Library · Microorganism
Candida albicans
Make it clearer
Candida albicans is a fungus, and it is not a rare visitor: out of more than two hundred Candida species, this is the one that infects people most often worldwide.
The key point is that Candida already lives with you. It is there as a commensal, meaning it coexists without doing harm, on your skin, on your mucous membranes and in your digestive tract. The trouble starts when the balance among the microbes living in you breaks down, or when immunity, the body's defense, fails: the fungus then multiplies, invades tissue, and causes the disease called candidiasis. It is a long-standing tenant that only gets out of hand when nobody is watching the door.
This fungus grows in two forms at once: as a yeast, in separate rounded cells, and as elongated cells that look like hyphae, which are filaments. That is how oral candidiasis and vulvovaginal candidiasis show up.
In brief
Candida albicans is the species, out of more than two hundred in the genus Candida, that infects people most often worldwide.
It lives as a commensal on the skin, on mucous membranes and in the digestive tract; if the microbial balance breaks or immunity fails, it overgrows, invades tissue and causes disease.
It is a long-standing tenant that only gets out of hand when nobody is watching the door.
It grows partly as a yeast and partly as elongated hypha-like cells; this is how oral or vulvovaginal candidiasis appears.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingCandidiasis, StatPearlsPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
Updated