quite low in these patients. We have MMP-9, which is more of this inflammatory marker in the body. Same with TGF beta-1, and both tend to be quite high. So and what we see is that going through treatment these markers then tend to normalize. MSH takes longer than the other two.

[00:07:57] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: We usually see TGF beta-1 and MMP-9 coming back down to normal going through treatment, and then MSH, like, creeping up throughout treatment but also post-treatment, too, as, as patients get better. 

[00:08:07] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay, this is actually quite important because the majority of people listening to this may not realize that a lot of labs may look worse, other labs may look worse during treatment.

[00:08:19] Christa Biegler, RD: For example, if you're going through a detox protocol, your liver enzymes may look off. So I'm curious about at what point of treatment you would retest this because what is nice... One of the challenges I run into with trying to be efficient and cost-effective is a lot of times you spend a lot of money on testing, and it doesn't change a lot or it doesn't tell us as much new information.

[00:08:41] Christa Biegler, RD: So we're trying to consolidate down testing to the most essential pieces. But for under $60, you are not going to find something easier or better. It just doesn't exist. So it's totally fine to do it before, after, whenever. So I'm curious what intervals, because if you were doing, for example, urine mycotox- so if you were testing the toxins that come from molds in the urine, if you did that, depending on when you do that test will change how you would read that test, what the context of that test is.

[00:09:09] Christa Biegler, RD: So just to relate that to what Arianna is saying, if you do that test at the beginning and then you start really mobilizing bile and you're not binding completely it's very possible that those numbers could really go up depending on when you took it in respect to the whole thing, and that's a much more expensive test to take frequently.

[00:09:27] Christa Biegler, RD: So I'm curious about, as these numbers normalize this is gonna be a very proximate answer but when would you say that through the process you might have someone normally recheck those to start to see them normalize? Is that three, six, nine, 12 months? Again, it depends on what they're actually doing, obviously, right?

[00:09:44] Christa Biegler, RD: But just generally. 

[00:09:46] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: We like to retest every three to six months on patients. However, as a platform we found that the symptoms logic is more indicative of where patients are in their health journey because it does take time for the markers to normalize, and then also to your point, there could be fluctuations, especially if the patient's getting re-exposed- especially if they were re-exposed the same day that they were doing the lab test to, So there's some noise in the lab testing so it's better to space that out three to six months. 

[00:10:13] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And then going back to the symptoms-based logic what we like to do is adjust care and adjust treatment just based on how the patient is feeling.

[00:10:20] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: For example, if you have 80% to 90% symptoms resolution and your MSH is still low, that's a win for us- yeah ... because your quality of life is just substantially improved, and we know it could take time for the body to also recognize that. 

[00:10:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. There's several factors because a lot of times people don't know if they have mold in their environment, or they get a home test and they do, but the next option is to have a very expensive inspection or a really crappy inspection or...

[00:10:50] Christa Biegler, RD: there's a lot that goes on in that gamut where you may have a positive dust test of sorts to, for the home. And people may struggle with, removing that exposure overall in general. So that's a pretty tough piece. I wonder how you handle that in the whole timeline with clients, because I see you have this separated as home body testing.

[00:11:10] Christa Biegler, RD: There's one other section. I'm looking at the website. What's the other section? 

[00:11:14] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Your genetic risk. So we also test for HLA haplotype. That tends to be fairly high signal for showing who gets sick and who also has a more progressive illness and who needs treatment. We like that lab test for that reason.

[00:11:26] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And you're 100% right, like inspection, remediation, and navigating that whole world can be very costly and confusing. There's a lot that the dust test can show, which we offer on our website, and there's other limitations to it where you actually do need an inspector in the home to really accurately identify the source and create a scope of works for a remediator.

[00:11:44] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: How we like to use the dust test is more binary, is my home problematic or not? And you're able to get to that answer with it because we're showing the most prevalent fungal species in the home and also giving you a low, medium, high score as to how we believe that would impact your health.

[00:12:00] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So then you can decide to take that next step and make that next investment in finding an IEP and determining how problematic and where are the sources coming from in the home. 

[00:12:09] Christa Biegler, RD: I wanna talk a little bit about home testing options. So with the body testing for that low price of $56, go into LabCorp, get that drawn, those markers are generally gonna be elevated in both a mold scenario and a CIRS scenario, right?

[00:12:25] Christa Biegler, RD: And there's overlap. Is that correct for the most part? 

[00:12:28] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: They're most indicative for a CIRS diagnosis. The way we're framing it as a company is we don't want patients to even get to the point of CIRS- ... because that's a severe mold related illness. We wanna be able to flag patients even in advance of that.

