candida yeast bloom fact or fiction i can not believe the way this thread on candida yeast has progressed steve dyer and i have been exchanging words over the same topic in sci med nutrition when he displayed his typical reserve and attacked a women poster for being treated by a liscenced physician for a disease that did not exist calling this physician a quack was reprehensible steve and i see that you and some of the others are doing it here as well let me tell you who the quacks really are these are the physicans who have no idea how the human body interacts with it s environment and how that balance can be altered by diet and antibiotics these are the physicians who dismiss their patients with difficult symptomatology and make them go from doctor to doctor to find relief like elaine in sci med nutrition and then when they find one that solves their problem the rest start yelling quack could it just be professional jealousy i couldn t help elaine or jon but somebody else did could they know more than me no way they must be a quack i ve been teaching a human nutrition course for medical students for over ten years now and guess who the most receptive students are those that were raised on farms and saw first hand the effect of diet on the health of their farm animals and those students who had made a dramatic diet change prior to entering medical school switched to the vegan diet typically this is about of my class of students those not interested in nutrition either tune me out or just stop coming to class that s okay because i know that some of what i m teaching is going to stick and there will be at least a few enlightened physicians practicing in the u s it s really too bad that most u s medical schools don t cover nutrition because if they did candida would not be viewed as a non disease by so many in the medical profession in animal husbandry an animal is reinnoculated with good bacteria after antibiotics are stopped medicine has decided that since humans do not have a ruminant stomach no such reinnoculation with good bacteria is needed after coming off a braod spectrum antibiotic humans have all kinds of different organisms living in the gi system mouth stomach small and large intestine sinuses vagina and on the skin these are nonpathogenic because they do not cause disease in people unless the immune system is compromised they are also called nonpathogens because unlike the pathogenic organisms that cause human disease they do not produce toxins as they live out their merry existence in and on our body but any of these organisms will be considered pathogenic if it manages to take up residence within the body a poor mucus membrane barrier can let this happen and vitamin a is mainly responsible for setting up this barrier steve got real upset with elaine s doctor because he was using anti fungals and vitamin a for her gi problems if steve really understoood what vitamin a does in the body he would not or at least should not be calling elaine s doctor a quack here is a brief primer on yeast yeast infections as they are commonly called are not truely caused by yeasts the most common organism responsible for this type of infection is candida albicans or monilia which is actually a yeast like fungus an infection caused by this organism is called candidiasis candidiasis is a very rare occurance because like an e coli infection it requires that the host immune system be severly depressed candida is frequently found on the skin and all of the mucous membranes of normal healthy people and it rarely becomes a problem unless some predisposing factor is present such as a high blood glucose level diabetes or an oral course of antibiotics has been used in diabetics their secretions contain much higher amounts of glucose candida unlike bacteria is very limited in it s food fuel selection without glucose it can not grow it just barely survives if it gets access to a lot of glucose it blooms and over rides the other organisms living with it in the sinuses gi tract or vagina in diabetics skin lesions can also foster a good bloom site for these little buggers the bloom is usually just a minor irritant in most people but some people do really develop a bad inflammatory process at the mucus membrane or skin bloom site whether this is an allergic like reaction to the candida or not isn t certain when the bloom is in the vagina or on the skin it can be easliy seen and some doctors do then try to treat it if it s internal only symptoms can be used and these symptoms are pretty nondiscript candida is kept in check in most people by the normal bacterial flora in the sinuses the gi tract mouth stomach and intestines and in the vaginal tract which compete with it for food the human immune system ususally does not bother itself with these nonpathogenic organisms unless they broach the mucus membrane barrier if they do an inflammatory response will be set up most americans are not getting enough vitamin a from their diets about of all american s die with less vitamin a than they were born with u s autopsy studies while this low level of vitamin a does not cause pathology blindness it does impair the mucus membrane barrier system this would then be a predisposing factor for a strong inflammatory response after a candida bloom while diabetics can suffer from a candida bloom the most common cause of this type of bloom is the use of broad spectrum antibiotics which knock down many different kinds of bacteria in the body and remove the main competition for candida as far as food is concerned while drugs are available to handle candida many patients find that their doctor will not use them unless there is evidence of a systemic infection the toxicity of the anti fungal drugs does