Author: Eric Bakker

Greetings. Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand, author of Candida Crusher. Thanks for checking out my video today. Today, we’re going to talk about toxic people. They are people that literally make you sick.

You’ve probably seen some of my previous YouTube videos where I talk about stress, particularly stress and yeast infection. Stress and the inability of your immune system to properly power up to counter a yeast infection.

One of the big reasons why a lot of people get sick with stress is people. It’s other people. In fact, I think one of the most common stressors for people is relationships that they have with other people around them. Particularly, if they’re close. This can also be in a working situation. It can be at home. It can be socially. It can be at work. There can be many different scenarios where you come into contact with people.

What I’d like you to do, particularly, if you’ve had a long-term chronic yeast infection or you’ve been unwell for a long time is try to have a good look at the relationships of people that you’ve got around you right now. You may even want to write down the names of about 10 or 15 people and then just jot down behind those names a little bit about that person. If you like that person, if you don’t like that person. This may sound like a queer exercise, but I did this with a patient recently, a lady with very bad psoriasis. In fact, with a bad vaginal yeast infection. She had a lot of digestive problems. I got her to do this exercise and she came back and said, “It’s my partner.” I said, “What do you mean it’s your partner?” She said, “My partner lives overseas and it’s giving me a lot of grief. I’ve been with this partner a long time, and I’m not really happy with the relationship at all.”

Then I said, “What are you going to do about it?” And she said, “Well, I know what I should be doing, but my heart tells me different from what my head tells me.” We had a bit of a discussion about it. I recently had a Skype consultation with this patient and found that she’d improved 100%. Her skin looked amazing. Her digestive system had improved to a very high degree. And why? Because she got rid of this toxic person out of her life.

What we can learn from this is that relationships with people around you are a bit like being outside in the garden. Gardens need maintenance just like relationships need maintenance. Sometimes we need to do a bit of serious pruning in the garden. We need to get a chainsaw or some big slashing tool and just chop whole things out. Other times, we just need to do a little bit of pruning, just a bit of light trimming. Other times, we need to do a bit of fertilizing. That’s how we’re going to get rid of some stuff or we’ve got to build some stuff up. You can extrapolate that through your relationships.

In this case, with this lady, she got a hold of a chainsaw and she cut this whole relationship out of her life. And as I said to her, “When you take a big tree out of the garden, make a bid decision in the garden, it’s a lot of work initially to do that. But once you’ve done that, it’s incredible how much light comes into the garden, how much new growth can occur. It’s the same in your relationship.” And as I said to her, “Once the pain of the breakup is gone and you eventually get on top of it, you may notice that a whole lot more light will come into your life and eventually who knows a new relationship could come in there.”

As I’ve always said in my book and also on videos, when you bring about a change, a whole change in your life occurs. When you finally make up your mind to get rid of this toxic person, your whole life will change. As painful as it may seem at the beginning, it’s going to be incredible when a light does come into your life. And sometimes people need a little bit of light pruning. You just need to talk to the person about some conflict you’ve got or some friction and overcome that. Whether it’s someone in the workplace or at home. You’re the one who makes the decision who you allow into your life. Life is precious and life is short.

In my life, I just associate with people that I like, that I get on well with. People that build me up. People that are kind to me. People that I’m kind to in return. But I will no longer have relationships with people that annoy the hell out of me or that make me sick or toxic or they get me all worked up. I just don’t allow this anymore. Sometimes it can mean letting go of jobs or dissolving businesses or getting rid of relationships. But if you take stock of these relationships and finally have the courage to make the change, you watch what happens to your health long term. All of a sudden, those symptoms that you had of 10 or 15 years duration, they’re gone. The gut problems go away. The bloating, the flatulence, the cramping in the gut, the sore shoulders or neck, the headaches, the lower back pain. All these problems, small niggly problems you’ve had for a long time, they disappear. Because many of them are, in fact, stress related problems.