[00:12:41] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So once those markers start creeping up in that direction, that's usually a sign. And once they're like way over the range threshold, then you're likely to have CIRS. Ideally we're finding patients well before they're in, the red zone of what mold exposure can do to human health.

[00:12:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Nice. Okay, so the reason I ask that is because how we might look at the home for mycotoxins versus bacterial endotoxins, which are part of CIRS, might be a little bit different. So your dust test is a HERTSMI versus an ERMI versus a test that also looks for other bacterial endotoxins. How did you land or decide on HERTSMI?

[00:13:15] Christa Biegler, RD: And I'm sure part of it is like cost effectiveness for what you actually see. So tell us how you landed on HERTSMI versus ERMI, et cetera. 

[00:13:23] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah, great question. We're actually expanding the HERTSMI now to include more fungal species, 'cause we're at a point in the company where we're able to negotiate pricing some more with our lab vendor, and we can now offer more species at an even lower cost.

[00:13:36] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So we're excited to make that upgrade. What we determined is that HERTSMI was the 80/20, and it truly is an 80/20. What we saw when benchmarking HERTSMI to ERMI HERTSMI has five fungal species, ERMI has 36. It was able to detect 80% of what the ERMI was able to detect, and it was also a fraction of the price for patients.

[00:13:54] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Now we're expanding to an additional five species it'll cover 10 different species, and that's gonna hit 98% of what the ERMI does, so even more value at the same price. So that's how we made that decision and those trade-offs. Like ideally we would have patients doing an ERMI and an dust test in every single individual room. That adds up very quickly, and for the purposes of a dust test to us it's more binary. If you have water damage, you likely have mold growth, not just endotoxins. Endotoxins more specifically for a sewer gas issue. For us we're MoldCo, we're focused on mold and microbial growth due to water damage primarily in the home.

[00:14:32] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So that's just our starting point, ... as a company, and I would love to cover the entire scope of environmental exposures impacting human health. I do think it's really important for us to really understand what we're being exposed to, especially if it's harming our health and our- wellbeing. We're always iterating and expanding- Yeah ... the company, so that's definitely coming up soon. 

[00:14:51] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, I could see that. 

[00:14:52] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah. 

[00:14:52] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm looking at how you do your home testing, and it's interesting, right? Because you have the single test for a small area, and three tests for a bigger home, et cetera.

[00:15:00] Christa Biegler, RD: And I don't know that the ERMI gives directions like that, so it's just unique and interesting. But it also makes it... I like that you have levels because I think our brain makes instant judgment calls whenever we're looking at things. And so literally from a basic human psychology perspective as well, to see different price points can be helpful.

[00:15:20] Christa Biegler, RD: To me it feels- less overwhelming. Again, overwhelm is a choice, but it feels less overwhelming just the way you have it formatted and streamlined. And as it's very common to get into clinic, not even just clinical speak, but lab speak to an extent, where you're trying to order something from a place who's not really a retailer first.

[00:15:37] Christa Biegler, RD: They're more of a lab first, and you're like, "What are they?" "What do they have here?" So it makes it very ni- 'cause I, find this topic is not, it's hard to make accessible, right? You really have to strip it back a lot. 

[00:15:50] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: it was very treacherous trying to translate what was essentially scientific publications and spreadsheets of work into what we called at MoldCo.

[00:16:00] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: It was definitely a meeting of the minds of so many different experts in this space to really understand what are the right solutions and decisions to then bring to patients, and also how do we wanna price this? We wanna price this to be as affordable and accessible for as many people as possible.

[00:16:14] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: The $56 lab panel, that's at cost for us. We don't make money on that lab panel, and it's essentially see it as more of a philanthropic endeavor in MoldCo to just increase education and awareness in the space, because just getting clarity on that answer of am I being exposed to mold, one, and then two, is it making me sick that's where a lot of patients just end up spending tens of thousands of dollars and staying in the dark and going to multiple specialists- across several years if they even make that connection at all. So just really shortcutting window of pain for patients is really important for us. 

[00:16:47] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. It's exciting. I wanna talk a little bit about how you came to this. I wanna mention one other thing before we talk about getting these couple of doctors on board and some of these treatment interventions that you're also making very accessible.

[00:17:01] Christa Biegler, RD: But before I go there, I wanted to just note I think an opportunity with this, especially I mostly have experienced with this cheaper starter panel, but I think one of the opportunities is that- The test report is clear. Those blood markers, sometimes translating this to a prescribing provider, if someone wanted to keep in touch with their, family physician or however it's working for them, one of the challenges is what we don't like what we don't understand or don't know, and someone who sees a broad spectrum of clients, et cetera, this is a whole mountain of things for them to understand. However, when we look at it as three simple blood markers that are from the research, even if they're not familiar with them, for some reason it feels a little more approachable than handing someone like a dust test or a urine test or whatever, because those doctors are a little bit more familiar with blood panel work.

