YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM AND CANDIDA
Candida albicans is a yeast, which is found in the intestinal tract of human beings. Yeast cells are about the same size as our own cells. Unlike our cells, yeast cells have a capsule. Yeast display receptors, branch-like structures extending from the surface of the cells, much as our own cells do. In the intestinal tract, yeast share space with much smaller microorganisms called bacteria. Bacteria can adhere, or attach themselves to, the inside wall of the intestinal tract. The good bacteria which adhere protect us from the adherence of “bad bugs,” such as Salmonella and Shigella, which cause diarrhea. Yeast unfortunately also can adhere to the inner intestinal wall.
The usual bacteria present attached to the inner intestinal wall are benign and do not harm us. These bacteria don’t make harmful chemicals or provoke immune responses and inflammation. The use of antibiotics can clear out these more benign bacteria which makes room for yeast and other disease causing bacteria.
Although a significant amount of Candida is commonly regarded as normal, the intestinal yeast is capable of and frequently does cause major health problems by a number of mechanisms.
The body has a system of cells called the immune system for fighting foreign invaders. There are many foreign invaders which the body’s immune system can handle easily. There are others, such as malaria, with which the body’s immune system has much more difficulty. The more difficult foreign invaders have tricks to evade the body’s immune system. Candida also has many tricks to evade the body’s immune system.
When Candida infections are induced experimentally in animals, the animals’ immune system never clears Candida completely. Some always remains. There are a number of interesting studies on how Candida manages to stay. Here are two examples. Candida can change its outside, in effect making it a moving target. By the time the immune cells find it, Candida looks different. Candida can turn molecules designed to attach to foreign invaders around so that such molecules point in the wrong direction. Then these molecules do not help the immune cells attack Candida. The overall problem is that Candida evades the body’s immune system.
The result is that the immune system is constantly fighting Candida. These interactions can lead to major problems from multiple sclerosis to ulcerative colitis. The treatment of Candida ends these fights and these health problems.
Immune system attacks self: why and is yeast involved
Why might yeast cause chronic diseases ranging from psoriasis to ulcerative colitis to rheumatoid arthritis? These diseases are all marked by the body’s immune system attacking the body’s organs in what seems to be a prolonged war with no resolution. I have always considered the idea of the body’s immune system attacking the body’s own organs as a strange idea. The body’s immune system is designed to fight foreign invaders. Why should the body’s immune system instead attack the body’s own organs? In 40 years of research, the biomedical research community has been unable to come up with any answer.
What is the immune system attacking?
Maybe the concept is wrong. Maybe the primary target of the body’s immune system is not the body’s own organs. Maybe the primary target is really a foreign invader, the yeast Candida albicans. Maybe the body is a secondary target that gets caught in the crossfire as the body’s immune system attacks the yeast and ends up in a long war with much destruction.
Candida is a formidable foe
The key point here is that the yeast Candida is a long lasting formidable foe for the body’s immune system. From the perspective of diseases in which the immune system appears to be attacking the body’s own organs, Candida is such a formidable foe that it can throw the body’s immune system off. Candida can make the immune system attack the body’s organs even when the immune system has controls to prevent this from happening. As noted above, Candida is evasive and cannot be easily cleared.
Inflammation and autoimmune disorders (immune system attacks itself)
Both yeast cells and human cells put out receptors, branch like structures which extend from the surface of the cell. Human cells communicate with each other this way. These receptors can receive hormones, such as thyroid hormone, which then tells the cell to do certain things. In the case of thyroid hormone, this might be burn more energy and generate more heat. Some receptors are used to anchor cells to connective tissue. This particular receptor is called the laminin receptor. Some receptors are for the immune system. Some receptors tell what kind of cell the cell is. Some of the receptors are like fingerprints and are unique and tell the body that this cell is one of the body¹s own cells. Cells which are foreign do not have these cell-identity receptors and then the body knows that they are foreign. For example, when foreign tissue is transplanted into another body, the body recognizes the tissue as foreign; the right receptors are not there The immune system then attacks the foreign tissues. The immune system is supposed to recognize self and not attack self.
Yeast display human cellular receptors (markers)
Yeast cells for unknown reasons are able to display a number of human receptors, ranging from receptors for hormones and immune molecules to connective tissue.
To understand how Candida can cause diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, we need to know that Candida can display on its surface the human connective tissue receptor, called the laminin receptor (as well as other receptors). The normal function of the laminin receptor is to allow human cells to anchor themselves to the body’s membranes and to other cells. Candida uses this receptor in the same way, to anchor itself into the membranes of the human body, such as the inner intestinal lining. In the research world, the displaying of such receptors is known as molecular mimicry. Candida does this well and displays a number of human receptors. Candida also displays receptors which are found on human brain cells.
In other words, by displaying such receptors, they are able to make themselves look like our own cells, including cells that are in the brain. Candida is also able to make itself look like cells which are found in the connective tissue of the joints.
What does the immune system do with yeast cells which resemble our own cells?
During the development of the immune system cells are produced which are capable of attacking the body’s own organs. Normally these cells are inhibited. Why do they become turned on? There is no certain answer. However, these cells are there for a reason and one reason may be to fight foreign invaders which look like human cells. If we did not have such immune cells we could not fight such invaders.
Candida cells look like our own and they invade and with antibiotics, Candida keeps coming back, again and again. Candida acts like a vaccination. Candida keeps on presenting itself to the immune system. Research studies have shown that when the body’s own tissues are presented like a vaccination, the body’s immune system will be stimulated to fight and destroy those tissues. Candida can act as a continuous vaccination. Under such conditions, the immune cells which fight Candida are turned on to fight Candida but they are also turned on to fight any cells which look like Candida, which are our body’s own organs.
The body’s immune system is really fighting Candida. But the immune cells which fight Candida can also attack our body’s own organs, resulting in diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Treatment
This understanding leads to a safe effective treatment for multiple sclerosis and other diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. This treatment is simply to clear out the intestinal Candida. Then the cells which are fighting Candida, will stop fighting Candida. Then these same cells will stop destroying human organs such as the brain and joints. Once the primary target of the intestinal yeast is gone, these immune cells stop attacking human organs.
