Candida albicans is a type of yeast that naturally occurs on the skin, and some orifices of your body. The amount of Candida yeasts present is regulated by beneficial bacteria that live alongside it. When your microbiome gets out of whack through diet, the use of medications, or a health condition then the good bacteria keeping Candida in check can die off. This allows the Candida to grow beyond their usual numbers and crowd out and prevents the beneficial bacteria from returning in the numbers needed to rebalance your microbiome. A Candida cleanse diet can reduce the amount of Candida and allow beneficial bacteria to return in their normal numbers and help you to feel better overall.
In this excerpt from the book Real Cause, Real Cure by Jacob Teitelbaum, MD and Bill Gottlieb CHC discuss the causes of Candida overgrowth, and the relatively simple diet changes that are needed to return Candida to a normal level.
Real Causes
•Nutritional Deficiencies. Excess sugar in the diet feeds the candida fungus, encouraging overgrowth.
•Prescription Medications. Antibiotics kill the good bacteria that help keep the candida fungus in check.
•Digestive Difficulties. Leaky gut syndrome—a weakened intestinal wall—leads to food allergies that can be caused by candida overgrowth.
Fungi typically grow on other creatures. And that includes the yeast Candida albicans, which lives happily and unobtrusively in your gut and mouth. But candida can multiply, overgrowing its normal limits and infesting your gut and sinuses. In your gut, it crowds out “friendly” bacteria that keep you healthy. And wherever it overgrows, it pumps out toxins, sparks inflammation, triggers food sensitivities, weakens the immune system, and generally causes ill health.
Candida overgrowth can occur for many reasons, including nutritional deficiencies, a sugar loaded diet, insufficient sleep, antibiotics (which kill off friendly bacteria in the gut, allowing yeast to overgrow), steroid medication, diabetes, and digestive problems.
Should You Stop Eating Yeast?
Many books on yeast overgrowth (such as the classic, The Yeast Connection, by the late William Crook, MD, a wonderful physician) advise readers to avoid all yeast in the diet, based on the theory that an allergic reaction to yeast is the cause of the problem. However, the yeast found in most foods (except beer and cheese) is not closely related to candida, the yeast that’s usually responsible for the overgrowth. In my experience with patients, many who try to eat a yeast-free diet end up eating a nutritionally inadequate diet that doesn’t help them overcome the problem.
Yes, a few people with yeast overgrowth do have a food allergy to yeast, but in my practice they account for less than 10 percent of those with the problem. These people may benefit from a strict yeast-free diet. For most people, a sugar-free diet is enough and much easier.
Standard medicine acknowledges only visible candida infections of the skin, nails, hair, or pelvic area (as well as serious blood infections that can kill you). That’s because there’s no medical test that can diagnose candida overgrowth of the bowel or sinuses by distinguishing it from the normal presence of candida in the body. As a result, most doctors say yeast overgrowth in the gut or sinuses simply doesn’t exist. Tell that to the fulminating fungus—or the millions of Americans who suffer.
You should suspect candida overgrowth—and use the Real Cure Regimen for it—if you have one or more of the following health problems…
•Chronic sinusitis or nasal congestion (which is usually caused by yeast)
•Food allergies (a result of leaky gut syndrome, in which candida overgrowth affects the lining of the intestinal tract, allowing large, undigested food proteins into the bloodstream, where the immune system attacks them)
•Chronic fatigue syndrome/fibromyalgia (If you have either of these health problems, you can assume you also have candida overgrowth.)
•Sugar addiction (Sugar is yeast’s favorite food, and cravings for sugar and other refined carbohydrates are often a sign of candida overgrowth.)
•Irritable bowel syndrome (often caused or complicated by candida overgrowth)
•Adrenal exhaustion (For a full list of symptoms, see Adrenal Exhaustion)
•Night sweats (Many infections can cause night sweats, including C. albicans.)
•Recurrent, painful canker sores (inside the mouth, lasting for about 10 days) or inflammation of the corners of your mouth (called angular cheilitis)
•A history of recurrent or long-term antibiotic use (especially tetracycline for acne) When you treat the yeast, these problems usually improve and even vanish.
Real Cure Regimen
This regimen is very effective with my patients, usually eliminating symptoms in six to 10 weeks, although you need to continue the treatment for three to five months. (The yeast organisms are entrenched, so they don’t go away overnight.)
•Avoid sugar. Yeast eat sugar 24/7. If you feed them, they live and multiply. If you don’t, they die off more easily. That means taking sugar off their menu and yours. (Fortunately, carbohydrates other than sugar aren’t an issue, so flour and wheat are on the menu.) And that’s sugar in all its forms—including fruit juices (a piece or two of fruit a day is okay), corn syrup, jellies, pastry, candy, and soft drinks (there are nine teaspoons of sugar in every 12 ounces!), as well as other sugars such as brown sugar, honey, agave, coconut sugar, and evaporated cane juice.
Use healthful, natural stevia as a sugar substitute. (Despite the misinformation supported by the makers of chemical sweeteners, stevia, an herb, is safe and natural.) The brand of stevia is important, however; some have a bitter aftertaste. Two brands I favor: Now Better Stevia and Stevia Select (which has an awesome line of flavored stevias).
•Take a probiotic supplement. These supplements contain the friendly and health-giving bacteria that typically inhabit your gut, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus. Those good-guy bacteria combat the fungi, killing them off. I also suggest you take them whenever you’re taking antibiotics (which kill off friendly bacteria) and continue taking them for at least one month (possibly as long as five) after you’re finished with your prescription.
