Got Candida?
“Candida overgrowth” is a term that is on the tip of a lot of tongues these days, and for very good reason. It has been credited with being both a concomitant and the cause of many troubling conditions we are seeing today.
Candida albicans is a fungus, a form of yeast that has the uncanny ability to change form to protect itself. You’ll see why this is important to it’s stealthy survival soon. You will also see why this is a double edged sword for us humans. Dr. Amy Myers, an internationally acclaimed functional medicine physician has this to say about candida.
Candida has the unique ability to change shape in order to protect itself from harsh environments. It responds to a shift in temperature or acidity levels by transforming from a rounded yeast cell into an elongated hyphal cell. These elongated cells have the ability to permeate the gut lining, causing leaky gut.
Once in the bloodstream, Candida can invade other tissues. This means that Candida overgrowth can quickly transition from a gut problem to a full-body problem. Candida can colonize the skin, mouth, ears, thyroid, reproductive organs, or elsewhere. For this reason, symptoms of Candida overgrowth can be experienced in many different forms nearly anywhere in the body.
If you’ve experienced the wrath of candida overgrowth, you know the consequences of the out of balance gut terrain favoring candida. It’s reach can baffle even the most experienced health professionals with symptoms that span the gamut like: sensory integration disfunction resulting in sensory seeking and sensory defensiveness, extreme emotional lability with severe and unexplainable mood swings, unrelenting brain fog causing lack of focus, chronic and sometimes crippling fatigue, unexplainable skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis, ringworm, athlete’s foot and nail fungus, chronic digestive issues resulting in bloating, constipation, and diarrhea, food sensitivities, vaginal infections and itching, rectal itching, urinary tract infections, itchy ears, severe seasonal allergies and the ever famous sugar and carbohydrate cravings we all know and love! The kicker here is that although the overgrowth may be the catalyst to the above symptoms, it’s not the direct cause to many of the symptoms. It’s the damage being caused by the imbalanced immune system that is causing the symptoms more long term.
Candida overgrowth is associated with a number of chronic conditions like: Autism, SPD (sensory processing disorder), ADHD, ODD (oppositional defiance disorder), fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, hypothyroidism, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Colitis, Multiple Sclerosis, anxiety, depression, cancer and more.
You can see why candida has become a primary target for radical treatment protocols around the globe. It’s quite the scary monster living in the shadows isn’t it? I mean when my son was riddled with candida, he was expressing autistic symptoms, so yeah, scary stuff for a mom to deal with. For someone with a compromised immune system like cancer, candida is a frequent contender who takes advantage of the opportunity when given even a little room to stretch it’s legs. Ever take an antibiotic? Then you know how candida can rear it’s ugly head in such a short time, given the opportunity. But the question is, can your immune system keep it in check?
Seems quite simple, get rid of the candida and you resolve the above problems, right? Wrong. 😒 Stay with me.
A change of perspective
So here’s the catch. You knew this was coming, didn’t you? There is always a catch!
Just like a fever, which serves an essential purpose even though it’s mere existence can be troubling, candida actually has a very important role in the regulation of health management. 😳 <— Is that how you feel right now? I bet the health industry, even the holistic one, had you believing candida is the devil, like you want to eliminate it entirely because it is the root of all your problems, right?
Understanding the roll candida plays provides the necessary perspective for proper treatment of it’s overgrowth. This might surprise you, but you don’t want to go after candida with a machine gun approach for many reasons. I’ll get into that later on.
Candida overgrowth in and of itself is not the problem though, it’s a symptom of the problem which stems from an underlying condition perpetuating the overgrowth, but you will soon learn why this is something your body does as protection from a toxic world. Very much like the inflamed tissue surrounding a wound or a burn, candida is there with a function of human survival, and overgrowth can be triggered by an environmental situation. If we were to take away the inflammation surrounding damaged skin tissue, we’d be eliminating the body’s repair mechanism, likewise, if we were to eliminate the candida, we’d be eliminating part of the body’s protection mechanism. I want to make sure you don’t misunderstand the message here. I am not saying candida overgrowth is good, I am saying it has a purpose. The difference is imperative, because when we understand the underlying conditions that encourage it’s overgrowth, it’s clear that our aim to control and manage candida overgrowth is better positioned and more holistic in nature. When we work on the reason candida is overgrown to begin with, the recovery is also more organic and holistic in nature, therefore more universally effective. 😉
Right about now, you must be thinking, “Ok so just tell me what the real problem is and I will fix that so I can get on with my life…” That’s the tricky part.
First, you must understand a little about candida’s role in your body in order to travel upstream from the overgrowth and resolve the real problem. And like any other holistic approach to healing, this often constitutes many avenues and many coordinating efforts.
