Irritable Bowel Syndrome as a Stuck Program Mode of the Candida albicans Biochemical Computer

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) affects 10-15% of the global population and remains a functional diagnosis defined by symptom criteria in the absence of identifiable structural pathology. The Rome criteria classify IBS by what it is not. This paper proposes what it is: a stuck program mode in which the commensal fungal symbiont Candida albicans has locked host gut management into a single operating state. The organism manages gut motility through CB1 receptors, barrier integrity through prostaglandin E2 and immune modulation, visceral pain through TRPV1, microbiome composition through antifungal and antibacterial secretions, and intestinal serotonin through tryptophan diversion. IBS subtypes (IBS-D, IBS-C, IBS-M) represent different frozen modes of this same management system. The framework resolves the persistence of a condition with no structural cause, explains the 2:1 female predominance through documented organism sensitivity to estrogen and luteinizing hormone, accounts for post-infectious IBS as organism reorganization following bacterial disruption, and generates testable predictions linking IBS subtype to organism morphological state and colonization density distribution. https://www.jimcraddock.com/