Greetings! It’s New Zealand naturopath, Eric Bakker. Author of Candida Crusher and formulator of the Canxida range of products. Thank you to all my subscribers for continuing to give me lots of different kinds of questions. I’ve got a question here from a man in Holland, Paul Lese. Paul is asking me if there’s a connection between mast cell activity or disease and yeast infection.
Mast cells are specific kinds of white blood cells. They were discovered in the 1870s by a researcher. Basically, what he found when he stained a slide of blood a blue color, he found that these things had little dark blue patches in them. What he discovered is these were basically little white cells that were stuffed full of things like little bags inside a bag. These bags secrete chemicals in their own right. Particularly a chemical called histamine.
Histamine is a chemical that can induce quite a lot of different reactions in the body, especially allergic kinds of reactions. You may have heard of the word antihistamine. Antihistamines are prescribed by doctors with an allergic response. If you’ve had a bee sting or if you suffer from sinus problems, sneezing, seasonal allergies and things like that, you would be given an antihistamine. That reduces swelling, burning, stinging, itching, sneezing, those typical kinds of reactions.
When a mast cell releases histamine, it will do so in response to something around that irritates it or that triggers it.
Mast cells typically line areas of the breathing passages of the body. They line around the eyes, around the nose, deep inside the head and the ears, the throat, the genital reason, the digestive tract, the skin. Many areas contain mast cells.
I’ve read a really interesting article here, pretty heavy going, on the internet “Role and Relevance of Mast Cells in Fungal Infections.” This is a 38-page article along with quite a few references. I think it’s got about 138 references, so it’s a good science paper. The paper was really all about bacteria and parasites and there is also a big section in the back there on fungal infections, how they stimulate mast cells. Interesting there the researchers found in the digestive system that the release of histamine increases digestive permeability, i.e., leaky gut. This is quite a well written paper where they’re now actually saying that Candida creates leaky gut. There is certainly a link between mast cell activity and yeast infection.
Candida releases chemicals that upregulate the mast cell response. The mast cell release histamine that will see this as a foreign chemical and, in turn, when histamines are secreted it, in turn, will start upregulating the immune system. Basically, it’s like somebody ringing up the police and then the police find out something bad is going on and they, in turn, could call the armed defender squad. That’s what’s basically happening here. The police being the histamine response and then the histamines in turn calling on higher authorities to deal with these strong reactions. Some of these armed defenders can get a bit trigger happy, if you know what I mean.
I was talking to an interesting patient the other day in America, a black lady, who got pulled over for a very minor infringement. Before she knew it, she was at the police station getting knocked around just for a flat tire. I was quite surprised to hear of such racial prejudice and the over strong reaction by the police, a white Caucasian police, how they handled this incident involving a black person. I was quite disgusted to hear that. You can’t blame the police. There is not blame here. But what I’m saying is it was an overreaction, a very powerful overreaction. That’s what happens with histamine. It’s an overpowering reaction to the body’s response.
In some cases, a histamine response can kill people. Some people can be so sensitive to bee venom that a bee sting can kill them. More people in Australia I’ve read die from bee stings than from snake bites and other toxic animals that they have there. That’s because people swim in pools and they’ll get a bee in the mouth and it will sting them in throat, which is full of mast cells and it’ll cause a huge amount of histamine to get secreted. These are just people like you and I perhaps who just react normally to a bee sting.
Of course, this bee venom in the throat closes off the air way and the person dies. Very strong over production of chemical inflammatory mediators with weird names like interleukin and tumor necrosis factor alpha. There are many different interleukins. You’ve got 4, 8, 6, 12. I think there are dozens of interleukins. Each one of these specific chemicals has its own particular type of inflammatory reaction on the body. It in turn escalate another kind of reaction with names as long as your auntie that you can’t even pronounce. I don’t want to go into all that biochemistry.
The point is the Candid can create the release of histamine from the mast cell. Histamine, in turn, upregulates other responses and so it goes. Don’t forget that there is a powerful relationship with histamine in the gut and leaky gut. There is also a very strong relationship with yeast infection and food allergies. Now you can start seeing where that link is with the leakiness of the gut being stimulated by histamine and its chemical mediators. And then, of course, the gut becomes more permeable. Then when that permeability happens, proteins can leak through and affect the immune system on the other side creating allergic responses.
What we can gain from this is that when we clean up the gut, get rid of this over production of Candida, bring the balance back, get the beneficial bacteria again, reduce the production of histamine, we’re going to get a decrease in leaky gut and an improvement in the allergies that proves what I’ve always said to people. Most people are not allergic to gluten. They just have to basically clean up the gut and then they can eat a wide range of foods again.
Paul, to answer your question. Is there a link between mast cell activity and Candida? There certainly is. Thanks for tuning in.
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.