POST #4– FUNGI: WE NEED THEM, BUT NOT TOO LITTLE AND NOT TOO MUCH

FUNGI make up about 25% of the biomass of the earth!!! So, they are around!!  The Documentary “Fantastic Fungi” covers the magic world of fungi and is worth watching.  

Fungal diseases represent an important paradigm in immunology, as they can result either from a lack of recognition by the immune system or an overactivation of the inflammatory response.   Fungi are ubiquitous to the body as they are found in and on the body, but if the immune response to the fungi is too vigorous, it’s going to create a persistence of inflammatory activation.  On the other hand, if your response is “inadequate surveillance”, then they can expand in their population to the point that they cause problems.  It’s a delicate balance between immune vigilance against fungi VS immune tolerance of fungi. 

There’s an impact on the innate immune biology with a teeter totter between promotion of tolerance and immune vigilance against something that is fungus, candida, aspergillus, or other fungal populations.  The biology’s part of the task is to tolerate that they are there.  On the other hand, you don’t want so much tolerance that there’s an expansion of the population.  

It’s like tending to a garden: if you do it all the time, the work is minimal, but if you disregard it for a year, when you come back it’s a lot more work to get it back in a good place.  Evaluating what is going on is where an expert in immunology will be able to determine where you stand.  

In some people with candida, it’s not that they have a lot of candida, it’s that they are intolerant to it and the goal is to increase tolerance.  On the other hand, a big overblown population needs to be knocked down.  

Knowing what to do and when is important as these fungi tend to promote tolerance and knocking them down too much may cause worsening of symptoms.  Killing a fungal organism may kill the tolerance provided to the host by that organism, so it’s not about killing it completely.  

In a previous post, I wrote about biofilm being at the center of most bacterial, viral, as well as fungal infections.  These organisms are very efficient at producing a film around their colony to survive by living off the host and addressing the viability of these organisms can take time.

Determining if we are dealing with a fungal overgrowth or a fungal intolerance takes an expert analysis of your history as this is often a long-standing issue.  We often see these cases with people who have taken multiple rounds of antibiotics, long term use of antacids, mood support medications, birth control pills, or pain killers.  Perhaps it’s time to do a thorough evaluation of your overall bi-stable balance.    September is around the corner and always a great time for a reset!

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Marie-Josée Brown, CHCP, ROHP

www.ascendnl.com

mjbrown@ascendnl.com

+1 (709) 728-3001