Candida
What is Candida?
Candida is a yeast organism, part of a group of similar creatures which
includes funguses and moulds. In many people it is present in the bowel
as a ‘commensal’
which means that it lives in harmony with many other ‘bugs’
in the bowel and causes no harm.
Under certain circumstances it can change to an aggressive form which
sets up infection, penetrating the cells in the bowel wall where it ‘roots’
and becomes difficult to dislodge. This can cause damage to the bowel
lining and this interferes with its’ normal filtering function,
allowing inappropriately large or toxic molecules to enter the bloodstream
and cause illness. Many experts feel that, as it is impossible to confirm
the overgrowth of Candida by direct vision or standard testing, that
the syndrome should be called ‘Fungal-type dysbiosis’ as
other organisms could theoretically be the cause of the problem.
Factors which suggest Candida include a history of vaginal thrush, steroid
use or the use of antibiotics which kill off the ‘competition’
allowing the yeast organisms to take over the territory.
