Is your dandruff fungal?

Dandruff can be caused by

1. Dry skin - Lack of moisture

2. Oily skin - Excess sebum

3. Fungi - Malassezia species can trigger an inflammatory reaction on your skin

4. Disease - Immune compromise eg autoimmune disease, seborrheic dermatitis, eczema and psoriasis, often resulting in Malassezia

Commonly the cause of dandruff and seborrheic dermatitis on the oily area of the head, face, and neck is a Malassezia-associated skin disorder. Worldwide this occurs in up to 50% of healthy people and 75–90% of immuno-compromised people.

Malassezia is a group of yeasts - single-celled fungal organisms that cause mostly superficial diseases on humans and other mammals. Tineas, and dermatophytes are different than Malassezia yeasts.

In generally, there's much less fungal diversity than bacterial diversity on human skin, with Malassezia being the dominant fungal organism found on most areas of our skin.

But when balance, or homeostasis, between the gut microbiome and the immune system is disrupted, the outcome can be over-colonisation or infection by this yeast.

Testing your gut microbiome and digestive markers can help restore balance on your skin, which directly refelcts what's going on inside you (they're made of the same material), can resolve dandruff at a root-cause level.

This resolution might involve

• Building up your good microbiome to crowd out the bad or opportunistic ones

• Resolving detoxification problems

• Eradicating infections or overgrowths of good, opportunistic or nasty pathogens

But you'd also need to consider why such an imbalance has occurred? Perhaps diet eg too many refined carbs and insufficient fibre, stress or a lack of movement are involved?