Oil pulling with olive oil against oral candidiasis
Toxicologist discovers effective antifungal medication & home treatment
Note: Newcomers to oil pulling can read detailed background to this important health and healing practice under Oil pulling for (dental) health (incl. scientific studies into its effects on teeth, gums and caries bacteria) as well as under Oil Pulling Therapy.
The information on olive oil pulling's localised antifungal effect featured on this page has been translated/summarized from Dr. med. Dr. med. habil. Max Daunderer's German-language book Autobiografie (2011), p. 1121-22.
Some of Dr Daunderer's patients reported feeling "like a new person" after swishing with olive oil. To investigate the claim that this positive effect was due to the shedding of toxins, Dr. Daunderer examined both the patients' mouth and the olive oil after it had been used.
While he did not discover any toxins in the discarded oil[1], he did stumble upon another important observation.
Oral tests (mouth swabs) done on those who reported feeling "like a million" after oil pulling showed them to carry much yeast, particularly Candida albicans[2] in their mouths BEFORE the practice. AFTER pulling with olive oil, the fungus was no longer detectable in their mouth and/or under their denture. Dentures no longer created a burning sensation and the feeling of being allergic to them instantly vanished.
Dr Daunderer repeated this Candida screening a number of times, each time collecting cells from the patient's oral surfaces and examining them under a microscope or in the laboratory. The antifungal effect exerted by pulling with olive oil was found to be identical to that of a tablet of Amphotericin B (an orodispersible antifungal medication) dissolved on the tongue.
Dr Daunderer therefore recommends olive oil pulling to people with burning mouth syndrome (reddened tongue, sore mouth), bleeding at the corners of the mouth, and dentures that create a burning sensation.
Regarding the mode of action of swishing with olive oil, Dr Daunderer writes that its antifungal effect is mediated by the oleic acids of which olive oil is one of the richest sources (70-75 %).[3]
The oleic acids' irritating effect elicits some pain if applied in the ear. Cats with their frequent fungal ear infections (otomycosis) will suffer slight pain during olive oil application but will show equally amazing healing results.
Due to its ability to promote healing, Dr Daunderer counts olive oil among the most important home remedies.
Similarly, olive oil is one of the greatly favoured healing tools in the armamentarium of outstanding naturopathic healer Father Thomas Haeberle (see On using olive oil for oil pulling) and may overall be the best oil one can use for the practice.
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Footnotes
1 We do not know which kind of toxins he was actually looking for. We do know however that industrial toxins have been found in oil AFTER it had been used for oil pulling, see Oil Pulling Therapy (scroll to "Some laboratory results however - a world-first").
2 Dr Daunderer writes that this fungus is particularly dangerous for people poisoned with mercury amalgam since its presence in the intestines allows the less harmful inorganic mercury to be converted into highly toxic organic mercury, which additionally is an extremely dangerous brain toxin.
3 Another oil rich in oleic acids is High-Oleic sunflower oil (75–93 % oleic acid) but even ordinary sunflower oil can be high in oleic acid (14–65 %).