Candida overgrowth and how to get rid of it

If you have candida overgrowth then you probably know how uncomfortable and debilitating this can be. This webpage gives you very down to earth, detailed information about candida overgrowth, explains a) how and why candidiasis happens, b) common treatment pitfalls and c) how to get rid of it.

• Candida Introduction
• Candida Causes - Milieu
• Candida Causes - Friendly Fire
• Candida Causes - Emotions
• Candida Causes - Diet
• Candida Causes - Pathogens
• Testing
• Candida Consequences - nutrients
• Candida Consequences - health
• Candida Remedy: diet include
• Candida Remedy: diet eliminate
• Candida Remedy: immune modulation
• Candida Remedy: killing 1
• Candida Remedy: killing 2
• Candida Remedy: warning
• Conclusion

Candida Introduction

Very few females will not have heard of candida overgrowth (a.k.a. thrush, candidiasis or dysbiosis) which basically means opportunistic yeast or fungal overgrowth. Overgrowth, like in your garden, means that one species gains ground at the expense of another. So it is, yet again a matter of a balance having gone astray.

It was Dr. Elie Metchnikoff - Director of the Pasteur Institute, Nobel Prize recipient for his work on the link between the immune system and intestinal flora in 1908 - who coined the phrase dysbiosis and I think his terminology reflects the problem best. As you know, there should be a symbiotic balance of health promoting and opportunistic bacteria and fungi throughout the entire digestive tract (on skin epithelium too as it so happens).

Consequently an imbalance can happen throughout the entire digestive tract which, in almost all instances leads to fungal overgrowth. Anyone, especially females, with symptoms such as wind, bloating, disturbed bowel function, rectal itching, non-bacterial cystitis, recurring vaginal thrush (females only obviously) and unexplained fatigue would be suspect to have an abnormal bowel ecology (i.e. have dysbiosis). Let’s talk through core issues:

Candida Causes - Milieu

You cannot grow rhododendrons in Market Harborough’s own soil, so Nancy Lancaster had cartloads of acid soil brought to Kelmarsh Hall and planted a fine hedge of pink and white rhododendrons that still grace this historic house today. A long enough change in gut pH (acidity/alkalinity balance) allows flora to flourish that likes that particular pH. Next, this flora contributes to and thus perpetuates the environment it likes. In whichever way you kill the harmful bacteria or fungi, you also must improve the gut's internal environment via diet, lifestyle and a probiotics support regime. Failure to improve the milieu in a sustained way puts opportunistic species in a position to thrive and your health beneficial species in a position of struggle.

Candida Causes - 'Friendly' Fire

Prolonged use of oral, broad spectrum antibiotics may kill an offending bacterium, but these also decimate the health-beneficial bacteria in the bowel ecology, thus shifting the symbiotic balance. Coming back to gardening, weeds for some reason always grow faster than plants. A prolonged prescription of say Tetracycline or Erythromycine for acne neatly paves the way for dysbiosis later on. It is a wise mother who gives her child a substantial course of effective probiotics afterwards (or even during) and a wiser one still who pairs up her probiotic regime with Aloeride®. The contraceptive pill and HRT (hormone replacement therapy) alter levels of female sex hormones and this may be one of the main reasons why 60% of dysbiosis (candidiasis) sufferers are women.

Candida Causes - Emotions

From Psycho-Neuro-Immunology we know that depression causes the immune system to function less effectively, and a less effective immune system in turn opens the door to dysbiosis, other infections and more.
 
Also stress and anxiety (in your face or more commonly prolonged in background) depresses your immune system. It triggers the flight or flight mechanism so your adrenal glands increase their corticosteroid output. Now, to put this in perspective, in solid organ transplantation corticosteroids are used for immunosuppression because of their profound effect on the concentration of peripheral white blood cells (lymphocyte, monocyte, basophil counts decrease, while neutrophil counts increase; T-cells lose their ability to proliferate and react to specific antigens). No mistake, stress and anxiety make you immunologically vulnerable.
 
Increased levels of corticosteroids may cause mood changes ranging from euphoria to depression (just irrational, mini bipolar, pseudo PMS), insomnia (sleep deprivation), jitteriness (pseudo ADHD), impaired glucose tolerance (diabetes), retention of salt and fluid (blood pressure) and increased appetite are common (comfort food eating). In Medicine corticosteroids have long become persona non grata in immunosuppressive regimens. So how are you going to normalise your ongoing fight/flight trigger? If you can’t do it on your own, get outside help.