[00:17:50] Christa Biegler, RD: And I know that I'm reducing it down, but really it can be that simple sometimes when you're communicating with a provider 'cause very often in the past before you had some of these avenues, the conversation was, "Can I go to a doctor and get them to prescribe me this essentially binder medication?"

[00:18:06] Christa Biegler, RD: Can I get them ... Like, how many doctors do I have to go to be able to get a prescription for me to self-treat myself 'cause I can't find anyone to help me?" 

[00:18:14] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah, so many. I, we rarely see patients that are able to obtain these medications directly from their PCP or specialist just to give some context we prescribe colesevelam, which is an FDA-approved medication, not for mold-related illness or mold toxicity.

[00:18:28] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: It's actually for hyperlipidemia or high cholesterol. So what we're doing is prescribing it off-label. Within the mold sphere, let's call it, or CIRS community, it is the standard of care to provide colesevelam or cholestyramine to patients, which is a prescription binder. However that is not common practice in standard medical care.

[00:18:47] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: We rarely see it. Usually it's a one-off request, approved by a PCP and that, a quite rare occurrence. I think it's really challenging for patients to even obtain these medications with the way things are designed outside of finding a Shoemaker-certified physician or a mold-literate provider- which then leads to the long wait list times we've seen, sometimes several months if not years, as well as that's where patients end up spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars just to get adequate care. 

[00:19:13] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Let's talk about how you got these, founding, groundbreaking pioneers in this area.

[00:19:19] Christa Biegler, RD: Dr. Shoemaker coined CIRS and he discovered biotoxin illness for sure, I don't know about mold illness, in the '90s. Yep ... and so he has kind of this, I think, 12-step protocol essentially. First of all, how did that conversation start?

[00:19:34] Christa Biegler, RD: And how long did it take for you to bring this to fruition? And then we'll talk about the pieces that you've been able to extract from that and make accessible to clients. 

[00:19:42] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah. I, I love Dr. Shoemaker. I'll just start with that. I think he's wonderful. So I got connected to him through one of the physicians who was Shoemaker-certified that treated me.

[00:19:52] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And first I was just curious I just really wanted to understand this. I wanted to be a truth seeker 'cause I, I actually came in very skeptical, even though I got sick. I didn't believe that mold could cause these health issues. I didn't believe it happened to me. Even after getting the markers, and even after getting better on, medication, I still had to be convinced, so I ended up reading tons of publications, getting in touch with multiple experts, and just getting obsessive with the space to really understand and confirm.

[00:20:18] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So I met Dr. Shoemaker as I was going through that, and it took several months of talking to him about our vision and mission, 'cause at some point I decided to start a company in the space. And he agreed. He saw the vision and mission. I think he said so many people have approached him over the years, but this was- like his favorite understanding of how to translate his work into something that can help humanity at scale. ... So it started that way. I ended up forming the company sometime in 2023, and it took a long time just to translate what was there into something that can be accessible and understood and also streamlined.

[00:20:52] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: We didn't end up launching the platform for care until 2025, and that was in more of a closed beta. Just to make sure that we can get our symptoms improvement and resolution as high as possible, and get the user journey down and all the things that go into building a product. It took a lot of thoughtfulness and time, and again, a meeting of the minds of so many different people to create something.

[00:21:14] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Especially to translate something as complicated as the Shoemaker Protocol into what we have in MoldCo. We simplify it by saying detox, clear, and repair. It's not just three steps, though. It's more three phases that you go through in the company. But it was like a, I would say a more clear way to represent what Dr.

[00:21:29] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Shoemaker's work is about in a way that's far more accessible to the mainstream. 

[00:21:34] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. One observation I have standing back from all of this, and it's a neutral observation, is that some of the best health companies, health tech companies are built... Actually, all of them. A lot of the, best ones that I've come into their funnels are built by non-health professionals, because they're able to stand back and look at it from this more objective, when you're really close to it, it can be hard to distill it sometimes, right? And so you from the outside, you were able to bring in these skills from other skills that you had already amassed, right? In venture capital, et cetera. Because first, even as you describe that, people may say, "How did she do that?

[00:22:11] Christa Biegler, RD: Was she still working at her other job? Did she just raise-" ... "funding to launch this company?" These, g- generally hard questions for most people, but you had experience that sort of poised you to be hopefully an advantage. 

[00:22:22] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah. And also, like, where I was investing too it was this intersection of consumer and science.

[00:22:27] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So I was able to bring a lot of the pattern matching I've seen of what worked across many of these businesses, and also tap a lot of founders in my network to get feedback. And I just love listening, so I'm just always asking a lot of questions from a lot of people and absorbing that information, and trying to understand what's true for us.