Time to dig in
So let’s get a little technical, shall we? I’ll keep it simple. One of the mechanisms of candida interestingly is adsorption. Just like a binder. 😳 More new info for you to process? I bet lightbulbs are going off right now, and maybe even some alarms. So let me repeat this, more specifically candida actually has the ability to sequester toxic matter from our blood stream. The good news is that it’s functioning optimally when we see that overgrowth creeping up, the bad news is that it most certainly comes with the consequences we call symptoms. We don’t love a fever, but we know that it’s doing it’s job of fighting the infection when we have one. There is a fine balance between letting it run it’s course (allowing it to do it’s job) and reducing the uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous side effects it can bring with it.
In the peer-reviewed study “Biosorption of Heavy Metals by Candida albicans” we can witness the impressive feat of heavy metal adsorption capability of Candida albicans.
Analyzing its potential to remove heavy metals, it can efficiently remove is as follows: Cr(VI) (76%), lead (57%), silver (51%), cadmium (46%), fairly arsenic(III) (40% with the modified biomass), cobalt (37%), mercury (36%), copper (31%), little bit zinc (22%), and fluoride (10%). We determine the optimal characteristics for chromium(VI) removal in living cells and death biomass. [1]
In case you don’t already know, Cr(VI) is Chromium 6, otherwise known as Hexavalent Chromium, which is the same chemical Erin Brochovich fought so hard to bring awareness to. It’s been estimated that more than 2/3rd of Americans are drinking water with higher levels than have been deemed safe of Chromium 6, and standard filtration alone doesn’t filter it out effectively. You have to do a little research into water filtration to find effective methods of filtration for Chromium 6. It goes without saying that if our drinking and bathing water is tainted with Cr(VI) it’s no wonder we are seeing skyrocketing candida in the general population! In fact, the study above goes on to specifically say, “The removal of metal increases in direct proportion to the increase of concentration of Cr(VI)” and that the growth of the C. albicans correlated directly to the concentrations of the heavy metals. Pretty wild, isn’t it?
There are two schools of thought on this phenomenon. One is that candida “feeds” on heavy metals, the other is that candida is a protective barrier living in a symbiotic relationship with our bodies in which it’s role should be greatly appreciated. Which would you rather believe? You might think these two thoughts are one in the same and I guess you could be right, but I am less likely to believe that we are feeding yeast with heavy metals, and more likely to align with the idea that yeast has a job and the overgrowth is directly related to an over burdened body. Our perspective has the potential to support the healing mentality or the destructive mentality and small nuances can be responsible for the path we choose.
Let’s think about the insidious heavy metal sources around us all day, every day. If we are part of the population suffering from gene mutations influencing the methylation cycle (our innate detox process) and we are holding onto toxins, doesn’t it now make sense why candida would grow out of balance? Surely, it’s only a small piece of the greater picture involved in chronic illness, but as we continue to discover the reasons candida could be overgrown, we are able to be more effective in our healing approaches which will ultimately influence the candida population.
But candida’s badass role doesn’t stop there. There’s more!
Infectious control
Colonization of Candida albicans actually protects us from infection, including the invasive form of…Candida albicans. Wait, what?! Did I lose you there? Remember I mentioned earlier that candida can change form? This is where that little detail comes into play. Sadly though, the same twist of fate is evident with this biochemistry, the double-edged sword. This is explained by the researchers in the study summary from “Commensal Candida albicans Positively Calibrates Systemic Th17 Immunological Responses” as follows:
Mucosal barriers are densely colonized by pathobiont microbes such as Candida albicans, capable of invasive disseminated infection. However, systemic infections occur infrequently in healthy individuals, suggesting that pathobiont commensalism may elicit host benefits. We show that intestinal colonization with C. albicans drives systemic expansion of fungal-specific Th17 CD4+ T cells and IL-17 responsiveness by circulating neutrophils, which synergistically protect against C. albicans invasive infection. Protection conferred by commensal C. albicans re- quires persistent fungal colonization and extends to other extracellular invasive pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus. However, commensal C. albicans does not protect against intracellular influenza virus infection and exacerbates allergic airway inflammation susceptibility, indicating that positively calibrating systemic Th17 responses is not uniformly beneficial. Thus, systemic Th17 inflammation driven by CD4+ T cells responsive to tonic stimulation by commensal C. albicans improves host defense against extracellular pathogens, but with potentially harmful immunological consequences. [2]
They go on to further articulate that “commensal C. albicans-conferred protection is not restricted only to C. albicans invasive infection, but also extends to other extracellular pathogens, such as S. aureus, where neutrophils play a dominant role in protection (Rigby and DeLeo, 2012).”