Relationships cause in some cases conflict and tension inside our body. And once that relationship goes, the tension and conflict disappear. We no longer have to put up all these defense mechanisms. We no longer have to produce the stress hormones that reduce our immune function and cause pain in the body and tightness and sleeping problems. Those things all disappear.

Have a think about that. There’s a little bit of food for thought for you there. Take stock of your relationships. Do a bit of gardening. Maybe a bit of weeding, a bit of pruning, maybe a little bit of a chain sawing. Make some changes and watch what happens to your relationships long term. No pills required. No tests required. Just look at your relationships. Thanks for tuning in.

Greetings. It’s naturopath Eric Bakker from New Zealand, author of Candida Crusher. Thanks for checking out my video today. We’re going to talk about probiotics today.

This is one of many, many videos I’m going to complete on probiotics just to inform you and just sort of separate fact from fiction because there is so much BS out there when it comes to probiotics. I hope this is going to be one of many different videos to come. I’ve got some notes I’m going to read off here and then speak along with those. I want you to appreciate that your gut microbiome, the stuff that lives here in the gut basically, is an organ in its own right. It’s estimated to weigh between 1 to 1-1/2 kilograms. That’s 3 pounds of bacteria, 10 to the power of 14 plus. So Imagine 10 with 14 zeros behind it. That’s how many bacteria there are potentially in your gut.

It’s estimated that we have anywhere up to 1,000 or more species of bugs in our gut. And it’s also estimated that people who live in underdeveloped countries can have even twice this amount. People who don’t drink Coke Zero. People who don’t listen to iPhones with music screaming all day or check their emails constantly. People who don’t drink coffee five or six times a day. Who don’t go to MacDonald’s. People who tend to live more according to the laws of nature. These people tend to have a more complex ecosystem of their digestive system. They tend to have a more powerful effect in their gut when it comes to protecting their health, unlike us people.

It is also estimated that as we progress through successive generations from now, we’re going to have less and less bacteria. Because every time we have offspring with future generations, it’s believed that we’re going to have less and less bugs as we go along through the kind of crazy lifestyles that we lead. The gut microbiome or this massive organ rivals the liver in a number of biochemical reactions, which is incredible when you think about it.

We also live in a mutually beneficial relationship with these bugs. We need them and they need us. It’s very important that we have bacteria because they perform an incredible amount of functions in our digestive system. So we really rely on these things to keep us healthy. The gut has been termed the “second brain,” which is interesting. And we know, for example, that more serotonin is produced in the small intestine than actually is in the brain. That’s worth thinking about. Because you know that serotonin is a hormone responsible for making us feel good, so now you can understand why if you’ve got a terrible digestive system, you might not really feel good about life in general. There are two types of dysbiosis. You’ve heard of SIBO, but what about LIBO. What about large intestinal bowel overgrowth? So the colonic bacteria tend to be more important for human health than the bacteria that reside in the small intestine according to a lot of experts.

I attended a very interesting conference in Australia last weekend where we had two professors and one PhD, all these academics, talking on the gut. And all these academics are arguing amongst themselves. But one guy wasn’t arguing because he was a clinician and researcher. And the other two guys were arguing about who was right and who was wrong. In the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s ridiculous all these arguments that these researchers have.

Let’s have a look at what these bacteria actually do inside our digestive system. What are some of the functions and roles they play, and why is it so important for you to have a very good presence of beneficial bacteria in your gut? These bacteria modulate our immune system. If you’ve got very low levels of lactobacilli, for example, you’re going to have a low ability to really keep your immune system powered up. Non-specific immunity is very reliant on good bacteria. So the ability for you to kill a lot of bugs in your system is dependent on how many probiotic bacteria you’ve actually got there in your gut. Very important.

