Your Go-To Guide For Treating Candida Overgrowth with Functional Medicine

If you pay attention to health trends, you’ve probably heard the term “candida overgrowth” along with related terms like “candida diets” and “candida cleanses”. Sometimes, though, it seems like “candida” has become a catchall diagnosis for a wide variety of health problems. Feeling bad? Must be candida!

As a functional medicine practitioner, I’ve found that overuse of this term tends to dilute the perception of what this problem is, which can lead many people to be skeptical if candida can actually cause any health problems at all. So, let’s cut through the candida confusion and get the facts.

What is candida overgrowth?

Candida overgrowth is referring to the Candida albicans fungus, which is the most common yeast in the human gastrointestinal tract. Ideally, it occurs only in small amounts and is one part of a healthy microbiome.

However, sometimes the conditions are perfect for Candida albicans to grow out of control — often when there is a decrease in beneficial bacteria, like after a round of antibiotics or as a result of a poor diet. This allows overgrowths of opportunistic bacteria, parasites, and yeasts like candida, causing dysbiosis, or an unhealthy microbiome. 

What triggers candida overgrowth? 

In addition to diet and antibiotic use, candida overgrowth can be caused by stress, chronic illness, medications, or a combination of any of these. It’s important to note though that candida overgrowth is often just one part of a larger gut problem. Once dysbiosis happens, it can lead to further gut dysfunction.

Who is susceptible to Candida overgrowth?

Research has found that people with the following problems are more likely to get candida infections and/or be exacerbated by intestinal candidiasis or Candida overgrowth:

• Autoimmune conditions (1)
• Chronic antibiotic use (2)
• Diabetes or metabolic syndrome (3)
• Weakened immune systems (4)
• High levels of estrogen (oral contraceptives or estrogen replacements) (5)

What are the symptoms of Candida overgrowth?

How do you know if you have candida overgrowth specifically, or dysbiosis in general? Acute infestations of candida, such as recurring vaginal yeast infections (vaginal candidiasis) often treated with topical creams like nystatin or clotrimazole or oral thrush (oral candidiasis), are well documented, but chronic, low-grade candida overgrowths are not as easily detected. However, they do exist and have been shown to be related to an increased permeability of the gut lining or leaky gut syndrome. In fact, when candida becomes invasive, it releases candidalysin, a peptide that reduces the tight junctions that keep your gut lining intact. (6)

Because the microbiome plays a role in virtually every aspect of your health, there are many far-reaching, seemingly unrelated symptoms that could be due at least in part to a chronic candida overgrowth. These can include:

• Acne
• Acid reflux
• Anxiety
• Autoimmune conditions
• Bloating
• Brain fog
• Constipation
• Depression
• Diarrhea
• Eczema
• Gas
• Topical fungal infections of skin or nails
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Low immune system
• Panic attacks
• Thyroid symptoms
• Weight loss resistance

How do you test for candida overgrowths?

Low-grade overgrowths can be quite subtle, but can be detected with the proper diagnostic testing. I run either a two- or three-day stool collection that analyzes the DNA of the specific pathogens that are in your microbiome and often go undetected on standard labs. Interestingly, instead of finding Candida albicans associated with invasive candidiasis, I often find abnormal amounts of other types of candida, such as C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis, or different fungus species on lab results.

What to do if you think you have candida overgrowth

1. Ask your doctor about a comprehensive stool test

What does candida in stool look like? I’m asked this a lot by patients in my telehealth functional medicine clinic and I’ve found that stool heavy in candida overgrowth may contain a foam or mucus, usually yellow, white, or light brown. Even if it is not visually obvious however, it can still be an effective detector of an underlying candida problem. 

A stool sample is the best way to detect the presence of candida. A multiple-day collection provides a more complete look at the microbiome and can uncover fungal, bacterial, or parasitic overgrowth, as well as beneficial bacteria levels. Retesting a few months into care allows for any modification that may be needed.

2. Ask about a test for leaky gut syndrome

In order to detect the possibility of leaky gut syndrome that can often coincide with candida overgrowth, a blood test will assess if anything harmful from the gut is passing into the bloodstream.

3. Rule out SIBO

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO, is common with candida overgrowth, further complicating treatment. By focusing on addressing underlying gut problems will help improve your overall gut health and make overcoming candida overgrowth easier.

READ MORE: A Guide To SIBO and Healing Your Dysbiotic Gut

4. Avoid sugar

Candida eats what you eat, and it especially loves sugar! Avoiding junk foods and excess amounts of fruit, juice, and starchy foods like potatoes is essential to get candida overgrowth under control.

