Candida Secrets: Cutting-Edge Healing Strategies, Diet Tips, Meal Plans, and Recipes to Combat Yeast Overgrowth

By Cynthia Perkins

Candida Secrets provides you with cutting-edge healing strategies, diet tips, meal plans, and recipes to combat candidiasis. You can relieve symptoms, overcome cravings for sugar and carbs, improve health, and enhance well-being when you learn how to develop an effective well-rounded recovery plan and eat the right food.

Get the facts about yeast overgrowth and its impact on the brain and body, be properly informed about the true nature of this beast, and use the tools provided to move forward with strength and confidence in your battle against Candida.

- Learn the little-known truth about Candidiasis and key principles for symptom relief

- Maximize the effectiveness of antifungals and other remedies

- Discover the most effective diet and how to remain compliant with ease

- Includes 53 tasty recipes and two-week sample menu and meal planning tips

Be empowered by acquiring this critical knowledge that is often neglected by others in the field about diagnosis, treatment, recovery, probiotics, co-infections, biofilms, pH, antifungals, mutation, resistance, leaky gut, nutritional supplements, minimizing die-off, heavy metal toxicity, immune function, proper diet, candida's connection to low blood sugar, alcoholism, adrenal fatigue, hypothyroidism, stress, and sympathetic nervous system dominance, and much more, all of which enable you to design a powerful self-care plan for your healing journey.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cynthia Perkins
• Release date: Oct 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9780984144655

Book preview

Chapter One

The Truth About Candida

Although information about Candida is abundant, much of it is based on myths or lies that lead you down the wrong path and there are a lot of facts that you don't hear about very often. This is largely because people who are promoting products that claim to cure Candida don't have a thorough understanding of the deep complexities and full extent that Candida encompasses.

I'm sure you've probably seen all those products across the Internet and throughout natural health publications claiming you can cure your Candida in 12 hours, or cure your Candida without following the diet, and a variety of other outrageous claims that make it sound very easy and simple to achieve by taking their product. However, there are many important things they aren't telling you.

The first and most important point I'd like to share with you is this:

There isn’t one miracle drug, natural cure, or treatment that will work by itself. Yes, their product or products may be effective and help reduce symptoms, but successful treatment of Candida requires that many steps be taken in conjunction with the other. The truth is that it takes a lot of time, patience, and persistence. Candida is extremely resilient and difficult to treat. It requires a comprehensive and long-term approach. There is no magic bullet.

So, that means one of the most important keys for individuals who have a Candida problem is to educate themselves as much as humanly possible. Read everything you can get your hands on, consult with a variety of practitioners and educators. The more you know the more effective your Candida treatment approach will be.

Candida is an insidious and extremely complex health condition. I've been studying it for nearly three decades and I continue to learn new things about it all the time and be awed by its complexity. If I were to discuss all the causes, symptoms, and treatments of Candida in this eBook it would take us months, so what I will attempt to do for you is boil down the most important key factors and help you build a strong foundation in your defense against Candida overgrowth.

Throughout this book, you will see certain words highlighted in blue. Anything in blue is a hyperlink that will take you to a web page to learn more about that particular topic, product, or recommendation.

Candida overgrowth has grown to epidemic proportions in our society and most people are not even aware of the profound role it plays in our mental and physical health. It is believed that as much as 80% of the population may have Candida. This lack of awareness is due mainly to the fact that mainstream medicine is not educated about Candida yeast and is resistant to learning; therefore knowledge of this condition is not readily accessible unless you're turning to alternative medicine.

People suffering from Candida usually go from doctor to doctor for years and are told they are a hypochondriac, or that it is stress, or a psychiatric problem, before ever discovering the real culprit.

If we look over the list of symptoms, illnesses, and conditions that are a result of Candida overgrowth, we will see that we have found the culprit of many health problems that plague millions of people. If all of society were to become aware and make the changes needed to eliminate Candida, they would also eliminate all these health problems. Quite frankly this means the pharmaceutical companies would lose billions of dollars. Our medical universities and communities are funded and controlled by the pharmaceutical companies.

