Author: Eric Bakker

Greetings! It’s New Zealand naturopath Eric Bakker. Author of Candida Crusher and formulator of the Canxida range of products. I’ve got a whole lot of emails here from different people mainly through the YouTube channel. I’ve had many questions from subscribers all around the world. I’ll start off with an interesting question here from a man-Manu. It looks like the surname’s Clijsters. It sounds like a Dutch guy. Manu Clijsters is from Belgian. Manu’s asking me the question: “Eric, can you please explain to us if there’s any link between depression and a yeast infection?”

Manu has written me a bit of a story about himself about depression and anxiety that he developed along with a Candida infection, and he wants to know if there’s a link between them both. He was previously not depressed. He didn’t really suffer from depression. He had a little bit of anxiety, but now he’s got quite a lot of depression and the doctors put him on medications.

Manu, there’s a huge link between depression and Candida. In fact, many neurological issues like this-conditions where people think they need antidepressants or anxiety pills or sleeping pills. Many of them actually have their root cause in gut dysfunction and in Candida and poor levels of beneficial bacteria.

Let me explain a few things here. If you want good cognition and good mood, you need to have very good digestive health. You need a very good connection between the gut and the brain. You need to have a very good balance of stress hormones and many other hormones and neurotransmitters that allow the brain to connect with the body on multiple levels.

If we look at a couple of different important hormones, for example. There’s one called serotonin, another called melatonin. There’s various kinds. There’s dopamine. Dopamine and serotonin in particular, we’re starting to learn recently that a high percentage of these hormones are in fact made in the digestive system.

They didn’t really understand until recently that the hormone called dopamine, which is the reward hormone and another feel-good hormone. In fact, up to 65 percent of it is created in the small intestine. Doctors and scientists have no idea about that. Serotonin, a very important hormone that keeps us in a very upbeat mood, is in fact made primarily in the gut. When you’ve got a yeast infection or bad bacteria, and especially as we’ll see in a minute, poor levels of beneficial bacteria, you’re going to have a lot of problems with how you think and how you feel.

Serotonin, for example, I’ve got a chart above me here, the neuroendocrine chart. I’ll take it down and show you. Here’s one of my charts I have on the wall, one of my little flow charts. You can see all these complicated lines and boxes and everything. Tryptophan, for example, is a very important amino acid that you’re going to get in your diet from different kinds of proteins. You’ll find it in dairy products, certain nuts and seeds. Tryptophan, in turn, is a precursor or it turns into 5-hydroxytryptophan, which in turn is the building block for serotonin. Serotonin itself helps the product of melatonin.

All of these hormones have one big thing in common: they all need lots of B vitamins for these conversion pathways to work properly. It’s the same with dopamine. Dopamine also needs Vitamin C, it needs iron, it needs magnesium, it needs Vitamin B6 and Vitamin B5. The B vitamins actually are made in the digestive system by beneficial bacteria. When Candida has really created a lot of problems in the gut and beneficial bacteria go down. Why does it happen? Antibiotics. They come back in again. People love to take antibiotics. They go to the doctor, “I’m not feeling good.” “Well, you need an antibiotic. It’s going to solve all of your problems.” The patient will go on an antibiotic and then again and again.

We had a patient recently that went for nine years on antibiotics. How crazy is that? Nine years. This guy’s gut was completely wrecked. When you destroy more and more of the beneficial bacteria, you will find that your depression will get worse and worse. Why? You haven’t got enough B vitamins to start with. You can’t manufacture lots and lots of different kinds of hormones that make you feel good. Your libido goes, your appetite goes, your sleep goes, everything goes when B vitamins go. One of the worst things you can do is to drink alcohol with a lack of B vitamins because that’s going to wreck your B vitamins even more.

Candida also produces a by-product called acetaldehyde, which is similar to what happens in the body with alcohol metabolism. When alcohol breaks down, acetaldehyde is produced. Acetaldehyde can help to block up receptors in the digestive system, not allowing to uptake dopamine, for example. Dopamine levels can be affected. This can create a lot of problems in the body with the way your digestive system works, the way your brain functions, the way your moods function – all because of Candida. Alcohol has a similar effect on the body: alcohol toxicity that bad Candida infection will have.