5. Hold off on fermented foods

Fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi are wonderful sources of probiotics, but can also feed candida overgrowth. Certain probiotic supplements that contain prebiotics can also feed overgrowths. These are all healthful foods, but I generally suggest waiting until after the die-off phase of candida removal before adding these back in to recolonize the microbiome. This can take anywhere from weeks to months, depending on the severity of the case.

LISTEN: Dr. Steven Gundry: The New Microbiome Science (Bacterial Diversity, Pre vs. Pro vs. Postbiotics, Fermented Foods, Fecal Transplants, Saturated Fats, & More)

6. Take targeted natural medicines

In conventional medicine, antifungal drugs and antifungal medications like echinocandin, fluconazole, and amphotericin b are the standard treatment options for candida overgrowth. However, they come with their own set of side effects and the long-term effectiveness varies from person-to-person, especially if you are not addressing the underlying dysfunction. 

Caprylic acid, (7) oregano oil, (8) garlic, (9) and black tea (10) were all shown in the literature to be effective treatments for candida overgrowths. The beneficial yeast S. boulardii was also shown (11) to be effective against candida overgrowth, decreasing both the inflammation from the overgrowth and the spreading of candida in the gut.

7. Try personalized functional medicine care

Even if you choose natural treatments over conventional approaches, what works for one person may not work for you! Today, lab testing can better inform us which natural medicines would be better for your individual candida overgrowth or gut infection. Even “beneficial” supplements like probiotics may not be as effective as they could be depending on your specific microbiome and strain of probiotics. In my telehealth functional medicine clinic, we specialize in addressing candida overgrowths by running full diagnostic labs in order to customize natural protocols based on your specific health case.

As one of the first functional medicine telehealth clinics in the world, we provide webcam health consultations for people around the globe. 

Photo: Unsplash.com

Sources

• Zielinski, C., Mele, F., Aschenbrenner, D. et al. Pathogen-induced human T_H17 cells produce IFN-γ or IL-10 and are regulated by IL-1β. Nature 484, 514–518 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10957
• Woods JW, Manning IH, Patterson CN. MONILIAL INFECTIONS COMPLICATING THE THERAPEUTIC USE OF ANTIBIOTICS. JAMA. 1951;145(4):207–211. doi:10.1001/jama.1951.02920220015003
• Mohammed, L., Jha, G., Malasevskaia, I., Goud, H. K., & Hassan, A. (2021). The Interplay Between Sugar and Yeast Infections: Do Diabetics Have a Greater Predisposition to Develop Oral and Vulvovaginal Candidiasis?. Cureus, 13(2), e13407. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.13407
• Giri, S., & Kindo, A. J. (2012). A review of Candida species causing blood stream infection. Indian journal of medical microbiology, 30(3), 270–278. https://doi.org/10.4103/0255-0857.99484
• Kumwenda, P., Cottier, F., Hendry, A. C., Kneafsey, D., Keevan, B., Gallagher, H., Tsai, H. J., & Hall, R. A. (2022). Estrogen promotes innate immune evasion of Candida albicans through inactivation of the alternative complement system. Cell reports, 38(1), 110183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2021.110183
• Panpetch, W., Kullapanich, C., Dang, C. P., Visitchanakun, P., Saisorn, W., Wongphoom, J., Wannigama, D. L., Thim-Uam, A., Patarakul, K., Somboonna, N., Tumwasorn, S., & Leelahavanichkul, A. (2021). Candida Administration Worsens Uremia-Induced Gut Leakage in Bilateral Nephrectomy Mice, an Impact of Gut Fungi and Organismal Molecules in Uremia. mSystems, 6(1), e01187-20. https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.01187-20
• Murzyn, A., Krasowska, A., Stefanowicz, P., Dziadkowiec, D., & Łukaszewicz, M. (2010). Capric acid secreted by S. boulardii inhibits C. albicans filamentous growth, adhesion and biofilm formation. PloS one, 5(8), e12050. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012050
• Hacioglu, M., Oyardi, O., & Kirinti, A. (2021). Oregano essential oil inhibits Candida spp. biofilms. Zeitschrift fur Naturforschung. C, Journal of biosciences, 76(11-12), 443–450. https://doi.org/10.1515/znc-2021-0002
• Khounganian, R. M., Alwakeel, A., Albadah, A., Nakshabandi, A., Alharbi, S., & Almslam, A. S. (2023). The Antifungal Efficacy of Pure Garlic, Onion, and Lemon Extracts Against Candida albicans. Cureus, 15(5), e38637. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.38637
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