The Immune System and Candida

Researchers used to think that the immune system prevented candida from growing and spreading by constantly looking to see if candida cells are present and killing them once they are found. It was thought that the growth and spread of candida resulted from a breakdown of the immune system. In a broken-down immune system, effective anti-candida immune responses could not occur.

However, this theory of immune system control over candida growth has now been shown to be only partially correct. Researchers now know that strong immune responses against candida cells are hard to generate, and they are studying ways to strengthen the ability of the immune system to fight candida.

Part of the problem is that the immune system has the job of knowing the difference between normal cells and candida cells. To keep us healthy, the immune system must be able to ignore or “tolerate” normal cells and recognize and attack abnormal ones.

 
To the immune system, candida cells differ from normal cells in very small, subtle ways. Therefore, the immune system largely tolerates candida cells rather than attacking them.

Although tolerance is essential to keep the immune system from attacking normal cells, tolerance of candida cells is a problem. Therapeutic candida vaccines must not only provoke an immune response but stimulate the immune system strongly enough to overcome its usual tolerance of candida cells.

Another reason candida cells may not stimulate a strong immune response is that they have developed ways to evade the immune system. Scientists now understand some of the ways in which candida cells do this. For example, they may shed certain types of molecules that inhibit the ability of the body to attack candida cells. As a result, candidas become less "visible" to the immune system.

Researchers are now using these advances in knowledge in their efforts to design more effective candida vaccines. They have developed several strategies for stimulating immune responses against candidas, including the following.

Dendritic Cell (DC) therapy represents a new and promising immunotherapeutic approach for treatment of advance candida as well as for secondary prevention of candida. Patients' responses are far out of proportion to anything that any current therapy could do. For decades, candida researchers have been interested in immunologic treatment using vaccines against candida but with little progress. However, recent advances in recognition of the importance of 1) tumor associated antigens that can be used to vaccinate patients, and 2) the dendritic cell as a potent blood cell to present such antigens and stimulate the naive immune system together leads to successful implementation of Dendritic Cell therapy with reports of complete responses even in stage IV candida patients who have failed all other therapies.

Dendritic Cell (DC) Therapy or so-called Dendritic Cell vaccine is a newly emerging and potent form of immune therapy used to treat candida, AIDS and other serious conditions. In case of candida, Dendritic Cell therapy is an immune therapy which harnesses the body's own immune system to fight candida. The Dendritic Cell itself is an immune cell whose role is the recognition, processing and presentation of foreign antigens to the T-cells in the effector arm of the immune system

Although Dendritic Cells are potent cells, they are not usually present in adequate quantity to allow for a potent immune response.

Dendritic Cell Therapy thus involves the harvesting of blood cells (i.e. monocytes or macrophages) from a patient and processing them in the laboratory to produce Dendritic Cells which are then given back to a patient in order to allow massive Dendritic participation in optimally activating the immune system.

To also learn about the Candida and Dental connection contact Dr. Keith Barton for more information on how your dental work and anaerobic bacteria may have caused your candida in the beginning and needs to be addressed to assist in curing your candida.  Could your dental issues have caused your candida in the first place?