What’s the answer? Well, first thing you’ve got to do is try to eradicate the overgrowth of Candida. Get the balance back. Get the beneficial bacteria back again. That’s going to help you big time. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen over the years that were on medications for depression, and the depression lifted when their gut function improved. I’ve seen this time and again. Of course, with the depression, the gut function goes down more because these drugs often destroy the way that the gut works effectively. Then they go on more medications. It’s incredible how many people get messed up with medications.

If you’ve got a problem with depression, the first thing I tend to do with patients is look at the digestive function. Assess the stool properly for beneficial bacteria because remember they produce B vitamins to a big extent. Folic acid is also produced by beneficial bacteria. Folate is one of the most important vitamins you can have to prevent cancer. This can be another link between yeast infection and cancer. Poor beneficial bacteria and cancer, alcohol and cancer. I keep banging on about alcohol, and that’s because I’m not a big fan of alcohol. I do enjoy a glass of wine here or there or a cold beer, but it’s not something I consume very much at all.

Manu, just to answer your question: “Is there a link between depression and Candida?” There is a link between it, but you can’t say that all depression is caused by Candida. There are cases of depression which will have other causes. But if you do suffer from mood disorders or you’ve had a problem with depression of recent origin or it’s come on all of a sudden or you’ve never had depression, but now you’ve got digestive issues or a yeast infection and you’ve got depression, get it sorted and it might just hold the answer to making you feel a lot better. Thanks for your question, Manu.

Greetings! It’s naturopath from New Zealand, Eric Bakker. Thanks for tuning in to my video. We’re going to be doing a video today on dosages. This is going to be a video that probably runs about four to five minutes. If you’re taking dosages of any kind of dietary supplement, I highly recommend you watch this video. Most people will never give you this kind of information. Most clinicians never talk about it, most companies who make formulations never talk about it, most doctors never talk about it, most patients never talk about it. In fact, I never hear anyone talking about correct ways of taking dosages-how to build dosages up, how to take them down, it’s a sensible approach. This is by no means a new protocol.

I first heard about a formalized kind of protocol from a doctor I know well in the States called Dr. Joseph Collins. Dr. Collins is a very smart doctor. Probably one of America’s foremost herbal formulators for hormonal problems with women. You can check out his website, yourhormones.com. I’ve known Joseph for a while now. I think one of the first doctors really to test women for testosterone in the States back in the 80s. Quite an intelligent guy.

Joe’s protocol is called the 2-4-2 protocol. Mine is very similar, and it’s based on a similar kind of information, but I put my additional bits and pieces in there. Mine really is the induction, the treatment, and the maintenance. Three stage approach-ITM, so induction, treatment and maintenance.

Any kind of dietary supplement you take regardless of what it is, you need to take a certain dosage, and you need to take it for a certain period of time. How long do you take something for? How much do you take? When do you take a little bit? When do you take a lot? When do you step it up? When do you step it down? Who tells you this kind of information? When we think about it, an induction makes a lot of sense. If you’re going to take a dietary supplement for a treatment of a specific condition, let’s say for example that you had a small intestinal bacterial problem, you had Candida, you’ve got irritable bowel syndrome, you’ve got inflammatory bowel syndrome, any kind of gut problem. Anything particularly relating to this channel I’m talking about.

Similarly, it could be a cold or a flu. It could be a urinary tract infection. It could be any one of a thousand different types of treatments that you’re looking at taking a dietary supplement for, so that’s treatment supplements. Other supplements that we take long term, which are not necessarily treatment, are multivitamins. Fish oil, for example. Even some people take vitamin E or magnesium long term. These are quite ok things to do. Let’s not confuse the treatment supplements with the long term daily use supplements. These are an entirely different ball game.

We’re going to talk about the treatment ones today. Let’s say, for example, you’ve got some formulas like the Canxida formulas, you may have Canxida Remove, Canxida Restore, and we’ve just brought out Canxida Rebuild, which will be available any day now. It’s been manufactured, it’s just being shipped to my fulfillment company.

