Candida

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The common thrush yeast Candida albicans, shown here at 200x magnification.

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Candida, according to medical texts, is a genus of yeast which can grow in the intestine, and is, by and large, totally harmless. Candida is only potentially harmful when the immune system of its host is weakened, such as during sickness or immuno-deficiency, causing thrush, yeast infections (of both kinds of genitalia), and, rarely, other forms of Candidiasis. Being a fungus, thrush blooms can easily be dealt with via fungicides, although the recently identified species Candida auris has attracted concern due to its innate resistance to multiple antifungal agents, the difficulty in distinguishing it from other forms of Candida, and its tendency to cause outbreaks in hospitals and other health care settings as a result of its ability to spread via contaminated surfaces and greater risk of invading the bloodstream (much like MRSA). Antibiotics tend to exacerbate yeast infections, because they kill the bacteria (and indeed, antibiotics by nature only work on bacteria) that normally compete with the yeasts for living space in the human body.

However, a Google search shows that the "Alternative Medical Community" thinks something entirely different about the little yeasts. To these quacks, Candida causes a range of vague, non-specific, and commonplace "symptoms" to a "disease" also called "candida" (not to be confused with aforementioned actual candidasis/thrush). "Treatment", as with most woo, is generally in the form of Doctor Zappa's Magical Elixir some specific and expensive herbal product that you can only get in "pure, natural quality" from one specific vendor.

Woo

Like most woo, the more generic the symptoms, the more "proof" you have of a cure. Got a simple headache? Must be Candida, and our pill taken within minutes of the headache will stop it (as effective as sitting around in pain for half an hour!). Tired when you wake up? Candida, and our drug will surely make you feel better. Candida, per the woo-meisters, causes "common gastrointestinal problems", rashes, watery eyes, allergy-like symptoms, and (conveniently for a catch-all illness) both sleepiness and sleeplessness, as well as headaches, migraines, mild confusion, and even the best of woo, the coup de grace, "weight gain".

One site goes so far as to include as Candida symptoms such everyday occurrences as: craving for sweets, hyper- and hypo-activity, acne, non-clinical depression, pre-menstrual tension, low sex drive, and sensitivity to fragrance. By that description, everyone on the planet likely has it. The medical explanation is that Candida "can burrow holes in the intestinal tract, enter the blood stream [sic] and then make its way into any organ of the body. To make matters worse it emits over 70 different toxins into the body. Some people may even become allergic to the yeast itself." Scary burrowing hole-making yeast. Why is the medical world not curing this? One might point out that there are several parasites that burrow into the intestine. The dysentery amoeba Entamoeba histolytica occasionally does just that; it burrows into the bloodstream from the gut, going to the liver, and forming a large abscess there as it eats the surrounding tissue. Funny we don't see anything similar in thrush sufferers.

"Cure"

If you don't happen to have a doctor to give you a $5 anti-fungal cream, and you don't particularly like yogurt, you can get "cured" by any number of products on the market, providing that you eliminate those nasty Western "antibiotic" thingies. Of course, the standard "advice" begins with things any Ob/Gyn will tell a woman who is treating a yeast infection.

• Cleanses — Everyone knows that to cure yourself of any aliment, you must detoxify the body. Well, everyone but doctors and science.
• Diet — the Candida Diet restricts sugar, starch, fats, and calories. The diet's designers also make sure to say the diet will cure you of the "extra weight" caused by Candida. Withheld is the fact their diet is just a standard low-carb, low-fat diet.
• Intestinal flora and fauna — The body needs bacteria to fight excess yeast. And for the right price, we'll ship out extra-pure probiotics that are oh so much better than plain yogurt. Which, by the way, along with the detoxing, must be taken daily.

Of course, the Mayo Clinic says it's all bunk, and if you have a yeast infection, see a doctor.

Cancer

These are three individual Helacyton gartleri, stained so their nuclei are distinctly blue. The left nucleus is apparently undergoing mitosis.

Candida albicans in its many-celled form.

This is a culture of Candida albicans in its yeast-like form. Notice it is not the same as the known cancer cells to the left.

Perhaps the most disgusting distortion of the thrush yeasts' behavior is the brainchild of "Dr." Tullio Simoncini, "Cancer is a Fungus". RationalWiki is not shitting you here; there is a man who earnestly believes that all cancer in all its forms is not mutated body cells with defective oncogenes, but rather a Candida albicans infection that can be treated with baking soda. Yes, baking soda, wrapped up in the chemical name sodium bicarbonate. This is obviously not the case. For a comparison, shown to the left are pictures of the HeLa cell (Helacyton gartleri), which have a well-known history, their origin traced to a woman with cervical cancer. H. gartleri is amoeboid in shape and is a well-known, well-studied "creature". C. albicans (shown to the right), on the other hand, is a fungus with a chitinous cell wall like all fungi, that even sometimes grows out filamentous hyphae (right, above). Even the yeast-like form (right, below) is nothing like the H. gartleri known to be cancer cells. Hopefully, Simoncini's invention is simply wishful thinking; it would be nice if any cancer could be treated with a common household product, but reality doesn't care about what we want. It could range from wishful thinking to willful ignorance to downright malice. We don't know.

See also

• Fungi, Candida's home kingdom
• Jilly Juice — one of the more awful alleged cleanses for Candida
• Superfoods, including Candida's relative and fellow yeast Saccharomyces
• Tullio Simoncini

External links

• Dubious "Yeast Allergies," Quackwatch
• Respectful Insolence: A fungus among us in oncology?,Fresh from HuffPo: Antiobiotics cause cancer?
• The American Parasite, one of those frustratingly impossible-to-pause paranoid infomercial videos that claims sugar, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives feed our candida and cause all of our problems. (And then tries to sell you their probiotic "cure".)