Please note that I have issued a correction about the content of this article. Candida and aspergillus are toxic molds and fungi, and really are the root causes of some illnesses. There are many beneficial molds and fungi in the human body that play important biological roles in helping to break down waste, and this article was intended to describe those microorganisms. However, there are also many toxic molds and fungi that appear to be at the root of some illnesses, and candida and aspergillus are among them.
Reading through the content (that used to be) below, I didn’t see how to correct the volume of errors that this difference in interpretation produced without entirely rewriting it. For now I am going to leave up the explanation of how fungi play a beneficial role in nature, and take the rest down. I have always felt that it is important to identify when I am wrong because that is the only way to correct a misconception and for understanding to evolve, and it is important to admit that this has happened because honesty is always the best policy.
We can take a lesson from nature. The Congo jungle is one of the deepest, most impenetrable, unexplored forests in the world. There are over 1000 species of trees (I don’t know about you but I can only name about 50 species of tree, this makes me feel like I need to brush up on my arborology…) The sheer quantity of vegetation in the Congo rainforest actually produces its own weather. Apparently the humidity released from the trees gives rise to spectacular thunderstorms. But the trees also shed leaves, which fall in such numbers that unchecked, they would soon choke the forest floor and rise to submerge the top level of the canopy itself.
To break down this massive accumulation of bio-waste, great fungal mats spread across the rainforest floor, quickly decomposing the dead vegetation. The most beautiful is a fascinating, fluorescent fungus which the locals call ‘chimpanzee fire’ (image at the top of this post). Perhaps it releases light as a means of dispersing the overabundance of energy that comes from digesting so much plant matter. Chimpanzee fire is one of a small number of bioluminscent fungi around the world, and was probably the inspiration for James Cameron’s vision of the night forests of Pandora in his movie Avatar (image below).
Understanding that the role of fungi in nature is to keep a forest healthy by breaking down dead vegetation, we can place good human fungi in perspective. Similar to good bacteria, the role of fungi in the human body is to help the lymphatic and circulatory systems break down and eliminate excessive waste. Without them, the buildup of waste would create a lethal backup of dead cells and tissue, quickly killing the host. (Good) Fungi are your friends, they keep you alive.
Fungal Biology
Bad (pathogenic) fungi can cause serious medical issues. The two main fungi that are recognized to be pathogenic to humans are white and black mould. White mould is the most common, we call it candida. Here’s what it looks like:
Candida can grow anywhere in the body but tends to localize in the digestive tract, skin and scalp.
Black mould is the more toxic of the two, we call it aspergillus. The full name is aspergillus flavus, and since in biology, moulds are labeled with the first letter of the first name and the first three letters of the second name, Aspergillus FLAvus is also called an afla-toxin.
If parasites abound in the environment, why are they problematic for some people and not in others? Are the problem cases of parasites becoming more common in modern times?
These are both good questions with the same root answer.
Working back from Candida to the metals/dead bacteria it breaks down, and from there to the parasite that poops out the bacteria, focus rightly moves to the parasite layer and the legitimate question of why parasites affect some people and not others (or at least some more-than others).
I suspect it has to do with speciation. Most people are happy to have heard of a fluke, and to be able to distinguish it from a tapeworm, a hookworm or a roundworm. But the fact is there are tens of thousands of species of fluke, tens of thousands of species of tapeworm, etc, and you won’t know which ones you have. This is never considered with parasites, they are wrongly taken at face value based on their name.
What seems the most likely root cause of illness when considering the adverse affect of a parasite on one host versus another is the random and difficult-to-quantify effect of the strain of bacteria the parasite excretes. Just like not all people have the same internal microbiome, neither do all parasites. One person might have tapeworm with species number 46,729 that excretes bacteria combo A-2376 (these are intended to be arbitrary numbers to illustrate a point) while another person might have tapeworm species number 36,264 excreting bacteria combo G-7423. Let’s say bacteria strain A-2376 is highly inflammatory while strain G-7423 causes no inflammation whatsoever. In this scenario, the person with tapeworm species 36,264 will have no symptoms, and will have the luxury of ignoring parasites, while the person with tapeworm species 46,729 will not be able to think about anything else but the question of why for their whole life they have been so sore, bloated, inflamed and so reactive to foods.
There isn’t a language of parasites so there isn’t a means of being be aware that we are failing to distinguish between different species.
But if we factor in up to 100,000 potential species of parasite within a single name like tapeworm, factor in up to 10,000 potential bacteria in each parasite, and multiply that by at least 7 main categories of parasite, and then apply this to each person’s own internal microbiome (that is thought to contain up to 1 million unique bacteriae), we have numbers that run away with themselves, and are impossible to calculate or predict.
It’s easiest to think of the reaction you’ll have to the parasites you’ve got as ‘luck of the draw’ since if there’s rhyme or reason to it, it’s not to be found in simple accounting.
The answer to the second question (e.g.are problem cases becoming more common in modern times) can now build on the first. With milk and oil products being the two main sources of parasite in the modern diet, and with a global food distribution system being increasingly a factor, we are all exposed to a greater variety of parasites than would have been historically possible, unless you were Marco Polo or some other dedicated traveler. Now we don’t need to travel, the food travels to us.
And when it travels it has these random, obscure species of parasite (egg) with their random, complex strains of bacteria. The only thing protecting you from picking up everything you’re exposed to on a daily basis is the fact that you are already hosting everything you have room for, in the same way a glass full of sand won’t fit any more sand.
So the argument could be made to keep the parasites you have and leave well enough alone, except that if randomly, the species of parasite you have and the strains of bacteria they’re excreting are, again randomly interacting negatively with your own microbiome (e.g. hurting you) then you’ve got a choice to make: is it better to keep what species you’ve got (e.g. the devil you know) or more worthwhile to get everything out, start over and hope that the next time around you randomly acquire species that are not so (randomly) detrimental to you.
There are layers of complexity to this, since it can’t be known with certainty which of the species you’re currently hosting are causing the symptoms you’re currently dealing with, only that certainly one of them is; it can’t be guaranteed they’ll all be eliminated by any treatment you try; and then it can’t be predicted which species you’ll reacquire, or their effect on you (e.g. whether they’ll be better than the last group, the same as or worse than what you had).
In general though eliminating a host of fully-grown organisms and starting fresh with newly-hatched parasites is going to reduce nutrient loss and lymphatic stress, which are the two main effects of having a parasite, and in this way the body’s fungal levels can be viewed as an indicator of overall progress.
I’ve never suggested any of this was simple, just that trying to understand is better than pretending it’s not happening.
Thanks for such a thorough answer. I knew there wasn’t a simple answer. I never considered the bacterial composition of the parasites…of course this makes sense however.