Yeast growth in the gut aggravates arthritis and allergies

It is a cardinal principle in functional medicine to examine the gut in any case of autoimmune or allergic disease. No wonder, considering that 60-80% of the immune system tissue in the body is the lymphoid tissue packed around the intestines. This principle is illustrated by an interesting study recently published in the journal Medical Mycology:

"We examined whether Candida albicans gut colonization aggravates immune diseases in mice."

The authors colonized the guts of the study animals and measured changes in contact hypersensitivity and immunoreactive arthritis. Their observations correspond to what we see in our patients:

"C. albicans gut colonization increased the incidence of allergic diarrhea, which was accompanied by gut hyperpermeability, as well as increased infiltration of inflammatory cells in the colon. Contact hypersensitivity was also exacerbated by C. albicans gut colonization, as demonstrated by increased swelling, myeloperoxidase activity, and proinflammatory cytokines in ear auricles. Furthermore, C. albicans gut colonization promoted limb joint inflammation in collagen-induced arthritis, in an animal model of rheumatoid arthritis."

These results add to the large body of evidence for the key importance of immune regulation by microbes in the gut and the far-reaching impact of disruptions of the intestinal microbial ecology. The authors' concluding comments apply to other gut pathogens as well:

"These findings suggest that C. albicans gut colonization in mice aggravates inflammation in allergic and autoimmune diseases, not only in the gut but also in the extra-gut tissues and underscores the necessity of investigating the pathogenic role of C. albicans gut colonization in immune diseases in humans."

The most reliable way to investigate the microbial environment in the gut (now being used for pioneering studies of the human microbiome as well as for examination in clinical practices like ours) is DNA analysis.