Candida Causes - Diet

A sure route to get and keep candida overgrowth is long term intake of excess empty calories (high-energy foods with poor nutritional profiles such as all refined sugars) and excess dietary carbohydrates without proportionate supportive macro- and micronutrients fuel opportunistic growth. It so often contributes to dysbiosis. I talked about this extensively in the chapter ‘putting diesel in a petrol tank’ in my free ebook. Thank goodness the long term solutions are simple and do-able: use low glycaemic index foods, the paleolithic diet or the specific carbohydrate diet. Food rotation (the type of food you eat today you don't eat again for another 2 days) works well in mild food sensitivity and may assist candida prevention too. Just stay well clear of bombarding your body with sugary drinks and sugary foods. Ultimately your food intake lifestyle is about making choices, drat that can be so difficult!

Candida Causes - Pathogens

You can have fungal type dysbiosis or bacterial type dysbiosis, the former is generally referred to as "candida" which points a finger at Candida albicans but frankly any yeast can ferment as can some bacteria. Did you know that there are some 19 species of Candida alone, want to know what 'candida' is precisely?

Candida albicans itself is a ubiquitous commensal yeast of the mouth and gastrointestinal tract which can overgrow into opportunistic infections in various sites, such as the mouth (oral thrush), genital area (genital thrush), intertriginous areas (intertrigo), nails (paronychia) and small intestine. Systemic candidiasis can occur in immuno suppressed patients. Now zoom out for a moment!

Within the genus Candida, fermentation, nitrate assimilation and inositol assimilation may occur. Nitrate assimilation is of particular interest because serum levels of nitrate in patients with active Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and active Crohn’s Disease (CD) differ statistically (are raised) significantly from normal controls. Also a significant positive correlation was found between serum nitrate levels in UC and red blood cell sedimentation rate (ESR), leucocyte and thrombocyte count. These are key pointers for inflammation. So, the by-products and metabolic end-results of Candida are aspect of them causing trouble; in casu more candida - more nitrate - more irritation/inflammation. On a positive note, inositol compounds may inhibit adenocarcinoma development associated in chronic ulcerative colitis. [data from Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, Volume 30, Issue 8 August 1995 , pages 784 – 788]

Next, the genus Candida has the ability to change itself which is called high-frequency switching of colony morphology. Candida tropicalis for instance has even more than one strain-specific switching repertoire. This means that one strain, removed from the blood by say Flucytosine (antifungal) or Amphotericin B (a polyene antifungal antibiotic), can reappear several days later at another site of infection. You can start to see why dysbiosis can be so difficult to eradicate. Here are details of 3 out of 19 species of Candida:

Candida albicans occurs naturally as a commensal of mucous membranes and in the digestive tract of humans and animals. It accounts for up to 70% of Candida species isolated from sites of infection and has been reported as a causative agent of all types of candidiasis.
 
Candida parapsilosis is an opportunistic human pathogen which may cause both superficial cutaneous infections, especially of the nail and systemic disease, especially endocarditis. Other clinical manifestations include endophthalmitis and fungeamia.
 
Candida tropicalis is a major cause of septiceamia and disseminated candidiasis, especially in patients with lymphoma, leukemia and diabetes. It is the second most frequently encountered medical pathogen, next to Candida albicans, and is also found as part of the normal human mucocutaneous flora. Sucrose negative variants of C. tropicalis have also been increasingly found in cases of disseminated candidiasis.

Testing

Quite beside that perhaps 60% of the gut flora remains to be characterised, it is impossible to take specimens from all parts of the gut and do precise counts of micro-organisms. The best test to confirm dysbiosis is via the chemical result of fermentation: alcohol. Provoking fermentation - if this happens - results in alcohols in the blood (ethanol, methanol, butanol, propanol and short chain fatty acids) which can be measured by gas-liquid chromatography. Via their particular end-products of metabolism, a Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis (CDSA) can provide further information about which organisms are present in the gut (bacterial and yeast cultures in stool samples). At a doctor’s special request a CDSA can include parasitology (testing for parasites).
Not everyone uses laboratory tests to determine - after medical interview and clinical observation - a state of dysbiosis. Many practitioners arrive at conclusions via symptom questionnaires, Applied Kinesiology, Electro-Dermal Screening, Radionics, or Live blood microscopy. Symptom improvement following sensible remedying is not necessarily a validation of diagnostics used. The most surefooted test still is the above Gut Fermentation Profile with optional CDSA/parasites.