Let’s say you’ve got these three formulas, and you’re thinking, “Well, Eric, how do I take this stuff? What the hell do I do with these pills now? Do I just take a few here or there?” Let’s just say you’ve got these formulas and you’re confused, you don’t know what to do. The induction makes a lot of sense. Induction we do for a lot of things. I first heard about the word induction I think back in the 80s with the diet by Dr. Atkins. Atkins had an induction phase for a few weeks. Induction is a smart thing. You do induction when you go to the gym. You do induction when you go to work.

Anything you’re starting new, you doing an induction. Which means it takes you normally a few weeks to get used to something. You don’t just jump straight in. You just don’t get on the diving plank and jump in the water without knowing how deep it is. How dumb is that? You take care when you do an induction. Induction means many changes are likely to occur in your body. The intelligent approach I want you to get through your head is induction normally is about two weeks. Most people only need 14 days for an induction-particularly of a dietary supplement.

In that two-week phase, you’re going to be making a lot of changes. Not just to the fact that you’re taking the supplements changes to your body, but you’re making changes also no doubt with your diet and your lifestyle. You’re probably drinking more water, you’re drinking less caffeine. Hopefully, you’ll have cut alcohol out for a while. Hopefully, you will be getting to bed on time; getting enough sleep. You’ll be eliminating properly; you’ll have good bowel motions. All of these things take time. The induction is usually a good time to do it.

In my Candida Crusher book, I wrote about the “big cleanup,” which is like a kind of induction. Induction is normally two weeks. The supplement dosages you’re going to take are probably one to two per day of each of the formulas. The Canxida Remove you’ll take one tablet once per day or twice per day depending on your sensitivity. If you’re an ultra-sensitive person, you may even want to snap the tablet in half and take a half a tablet per day for three days and then build up to one tablet.

If you’re just a regular joe like me, an average person, you can usually start on two tablets per day of the Canxida Remove. The Canxida Restore you would take two capsules per day and the Canxida Rebuild you will take two tablets per day. This is induction. Fourteen days. I’ve got some notes I’ve written down here. As with all natural medicines, the dosage can be customized for the individual patient needs. Occasionally some patients may find that they only need one tablet per day during the induction phase. Many people start to feel better during this induction phase. This is when you’re actually starting to improve. It’s important not to be stuck on the lower dosage because we want to actually start treatment because we’re just doing induction at the moment. Starting at two doses per day gives the body time to heal and push you more eventually towards a wellness plateau. Good gut health, good immune health, which is what we’re looking at.

After that one to two weeks, usually you can jump into the treatment phase, the second phase. To achieve full restoration of health and homeostasis, it’s important to maintain consistent and proper doses of the Canxida formulations. So, the treatment phase recognizes that it takes more energy and more intensive therapy to start really turning things around inside your digestive and immune system in particular.

Now you need to step the dosages up during treatment, so you’ve had your induction, you’ve gone to bed on time, you’re starting to look less at Facebook, who’s liking you on Facebook all the time. You’re switching off your devices, you’re going more for walks, you’re drinking more water, you’re trying to really look at the triggers of stresses in your life. You’ve made a lot of changes. You’ve come a long way. You’re becoming more wellness interested now is when you push the dosage up.

Push a little bit harder because we want to do treatment now. The treatment dosage for the Canxida formulations is between three to four doses per day. This is either tablets or capsules depending what the formula reads. This should be done ideally between two to four months. I think four months is usually a good treatment phase. As with all natural medicines, the dosage can be further customized to suit the individuality of the patient. Occasionally, some people find two doses is better, and others find that four doses is better. You need to work out what feels good for you.

Once you experience a high level of function and an improved quality of life, it’s good to stay on this four dose rule, particularly between three to four doses per day for up to four months. Especially important if you’ve got a history of relapses. If you’re a person who feels really good when you take something, but then you come off it and you feel like crap again, then stay on the high dosage for longer. While you’re in the maintenance phase, I want you to really go to town on your lifestyle habits.