warrant some caution but if the gi or sinus inflammation is suspected to be candida and recent use of a broad spectrum antibiotic is the smoking gun then anti fungal use should be approrpriate just as the anti fungal creams are an appropriate treatment for recurring vaginal yeast infections in spite of what mr steve dyer says but even in patients being given the anti fungals the irritation caused by the excessive candida bloom in the sinus gi tract or the vagina tends to return after drug treatment is discontinued unless the underlying cause of the problem is addressed lack of a good bacterial flora in the body and or poor mucus membrane barrier lactobacillus acidophilus is the most effective therapy for candida overgrowth from it s name it is an acid loving organism and it sets up an acidic condition were it grows candida can not grow very well in an acidic environment in the vagina l acidophilius is the predominate bacteria unless you are hit with broad spectrum antibiotics in the gi system the ano rectal region seems to be a particularly good reservoir for candida and the use of pantyhose by many women creates a very favorable environment around the rectum for transfer through moisture and humidity of candida to the vaginal tract one of the most effctive ways to minimmize this transfer is to wear undyed cotton underwear if the bloom occurs in the anal area the burning swelling pain and even blood discharge make many patients think that they have hemorroids if the bloom manages to move further up the gi tract very diffuse symptomatology occurs abdominal discomfort and blood in the stool this positive stool for occult blood is what sent elaine to her family doctor in the first place after extensive testing he told her that there was nothing wrong but her gut still hurt on to another doctor and so on richard kaplan has told me throiugh e mail that he considers occult blood tests in stool specimens to be a waste of time and money because of the very large number of false positives candida blooms guys if my gut hurt me on a constant basis i would want it fixed yes it s nice to know that i don t have colon cancer but what then is causing my distress when i finally find a doctor who treats me and gets me better steve dyer calls him a quack candida prefers a slightly alkaline environment while bacteria tend to prefer a slightly acidic environment the vagina becomes alkaline during a woman s period and this is often when candida blooms in the vagina vinegar and water douches are the best way of dealing with vaginal problems many women have also gotten relief from the introduction of lactobacillus directly into the vaginal tract i would want to be sure of the purity of the product before trying this my wife had this vagina problem after going on birth control pills and searched for over a year until she found a gynocologist who solved the problem rather than just writting scripts for anti fungal creams this was a woman gynocologist who had had the same problem recurring vaginal yeast infections this m d did some digging and came up with an acetic acid and l acidophilis douche which she used in your office to keep it sterile after three treatments sex returned to our marraige i have often wondered what an m d with chronic gi distress or sinus problems would do about the problem that he tells his patients is a non existent syndrome the nonpathogenic bacteria l acidophilus is an acid producing bacteria which is the most common bacteria found in the vaginal tract of healthy women if taken orally it can also become a major bacteria in the gut through aresol sprays it has also been used to innoculate the sinus membranes but before this innoculation occurs the mucus membrane barrier system needs to be strengthened this is accomplished by vitamin a vitamin c and some of the b complex vitamins diet surveys repeatedly show that americans are not getting enough b and folate these are probably the segement of the population that will have the greatest problem with this non existent disorder candida blooms after antibiotic therapy some of the above material was obtained from natural healing by mark bricklin published by rodale press as well as notes from my human nutrition course i will be posting a discussion of vitamin a sometime in the future along with reference citings to point out the extremely important role that vitamin a plays in the mucus membrane defense system in the body and why vitamin a should be effective in dealing with candida blooms another effective dietary treatment is to restrict carbohydrate intake during the treatment phase this is especially important if the gi system is involved if candida can not get glucose it s not going to out grow the bacteria and you then give bacteria which can use amino acids and fatty acids for energy a chance to take over and keep the candida in check once carbohydrate is returned to the gut if steve and some of the other nay sayers want to jump all over this post fine i jumped all over steve in sci med nutrition because he verbably accosted a poster who was seeking advice about her doctor s use of vitamin a and anti fungals for a candida bloom in her gut people seeking advice from newsnet should not be treated this way those of us giving of our time and knowledge can slug it out to our heart s content if you saved your venom for me steve and left the helpless posters who are timidly seeking help alone i wouldn t have a problem with your behavior martin banschbach ph d professor of biochemistry and chairman department of biochemistry and microbiology osu college of osteopathic medicine west th st tulsa ok without discourse there is no remembering without remembering there is no learning without learning there is only ignorance
