New Link Between Fungal Organisms And Severe COVID Discovered

[Judi Lynn]

24 October 2023
By PAUL GRIFFIN, THE CONVERSATION

Many tiny organisms including bacteria, fungi and viruses normally live on our bodies, and even inside us. These are called the microbiome. The large number of these organisms living in the gastrointestinal tract are collectively known as the gut microbiome.

Increasingly the gut microbiome is recognised as playing a large part in health and disease, particularly relating to human physiology, metabolism and immune function.

There are now more than 700 published papers looking at the interaction between COVID and the gut microbiome. Many of these studies demonstrate the possible contribution of gut bacteria to COVID infection and severity, as well as the effect COVID (and its treatment) potentially has on our gut bacteria.

Now, a new study has found severe COVID may be related to fungal bugs in our gut microbiome. This could be through a variety of changes to the immune system in response to specific fungal species.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-link-between-fungal-organisms-and-severe-covid-discovered

[niyad]

1. KNR and thank you for posting this fascinating information.

[Akakoji]

2. Sounds like any viral infection, as stated in the discussion/conclusion

Whether or not the dysbiosis will resolve on its own, or if an adjunct treatment during acute infection is recommended, is left unanswered. I've certainly treated thrush and other immunosuppression related OIs, but for the most part dietary changes seem to work as well as any therapeutics in most patients without concomitant stressors.

during CovidThe point is Published: 23 October 2023
Fungal microbiota sustains lasting immune activation of neutrophils and their progenitors in severe COVID-19

Takato Kusakabe, Woan-Yu Lin, Jin-Gyu Cheong, Gagandeep Singh, Arjun Ravishankar, Stephen T. Yeung, Marissa Mesko, Meghan Bialt DeCelie, Guilhermina Carriche, Zhen Zhao, Sophie Rand, Itai Doron, Gregory G. Putzel, Stefan Worgall, Melissa Cushing, Lars Westblade, Giorgio Inghirami, Christopher N. Parkhurst, Chun-Jun Guo, Michael Schotsaert, Adolfo García-Sastre, Steven Z. Josefowicz, Mirella Salvatore & Iliyan D. Iliev

Nature Immunology (2023)


Abstract
Gastrointestinal fungal dysbiosis is a hallmark of several diseases marked by systemic immune activation. Whether persistent pathobiont colonization during immune alterations and impaired gut barrier function has a durable impact on host immunity is unknown. We found that elevated levels of Candida albicans immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies marked patients with severe COVID-19 (sCOVID-19) who had intestinal Candida overgrowth, mycobiota dysbiosis and systemic neutrophilia. Analysis of hematopoietic stem cell progenitors in sCOVID-19 revealed transcriptional changes in antifungal immunity pathways and reprogramming of granulocyte myeloid progenitors (GMPs) for up to a year. Mice colonized with C. albicans patient isolates experienced increased lung neutrophilia and pulmonary NETosis during severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 infection, which were partially resolved with antifungal treatment or by interleukin-6 receptor blockade. sCOVID-19 patients treated with tocilizumab experienced sustained reductions in C. albicans IgG antibodies titers and GMP transcriptional changes. These findings suggest that gut fungal pathobionts may contribute to immune activation during inflammatory diseases, offering potential mycobiota-immune therapeutic strategies for sCOVID-19 with prolonged symptoms.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Thanks for the abstract and background. What kind of dietary changes?

You mention you've used dietary changes in your work (OI being oral infections I presume). Do oral infections (like thrush) act as indicators about the gut biome or can one have thrush and a healthy gut at the same time?

Would that be liters of probiotic yogourt? Reduction of sugar intake? If a person's diet is generally quite good, well balanced, full of nutrients and anti-oxidants with fibre, not over-heavy in carbs or protein or fat, are there dietary changes that help?

(Drawing on your more general experience with infectious diseases if not specifically respiratory. I'm generally curious and this may straying a bit from the topic.)