Candida Consequences - nutrients

Opportunistic yeast overgrowth needs feeding, they feed on all saccharides that did not convert into mono-saccharides uptaken into the blood stream. It is a 'guess who came to dinner' scenario for, next to (functional adaptation!) feeding on remaining di-, tri- and polysaccharides, they also feed on essential macro- and micronutrients. So, a portion of what you put into your digestive system is siphoned off to feed dysbiosis, thus doesn’t feed you.
 
Yeast overgrowth’s second reason for malabsorption (of the quantity and quality of nutrients you choose to ingest) depends on quite how much dysbiosis irritates your gut wall. In UC, CD and severe IBS the gut’s epithelial membrane gets irritated, thus its protective mucous layer changes and thus absorption of nutrients dwindles. A nutrient deficiency such as that of Molybdenum (Mb) causes the body to inadequately convert acetaldehyde (incomplete breakdown product of the ethanol produced by yeast overgrowth) into acetic acid. Because without sufficient Mb (and roboflavin and iron) the transforming enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase cannot work. Such a demise of an enzyme dependent detoxification pathway causes increased chemical sensitivity (in casu to fragrences) and can cumulatively give rise to symptoms of toxicity (in casu acetaldehyde) such as exhaustion, dizziness, concentration problems (brain fog), headache and so on.
 
Thirdly, above impaired uptake of nutrients is aggravated by long term and strict or even dogmatic application of anti-candida diets. Dysbiosis flourishes in people who are compromised, which rarely goes hand in hand with them having a high nutritional bank balance. Feeding people up without triggering the dysbiosis is the way forward. Panthetine in candidiasis is an amino acid that should never be overlooked as this converts vitamin B5 into coenzyme A, is a growth factor for lactobacillus bulgaricus and bifidobacterium, and helps to biodegrade this infamous acetaldehyde.

Candida Consequences - health

Mostly symptoms start with digestive discomforts, a demise of general wellbeing which may include unexplained fatigue in the absence of medical red flags. There are directly related symptoms such as you read under Pathogens, and knock-on symptoms such as hormone imbalance or (multiple) chemical sensitivity (foods, dust, moulds, fungi, yeast, inhalants, chemicals). A woman consulting a family doctor for fatigue and premenstrual stress may get her hormone panels checked, may be investigated for fibroids or PCO, but rarely will she be checked or treated for dysbiosis. Dr. Metchnikoff's dysbiosis falls outside the regular medical envelope.

Candida Remedy: diet include

A hypoallergenic approach (e.g. dairy or wheat free) may help you generally but this does not do anything specific for dysbiosis. What you must do is recolonising your gut with health beneficial bacteria which you achieve by eating natural, live culture containing (double fermented) yoghurt or Kefir , by taking good probiotics such as Probion Daily® (one difficulty with probiotics is that their survival, both in the product and after ingestion, is difficult to guarantee), and by supporting the whole process with Aloeride® aloe vera as research has shown this to help improve bowel ecology. Increasing levels of macro- and micronutrients can be achieved with superfoods such as chlorella, spirulina or with dehydrated (sugar removed) raw vegetable, fruit, grapes and berries powder.

Remember that feeding yourself up with nutrients by means of supplementation should happen after the dysbiotic fungal overgrowth has settled a bit, otherwise you will spend good money on micro- and macronutrients that may not get absorbed. First logical step is to pave the way for a more normal absorption: killing (see below) + Aloeride® + Probion Daily®.

Candida Remedy: diet eliminate

Avoid all refined sugars and drastically moderate natural sugar intake in proportion to your dysbiosis (like fresh, frozen, canned, dried fruit and fruit juices), all products with yeast in it including baked foods, all fermented products (vinegar, alcohol), mushrooms. I have seen many people who followed a prolonged and strict candida diet, and not only failed to get on top of their dysbiosis but in the process became deficient in macro- and micronutrients. Double trouble!

A strict anti-candida diet may go like this: cut out all types of sugar (brown, white, syrup, molasses, honey, fructose, lactose, maltose, dextrose); cut out yeasts (bread, pizza, buns, breadcrumbs, marmite, Oxo, Bovril, Bisto, gravy mix, flavoured foods like crisps and foods containing citric acid); cut out refined grains (white flour products, cakes, biscuit, pasta, cornflour, cereals, all prepared breakfast cereals except Shredded Wheat and purpose made options like Kashi); cut out cured and smoked products (bacon, meats, kippers); cut out fermented products (vinegar, pickles, chutney, soya sauce, alcohol); cut out tea, coffee, ovaltine, chocolate, and all malted products; cut out dairy products e.g. cow's milk, cheese, cream except yoghurt and cottage cheese; cut out mushrooms; cut out peanuts and peanut products.