Now is when you’re really going to carefully and critically assess what you are doing that could help keep you in the relapse state. Maybe you’re one of those people who starts coming right like some of my patients, and then you go out and then you have champagne or do something crazy like that. You have a whole bottle of champagne. I’ve heard it all before from people. That’s the danger period; I’ve spoken about this. Getting well, improving health, and then thinking, “Yeehee! I feel awesome!” Then going out and then blowing it all away. It happens, so be careful. Once you’ve felt better consistently for several months, then it’s time to really start looking at the maintenance phase.

First, remember I want you to have a consistent, long-term feeling of wellbeing. It’s important that you feel good for a long period of time before you cut the dosages back to the maintenance phase. It’s like a reverse induction-we’re going the other way. The maintenance phase recognizes that the restorative dosage that was required to increase level of function and improve quality of life is typically not required for long-term maintenance. You don’t need to be staying on a higher end of dosages for a long, long, time. Anyone who tells you that is wrong. That’s not treatment. That’s just basically suckering you into a product long-term, and you don’t need to do that. I really don’t believe that any kind of natural approach should include long-term treatment.

People that tell me being on some supplement for a certain amount of time for a treatment are seeing the wrong kind of person, or they’ve got the wrong kind of protocol. They’re not putting everything into play that allows the body to heal. When a patient says, “I’ve been feeling great for four months!” Then it’s time to start cutting the dosage back, especially when people start asking about how long they need to take something for. If you tell me how long you need to be taking something for, you need to be first telling me that you’re feeling pretty darn good before you’re thinking about cutting the dosage back.

Occasionally, a patient may need to stay on the treatment phase for longer than four months and occasionally for shorter. Some people need longer treatment, some people need a little bit shorter. As with all natural medicines, as I mentioned before, the dosages need to be adjusted to suit you. Occasionally, there will be a patient that will feel better on three to four doses long-term. This can be an extended treatment as I mentioned.

Some people I know have had been on the Canxida formulas for two years at a high dosage. They’re feeling absolutely amazing, and when they cut the dosage back, they don’t feel good at all. Others feel really good on one dose per day. You need to work out how you feel. I’ve got a patient who breaks the Canxida Remove tablet in half. He’s on cancer treatment and is feeling fantastic with half a tablet in the morning. Keeps his tongue all nice, and he’ll probably stay on that for many, many years.

You need to really customize a protocol. Remember: induction, treatment, maintenance, intelligence. I hope that gives you a little bit of an approach and understanding on how to take dosages. Multivitamin, the Canxida Rebuild, for example, is a Canxida multi. You can take that for many years long-term; one dose per day. The Canxida Restore-that’s the probiotic enzyme blend. Once you get to the maintenance phase and you’re feeling awesome you can take one capsule per day long-term as long as you want. It’s not a problem.

The Canxida Remove, however, is a very strong product. You may not want to take that one long-term every single day. Like one of my patients, Bob, you can just break the tablet in half and take half of a tablet every day for as long as you want. A lot of people will be able to tolerate one tablet per day long-term as well.

First, remember you’ve got to get the induction right, the lifestyle and diet changes correct first, then you do the treatment, make more adjustments and changes. Treat as long as you need, then you step down to a maintenance phase.

Maintenance phase implies that you’re feeling good, you’re just fine tuning the dosage on the lower end to stay good for a long time. That’s the ITM treatment protocol. Hope that gives you some good information. Thank you so much for tuning in to my video.

Greetings. Eric Bakker from New Zealand back again. We’re talking about irritable bowel syndrome. This time we’re going to talk about the causes of IBS. The way I see it, I’m just going to read some stuff I’ve got in my other computer on the four main causes of IBS the way I see it.

Infections, especially if you’ve had a SIBO or a Candida problem, could be a real big issue. Number two, lactose intolerance. Number three, food allergies and food intolerances. Number four, stress. Let’s have a look at those four things because those are four huge areas. The four big reasons why people get irritable bowel syndrome.

I also write in my book if you go to a doctor, there’s a big chance that you may be diagnosed with NAD or no abnormal diagnosis and be sent away with Metamucil or some kind of bulking agent or something like that. That’s okay. It may work for some. But if you keep getting this problem coming back, you better darn well find out what the cause is because you don’t want to have this problem for a long period of time.