Upregulated non-specific immunity and IgA production. Circulatory IgA is an immunoglobulin or antibody that is produced. There are several grams produced per 24 hours in your gut to help protect against invading pathogens, bacteria, parasites, and things like that. It protects us also against things that may cause us allergies. The bacteria in our gut also play an important role in GIT motility. Peristalsis or the ability of stool to move through the bowel is dependent on good bacteria as well. You’ll find with very good bacteria levels, you’ve got minimal gas, no bloating, no cramping, and no pain. You should have no sensation in your gut. You should not feel any pain. If you feel pain, it can often be a sign of gas, pockets of gas pushing on various nerve Plexi here in the gut, creating that kind of pain sensation.

Bacteria, the good ones, also improve nutritional status, so they’re very important for the production of Vitamin K that really helps our blood clot quite well. They also produce B vitamins. So this is why people with lots of bloating and gas and constipation and diarrhea are tired all the time. They just haven’t got a lot of energy. Their brain is not functioning well. They get mood swings. Because B vitamins play key roles in all these different areas. Vitamin B6, B2, niacin, riboflavin, pyridoxine, all of these B vitamins can be produced to some extent in the gut. So now you understand why gut problems can lead to fatigue because B vitamins are particularly important for energy production.

Mineral absorption. Experts believe that calcium, magnesium, and particularly zinc, require good colonic bacteria to be absorbed and function really well in the body. And energy salvaging because you’ll find that people with very good digestive function have an ability to produce energy and maintain energy as well and restore energy, it’s like recycling energy. And they’ll do so by things I’ve mentioned here, by proper absorption, digestion of nutrients.

Xenobiotic metabolism. Xenobiotics are basically chemicals that are not really good for the body or foreign to the body. Foreign to life. Xenobiosis. Phytoestrogens, polyphenols, glycosides, so different chemicals can be metabolized more easily. Some of these chemicals if they’re not broken down more easily can result in the potential for colon cancer.

Production of short chain fatty acids. These are particular types of things that happen in our bowel. Short chain fatty acids are produced by bacterial fermentation in the colon, and we need them for really good health. And they’re also dependent on good bacteria. Weight management, mood management; help us live longer, so the list really goes on and on. So you can start seeing the picture now of how important it is that we have bacteria in the gut and why we need them to thrive.

I hope that gives you a little bit of an insight into the importance of the human microbiome. Thanks for tuning in.

Greetings. It’s New Zealand naturopath, Eric Bakker, author of Candida Crusher and formulator of Canxida, the Candida dietary supplements of choice. Thanks for checking out my video.

I’ve got lots of questions here from people all over the world, many different countries. Thank you for sending me these questions, and thank you for the awesome comments I’ve received on my YouTube Candida Crusher channel. It’s very inspiring. It’s for people like you that I make these videos. People that are looking for some real answers. Not a lot of bologna and garbage that I’ve been reading on the internet, but I’m going to give you a lot of common sense and good ideas on how you can really get rid of these Candida yeast infections.

Here’s a question I got from a guy in California a couple of days ago. Eric, how do I know I have chronic Candida?

Well, Jeff, let me tell you. There are many ways you can find out if you’ve got chronic Candida, but you’ll know you’ve got chronic Candida by the awful, terrible, crappy quality of life that you’ve got. You’ll know you’ve got chronic Candida when you’ve been to 10 different doctors, 5 different naturopaths, 4 different chiropractors, and 2 psychiatrists; God knows whom else you’ve gone to and had no answers. You know you’ve got chronic Candida when you’ve been told it’s all in your head and there’s nothing wrong with you; that you need to get a hold of your life and just get on with things.

These are the things that I was told when I had chronic Candida in my 20s. I was told I needed to see a psychiatrist, that I was nuts, that there was nothing wrong with me. In fact, my doctor told me that I couldn’t have Candida because I wasn’t a woman and only women got vaginal yeast infections that he considered to be chronic Candida. The sad thing is there are lot of misconceptions regarding chronic yeast infections, and many people still even today believe it just simply doesn’t exist.

