This infection can become really bad.
Normally, this opportunistic fungus Candida albicans is a harmless member of the microbial community that occupies the human gut. However, when the immune system is not able to keep it at bay, it can cause oral thrush and, more severely, it has shown to be responsible for approximately 400,000 life-threatening blood infections each year.
When the immune system is compromised however — such as during chemotherapy, chronic and prolonged stress — the fungus switches to a new and deadly mode of growth. The round cells start to produce long filaments (called hyphae) which burrow into the underlying tissue layers. This allows the fungus to invade and form infectious colonies.
I have observed several times that the successful resolution of C albicans for many patients was carried out by the dose-dependent administration of a number of botanicals. Research has shown that a group of compounds known as sesquiterpene lactones, show strong antibacterial and antifungal activity against Staphylococcus (involved with myriad infections, internal and external), Candida albicans and pathogenic strains of E. coli (often involved with food poisoning and diarrhea). In an issue of Planta Medica, myrrh was studied for its anesthetic, antibacterial and antifungal properties. The researchers reported that after extracting and purifying eight sesquiterpenes from Commiphora molmol, they found that a “mixture of furanodiene-6-one and methoxyfuranoguaia-9ene-8-one showed antibacterial and antifungal activity against standard pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans.