Fungi Out Of Balance
Also found in the baseline biome were, after Candida, the most common disease causing fungi: Aspergillus, Fusarium and Cryptococcus. That so many potentially harmful fungi were found to be common, Ghannoum believes, could mean that under normal conditions other fungi and microbes may keep these pathologic strains in check.
Supporting this idea that disrupting the body’s fungal equilibrium can bring about disease was a paper Ghannoum published a few years later looking at the fungi present in the mouths of HIV-infected patients. They found that Pichia – a yeast used in agriculture to prevent the growth of other fungi on various crops – inhibits the growth of Candida and other pathologic fungal species.
“By growing Pichia in the lab we found that it secretes a compound that can treat fungal infections in animals,” Ghannoum explains. In mice with compromised immune systems, which served as an animal model of HIV, those exposed to Pichiadeveloped far less severe infections when inoculated with Candida.