When you’ve got chronic Candida, you usually have some kind of a digestive problem, not always, but usually. And this will generally involve some unresolved issue that’s been going on for weeks, months or even years. And it can be something simple like bloating or gas. It could be constipation or diarrhea. I just had a Face Time session with a 47-year-old woman who has had chronic Candida. She’s 47. She’s had chronic Candida for about 25 years. She’s got a bowel motion every four days. She has seriously bad sugar cravings and loves chocolate. She’s got a vaginal yeast infection. She’s got toenail fungus. She’s had all these kinds of problems, she’s been to so many doctors, and nobody has really helped her.

As I mentioned, chronic Candida will often involve a gut problem of some kind. Unexplained food allergies or sensitivities to many different kinds of foods is something I routinely see in people. People who tend to have very selective diets or people who hop from one diet to another. They might be on the GAPS diet, then the FOGMAP diet, then the Body Ecology diet, then on this diet, then on that diet. People who tend to stop gluten because they think that’s the problem. People who tend to go vegan. People who tend to go Paleo. All these people that go on these crazy, wacky, ridiculous diet approaches because they’re not feeling good. These are often the Candida cases.

Chronic Candida will generally involve immune dysfunction, leaky gut; I very commonly see it. And when you get leaky gut, it means that your digestive system has become a lot more permeable. And if you throw sugar on top of the equation, you’re going to find people will start complaining of things like feeling tired, fatigued, spaced out, brain fog, lacking the brain power, memory, cognitive dysfunction, sleeping disorders, mood disorders, anxiety, depression, tiredness, all of these things are signs and symptoms of chronic Candida.

A typical one I see with chronic Candida is tiredness, fatigue. Some doctors will say to you when you go and visit them with a chronic yeast infection, “Get out of my room. Everybody tells me that they are tired. I don’t care if you’re tired. I want to treat sick people, not tired people.” I’ve heard that before. I’ve heard a doctor tell a patient that.

How do you know you’ve got chronic Candida? A vaginal yeast infection that won’t go away that’s recurrent. Vaginal yeast that’s had you take multiple medications, had vaginal swabs for many years, and had all these so-called medical treatments with no result.

How do you know you’ve got chronic Candida? A jock itch that won’t go away. Itchiness around the men’s private area. These are all telltale signs. Toenail fungus. Doctor’s will tell you it’s a local problem. Anyone with a chronic recurring toenail fungus will have a gut problem. Usually you have bloating, farting, sugar cravings that go along and feed the yeast. There are hundreds of species of yeast that live inside and outside of the body, and they all want food. They want warmth. They want moisture. They need these conditions to grow. And we tend to give into those desires by giving them the wrong kind of food.

If you suspect you’ve got chronic Candida, there are many ways you can find out. I think the best way is to do a comprehensive stool test. I think it’s still the best way really to discover – not just if you’ve got chronic Candida, but also what kind of an intestinal environment you’ve got in general. What level of beneficial bacteria you’ve got. What imbalanced flora you’ve got. What kind of inflammatory patterns you’re showing in the gut. What type of colon health you’ve got. What type of enzyme health you’ve got. This will all be revealed in a comprehensive stool test.

Chronic Candida requires a multi-stage approach, and that’s what we’re going to look at in the next video. As I mentioned, you will know you’ve got chronic Candida by having immune dysfunction, gut problems, and often some kind of a cognitive or dysfunction up here. You may have one or several. Some people with chronic Candida will only have a vaginal problem. Others will only have a gut problem. Others will have systemic problems all over.

Make sure that you go to yeastinfection.org and read my “Signs and Symptoms of Yeast Infection: The Common and Not So Common.” It’s a long page, and you might be quite surprised to find that your pattern is there. And also don’t forget to do my quiz. It’s taken me a lot of time and money and effort to put this quiz together, and I think it’s the best quiz on the internet ascertaining if you’ve got a mild, moderate, or severe yeast infection.

Go and check it out. These are all things I’ve put on there for you for free. All to help people out. Thanks for your time.