Author: Eric Bakker

Good day there, Eric Bakker, naturopath, author of Candida Crusher. This is our frequently asked question series.

I have diabetes, Eric. Is this the reason I got a yeast infection?

Well, it could well be. As you know, we call diabetes a blood sugar problem. So there are two types of diabetes, but the common one which many people come to me with is Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetics can generally take medicines to regulate their blood sugar and providing they eat the right food and look after their body weight, they can usually keep it at bay.

Type 1 diabetes, however, is insulin dependent and an auto-immune disease. It’s a different ball game we’re talking about. I’m referring to Type 2 diabetes here.

So diabetics can increase or have a higher amount of glucose output in their urine, and this can predispose many people toward vaginal yeast infections or females to vaginal yeast infections. So, this is something that you need to bear in mind. If you get recurring vaginal infection and you’re a diabetic, you need to get your blood sugar sorted properly. There are different blood tests you can do to determine whether you’ve got a problem short term or long term, so you want to best talk to your doctor about these particular tests. Make sure you’ve got your blood sugar under control if you want to prevent these further outbreaks.

But I have also seen diabetics with skin manifestations of yeast infections around the armpits, in the groin, around the feet area, and this also can be due to a higher blood glucose level and we know that Candida yeast infections feed on sugar. So if you’ve got continually high blood sugar, if you’ve got high urinary output of glucose, you can certainly predispose yourself to manifestations of yeast infection if you’ve got diabetes.

So this could be a reason. And I’ve also seen some diabetics actually being diagnosed with diabetes after the doctor discovered they had a chronic vaginal yeast infection which led to blood testing. So that’s another thing you may want to think about.

So to answer your question again, is my diabetes the reason I’ve got a yeast infection? It could well be. Get yourself checked out. I hope that answers your question.

Hi there, Eric Bakker, naturopath again, author of Candida Crusher with another question.

Is my yeast infection linked up with a lowered immunity?

Absolutely; a strong immune system is going to overcome a yeast infection much more easily than a weak immune system. But not only a yeast infection, a strong immune system is going to overcome a lot of problems in your body; inflammation in particular. A strong immune system is now even linked to helping prevent heart disease, cancer, and many illnesses in your body. So it’s imperative that you develop a very powerful immune response.

How do we do that? Try and understand what builds immunity up in the body and also what breaks it down. In a previous video, I spoke about health builders and health busters. I spoke about increasing resistance and reducing susceptibility. You’re not going to build good immunity by taking antibiotics or by taking pharmaceutical drugs. These are purely symptomatic treatments. They make people a lot of money who make these drugs, but they don’t build you a lot of health.

You need to think of your immune system like a powerful army. If a country has a weak army, it gets invaded quite easily. If a country has a very powerful army, it’s going to take over that threat very quickly and deal with it and lay it to rest before it even infiltrates into the country. So it’s important for you to understand this concept.

I want you to really work on building up your immunity, and I’m going to speak a lot more about this in other videos. But I’ll explain a little bit more about immune systems in this video for your interest.

Immunity is linked up very much so with digestive health, with emotional health, and particularly with adrenal health. So the adrenal glands manufacture a particular hormone called cortisol, and cortisol has an extremely powerful affinity on your white blood cells. So good cortisol levels mean a powered up immune system. Poor cortisol levels mean a weakened immune system. This will explain now to you why when people undergo stressful events that have a period of time not long after where they get ill.

So cortisol affects the body in many ways, but when it comes to your immune system, cortisol in sufficient levels is going to help prevent acute infectious disease. So it’s going to help prevent recurring coughs and colds and flus. Cortisol in sufficient levels is going to prevent hypersensitivity or allergic response, i.e., food allergies. Cortisol in sufficient levels is also going to help prevent autoimmune disease and ultimately a very good adrenal system should ultimately help you prevent cancer.

These are pretty good reasons why you want good adrenal health. I’ve seen many people with chronic yeast infections with poor immune health that can’t recover because they’ve got poor adrenal health. And once their adrenals are treated and powered up and cortisol is working, the chronic yeast infection goes away. So that’s something for you to think about.

I hope that answers your question. Thank you.

Hi there, Eric Bakker, naturopath, author of Candida Crusher with another question.

If I don’t take all my medicine, does the yeast infection really come back?

It really depends what you mean by medicine because are we talking natural medicines or pharmaceutical medicines? So doctors will tell you that you need to take a course of antibiotics. It’s important to take them otherwise the infection will return or it won’t go away at all.

Generally speaking, I get people to take dietary supplements for a period of time until they get in control of their yeast infection. And I’ve got the 80/20 rule in my clinic, which you may have heard me speak about and write about in my book, Candida Crusher; 80 percent of your energy when it comes to yeast infection needs to be spent on lifestyle and diet and 20 percent on therapeutics. By therapeutics, I mean specialized foods, which inhibit and eradicate bad bacteria and yeast. And in this 20 percent also we’ve got various dietary supplements which are going to be highly beneficial.

So people often say to me, how long do I need to take these things for? And I say, as long as it takes; as long as you get in control of your Candida yeast infection. For some folks, that can be four weeks. And for some, it could be 18 months. So it also depends on how bad you aggravate when you take a supplement. I’m not a big fan of having patients aggravate; if a supplement aggravates or medicine, you take less. If it doesn’t aggravate, you can maybe take a little bit more or increase the frequency of the dosages. So there are quite a lot of variables here.

On subsequent videos, I’m going to talk a lot more about the key foods which inhibit yeast. For example, oregano, various kinds of yogurt, coconut oil, again there’s oil, there’s cream, there’s various types of coconut products. And there are a lot of other herbs like clove, for example. Clove is very good. Garlic is one of my favorites in particular. And there are many other foods I’ll talk about that can inhibit yeast.

So if I don’t take all my medicine, does yeast infection really come back? Well, look at your lifestyle and diet. If they’re all conducive toward eradicating an infection and you’re not getting the right results by taking some type of therapeutic, you’ll need to stay on this therapeutic. It shouldn’t come back. It won’t come back if you follow the golden rule of not to keep on doing what you’re doing, which gave you the infection. Work on the causes. Stop taking antibiotics. Drink less alcohol. Don’t eat so many sugary foods or refined foods. Eat more home-cooked meals, fresh foods; follow my diet outlined in Section 1, Chapter 7, in my book. I’ve written over 100 pages on diet and nutrition. If you follow this, you’re not going to get the yeast infection back. There are plenty of nice foods you can eat.

So you shouldn’t really have to take medicine for long. Three to six months maybe at most and that’s it for most people. Sixty to seventy percent of folks do not need to take medicine beyond that. If you do, there’s something wrong and I’ve written about that in the final section of my book; what to do when all else fails.

So I hope that answers your question. Thank you.