Beware that long term use of highly restrictive anti-candida diets may cause under-nutrition. What is overlooked way too often are necessary steps such as discussed in this webpage, you won't win if you just cut stuff out!

Candida Remedy: immune modulation

Dysbiosis (especially invasive or systemic candidiasis) finds an easier foothold in immune compromised people than in those with a robust immune defence. A logical intervention therefore is to boost your immune system with natural remedies. Not however with Reishi, Shiitake or Maitake mushrooms as mushrooms are forbidden in the candida diet. Boost it with broad spectrum wholefood nutrition (supplement), plus Aloeride® aloe vera (2-3 cps/day), plus a favourite immune modulator that fights body foreign cells and fights them hard. Of course I am aware of other 'natural immune system' products; but take note of Status Quo's Francis Rossi who - when asked why they always played the same chords - said "why kill the goose that lays the golden egg". Finally an immunological no-brainer: build up you fitness by brisk walking for 30 minutes twice or 20 minutes three times a week.

Candida Remedy: killing 1

Of course it is great to conquer candida overgrowth in a totally natural way. Most people prefer this approach, but what route is best for you? There are natural remedies aplenty: grapefruit seed extract (one product contained antifungal preservative - makes one wonder whether the grapefruit seed or the preservative should take credit for any action), caprillic acid (always use a time-release caprylic acid as the intestines uptake it so quickly that it may disappear before it can go to work), coconut oil (caprillic a.k.a. octanoid acid is a constituent of coconut and breast milk), oregano oil (the thymol and carvacrol in oregano oil has antimicrobial and antifungal effect), cinnamon, Pau d'arco (strong tea made from inner bark is excellent for chemically sensitive people), garlic (enteric coated and odorous variety only), Goldenseal (its hydrastine and berberine inhibit the enzyme hyaluronidase microbes secrete to dissolve mucous membranes to gain entry into your body), tea tree oil, olive leaf extract (only moderate antifungal), treelac/oxygen elements and of course...

Good aloe vera is well known to have anti-fungal properties - as only one part of the plant's natural self-protecting pharmacopea - so yes it kills fungi but that is only one aspect of why Aloeride® helps: it kills on the one hand but supports normal bowel ecology at the same time, it tends not to give you such horrible die-off reactions either.

Candida Remedy: killing 2

Never let a dogma of remedies needing to be natural stand in the way of the most effective way to kill opportunistic yeast. What works fast and always is high dosage anti-fungal medications (Nystatin or Amphotericin) over a period of 3 - 4 months. Alternatively one can be GP (family doctor) prescribed systemic anti-fungal medications such as Diflucan, Sporanox or Lamisil in conjunction with Nystatin. Nothing wrong though with trying to kill candida with natural remedies first, just don't be dogmatic about it if you don't succeed with that approach.

Candida Remedy: warning

As a result of killing off pathogens, a liberation of endotoxins-like substances or of antigens (a substance which causes an immune reaction) from the killed or dying microorganisms is likely to occur. This may cause a transient, Jarish-Herxheimer reaction whereby symptoms become worse before settling down. Such a reaction must remain tolerable (put responsible controls in place) and remember that, although not necessarily pleasant, the Herxheimer reaction is actually a sign that healing is taking place.

Conclusion

Dysbiosis, opportunistic yeast overgrowth, candidiasis - whatever label you put on it - often is a very stubborn problem. As you now know, this is partially because of its switching capacity and partially because many people forget to address their general milieu (environment) or relapse into a 'sweet' diet. Minor dysbiosis may well be manageable with sustained natural remedies plus above support, great if you can! Mostly opportunistic yeast overgrowth is stubborn and keeps coming back, hence my advice of anti-fungal medication plus the quartet of Aloeride®, Probion Daily®, dietary modification and Carnivora®. The good news and the bottom line is that dysbiosis is a problem that can be overcome permanently.

If you use the same recipe twice, you'll get two of the same cakes. Above 'permanently', irrespective of how you kill your opportunistic overgrowth, can only be 'permanent' if you do not use the same 'life recipe' that brought you to the dysbiosis in the first place. That is why I ask you to take the above quartet approach seriously.

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