[00:22:43] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: 'Cause it's also important to stay true to what you believe is right for the business and your vision for it. You can always get a lot of opinions, but you're the final decision-maker in what gets created. So just assembling all those pieces early on, and absolutely necessary to that was Dr.

[00:22:58] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Shoemaker and Dr. Scott McMahon. We wouldn't be here without them. 

[00:23:02] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. That's very cool. I wanted to ask a little bit about the treatment plan and phases. You already mentioned it a little bit, but a few of the pieces from Dr. Shoemaker's protocol is this prescription that you mentioned, a spray, et cetera.

[00:23:16] Christa Biegler, RD: And like you said, there are different phases, and I was just talking to our other clinician yesterday about why don't people add this nasal spray a little bit earlier sometimes, right? Yeah. Is there really a problem to adding that? So tell us a little bit about how you chose these few products from the protocol to try to help people access these with more ease.

[00:23:37] Christa Biegler, RD: It is hot weather season, and there is probably no better time than now to make electrolytes part of your daily routine. Electrolytes help you make energy and help get hydration into the cells, so you aren't just peeing out what you put in. I've been drinking electrolytes for at least five years, and I'm always looking for a great-tasting, high-quality powder just to change up the flavors.

[00:23:59] Christa Biegler, RD: This summer, I'm doing a lot of Electrolyte Supreme from Jigsaw. It's got a great complementary vitamin and mineral profile beyond the classic electrolyte minerals of potassium, sodium, and magnesium without any sugar or artificial colors. It tastes great, and probably my go-to for my kids, especially the lemon lime flavor, as a hydrating lemonade for summer.

[00:24:20] Christa Biegler, RD: You can get 10% off every single order at jigsawhealth.com with the code LESSSTRESSED10. That's LESSSTRESSED10 to take 10% off of all of Jigsaw's incredible products from Electrolyte Supreme to potassium and adrenal cocktails to cod liver oil and beyond. So go get yourself now and start hydrating.

[00:24:44] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah, absolutely. We just keep going back to what has the most evidence supporting the approach, and we're also really clear, too if there's new data that presents that another treatment or approach is better we will adapt. We just wanna bring what's the the best possible solution to our patients.

[00:25:01] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So for the detox phase part of that there's many pieces to that phase, but the prescription medication is colesevelam, and the class of bile acid sequestrants have been the most supported in the literature across clinical practice and more for these patients, so we chose that.

[00:25:16] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: We landed on colesevelam versus cholestyramine for a few reasons. One it's an oral tablet versus a suspension. The suspension's not a great experience if you've had tried it. It's very sandy and gritty, and poor adherence rates overall just because of that experience. Colesevelam you take with a meal.

[00:25:33] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: You usually just take that two to three times a day, versus cholestyramine you take that in between meals and four times a day, which just makes it more challenging, right? To time in between meals versus with a meal. It's just an- ... easier mental trigger to remember. And beyond that, it's also a lower cost medication.

[00:25:50] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And what we've seen, too, is that over the span of weeks colesevelam and cholestyramine have very similar performance from a symptoms resolution standpoint. So we like it for all those reasons. There's also less side effects with colesevelam, so there's that, For the nasal spray, which is part of the, the clear approach to answer your question why not just start both at the same time, we usually like to stage medications just so we can get a clearer read on what's causing side effects if any, but also what's driving improvement in patients.

[00:26:17] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So usually we like to start that at least 30 days later just to have those clear signals. Technically you could start those at the same time. We just like spacing it out just so our providers are really clear on what medication's doing what for the patient. And clear is an EDTA-based nasal spray.

[00:26:33] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: We have our own formulation here at MoldCo, so we provide that to patients, and that also has provider oversight through our concierge care portal. Our providers are accessible to our patients. Our average response time right now is actually two hours, which is amazing. They're very much in service of our patients, so I love to see that.

[00:26:49] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And the final step is VIP, which is probably the most interesting and coveted step I've noticed through the online forums. Everyone's really excited to get to that VIP stage, and that's a peptide. It's on the category one 503A compounding pharmacy list. That's on the same list as aloe vera and melatonin, and it's a naturally occurring peptide found in the body, and it's mostly supported in the literature for the treatment of CIRS and mold-related illness.

[00:27:16] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: That's what we use in our final step, and it works great. And also as a company, we don't charge more for increases in concentration either. So we work with you to find the right dose for you, and we we adjust the dosage and medication to find that, and we don't charge patients more for that.

[00:27:36] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, you're taking that hit, but I think it makes sense. You hit on ... You just slightly hit on something that is challenging in this issue population as well, is that there's going to be natural compliance issues because taking things away from meals is annoying, Whether it's capsules or a powder or whatnot.

