Some thoughts on Lufenuron and Candida

The problem with in vitro studies and Lufenuron is that there is no immune system in the test tube. Lufenuron does something similar to what your body does when it produces chitinase in response to fungal infection. Your body breaks down the outer membrane with chitinase so that the rest of the immune system arsenal can continue the attack on the softer interior.

Lufenuron, rather than breaking down the outer membrane, prevents the fungi from using chitin in the production of it's outer membrane when it reproduces. The immune system can then break down the weakened yeast membrane using proteases, thus opening the door for white blood cells to finish the job. This makes Lufenuron very different from other rx antifungals.

Therefore, you are correct that Lufenuron doesn't kill candida directly, and you wouldn't expect it be effective in vitro.

However, the en vivo animal studies are impressive, and the fact that zoo keepers use it routinely for treating fungal infections in great apes is a fairly convincing fact.

Further, Lufenuron worked very well for me. It was excruciating due to the die-off it produced, but it was very effective.

Also, you bring up a good point that many people on this and other message boards don't have much success with other rx antifungals either.

I think that there are at least two broad types of Candida Sufferers. First, those with actual fungal infections or overgrowths significant enough to produce the range of symptoms we are familiar with. Secondly, I think there is a group that may not have abnormal levels of yeast. Rather, I think that they have an abnormal immune response to the normal levels of yeast. Something similar to Crohn's, or psoriasis. This is based on my observation of your and other's struggles over the last year.

I don't think it's possible to eliminate yeast from the body for the simple reason that it is ubiquitous in the environment, and able to withstand ph 1 for short periods of time. Gastric acid can't be relied upon to keep it out of our systems.

I think that people in the second category might benefit from approaching their candida as something like an auto-immune disease, or more correctly, an immune modulated disease and look toward balancing the immune response, perhaps looking at Low Dose Naltrexone or other immune modulators such as plant sterols, and making sure the endocrine system is functioning properly. Transfer factors from a sibling or mother might work as well.

Looking at it this way, any HPI would need to be from a mother or sibling in order to contain the correctly programmed immune components for your system.

Just some thoughts,

T.