Most of my IBS patients know all the lavatories in town. They know where all the toilets are, all the restrooms. A lot of these people don’t even like going out in the morning for shopping or running errands or doing things like that. This can really mess up your life. This problem. One of the worst things you can have is to have a bowel that’s not functioning optimally, so it’s imperative that you find out what the cause is. Causes addressed make a lot more sense than just treatments. Why would you want to shoot in the dark at something? You’re better off putting the spotlight on it and then just getting it in your scope and shooting it and taking it out with one hit because you’ve identified your target.

It’s very important that you understand the causes need to be sorted out. For each person, those causes may be individual. There is no such thing as one cause fits the boat for everybody. Just like saying that everybody needs to wear a red jacket or black shoes. What a load of crap. Everybody will want to wear different kind of clothes. What do you think of my groovy shirt this morning? Tracy doesn’t like this shirt. She thinks it looks a bit crappy on me, but I quite like it. She’s away today so I can wear what I want. Yeah.

As I mentioned, the four main areas I look at are infections, lactose, food allergies and food intolerances, and stress. What they found through research is nearly 80 percent of people with irritable bowel syndrome have SIBO, had SIBO or have had SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth; 80 percent. About 25 to 30 percent of people with irritable bowel syndrome have Candida or had a Candida infection. There is a big chance someone with IBS had some kind of a gut problem.

Remember we talked about infections? Yeast, bacteria, parasites. You can have Candida, which many people have in their bowel not presenting a problem because it’s in balance. We’ve got hundreds of species of bacteria in our gut and these are kept in check by other bacteria, particularly beneficial bacteria. But when the balance goes out through antibiotics or stress or for another reason, this is when an infection or an overgrowth can happen.

Up to 18 to 20 percent of people with IBS have got a parasite problem. That’s nearly like 1 in 5 who’ve got a parasite. I can tell you from over thousands of stool tests I’ve done that many, many people I see with IBS have got a yeast infection, will have a bacterial problem, or a parasite problem. When we do the stool test, we get the results back. Bingo! We found the cause. We address that immediately and often in cases, there’s a big resolution of the symptoms. Maybe not a complete disappearance because it takes some time for bowel to come back into its own.

If you’ve had a problem higher up in the small intestine or you may have had a helicobacter infection of the stomach, you may have taken a drug for that, triple therapy or antibiotics, you may have also taken a drug like Rifaximin for SIBO. In about 40 to 50 percent of cases that will work, but I can’t tell you how many hundreds of patients I’ve seen that have been through a Rifaximin treatment or a different antibiotic treatment that initially worked but then it came back again. It’s like the alcoholic. “I’ll not drink it anymore. I swear I won’t drink.” And then they stop and then they start again. Infections are often like a recovering alcoholic. They will lie to you. They will tell you they’re not going to do it again, but then they come back and haunt you again and again. Just be careful.

When promises are made that if you take an antibiotic that you will conquer this thing, you will kill it. It will not come back. I can tell you a lot of people fall for this like and it comes back. The only way you’re going to get on top of an infection and nail it permanently is by first understanding what led you into that problem in the first place. That’s A. B, effective treatment to eradicate and get things in balance, and C, the most important one is to maintain a good lifestyle and diet for a long enough period of time, which stops a recurrence. That’s the intelligent approach. The dumb approach is just to take a drug and then to go back out there again and drink all your beers and have all your crappy foods and then have crappy relationships with people and not sleep and be on Facebook all the time liking people and stuff like that. When you’re leading a balanced lifestyle, you cannot get that gut back again.

The causes. Remember we talked about the infections. We talked about SIBO. But what about lactose? Lactose is a big problem with a lot of people. If you’ve got a lactose problem, you’ve got diarrhea. Generally, diarrhea. You can get constipation from lactose, but usually you’ll be farting, bloating, and loose stools. That’s the clear one with lactose.