For the most part, the remedy for Candida requires a drastic change in diet and lifestyle and a variety of natural or alternative health treatments that cuts the pharmaceutical companies out of the picture. There are a few prescriptions that are effective against Candida for short-term relief, but they are not the answer in the long run and won't be effective in and of themselves.

Contrary to what they'd like you to believe, our pharmaceutical companies have no interest in finding true cures for anything, because it does not benefit them financially. Their goal is to deceive us and keep all of us stuck in the vicious cycle of being dependent upon them so we keep putting more money in their pockets.

Not only that, as you will see in the list of causes for Candida overgrowth, the leading cause of this condition is created by the pharmaceutical companies and mainstream medicine itself. To acknowledge the far-reaching extent of this problem would require them to change their entire protocol and stop prescribing their own products, which again would cause them to lose billions of more dollars.

So not only do most of main stream medicine refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of the debilitating condition of Candida, but they vehemently try to discredit it and deny its existence to protect their interests.

Now, I'm certainly not criticizing anyone for not wanting to lose billions of dollars, we'd all be billionaires if we could. However, in the process of making money, we are obligated to do it honestly and ethically. We must tell the truth, provide products and services that are truly helpful and beneficial .and attempt to empower individuals, not keep them sick and dependent.

There are medical doctors that are not part of this conspiracy to hide the truth, who truly care about your well being and improving your health, however you need to know where to find them.

You need a medical doctor who only uses pharmaceuticals and surgery when absolutely necessary to save your life and practices a variety of alternative health treatment approaches. They usually go by titles such as, a Doctor of Environmental Medicine, an Integrative Medicine Doctor, a Functional Medicine Doctor, a Doctor of Orthomolecular Medicine, or a Naturopathic Doctor and can be found by contacting the American Holistic Medical Association, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, The Institute for Functional Medicine or the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. Each of these organizations has a database of physicians where you can get a referral for your state. However, keep in mind, that even most physicians from this avenue will still have a limited knowledge base regarding Candida.

Which leads us to the second most important fact you should know about Candida:

Unfortunately, there are very few Candida physicians or experts addressing or manufacturing treatment products that have a thorough understanding of all the facets of Candida. Candida is very cunning, enigmatic, and complicated and involves many different factors.

There are a lot of practitioners and treatment manufacturers out there, but they come with varying levels of expertise and knowledge. Not everyone grasps the profound ramifications of Candida and is capable of addressing the many different issues involved.

Some practitioners or manufacturers get very knowledgeable in one particular aspect, while another practitioner is more skilled in a different aspect. So it's necessary to read everything out there and consult with a variety of different practitioners in different fields of thought about Candida, so you can piece it all together. It's very hard to find everything you need to know in one place, since very few health care providers, educators, etc. have mastered the complete picture.

The two primary areas that even most doctors treating Candida do not understand revolve around diet and antifungals. Most of them do not promote the correct diet or use antifungals in the right manner. They also do not address important issues that can sabotage recovery like biofilms, mutation, resistance, adrenal fatigue, co-infection with other microbes, sympathetic nervous system dominance, and sugar addiction. We will discuss each of these aspects in great detail as we go along.

If you don't have access to a doctor who is knowledgeable enough, try to find someone open to being educated so that you can teach them what needs to be done. My preference is to have an M.D. who follows a holistic philosophy, otherwise known as a holistic doctor, holistic medical doctor, functional medicine doctor, or integrative medicine doctor.

Holistic health practitioners of all kinds are valuable and to be utilized as needed, but many medical needs can only be met by a medical doctor and it gives you a much wider variety of treatment options. They are the best of all worlds. Some alternative and holistic treatment methods require a prescription. For example, antifungals such as Nystatin need a prescription. If you have a thyroid problem, which is very common in individuals with Candida, this too may require a prescription from a medical doctor, even when taking the natural approach.

The best Candida recovery plan involves a combination of self-care strategies mixed with the knowledge of a competent health care provider. It's pretty common for individuals living with Candida to treat themselves since there are so many over the counter natural health products, but with the right physician, you can take some additional steps that aren't available otherwise.

