(image from this article about a new way of fighting fungal infections)When I get sick I usually ask myself if I think it's a bacteria or a virus making me ill. Most of the time it really doesn't matter. I'll end up feeling rotten for a while and then I'll get better. If I needed a doctor it's more important because I know antibiotics won't help with a viral infection.
However, I almost never ask myself if I'm sick because a fungus. That's because people don't get that many different kinds of fungal diseases. The ones they do get happen most often because of some kind of compromise of the immune system.
However, I almost never ask myself if I'm sick because a fungus. That's because people don't get that many different kinds of fungal diseases. The ones they do get happen most often because of some kind of compromise of the immune system.
There's a scientist who thinks he has an explanation for this. Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D. says that it's the high body temperatures of mammals that keep fungus from growing. Other kinds of organisms like frogs, lizards, and plants, all get more fungal diseases than mammals do. He even hypothesizes that the dinosaur extinction had something to do with fungus.
Links
Read more about Casadevall's idea here
See what else his lab's working on here
This is a scientific article about how opportunistic fungal infections have increased over the last two decades. It describes several different species that don't ussually make you sick, but can if your immune system isn't working very well.
Word of the Day
Opportunistic: This refers to an organism that doesn't normally make you sick but will if it has the opportunity. This is used a lot for the kinds of illnesses that cancer patients might get during chemotherapy or AIDS patients might get. Just because it's opportunistic doesn't mean it won't kill you. Lots of people die of these kinds of infections.
2 comments:
The only fungus I get routinely is athlete's foot and I hate it. No matter how well I keep my feet clean and dry, it always comes back.
I have that problem too.
I wonder if heated insoles of some kind would make a difference... if I could think of an easy way to try that I would. Otherwise I'll just keep using the cream stuff and then forgetting to use it and it will keep coming back. Heat on my feet this time of year even sounds nice.
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