In our own experience many years ago, when Grayson was diagnosed with PDD-NOS and Sensory Processing Disorder, we discovered that he was battling nasty candida and clostridia infections. We were instructed to target the candida first with pharmaceuticals and then we chose to switch to natural antimicrobials. We learned the hard way about the fine balance of candida and other infections. The top layer of symptoms screamed candida loud and clear, he was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. As we began killing off the candida infection, his symptoms changed drastically and what turned out to be a raging clostridia infection growing completely out of proportion, due to the removal of the candida, came at us fast and furiously! His symptoms shifted from sensory in nature, with stimming and hand flapping, lining up cars and some strong emotions to pure anger with rage, OCD, lack of remorse and tics. It was clear that shifting the microbial balance was able to turn off autism and turn on PANDAS. Ultimately, that is exactly what it did. Through trial and error, I began to intimately understand the relationship between candida and other bacterial infections. I could pinpoint a symptom and it’s correlating infection with incredible accuracy, often confirmed by both testing and treatment.
My own research began to evolve from how we can kill the microbes to how we can support the immune system better. With that came the understanding that by using the machine gun to decimate the invader has serious consequences. For one, killing microbes in great numbers without thought for the balance leaves behind destruction in it’s wake. When we kill candida, all that it is holding onto and stored in it’s biofilm is spewed into the bloodstream: heavy metals, toxins, other infections, thereby stressing the detox organs and the body with toxins. This causes inflammatory chemicals and neurotransmitters to be released in the body, due to the mobilized toxins entering the blood stream in large quantities, and this can result in: elevated glutamate which damages the brain, elevated liver enzymes, issues with blood flow - which reduces nutrient distribution and waste elimination, imbalanced hormones, leaky gut and many other issues downstream of the recycled toxins. Candida is 10 times more toxic dead than alive, so we can see how the body becomes overburdened by mobilized toxins when we realize the toxins it sequesters! Anything the breaks open biofilm in the body, whether natural or prescription, is going to unleash this toxic lashing on the body. The organs of detoxification are strained and there is a great likelihood of perpetuating the very problem you are trying to resolve, because where do all those toxins go if the body can’t eliminate them? We know the body isn’t eliminating them effectively, because they’ve been sequestered to begin with, right? So vicious cycle here. In an attempt to clear out an infection, this process can overburden the body with the same toxins a second time, and a third and on and on, if you keep aiming at the infection as the problem. To make matters worse, when you threaten candida, it changes form, becoming more virulent and aggressive for the sake of survival. So now we have more toxins coursing through the body, a virulent strain of candida developing and an eventual increase in the very infection you are trying to eradicate, because it will now flourish with the new source of toxins running through the bloodstream! The result is leaky gut along with an array of other significant consequences related to further tipping the bacterial balance in the body. UPDATE 6/5/23 - I highly recommend this book which explains the science behind this phenomenon in more detail, the reason why we don’t want to kill off infections in the body.
The solution
First and foremost, transform the mindset that candida is the problem. Find peace with candida, it’s there for a reason and you don’t want to threaten or eliminate it. Instead, see the value of investigating the reason candida is growing without restraint by looking at possible toxins that are tipping the balance on the immune system. You wouldn’t go through the efforts of getting rid of mold in a home without fixing the leak that caused it first, right? We have to look for that leak first so we can fix the cause. It could be heavy metals, pesticides like glyphosate, mold toxicity, Lyme disease and it’s co-infections, chronic EMF exposure compounding issues, oxalate accumulation, and so on. The idea is to pull together the pieces by identifying triggers and then ultimately, the goal to finding homeostasis in the body is to flip the switch from illness to healing by reducing the burden on the body and eliminating stored toxins. This is a fragile process for those who are already tipped over into Mast Cell Activation, and will need to begin by gently opening up detox pathways in order to stop the toxic cycle that has already begun. Once the detox pathways are more effective, you can introduce more aggressive detoxification strategies with binder support. This is a process that is best managed by a knowledgeable practitioner so that testing can be used to corroborate with the progress and detox can be monitored closely, especially for those who are extra sensitive.
I have other blog entries to help understand the nuances of finding your path and if this all feels too overwhelming, head over to “join the group” to learn more about how I can help you make lifestyle changes that will encourage improved health. My book also has a ton of advice, so you can check that out too! The book, my website and my private coached community are intended to work together to give you the strength to move forward towards a healing lifestyle.
Resources:
https://www.intechopen.com/books/advances-in-bioremediation-and-phytoremediation/biosorption-of-heavy-metals-by-candida-albicans?fbclid=IwAR0mYgHb3I96bXDOIc0GMvpmu5OBEi8IYs0p0bxlUxokjGfOMEcT50xsg4Q
https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/pdfExtended/S1931-3128(19)30100-3