[00:27:54] Christa Biegler, RD: And I was really curious about these because these are all prescription, medications, and I am not a prescribing provider. I use nutrients and supplements in different ways to achieve similar outcomes, right? But these with medications, they're very ... They're generally more strong. So you can get a more, a heavier-handed impact with these.

[00:28:17] Christa Biegler, RD: And so it's really ... But to the, to this point, it's been hard for people to access these, right? They have to have a provider that could understand or even understand what is being prescribed. And the closest thing someone could usually get is CSM because the provider might be accustomed to it from a cholesterol-lowering medication, right?

[00:28:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Not even this. So this is a very unique scenario. What I think is extra unique is you've got these three you got, three access points, right? You got blood labs, you got home testing, you've got the genetic test, and I was gonna ask you this before but kind of the beauty of you being this type of entrepreneur, eventual ca- venture capitalist background is you see that everything is negotiable.

[00:28:58] Christa Biegler, RD: And so you've been able to negotiate prices with these lab companies. And so I'm curious if then you've also needed to negotiate, I'm sure, negotiate prices for the medications and have that all in stock and self-label that, it sounds like as well. 

[00:29:12] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah, and that's something we wanna continue to pass on to patients too, 'cause as we scale, when you have just larger volumes, you have more of that negotiating power.

[00:29:20] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So we're able to get lower rates and then we're able to pass that on to our patients as we scale. So we're really excited about that. We get really pumped whenever we have more savings that we can pass on. 

[00:29:31] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. That's really awesome. Now, you mentioned briefly a little bit about the genetic testing.

[00:29:37] Christa Biegler, RD: One thing I want to cover on that one, so with the home testing, they're going to do it typically at the beginning, and then usually after remediation if they want to, right? That, that's generally how we consider it. We talked through the testing and the potential repeat testing with some of the blood, at least with those starter blood markers, and there was other categories of blood markers that you do.

[00:29:56] Christa Biegler, RD: But with genetic testing, your genetics are constant, right? So you would take that test one time. What else do we wanna say about that genetic test? I think we've talked the least about that overall. But someone might take that if they're... I remember, I can use a little bit of my own story with this one.

[00:30:12] Christa Biegler, RD: When I was going through my first health crisis, as I like to call it approximately 10 years ago, that probably had some mold pieces to it that I did not really understand fully until later. At the end of the, the natural closure of that crisis, I did do genetic testing, and at the time it was really validating.

[00:30:30] Christa Biegler, RD: It was validating in that, oh, I suck at clearing everything. I have the worst detox genetics ever. And I think that this can be validating for people to realize, why do I live in the same house or the same office as someone else and I seem to be struggling with this more? Now, you have your current constitution and what's going on in your body, but you're also, you have your genetic predisposition that may make you more disadvantaged.

[00:30:55] Christa Biegler, RD: So that's kinda how I would think about this. I'd love to hear what you wanna share when you might recommend genetic testing to somebody. 

[00:31:02] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah, I have so much to say on this subject. So w- what you're describing we call the canary effect, where an individual in the home gets sicker quicker before the rest of the roommates or housemates.

[00:31:13] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And the reason for that is multi-variable. One, genetics do play a big part in that, and then also the current health status of that patient. If someone is immunocompromised, they're more likely to get sick before others in the home. So there's just multiple different factors that go into why someone gets sick before the others.

[00:31:28] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: For the HLA haplotype testing, what we're testing is like two to three alleles in the body. And you get one from mom, one from dad. And if you're susceptible you can have two susceptibilities or one susceptibilities, you're still susceptible, whether it's one or two. And if you have two, then both your parents also have a susceptibility as well.

[00:31:48] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: What that means more more specifically is that you're more likely to get sick if you're in exposure, and you're more likely to need treatment to get better. And also, you're more likely to have it be a progressive illness over time if unaddressed. So that's what we see as a result of this genetic testing if you were to ask me candidly to choose the starter panel, like the $56 panel or the genetic testing, I would pick the starter panel because that's a more realistic snapshot of where your health is today versus your susceptibility- which is more of a gamble. It's like, is that gonna happen or not? So that's how I would prioritize testing if you're on a budget just seeing what the current health status is versus necessarily seeing what your genetics are. However, we do provide a fairly detailed report as to how to interpret what your genetics mean whether you're mold-susceptible or multi-susceptible, which means you're susceptible to multiple different types of biotoxins, or you're more likely to have a low MSH.

[00:32:41] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So that's the information we're sharing with patients with that genetic test. 