Chapter Two

Candida Overview

There are more than 200 species of Candida. The one you hear the most about, and the one that is responsible for most infections, is Candida albicans. As a matter of fact, Candida albicans is the most prevalent pathogen that humans face. The second most common is Candida glabrata followed by Candida tropicalis, Candida parapsilosis, and Candida krusei. However, some of the less common species may be involved as well. Then, within each species of Candida, there are numerous different strains. For example, there is C. parapsilosis strain PA/71 or P92 or C. albicans strain M61 or SC5314, C. glabrata BG14, C. tropicalis 1230 and many others. To complicate things further, an individual may harbor more than one species or strain simultaneously and the species and strains may change over time.

This is important because different species and different strains within the same species respond differently to individual antifungals. What works for one species, may not necessarily work for another species or even a different strain within the same species. For example, C. glabrata is resistant to the azole drugs (e.g. Diflucan and Nizoral), but does respond to amphotericin and nystatin. Some species and strains can be extremely resistant to treatment.

The outer cell wall of Candida consists of vegetable, polysaccharide, and protein matter and may contain several layers that vary within strains. It exists to maintain integrity of the organism (ensures the survival of the cell) and provides a surface to interact with the environment. The vegetable portion is referred to as chitin. Inside the cell wall, there is a membrane consisting of fat and protein and just beyond that are mitochondria and then a nucleus.

It is polymorphic, meaning it can take several different forms. They may exist in the body as an oval, budding, yeast cell or they may elongate and produce filament-like structures (long root-like structures) called pseudohyphae and hyphae, that resemble a rod shape. It may also exist as a cyst-like form or cell wall deficient form. When in cell wall deficient form, it is very small and difficult to locate and treat.

Spores develop in clusters along the hyphae, which may be active or lie dormant until later. For example, you kill off all your Candida with a powerful antifungal, but the spores are not affected, they lie in wait until the coast is clear and then they proliferate again. Hyphae and pseudohyphae differ slightly in their structure and a variety of other factors like the way they carry out mitosis (separation of chromosomes that have been replicated into two new sets of chromosomes that are identical, each with their own new nucleus) and cell division, both of which enable the cell to grow and reproduce. A mass of the spreading hyphae is called mycelia. The hyphae and pseudohyphae enable Candida to branch out and penetrate deeper into the epithelial (gut lining).

Candida also uses spores and hyphae to acquire food. It can switch back and forth (morph) between its yeast bud and hyphal fungus form and may produce different types of colonies. Glabrata does not produce hyphae; only spores. Under the right conditions, many species of Candida can double its population in less than an hour. (e.g. food source, temperature, pH, serum, certain hormones in the body)

It may survive in temperatures ranging from 68 to 100. However, the temperature that is most ideal and allows it to morph into hyphal form, is 98.6, which just so happens to be the temperature of the human body.

Candida reproduces asexually when in bud form or sexually when they are in the hyphal or sporangia form. They are both aerobic and anaerobic, meaning they can survive in both oxygen-rich or oxygen-depleted environments but prefers oxygen. It uses biofilms to protect itself from your immune system and antifungals. We will talk about biofilms in great depth in chapter three.

It produces a variety of toxins often referred to as antigens or mycotoxins. Most of the symptoms of Candida are the result of these toxins. Toxins from Candida can affect every organ, cell, and tissue in the body.

Everyone has millions of microorganisms living in their body at all times. Some of these microbes are considered good and are often referred to as friendly flora. Other microorganisms are bad or unfriendly and these can cause a wide variety of health problems when they're not controlled.

In a healthy human body, the friendly flora keeps the bad guys from being able to grow and flourish. So things stay balanced and under control. When something upsets that healthy balance, one of the first microorganisms that are easily able to thrive and multiply in a variety of places in our body is Candida.

