Author: Eric Bakker

Thanks for checking out this video today. I’ve got a question here from a lady in Sydney, Australia. Eric, please help me. My white tongue won’t go away. What can I do?

If you’ve got a problem with your tongue, a discoloration of the tongue, it means your digestive system is not happy and you need to clearly make some changes. Let’s give you a couple of tips on things you can do to get your tongue back to a nice pink color again and get rid of that awful white color.

There are different stages of discoloration of the tongue. You’ll notice initially with the digestive system not functioning well, there could be small telltale signs like a little bit of gas, some gurgling sounds. There could be some burping. There could be flatulence. We all have these from time to time, but as the digestive system starts really going downhill, you’ll notice these become a more common occurrence. They’ll be more gas production. There could be some bad breath coming from the mouth. You wake up in the morning; you could be quite stinky from the mouth. You could have a lot of body odor. There can be lots of signs like that going on.

Look at the bowel motions. These will be a good indication of the digestive health as well. Are they formed? Are they loose? What’s the texture? What’s the color? It’ll give you an idea. And the urine, as well, is a very offensive urine, especially first thing in the morning. Is it dark or discolored? These are all signs of poor liver function, poor digestive function, and internal toxemia or problems with toxins pooling up in the body.

One way I recommend you remedy this, obviously, is to initially look at what you’re eating. Look at how you’re eating. Look at what times you’re eating. Are you eating the right foods for you? Are you eating too much food? Are you eating at weird times of the day? Are you not chewing properly and slowing down, taking your time eating food? These are all key things you need to factor in to remedy the white tongue.

Obviously, a diet rich in fresh vegetables and fruits and lean proteins is what you want to go for. Chew food more slowly and take your time when you eat away from things like computers or TVs. Taking some digestive enzymes temporarily for the first maybe two or three months is quite a wise move. Some people say brushing your tongue works quite well. That’s worth a try. Brushing the tongue lightly.

On previous videos, I’ve explained the different regions of the tongue and the parts of the digestive system that they represent. The common part of the tongue to be white will be the central part. I’ll actually draw it on a diagram for you so you can understand what I’m talking about. The central part and the rear of the tongue. These three crosses here represent the central part of the tongue. If that area is quite white in there, I think you’ve got a problem really with small intestinal bowel overgrowth, especially the duodenum, as the American’s say, or the duodenum. The initial part of the small bowel probably needs a bit of improvement. There could be some leaky gut syndrome going on there. You might need to change the kind of foods you eat and move away to a much more fresh diet.

If you look at the big cross at the back there, a discoloration here at the back, this is going to represent more the colon or further down the bowel. And that’s often involved with a lot of gas. If you’ve got yellow or white coating in the back of the tongue, I’m going to also suggest digestive enzymes, particularly ones high in betaine hydrochloride and pepsin. So you really want to improve the stomach function to improve what’s happening much further down.

Pancreatic enzymes and also enzymes involving ox bile, I believe, are really good for the small intestine because they improve the pancreatic function and the stomach function a little bit more.

Discoloration of the tongue you can get rid of in three to four months completely with attention to hygiene, more water, no alcohol, no sugars, lots of fresh foods in the diet, preferably home cooked meals, steamed vegetables, stir fry foods, lean proteins, good quality proteins like eggs and fish. These things are going to get rid of the white colored tongue and then you’re going to look all pretty all over again.

Thanks for your inquiry and I hope that answers your question.

I’ve got a question here today from a patient in England. Is Yakult any good for thrush?

Well, let’s first examine what Yakult is. Yakult is a small drink you can buy from the supermarket. It comes in about an 80 mil shot in a small plastic container generally with red writing on it. It contains up to 30 billion live probiotic organisms per container, which is quite a lot, Lactobacillus casei shirota strain. It was developed in 1935 by a Japanese doctor, so it’s been around for about 80 years now and it’s proven to be a reasonably good drink.

The question is asked, can it be used for thrush? I’m not a big fan of Yakult for a couple of reasons. I’m just going to read out the ingredients and you make up your own mind. It contains water, sugar (sucrose), skim milk powder, glucose (another sugar), calcium lactate, permitted flavors, goodness knows what these permitted flavors are, and a few B vitamins, B3, niacin, pyridoxine, B6, B12 and Vitamin D. That’s all okay, but I’m not happy about the sugars in this product. Why would you put sugar and glucose in a probiotic drink?

According to the website, they put it in there because it would be too sour to taste. And they put this in there to sweeten the flavor up a bit. So they say a little bit of sugar is fine to have in a drink like this. It takes away the sourness, but also feeds the beneficial bacteria. Unfortunately, it feeds Candida as well, so it’s got sugar in there.

I’m going to give you the thumbs down for Yakult for thrush. I don’t think you should have it. I think maybe for certain cases of traveler’s diarrhea it might be okay, but for a yeast infection, I’ll not recommend you take Yakult in. There are plenty of other good probiotics on the market that you can take that don’t contain sugars. You don’t really want to have any added sugar in there. And the Japanese have a tendency to put sugar in a lot of things to sweeten it up. This is one of the reasons why people like sushi, the noy rolled up with rice, because rice is often cooked up and they add small amounts of caster sugar in there to sweeten it.

I don’t recommend that you have Yakult if you have a yeast infection. Thanks for your inquiry.

I’ve got a question today asked by a lady in America. Is a sore throat a sign of Candida die off?

There could be many different signs of Candida die off. A sore throat to me generally means an increase in your susceptibility toward immune dysfunction. And we find that typically with people who’ve had any kind of stress in their life. As soon as a person has had stress, even small amounts of stress, it causes an easing up of the white blood cells. With very high stress, it causes an almost complete disappearance of white blood cells. And one of the key areas to get affected when a person starts to become unwell is the throat region. It’s a very easy area for bacteria to affect, and it’s one of the main portals of entry into the body is the throat, the mouth, particularly the throat area.

If you’ve got a sore throat when you wake up, if you examine what happened the day before, two days before, you’ll usually see there was some kind of stress like being outside in the cold air. It could be an environmental stress. It could be an emotional stress and often, there will be some kind of nutritional deficiency underpinning it like insufficient zinc in the body or iron or Vitamin C.

It’ll be a couple of factors combined that contribute to the sore throat. I don’t generally see sore throats as detox reactions or Candida die off reactions. I would see them more as increased susceptibility and lower resistance. And this can commonly occur as part of Candida treatment. It’s not uncommon for a person to get a little bit stressed out or tired or irritable or have other issues as a result of the Candida treatment. And this itself can help to bring a sore throat on.

First thing you do with sore throats is you start taking dairy products out of the diet immediately, milk, cheese, and things like that. Gargle with a bit of sea salt in water is often a good idea. Put one or two drops of tea tree oil in the water for a gargle in the morning that will help you quite well. The big thing with sore throats is you need a lot of rest. Plenty of rest. And if there’s any congestion, you need to treat that as well.

I hope that answers your question about sore throats and die off. I don’t really think there’s a strong connection with them both.

Thank you.