[00:32:46] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I agree with you completely. You need to treat the current body versus the genetics. The genetics just tell you that you may need to continue to support in some capacity. I don't mean something crazy, but if you are susceptible, then you are just, are aware that, hey, if things pop off for me, if I get an exposure...

[00:33:03] Christa Biegler, RD: Because that's real life. There is the current, where it's maybe a little bit more significant, and I always say we d- we're in the mild to moderate, not typically the severe, which is can be somewhat unstable, maybe presenting to the ER very frequently. And then we're met with a, a healthy balance of skepticism and trust with clients.

[00:33:22] Christa Biegler, RD: I wanna talk about the skepticism a little bit as well. But with the genetic testing or I was gonna say with re-exposures, all of this, this is a set of skill. Like you said, you were talking about symptoms. I really love using symptoms as a huge tool of where we're going and the results we're getting.

[00:33:38] Christa Biegler, RD: Because if you become in tune or aware of those symptoms, that means that when you go and have an exposure which is going to be inevitable, then you can clean up after that exposure a little bit more readily, a little bit more easily. The first time is the hardest, and then after that, it's a skill that you've developed where it's oh, I got some exposure here, or I didn't respond as well to that.

[00:33:57] Christa Biegler, RD: And it's going to look like downstream, reacting negatively to food or all these things, et cetera. And so that's like the heartbreak for me is that we've got people restricting all these things and living not really in a the maybe a free or abundant life because of this unfortunate sort of mystery this thing that's been mysterious or somewhat inaccessible in the past.

[00:34:18] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Absolutely. And unfortunately a lot of the current system right now is designed to keep people sick and keep people afraid. We just wanna be this narrative violation in that. You shouldn't be afraid of this. There's solutions. Many people have gone through this path. They've gotten better.

[00:34:33] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: They've accurately identified the issue. They've addressed the issue. You can do this in an efficient and affordable way. Just turning all of that around is really our intention for patients. 

[00:34:43] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. That's awesome. Okay. So one, I think one more big thing, which is you mentioned that you were quite skeptical even after you got better, after even seeing those markers.

[00:34:54] Christa Biegler, RD: I think that potentially the skepticism kind of builds a wall on how quickly you could improve. And so how would you recommend shortcutting, as someone who's been there- Yeah ... and now you're, like, all in a tech company. Yeah. How would you recommend shortcutting that skepticism for someone who's evaluating whether this is an issue or not?

[00:35:13] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: my background's in engineering, so I love data. For me, I just needed a lot of data points to be convinced. And what that looked like was getting a home inspector getting the lab testing, trying the medications, ruling out many other potential illnesses and nutrient deficiencies, and blah, blah, blah.

[00:35:30] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Just going through that whole gamut of stuff, and collecting evidence, and it was just more and more evidence supporting, okay, mold exposure is driving the health issues I'm experiencing, and then I got better. At some point it became fairly black and white for me. So if you think like me, I would say get data, get the information even get obsessive with the right content.

[00:35:50] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: There's a lot of misinformation online, and just going through the whole process of understanding what was true versus false versus still needing to be validated, 'cause I also think there's a lot of interesting concepts that are in the early phases of forming a theory. We have them too at MoldCo.,

[00:36:04] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: and it does need more research and validation. But it's still interesting to think about like for example, there's a lot of chatter online around MCAS. Our take right now is that MCAS is actually not a major part of this illness. We think roughly 5% of CIRS patients have MCAS, but it is very popular in a lot of forums and podcasts and more.

[00:36:22] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: It- that can be a little challenging to wade through, but if you really wanna go down the rabbit hole there are just tons of podcasts and Reddit forums and Facebook groups and more. We align with the more CIRS/Shoemaker ideology, where we steer clear from antifungals, we steer clear from urinary mycotoxin testing we steer clear largely from natural binders just because we have a lot more confidence in this approach.

[00:36:43] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: It is the most evidence backed approach in the space today, and that doesn't mean it'll always be that. Like we are very interested and we're tracking multiple solutions in this field, and we always wanna adjust in light of new data too. 

[00:36:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I think there's always multiple ways to go about something, but we can approach, we can appreciate a lot how anything that helps people get more quick, more efficient results- Right

[00:37:06] Christa Biegler, RD: is always incredible. And part of it is you assess and you intervene, and then you assess and how far you are, and hopefully you're very far as well. That's the goal. 

[00:37:17] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah, and even beyond us, just getting more funding and attention in this space by clinicians and scientists, and then they can also run these more independent studies out- outside of us and validate like what is the true mechanism of action of these medications?

[00:37:33] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: How are these health issues actually presenting in the body? Because a lot of the biotoxin illness pathway it's more theoretical than proven. Like answering these really important scientific and clinical questions can also happen with more attention and funding in the space.

