Functional Medicine Testing & Candida
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Question:
Dr. Grisanti, I have a patient who is convinced she is suffering with Invasive Candidiasis. Do you recommend any objective tests to document the existence of an invasive candida infection?
My Reply:
I personally order a blood test that uses immunological techniques to identify IgG, IgA and IgM antibodies to Candida.
Remember candida is considered to be an opportunistic organism. While it is often harmless in small numbers in the gut, candida can quickly exploit the protective mucosal barrier and invade circulation leading to an antigen-antibody reaction. Unless a doctor uses an objective means of qualifying the existence of invasive candida, the best he/she can hope for is a “good guess”. Of course that is not in the best interest of your patients.
Objective testing for candida not only helps in confirming your diagnosis for candidiasis, but it offers doctors the opportunity to establish a means of measuring the success (or failure) of a specific treatment for candida.
BioHealth Diagnostic Labs offers a saliva tests for D-Arabinitol, a marker for invasive Candida (#238 at http://www.biodia.com/labassess_alltests.html). I find compliance is much greater with the salivary kit versus the serum test (which they also offer). They include a D-Arabinitol test in their expanded blood chemistry (#218) as well.
Comment by Robert Valente — June 17, 2007 @ 11:26 pm