All probiotic supplements are not created equal, however. Many don’t contain the number of bacteria advertised on the label, or the bacteria in the supplement are dead, or they die in the acid environment of the stomach—all of which means the probiotic isn’t doing you much good! In my practice, I use the form of acidophilus called Pearls Elite, from Nature’s Way. Take two capsules, once a day, for five months. Follow the rest of this Real Cure Regimen. After five months, your yeast and yeast-caused symptoms should be under control. Then switch to one capsule a day for prevention.
•Eat acidophilus-rich yogurt. Another way to ingest friendly gut bacteria is to eat them. Eat a daily cup of unsweetened yogurt with a live culture that is rich in acidophilus. (Some of the sugar-free Greek yogurts are amazingly delicious. I just add some stevia and fresh fruit.)
Take “Yeast Die-Off” into Account
I recommend using the sugar-free diet, the daily cup of acidophilus-rich yogurt, the probiotic supplement, and the natural antifungal supplement for one month before starting to take a prescription antifungal medication. That’s because using the medication can cause a massive die-off of yeast, and if you’re sensitive to the yeast “body parts,” your symptoms may actually worsen. Starting with the natural remedies helps circumvent that die-off and the reaction to it by gradually beginning the process of killing the yeast before you take the medication.
Do You Have Candida? It’s Easy to Find Out!
There’s no lab test that I find reliable for candida overgrowth. But the simple questionnaire below can give you a pretty good idea as to whether or not you have it. As I noted earlier however, if you have chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic sinusitis, or unexplained spastic colon (irritable bowel syndrome), it’s reasonable to simply assume you have candida overgrowth—and then to get it addressed.
Yeast Questionnaire
Answer yes or no to each of the questions below. Your total score shows you the probability that yeast overgrowth is a significant factor in your case. To calculate your total score, simply add the point values shown in parenthesis for each of the questions you answer “yes” to.
POINTS
______ Have you received therapy for acne with tetracycline, erythromycin, or any other antibiotic for one month or longer? (50)
______ Have you taken antibiotics for any type of infection for more than two consecutive months, or shorter courses over three times in a 12-month period? (50)
______ Do you have CFS or fibromyalgia? (50)
______ Do you have sinusitis and/or spastic colon (irritable bowel syndrome)? (50)
______ Have you ever taken an antibiotic (even for a single course)? (5)
______ Have you ever had prostatitis or vaginitis? (25)
______ Have you ever been pregnant? (5)
______ Have you taken birth control pills? (15)
______ Have you taken corticosteroids such as Prednisone, Cortef, or Medrol? (15)
______ Have you ever had a fungal infection—such as jock itch, athlete’s foot, or a nail or skin infection—that was difficult to address? (20)
______ Do you crave sugar or breads? (20)
______ Do you frequently get painful sores in your mouth (not on your lips)? (10)
______ Total
If your total was 70 or higher, consider implementing the Real Cure regimen in this chapter to rebalance candida.
•Take nystatin or an antifungal herbal supplement. Nystatin is an anti-fungal medication typically used to address candida, but only in the gut. For those of you whose insurance covers medications, it is a reasonable, low-cost alternative to herbal supplements. But if your doctor won’t prescribe nystatin for the three to six months it takes to work, or if you prefer natural treatment, some herbals can be very helpful. But there’s a caveat.
While many natural antifungals are helpful, when they’re used in a dosage high enough to kill the yeast, they can irritate the stomach. To solve this problem, I’ve found that a buffered caprylic acid called Caprylex (by Douglas Labs) is very helpful and easy on the stomach. Each tablet provides 400 mg of a buffered calcium-magnesium caprylate complex, equivalent to 300 milligrams of caprylic acid. Plus, Caprylex is specially formulated to provide timed, controlled release of caprylic acid throughout the small and large intestine. Take two tablets daily on an empty stomach, at least 30 minutes before a meal. Take it for at least three months. It can be taken at the same time as the probiotic.
Another problem with natural treatments for candida overgrowth: they stay in the intestines, so they can’t kill the candida in the sinuses and elsewhere in the body. To do that, I recommend two drugs: Lufenuron and Diflucan. Let’s talk about Lufenuron first, which you can combine with natural treatments.
You can order Lufenuron online from Canada, at the website Shop4MyHealth.com. (Otherwise, it’s sold only as a treatment for fleas in pets, but it’s perfectly safe for humans.) The site sells 800-milligram capsules. The standard, one-day treatment is nine grams, or about 12 capsules (which sell for about $30). I recommend taking the nine grams, repeating the nine grams two weeks later, and then taking it on the first day of each month. (Best to start on the first, take it on the 14th or 15th, and then start the once-per-month on the next first.) You can take it for five months, which should rebalance candida levels in your body. Or continue taking it once-a-month if symptoms recur.
For optimal absorption, it’s important to take Lufenuron with a full meal that contains fats. The fat can be any kind, such as cheese, bacon, yogurt, nuts, olive oil, butter, margarine, avocado, salmon, mackerel, or peanut butter. Personally, I take it with a swig of olive oil.
But the first one or two times you take it, don’t take the full nine grams. Instead, take two capsules per day for six days—which keeps the dead yeast from causing an intensification of your symptoms. (The dosing schedule at Shop4MyHealth.com is different than mine but reasonable, if you want to do it.) Both Caprylex and Lufenuron can be very helpful—either individually or together. But for more severe cases, talk to your doctor about adding the medication fluconazole (Diflucan), at a dosage of 200 milligrams a day, for six to eight weeks. Conventional doctors aren’t familiar with treating internal candida, and generally will not prescribe this drug—so it’s likely you’ll need a holistic doctor to write this prescription for you. Get the generic version—and, if it’s not covered by insurance, use the free GoodRx phone app, which I also list in Resources. This wonderful, free app can cut costs by over 90 percent for most medications that aren’t covered by insurance. You can take Diflucan with the other remedies discussed in this chapter.
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