Candida resides in your gastrointestinal tract with all the other organisms; normally in yeast form, but under certain circumstances, it converts into a pathogenic fungal form. Usually, it lives in symbiosis in the human body along with a variety of other microbes. It actually has the important job of helping to detect and destroy other pathogenic bacteria that may enter the body and it serves as a food source for some other healthy bacteria, but sometimes something happens in the body that allows it to grow out of control and create infections accompanied by a variety of unpleasant and debilitating symptoms. One of its other functions is to decompose a dead body, and when it proliferates in a living body, it still tries to do its job.

When someone has a problem in their body which is caused by Candida yeast, it's often simply referred to as a yeast infection. Unfortunately, too many people think that yeast infections are limited to women only, and affect the vagina only, and this is simply not the case. It flourishes in environments that are dark, moist, and warm and thus the most common places overgrowth occurs is in the mouth, feet, genitals, and gastrointestinal tract. However, a yeast infection can occur almost anywhere in the body and affect not only women but men and children as well.

Once Candida sets up house in the gastrointestinal tract, it can change forms and penetrate the intestinal wall, which allows it to travel all through the body. This form of Candida is called mycelial. It may then take up residence anywhere, like the lungs, joints, sinuses, bladder, gallbladder, or anywhere it pleases. When it permeates the intestinal wall, it leaves microscopic holes, which leads to the development of leaky gut syndrome and food allergies or sensitivities as undigested food particles and other toxins enter the body.

Candida creates and releases many different types of toxins like ethanol, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and acetaldehyde into your bloodstream that not only cause a host of problems in the human body but also weaken the immune system. Ethanol is an alcohol and acetaldehyde is related to formaldehyde. These toxins are harmful to the brain, nervous system, endocrine system, gastrointestinal system, and immune system and disrupt the normal functioning of the bodies systems. It can also interfere with and mimic estrogen, thyroxin and other hormones in the body, thus creating hormonal imbalances and problems with the thyroid or other glands. These toxins can also overload the liver, impede normal liver functions and impair methylation. Methylation is a chemical process in the body that plays a vital role in neurotransmitters, mental health, brain function, energy levels, immune function, detoxification, inflammation, hormones, cardiovascular health, and much more. Candida albicans may also posses as many as 178 antigens (substances that prompt an immune response by way of antibodies).

The overgrowth of Candida is the cause of a wide variety of health problems in the human body today. Many people don't realize it, but uncontrolled Candida yeast growth can cause stomach bloating, gassiness, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, headaches, cold sores, oral thrush, migraines, dehydration, vaginal infections, penile fungus, some types of arthritis, some types of skin problems such as eczema, athlete's feet, menstrual difficulties, the inability to lose excess body weight, and many other health issues, conditions, and problems.

A lot of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, mood swings, anger management issues, obsessive-compulsive disorders, schizophrenia, rage, and hyperactivity can be a result of Candida overgrowth. Cognitive functioning such as memory and learning can also be greatly impacted. Candida binds to progesterone, which often leads to hormone imbalances in both men and women, particularly estrogen dominance. It can also bind with corticosteroids produced by the adrenal glands, contributing to adrenal fatigue.

Candida can be a significant factor in the ability to lose weight because it impairs metabolism and hormones and thus affects your ability to burn fat. It can impede your ability to break down fat tissue.

Additionally, it may be a primary cause of nutritional deficiencies as it steals your nutrients for its own survival.

Other common Candida symptoms may include:

vaginitis

rectal itching

hives

inability to think clearly (brain fog)

diarrhea

cravings for alcohol

constipation

itching

acne

cravings for sweets

eczema

sinus inflammation

PMS

dizziness

poor memory

persistent cough

earaches

low sex drive

muscle weakness

irritability

learning difficulties

sensitivities to fragrances and chemicals

cognitive impairment

fibromyalgia

thrush

athlete’s foot

hypoglycemia

hormone imbalances

sore throat

indigestion

bloating

acid reflux

food allergies and/or sensitivities

halitosis

menstrual irregularities

bladder infections

interstitial cystitis

People with Candida tend to get these labels:

Hyperactivity

Learning Disabilities

Attention Deficit Disorder

Conduct Disorders

Anger or Rage Disorders

Alcoholism

Drug Addiction

Anti-social Disorders

Autism

Anxiety Disorders

Depression

In people who are genetically predisposed to cancers, Candida may damage DNA and foster abnormal cell mutation.