[00:37:45] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, and then that, in 20 years will maybe make it so that when you talk to your doctor about this, they might- Yeah. ... know what you're talking about, right? And that's the- Yeah ... that's the reasonable timeline based on the current research. 

[00:37:57] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah. Otherwise unfortunately I hear of a lot of referrals to psychiatric care or- just missed diagnoses or misdiagnoses for these-

[00:38:05] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, it's unfortunate. I know some, one question that clients have turned over the years is, do we have more mold now? Why does it feel like we have so much mold? And I think that like everything, our body is something we get to maintain, our homes are something we get to maintain, and we have different building materials than we once did that are great in some ways, but they're also more microbe loving, right?

[00:38:27] Christa Biegler, RD: Sheetrock. 

[00:38:28] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah. That's actually a common question I get is like, why is there so much emphasis on mold now? I think it's a few reasons. It's unclear which is the primary driver though. I wanna make that clear. One is that there's more education and awareness in this space, so there's just more attention being paid to it.

[00:38:42] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Two as a country we've optimized for energy efficiency in our buildings, and that had the unfortunate trade-off of tighter tolerances, so tighter spaces. We've also optimized for cost too much in the built environment, so that led to cheaper materials that are more prone to microbial growth.

[00:38:58] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So there's that, and then there's also potentially this climate change theory where temperature changes are driving more microbial growth. I'm a little bit more skeptical of that in the built environment 'cause you usually have HVAC systems, and there's also a, a question of the antifungicides in the paint driving, like, directed evolution for more aggressive mold species.

[00:39:16] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: ... Specifically, That 

[00:39:17] Christa Biegler, RD: one's new for me. I'm not familiar with 

[00:39:19] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: that one. That's interesting. Oh, man. There are so many different... I feel like it might be, like, death by a thousand cuts, but I feel like primarily just the edits we've had to the built environment and potentially increased flooding and temperature changes with climate change.

[00:39:31] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: But I feel like it's mostly the materials choices and the, the spaces allowed in these homes and commercial buildings. 

[00:39:37] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, that breathing of the space- Correct ... just in general, right? 'Cause when listeners listen to the other service podcasts, we'll talk about some things you mentioned loosely with the sewer gas and all those other things that people, we just...

[00:39:49] Christa Biegler, RD: Where were we gonna learn this? Without- 

[00:39:52] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah. It's not taught.

[00:39:53] Christa Biegler, RD: It's not part of... this is the education right now. This is the opportunity in general. What is your hope? I think that it's, timelines are subjective, and so you said something about maybe this started around 2023, really fully launched into the space in 2025.

[00:40:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Here we are in, right at the halfway point of 2026, so depending on who you're asking, that's incredible, amazing growth, and it's very quick. It may not feel that way, depending on if you're coming from this venture capital background. What's the next year or two look like for you? What are you excited about?

[00:40:25] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: I'll just point out the big, hairy goals I would love to see happen. One getting really proper insurance coverage in this space and having that be reliable and repeatable for patients, that'd be huge. Two, having a formal ICD-10 code for mold-related illness- ... that would be huge. We currently have a code for suspected exposure to toxic mold, but that doesn't necessarily mean the health impacts due to mold exposure, so that would be first of its kind coding.

[00:40:50] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And then also having and this is a really high up on my wish list, having environmental health screening questions at every single annual visit that'd be huge. And I would say lastly is really making the mold exposure connection to multiple chronic conditions. We've already started laying the foundation of that work with our biobank, so we're sequencing whole blood samples, and we're connecting that to patient history forms.

[00:41:11] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And what we're seeing is early evidence to support that mold exposure may be a major root cause driver in neurodegenerative issues and metabolic conditions. Open sourcing that information so that other researchers, and clinicians, and scientists, and even policymakers can see that to inform their decision-making 'cause huge if true if mold and biotoxin exposure is at the root cause of multiple chronic conditions here.

[00:41:33] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: That would just fundamentally shift how we think about healthcare and also how we allocate resources in this space and how we support patients. It'll have this tremendous ripple effect. I would love to see all those things happen in the next one to two years. 

[00:41:45] Christa Biegler, RD: That is an incredible hairy scary list.

[00:41:48] Christa Biegler, RD: I love it. It is so good. Sure. And it really is beyond what I would have even expected you to answer. And as you describe it, I'm like, "Oh man, we should all go get this panel so we can contribute our health data to this." I have lots of side feelings and thoughts about this. So a little technical question then.

[00:42:08] Christa Biegler, RD: If someone wanted to go do a starter panel, et cetera, I think it all comes through LabCorp, right? So if they don't have a LabCorp near them, they cannot really do the panel yet at the time of this recording. Is that correct or no? 

