Martin LaurenceMay 82 minMalassezia diseases and saturated fatsMalassezia have lost a gene* required to completely burn unsaturated fats—but they can burn saturated fats without issue. This means they...
Martin LaurenceMay 62 minMalassezia are picky eatersMalassezia are very picky eaters. They can’t grow if given only short fatty acids, probably because they can’t elongate them to build the...
Martin LaurenceMay 52 minMalassezia diseases and body fatMalassezia are lipid dependent fungi which require human fat to grow in our bodies. This is quite unusual for fungi: all other medically ...
Martin LaurenceMay 12 minParkinson's and lipidsMany lipid metabolism alleles are risk factors of Parkinson’s disease (Xicoy 2019). Individuals who inherit non-functional GBA variants f...
Martin LaurenceApr 302 minParkinson's and seborrheic dermatitisSeborrheic dermatitis is a type of skin inflammation caused by overgrowth of Malassezia (Borda 2015). It has long been known to be associ...
Martin LaurenceApr 282 minParkinson's and HIV/AIDSTo keep commensal microbes in check and fight off infections, our immune system relies heavily on helper T cells. In the Parkinson’s vide...
Martin LaurenceOct 15, 20192 minExternal validation: Aykut et al 2019In 2012, the discovery that PSP94 was a fungicidal protein firmly pointed to a fungal cause for prostate cancer (Stott-Miller 2013, Sutcl...
Martin LaurenceJun 17, 20195 minMAP causes Crohn's disease, but...Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is an important trigger for Crohn’s disease. However, most Crohn’s patients don’t h...
Martin LaurenceMar 8, 20193 minThe end of autoimmunityIt's hard to overstate the importance of Limon and colleagues’ article published this week in Cell Host & Microbe. Not only did they disc...
Martin LaurenceMar 7, 20192 minExternal validation: Limon et al 2019An article published this week in Cell Host & Microbe has provided the first strong external validation that Malassezia cause Crohn's dis...
Martin LaurenceDec 13, 20183 minWhy are antifungal drugs effective for prostate cancer?Many studies report that antifungal drugs can be effective in treating advanced prostate cancer (Trachtenberg et al 1984; Mahler et al 19...
Martin LaurenceDec 12, 20184 minDo prostate cancer and back pain have a common cause?Chronic inflammation of the prostate Chronic inflammation of the prostate is very common, affecting between 15% and 40% of adult men—depe...
Martin LaurenceDec 11, 20183 minPSP94, fungi and prostate cancerThe PSP94 Project started at the beginning of 2012, when it was discovered that a human protein called PSP94 is a potent fungicide (Edstr...
Martin LaurenceDec 10, 20184 minBack pain in men vs. women (AS-type)This post is a detailed explanation of the animated back pain video. Back pain (AS-type) Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a common type of ...
Martin LaurenceDec 6, 20183 minCrohn's + vedolizumab = back pain (AS-type)HLA-B27 and CARD9 gene variants increase the risk of spondyloarthropathies, and point to a chronic fungal infection as the main cause of ...
Martin LaurenceDec 5, 20183 minHLA-B27 + CARD9 + ASCA = fungi cause back pain (AS-type)Genetics of spondyloarthropathies Immune system genes play an extremely important role in spondyloarthropathies. Epidemiologists knew thi...
Martin LaurenceDec 4, 20182 minChronic back pain (AS-type)A severe form of chronic inflammatory back pain is called ankylosing spondylitis (AS), where damage to joints separating vertebrae can be...
Martin LaurenceNov 30, 20183 minAntifungals in psoriasis and atopic dermatitisCandida in the gut are associated with psoriasis and atopic dermatitis The presence of Candida in the gut is associated with both psorias...
Martin LaurenceNov 29, 20183 minCrohn's + vedolizumab = psoriasisT cells originating in the gut can cause psoriasis T cells in psoriatic skin often originate in the gut. We know this because they expres...
Martin LaurenceNov 28, 20185 minPsoriasis and CandidaPsoriasis and Candida: the problem In 1925, Fleisher and Wachowiak discovered that psoriasis patients had high rates of Candida in their ...
