Candida Update

What Is Candida?

According to Savely Yurkovsky from September Townsend Letter, Candida belongs formally to a fungal family and represents a part of our normal body ecology. The main reservoir of candida is in the gut and other mucosal surfaces and the skin, where they are supposed to live in symbiosis with other indigenous bacteria, which all perform physiologic functions on behalf of the body.

According to conventional medicine, yeast infections, with the exception of vaginal ones, are deemed uncommon in the normal healthy population and occur only in severely immuno-suppressed patients such as AIDS patients or cancer patients (due to chemo- or radiation therapy). As a result, conventional MDs assume that these infections are uncommon in their daily practices with the normal population. However, both clinical experience and specialized medical literature indicate, paradoxically, the reverse.

Savely Yurkovsky says that the following factors have been confirmed as adding to the overgrowth and systemic spread of candidiasis:

• Disturbance of the normal bacterial flora and mucosal barriers through antibiotics, food preservatives, antacids, and H2 gastric acid blockers
• High carbohydrate/sugar diet, including fruits
• BCP (birth control pill), parenteral, oral, or local steroid use such as creams or inhalers
• Surgeries or indwelling catheters and even dental work or simple injections, which are all capable of releasing candidas into the blood stream
• Endocrine dysfunctions: thyroid, adrenals, diabetes, parathyroid, others
• Any other factors that are capable of compromising the immune system and that are very common in our society, too: anxiety, depression, electromagnetic fields, and even lack of sleep
• Pregnancy
• Aging process: just look how people round up in their bodies and faces as they age and their colon and tissues become infiltrated with yeasts while retaining water. These age-related changes cannot be corrected with a growth hormone
• Innate immunity

Candida species, besides being part of the normal body ecological system and often eluding proper immune surveillance, also possess other properties that make these infections recalcitrant without the proper strategy. Yurkovsky lists pathogenic properties of yeast:

• Some of their members possess powerful enzymes that destroy the local mucosal barriers and lead to systemic proliferation.
• The same factors lead to their penetration into internal organs and tissues, and, furthermore, both distort their histological markers, which may lead to autoimmunity and, at the same time, further undermine the immuno-surveillance of yeasts.
• Some of these enzymes enable them to attack and impair immune cells' ability to attack yeasts.
• The mere presence of antibodies against candidas, per se, does not render immune protection against them.
• In terms of evolution, yeasts have been around as a part of the living for billions of years, even before the Homo sapiens evolved. As a result, they had to develop uncanny properties to withstand countless adversities through very sophisticated enzymatic systems. These properties, unfortunately, doom any prevailing anti-yeast therapeutic bombardments to failure, since yeasts mutate into therapy-resistant forms. Furthermore, these forms - mycelia, hyphae, etc. - either due to the bombardments or to immune suppression (or both) become more virulent than the original ones.
• The last and most challenging property and the one that sets up any anti-yeast intervention, even those as seemingly benign as the administration of probiotics or cultured foods, is the fact that yeasts are capable of binding heavy metals, including mercury and lead. Because both metals are omnipresent in our bodies, the yeasts set up any medicinal attack against them for a potential kamikaze-type act. A rather obscure scientific literature did confirm this spooky property of yeasts.

Nutrition for Healthy Bones

If you're suffering with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, it is important to make bone-healthy choices based on that complex condition. Leslie Bonci, a registered dietician at Pittsburgh Medical Center and a consultant to the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, says that "Bone-healthy nutrition isn't that simple, but it's definitely doable. You don't have to go out of your way or shop at a dozen different stores to stock up on bone-healthy foods."

The first rule of thumb, she explains, is to make sure you're taking in enough calories from the food you eat (plus liquid supplements, if necessary). Your body can only build and maintain bone tissue if you give it enough fuel to carry out its basic physiological functions. So do your best to keep those calories coming. Beyond total calories, Bonci says, five specific nutrients play a larger-than-life role in protecting the integrity of your bones:

• Protein
• Fats
• Calcium
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin K

Caffeine content in products is often the great unknown

According to Ann Tatko-Peterson in MCT News Service, caffeine acts as a stimulant and is commonly found in coffee, tea, soda and energy drinks. The severity of those stimulating properties, addictiveness and potential health problems are widely debated. However, most agree that because tolerance levels vary, everyone responds differently to caffeine.

Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires product labels to list caffeine in the ingredients, it does not mandate specifying the amount.

Some companies, including Starbucks, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, have decided in the past year to list the amount voluntarily.

1. Sodas
   • Mountain Dew is one of the most caffeine-laden soft drinks at 55 milligrams per 12 ounces
   • Regular Coca-Cola has 34.5 mg, while the diet version packs 45 mg per 12 ounces.
2. Coffees and teas
   • Decaffeinated coffees is only 97% free of caffeine
   • Iced tea has 47 mg per 12 ounces serving
   • Snapple contains 31.5 mg per 16 ounces
   • Lipton Brisk has only 9 mg per 12 ounces
3. Sweet treats
   • A 60-gram of bar of Hershey's Special Dark has 31 mg; the same size milk chocolate bar has 9 mg
   • Kit Kat has 5.9 mg, while the larger 2-ounce Snickers has 4.7 mg
4. Medicines
   • Excedrin has 130 mg per pill
   • Anacin has 64 mg per pill
   • Midol menstrual formula has 60 mg per pill
   • Triaminicin has 30 mg per pill
   • Dristan has 16.2 mg per pill

Web sites with comprehensive databases listing caffeine amounts include EnergyFiend.com and CaffeineAwareness.org.

Did You Know ???

• Vitamin-enhanced water and other beverages offer little or no nutritional advantages, reports nutritionist Suzanne Havala Hobbs, DrPH, RD. Examples include Glaceau vitamin water, SoBe Life Water and new fortified soft drinks, such as Diet Coke Plus. The drinks provide only a few nutrients, but the vitamins may deteriorate in the bottle. Rather drink plain water to stay hydrated, and get nutrients from whole foods and supplements.
• According to Andrew L. Rubman, ND, of Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines in Connecticut, cholesterol boosts brain function. It helps maintain the central nervous system and aids higher levels of thinking. It makes up about 50% of living cell membranes, which control the flow of materials in and out of cells. It also is necessary to synthesize estrogen, testosterone and other hormones. To maintain healthy levels of cholesterol, eat sufficient fiber and take B vitamins regularly.

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In Good Health.
Pamela Nathan

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