Progress in the field of natural healing is often slow and help sometimes comes from places you would least expect: Biological agriculture.

Biological farmers are always looking for natural methods to keep pests in check and a most interesting way to do this is by means of a special fungus that eats other fungi. Those fungi are called "mycoparasites", they parasitise on other fungi. There is a mycoparasite of the Oomycete family in the kingdom of Chromista - Stramenopila. It is called Pythium oligandrum, and researchers in Eastern Europe recently discovered in medical trials on humans that it is highly effective against Dermatomycosis: Fungal infection of the skin - especially Athlete's foot. Clearly Pythium oligandrum has a healthy appetite not only for harmful plant fungi, but for disease-causing fungi in humans as well!

The medical doctor that coordinated the trials is MUDr. Karel Mencl, CSc., Laboratory of Medical Mycology, Dept. of Microbiology, Pardubice Hospital, Czech Republic.
Our translation of the results can be found here.

He got good results with nail fungus (Onychomycosis) as well (16% cured and 2/3 got very significant improvement), but most spectacular were the results with Athlete's foot (Tinea pedis). 83% of patients got fully and permanently cured of their infections and the remaining 17% of patients improved greatly. The trial was done on 58 patients. "Permanently rid" means no reoccurrence after a whole year. Jock itch and ringworm are caused by the same fungus as athlete's foot and the results are comparable.

Pythium oligandrum can also treat Vaginal Candidiasis with a sit bath. It also works well against jock itch, ringworm and Tinea interdigitalis (fungus between the fingers), when the area is kept wet with a spore solution overnight. Fungi killed by Pythium oligandrum are:

Trichophyton rubrum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes, Scopulariopsis brevicaulis, Microsporum gypseum, Microsporum canis, Trichosporon sp., Candida albicans, Candida parapsilosis, Alternaria alternata (Dematiaceae), Phoma sp. (Sphaeropsidales), Cladosporium cladosporioides.

How does the "vampire fungus" work?

This is part of a time-lapse sequence where a harmful fungus (Botrytis cinerea) gets killed by Pythium oligandrum. Pythium just sits there like a "land mine". The harmful fungus grows toward Pythium. This goes very quickly - fungi grow fast, that's one of the reasons it's nearly impossible to get rid of them.

Times are shown as minutes, seconds and tens of seconds. The fungi have been cultured in a Petri dish on a thin film of water agar. The hyphal tip of the harmful fungus contacts the hypha of Pythium after 1 min., 14 sec. Within minutes, we will witness a fascinating effect take place.

After touching the Pythium, the harmful fungus continues to grow for a while, but Pythium oligandrum has already sensed its prey and immediately starts producing a substance that dissolves the cell wall of the other fungus. This way, Pythium acts as a "booby trap" to fungi that come into contact with it.

This is right before before the "explosion" - Pythium oligandrum acts like a landmine against harmful fungi. From here on, the prey fungus is doomed. Its protoplasm flows out and there is nothing it can do to avert the ugly fate in store for it, a fate that will arrive in minutes.

The start of the destruction of the hapless fungus is now visible. It will not take long before there is nothing left but dead debris, and even that will be absorbed by the Pythium oligandrum. Many medical trials have been performed and there has not been a single case of allergic reaction.

After half an hour, Pythium oligandrum has produced many hyphal branches that grew into the spilled protoplasm ot the other fungus, using the spilled content as a nutrient source. This sets into motion an unstoppable avalanche-effect of ever growing Pythium and ever diminishing other fungi, until the only fungus left alive is Pythium oligandrum, a totally harmless fungus for humans - which subsequently dies of starvation because it can not survive in or on the human body without fungi to feed on. The body's normal microflora then re-colonizes the skin and natural equilibrium is restored.

We sell Pythium oligandrum spores online. This is the product invented by Dr. Dasa Vesely, used medically in Eastern Europe. This product is so safe that it is especially recommended for treatment of babies with fungal rashes or sores. Our sales page explains in detail how to use the spores to heal the various fungal problems.

Pythium oligandrum was discovered by accident. A female colleague in Phytopathologist Dr. Vesely's lab got some spores in her shoe and noticed that her athlete's foot was cured some days later. It took Dr. Vesely's team 30 years of research, medical trials, patent applications, official approval and development of production methods for the fungal spores to become commercially available. He has been interviewed by the BBC.