I stumbled upon this website the other day: http://www.candidamd.com/

The company, CandidaMD, aims to spread awareness of a bacterial overgrowth, called Candida.  As I watched the company video, I was very skeptical of the facts that this former U.S. Navy physician provided.  I decided to learn more about this propaganda.  I discovered that Candida is the same parasitic fungus responsible for yeast infections and that there is an indirect relationship between abundance of Candida  in one’s intestine and depression.  However, I am curious if it all comes down to stress.  Stress too is linked to depression, and stress weakens the immune system.  Therefore, perhaps Candida is another symptom of an overstressed, depressed individual.  I mean, is there such a thing as fungal depression?  Have you heard of this ‘depressing’ fungal?  What are your thoughts on an infection causing a mood disorder?  Or perhaps this is an explicit example of a why biology and psychology need to have different words for mental illnesses. 

(I have put a request into Maine Express for the “The role of Candida albicans in human illness” (1981) published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry.  Here is the abstract: Discusses the role of Candida albicans, a yeast infection usually thought to be confined to skin and mucous membranes, as an agent of mental disturbances. Certain manifestations of the disease include mental depression, anxiety, migraine, hyperactivity, increased susceptibility to ingested chemicals, and interference with hormone functions. Brief cases are presented of patients initially diagnosed as having anemia, anorexia nervosa, multiple sclerosis, and other disorders who made dramatic recoveries after being treated for Candida albicans. The categories of disease in which the relationship to yeast is well established include infants and children with chronic irritability and hyperactivity, often labeled “learning disabled”; older teenage or adult women with progressively severe illness resulting from repeated pregnancies; schizophrenics; and disorders of the autoimmune system. Treatment with nystatin is discussed.)