[00:42:18] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yes, but patients often travel to other states too- Yeah ... or especially if they're taking a trip somewhere, it's a great time to batch that.

[00:42:25] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And also what we've seen with the patients is that the wait time is usually five to 10 minutes if you don't schedule an appointment, so that's not so bad if you happen to be in the area. I also wanna clarify that patients that go through our lab panel experience, we don't use that data in that way.

[00:42:39] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: There's actually a completely separate part to the business- ... where we're building on the R&D side. We just need a different way of obtaining those lab samples and processing that information. It's really is this whole separate arm to the business versus, like leveraging our patient information for that.

[00:42:54] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: There's just a whole separate set of consents and processes that- 

... 

[00:42:57] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Go into making that formal and usable. 

[00:43:00] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, that makes sense. 

[00:43:01] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah. 

[00:43:01] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. We covered a lot really well. Rapid fire. Yeah. We covered kind of all of these buckets that you're trying to address. It's ... It was fun to hear really your perspective from this because so often I am interviewing other health providers, which is valuable but this was a really unique angle that was pretty cool.

[00:43:19] Christa Biegler, RD: so is there anything that you feel like we've missed that you want to touch on? Or is there any words of encouragement or wisdom that you wanna give to the audience before we talk about where people can find you online? 

[00:43:33] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: I'll do both. I got better, many others have gotten better. There's hope stay optimistic through that journey.

[00:43:39] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: And separately it's always good to be aware of the environmental signs beyond some of the health symptoms we discussed. So some of those core environmental signs would be known water damage, known, which includes pipe bursts, leaking, flooding et cetera. Visible mold is an obvious one.

[00:43:54] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Earthy, musty odors, like just smelling like some- something's off in the home, that's usually a strong sign. Warping, peeling paint having like visible stains, having consistently high indoor humidity above 60%. I would say we've covered almost 80% of the known environmental signs with just that checklist.

[00:44:13] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: In terms of the symptoms a lot of the ones I mentioned on the call are fairly common. Brain fog, cognitive issues, fatigue feeling like you have to get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, joint pain muscle aches, gastrointestinal issues which kind of feel and look like IBS symptoms on alternating constipation and diarrhea as well as hormonal changes.

[00:44:32] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Especially for our female patients, we see heavy periods, irregular periods, missed periods infertility issues, multiple miscarriages and more. If you're having a collection of these symptoms, not just one it's worth investigating further for mold exposure, especially if you're having those environmental signs too.

[00:44:49] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. It's good that you went over that list because I think that people wouldn't necessarily connect their heavy period or their miscarriage or what, like it's not the first place where your brain would typically go. But that's the consequence of extreme toxic burden and inflammation in the body.

[00:45:07] Christa Biegler, RD: Your body is like, "My priority is this, not making any other hormones, n- not balancing them, not ... I'm trying to clear this crap that I have," and it continues to reproduce its own stuff. It's like a very toxic thing. And yet when we don't stick our head in the ground and we have resources and we have...

[00:45:25] Christa Biegler, RD: There's many tools to clear this, and it is a skill, right? It's a skill we get to learn, and then we are able to then recognize it better in the future and get better a lot faster with exposures,

[00:45:36] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: absolutely. And also if you have any questions at all you can reach out to our team.

[00:45:41] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: We're very responsive. Feel free to send us an email at support@moldco.com. We also produce a lot of content online. All of our content is QC'd by our medical team. have a lot of QC is quality control. We have a lot of guidelines and processes to make sure what we share is evidence-based and the most recent findings in the field.

[00:46:00] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: We've produced a free guide. It's the MoldCo Home and Health Guide. We also have a free symptoms assessment tool on our website at moldco.com. So there's just a lot of free resources and ways to get help if you're just starting this journey or if you have questions. 

[00:46:15] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. It's awesome. Okay, people can find you at moldco.com.

[00:46:20] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Yeah. 

[00:46:21] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. And it's pretty simple to figure out what to do from there. So it's never my intention for something to feel like a giant advertisement, but it certainly did not. It was like I'm very impressed at what you've been able to accomplish and provide, and we're very aligned. And all I want is for people to get answers more efficiently, more effectively, and get on and get better with their lives, and not miss out on things because of this.

[00:46:44] Christa Biegler, RD: That is so common unfortunately. 

[00:46:46] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Thank you. Yeah it takes a village. We have close to 25 people full time. We work with so many different inspectors and remediators and other folks in the field, like air purification companies and more. It really does take a village to get these patients better and to get them the resources in this way.

[00:47:02] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: So I'm also really grateful for just our team and our partners. If you're listening, thank you all so much for your help. 

[00:47:08] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on today. 

[00:47:10] Ariana Thacker of MoldCo: Thank you.