Candida is believed to occur more often in women, but the truth is that it occurs in high numbers for men as well, but it is reported and diagnosed less frequently.

Men are less likely to be diagnosed with Candida for two reasons: one is because they don't seek help for their symptoms and the second is that Candida in males gets mislabeled as all kinds of other disorders because there is a lack of education about Candida in the mainstream medical society. The symptoms of Candida in males are often dismissed or denied by the man. He will just live with them because he thinks it’s unmanly to talk about them or get help. Men are socialized to just live with pain and discomfort rather than address it.

Common Candida symptoms for males are irritability, hard to get along with, cognitive difficulties, depression, inability to concentrate, fatigue, restlessness, anxiety, forgetfulness, diarrhea, constipation, headaches, frequent stomach aches, indigestion, heartburn, excessive shyness or feelings of being self-conscious, rashes and many more. It may also result in prostatitis.

As children, males with Candida typically experienced a lot of earaches, which resulted in antibiotics that only aggravated the Candida. They are quite frequently hyperactive and/or have attention deficit disorder. As children and as men, they may get in fights a lot and have difficulty excelling in school. They may be underachievers, due to Candida inhibiting brain function. Two more very common Candida symptoms for males are jock itch and athlete’s feet. In these cases, the Candida has localized in the feet or the genitals.

I could go on and on; the list is never-ending. Candida is responsible for many of the chronic illness categories we see so frequently. Some other terms for Candida overgrowth are systemic Candida, Candida yeast, and yeast infection. The official medical term when we refer to a yeast infection or fungal infection caused by any type of Candida yeast anywhere in the body is candidiasis.

Candida symptoms are vast and all-encompassing and can even incapacitate the individual. Systemic Candida is Candida that has left the gut and spread to other areas of the body; and once it's reached this point, it is very difficult to eradicate completely.

The organ most frequently affected by Candida is the brain but it also affects these systems:

digestive

nervous

cardiovascular

respiratory

reproductive

urinary

endocrine

lymphatic

musculoskeletal

As a matter of fact, Candida can infect all major organs and tissues in the human body. Symptoms can vary from one person to another and often move back and forth between systems within the same individual. One day or hour you may experience symptoms in the musculoskeletal system and the next day or hour it could be the digestive system, etc.

Yeast overgrowth is considered to be a leading contributor in alcoholism, MCS - multiple chemical sensitivities, CFS - chronic fatigue syndrome, FMS - fibromyalgia syndrome, autism, Crohn’s, irritable bowel, arthritis, obsessive- compulsive disorders, schizophrenia, prostatitis, attention deficit disorder, multiple sclerosis, leaky gut syndrome, asthma, food allergies or sensitivities, muscle and joint pain, clinical depression, anxiety disorders, asthma, repeated urinary tract infections, vaginal infections, endometriosis, hormonal imbalances, PMS, digestive disturbances, psoriasis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Addison’s disease, difficult menopause, vulvodynia, Tourette’s, chronic pain disorders, compulsive overeating, sugar addiction, anti-social behavior and conduct disorder, and many more.

Now, there are a wide variety of reasons the health level of the body can become unbalanced and allow Candida to proliferate. Sometimes it happens simply because of poor nutrition. When the body is unable to get the proper amount of vitamins, minerals. and nutrients it needs, it can become more susceptible to various infections, viruses, and problems. However, one of the biggest causes of Candida yeast-related infections and fungal growth these days is due to the overuse of broad-spectrum prescription antibiotics.

Prescription antibiotics have been in widespread use for several decades, but they have become used for more and more things over the years. They are now used routinely for too many conditions when they are not called for. This has resulted in making bacteria completely immune to them. Furthermore, antibiotics kill off the friendly bacteria that keep Candida in check, as well as the unhealthy bacteria, and this encourages Candida to grow rampant.

Even if you don’t take antibiotics, most people are exposed to