I can’t really tolerate cow’s milk at all. I like a little bit of cow’s milk when I have porridge in the morning. I’ve had a habit for a while of putting raw milk onto my porridge, a creamy raw milk, but then I’m sniffing and clearing my throat. In some of my videos, you may have heard me sniffing or clearing my throat. That’s particularly so if I’ve had porridge that morning and I’ve had some raw milk. I’m one of those people who can’t tolerate milk. I don’t have any milk anymore in my life. I’ve just kicked it out completely. Hopefully, it will be the end of my sniffing and throat clearing.

Be careful of lactose and if you’ve got IBS, especially diarrhea and bloating, stop any dairy products for a while and see if that could be the cause. Simple. Just stop. Stop for about two months and see what happens to your gut. That includes cheese, all kinds of milks, just be careful, particularly cow’s milk. I wouldn’t go as far as to say stop goat’s milk. Butter is always fine. I don’t find butter a problem. I’ve never seen a butter allergy, but I’ve seen plenty of dairy allergies. That’s the primary one I want you to think about is lactose when it comes to IBS for many people, especially Asian people, fair skinned people. There are a lot of people who can’t really tolerate lactose. They may be drinking milk now and not even understanding the link between that and their diarrhea.

Third one, food allergies and food intolerances. People who’ve had SIBO for a while often develop leaky gut. People who drink alcohol. There are many reasons why you could get leaky gut. Leaky gut often leads to a big problem with tolerating foods. Many people get issues with their pancreas. You might see my little microscope thing here in the corner and wonder what the heal that is. I’ve been looking at eyes now for nearly 30 years, so I do eyedeology. One of the interesting things I find with many people is pancreatic dysfunction. That’s one of the glands that often shows up in the eye. The kidneys show up. The pancreas shows up.

I had a very interesting case a few days ago of a lady. I looked at the eyes and she was 63 and I said, “Something doesn’t add up here. I can’t see kidney function showing up. I can’t see pancreas showing up. It’s almost like you’re in your 20s or 30s. What’s happened?” She said, “I’m a Jehovah’s Witness. I don’t drink any coffee or tea. I have no alcohol. I eat an extremely clean diet and I only drink water and occasionally herbal teas.” You could see it in the eye. That kind of lifestyle had paid off. Cause and effect. Food allergies, food intolerances. Check out my videos on those because you can see a lot of information I’ve already done on that.

Stress. Stress accounts for about 25 up to 30 percent of IBS. Did it initially cause IBS? No. I believe that it came along. There was a trigger. The person had a dysfunctional lifestyle for a while with their gut and because they were stressed often. Stress comes along and it just keeps the bowel in a dysfunctional state. When you’ve got IBS really bad like some of my patients have, it’s almost like living like a person whose got cancer on chemotherapy. Your quality of life is not really there. You become asocial. You don’t like going out eating. I wonder if there’s a Google ap where you can find all the toilets because that might be a good business idea for me to make an irritable bowel syndrome ap for people where all the toilets are.

The point I’m making is when you’ve got stress, you get autonomic dysfunction. I will have completed some videos on this topic already no doubt. Stress plays a massive role in initiating the problem to get out of hand and to maintain it to keep it in a bad position. Particularly if you’ve got a thyroid or an adrenal problem as well and you’re a nervous person, irritated person, you have insomnia, you have mood issues or cognitive dysfunction. If you’ve got those kinds of patterns and you’ve got irritable bowel syndrome, you don’t just want to target the gut. You want to target other causes that are higher up, which is going to help the bowel come back into its own good form again.

There is a huge link between the bowel and cognition. Many, many people I see with brain fog or can’t think with clarity have got a bowel problem. I’ve seen this quite a lot. Get your comprehensive stool analysis completed. I can’t stress that enough. If you want to really understand the cause of IBS, one of the first things I recommend you do is a comprehensive stool analysis, including parasitology, three samples. Get that done. It’s going to cost you a couple of hundred dollars, but you’ll have some answers. You’ll at least be able to eliminate that line of inquiry or say, “Hang on. What have I got here? I’ve got blastocysts. What the hell is that? Some kind of a weird food or something. What kind of bug is this?”

Establish the cause and then think about the treatment. Think about that. The next video we’re going to do in this series will be “Signs and symptoms of IBS.” Catch up with me in the next video. Click on the link down below if you haven’t already got my free Candida report. Thanks for tuning in.