Your thymus gland is located under your breastbone, centrally, and close to your thyroid gland. It reaches its maximum size during early childhood and plays a large role in immune function, particularly with the developing child. The thymus is responsible for the production of T-lymphocytes, as well as the production of various hormones that are particularly important in the developing child in the years ahead. This process may be to some extent so since there is some sort of interaction involving the thymus gland along with the thyroid gland, two hormone generating glands within quite proximity to one another. Important research in 1986 discovered that the thyroid plays a significant role in modulating the activity of the thymus gland. (J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 62:474–478 1986)
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Unlike other important hormone producing glands in your body, with age, the thymus gland is the only gland which is actually replaced by fat and connective tissue, so why would there be a direct link between its atrophy (shrinking) with age and a yeast infection, when the vast majority of adults with normally small thymus glands have in fact no yeast infection?
In my clinical experience, the adrenal glands are the most important glands to boost before you even start to look at other glands such as the thymus when it comes to those who have a chronic yeast infection. Whilst the thymus is an important gland due to its link with the production of white blood cells, notably T-lymphocytes, it is a gland more relevant to the infant’s immune system rather than an adult’s immune system that has been affected with a yeast infection. Although I have experimented with thymus gland extracts with yeast infected patients over the years (and in some cases did certainly notice a good level of improvement), I simply haven’t found the same consistent level of amazing recovery in those suffering from a yeast infection when taking thymus gland extracts compared to those taking adrenal gland extracts, particularly when the patient took a porcine extract as opposed to bovine.
Thymus glandular extracts are generally sourced from calves. Bovine thymus extracts can be found in capsules and tablets as a dietary supplement. The best porcine adrenal nutritional supplements are those that also contain hypothalamus, pituitary and gonad in addition to cortex of the adrenal gland.
It makes more sense to me to begin with an adrenal gland extract for several reasons. For example, a top quality adrenal glandular supplement is composed of several glands including the adrenal cortex, hypothalamus, pituitary and gonad, rather than just the thymus gland. It incorporates the most important glands involved in the HPA axis, the hypo-pituitary-adrenal axis, which is the main system set up by the body to counter any stressful event, and a chronic yeast infection certainly is a stressful event.
Thymus gland extracts work primarily by inducing a higher output of white blood cells (lymphocytes), and have no effect on the body’s stress regulation mechanisms, and there is a lot more to overcoming a yeast infection than just boosting white blood cells. This to me is typical of a medical approach to candida treatment, let’s boost a person’s immune system but forget about the fact that they may have been suffering from the stress of having a yeast related health complaint, sometimes lasting on/off for years.
HPA treatment makes more sense; you are supporting an entire system, and not just certain specific cells.
By balancing the body’s underlying stress-axis, you are doing the person the world of good, but even more so if you help them understand the importance of improving their diet and lifestyle which will keep their HPA axis in fine form for many years to come.
