Greetings. It’s New Zealand naturopath, Eric Bakker. Author of Candida Crusher. Thanks for checking out my video. It’s good to be back. I just had a trip over to the States and Canada to visit a good friend of mine, spend a few days in Los Angeles and went down to Anaheim to Expo West, the world’s biggest nutritional and natural health expert. What an incredible experience it was. A lot of stress. Long distance air travel. It does involve quite a bit of stress and it’s so good to be back home in my own house with my own food and my own bed. It’s just awesome. I’m glad to be back and I’m going to do a whole heap of videos today.
Got an email from a lady. My friend in Sweden, Natalie. Natalie was a bit concerned on an article that she read. Why Candida diets kill your thyroid and make your Candida worse. I’ve got an article here. I’m just going to go over this article with you and explain a little bit about why most of this is absolute crap. It’s put together by a person who believes that thyroid is the main denominator for nearly all disease. You name it; it’s because of the thyroid. You’re losing hair, thyroid problem. Your marriage fails, thyroid problem. You can’t get an erection, thyroid problem. You get gangrene and your toe drops off, thyroid problem. You’re fighting with your neighbors, thyroid problem. You get the picture? I call these people “one trick ponies” and there are plenty of them out there.
You need to be careful about people who tend to promote one condition, one medical complaint or one illness or one imbalanced organ as being like the main cause of all disease. It’s a lot of crap. There are many different reasons why illness is caused by the body. There are many case and effects, so don’t fall for the line that the thyroid causes all of your health problem anymore than I want you to fall for the line that Candida causes all of your health problems.
In fact, I’ve stated many times in my videos that about half the people that I see, that I check out and carefully analyze and do stool testing have got no Candida at all. They, in fact, have got very poor levels of beneficial bacteria or they may have a lot of parasites or they may have a strong inflammation or they may have a low grade continual inflammation we pick up. Then when we analyze the blood, we find they’ve got Epstein-Barr virus or they could have something entirely different. They could have Lyme disease. People are quite interesting when you work with them. Many people have their mind made up. “Oh, I’ve got Candida. All of my problems are Candida and I want you to tell me that my problems are Candida.” But when we check them out carefully, they may not have a yeast infection at all.
I had about half a dozen cases yesterday and one guy, a stool test result, it was straight out yeast infection. You could see it. He had Candida parapsilosis, a more unusual strain. He had perfectly good levels beneficial bacteria. We could culture the yeast in the stool. We could see tons of dead yeast in the microscopy analysis. He had no inflammation. It’s a straightforward kill case. We gave that guy Canxida Remove for two or three months, he’s as good as gold. That poor man had serious rectal itching and jock itch. That’s going to clear up entirely. That’s why I like carefully checking people out before I make up my what’s wrong with them.
Let’s get into this document here. “Why Candida diets kill your thyroid.” Look at that word “kill”. It’s already almost like ISIS territory, isn’t it? This has got a lot of dramatic words in it, this document. “Your worst nightmare has just come true. After Googling your health problems for six hours, you must have read 27 articles that all point to one devastating condition. Then, any doubt you might have had was laid to rest after a diagnosis was confirmed by your produce stock boy of your local Whole Foods Market.” It’s actually really fooling a lot of people here.
“That’s right. You must have Candida. There’s no other explanation. Why? It’s not the only known health condition that is responsible. It is the only known health condition that is responsible for causing every single symptom and disease known to man and woman. Have digestive problems? It must be Candida. Craving sweets? Must be Candida.”
Basically, this guy does the same on his website. He’s saying that every condition literally is caused by hypothyroidism. He says here, “Candida has quite become the catch-all diagnosis for just about every symptom today. Let’s get one thing straight. You can’t kill it and get rid of it forever. It’s a common misconception. Candida overgrowth has a lot to do with thyroid health. I’ll show you simple ways to fix your Candida overgrowth and prevent it from coming back by fixing the underlying cause of the problem. Hint: This doesn’t involve starving Candida.”
Then he says, “Hypothyroidism is the most common cause of Candida, not sugar.” I’m sorry, but this is a load of crap. The most common cause of Candida is antibiotics. The most common cause of Candida and multiple factors involved. There is not one common cause, but I can tell you that in my opinion, one of the most striking causes of yeast infection I see today in patients in antibiotics. How do I know that? Twenty, thirty thousand patients plus. That’s how I know that. I can absolutely say that with confidence. I have never seen people as sick as I have today who’ve been on multiple rounds antibiotics. In most cases with careful analysis, what do I find? Yeast infection. I can say with confidence in my opinion and from my clinical experience of 28 years, the most common cause is pharmaceutical antibiotic use. Don’t discount the fact, also, that these drugs are in foods now. If you eat commercial poultry, antibiotics. Many foods contain antibiotics.
Hypothyroidism, I’m sorry, Mr., but it is not the most common cause Candida. This is actually crap. This is not really a true statement. This is a false statement. “Much of what you’ve been told about Candida is dead wrong. For example, sugar doesn’t cause Candida any more than it causes diabetes. Candida overgrowth is actually caused by hypothyroidism, estrogen dominance, excess cortisol, and their effects on your immune system.”
If you look at my Candida Crusher book, which I’m going to send this person a copy of my book because I would like to get a bit of communication happening here. This person will be able to read that, in fact, I’ve written about 25 different independent causes of Candida yeast infection. Pharmaceutical link quite highly in there. Stress is not the cause of Candida. Stress allows a person to have a vulnerability to getting Candida and a continuation of the problem, a continuation of SIBO, a continuation of leaky gut syndrome, a continuation of poor immune function leading that person open to a wide range of illnesses. Because excess cortisol shuts the immune system down. It’s a well-known fact.
Then he goes on to talk about circulatory IgA, which is probably the most predominant antibody made in your body. He’s basically saying here that circulatory IgA becomes deficient in hypothyroidism making you more susceptible. The thyroid keeps coming up all the time. It has everything to do with estrogen dominance and excess stress. But one thing that he is correct in, stress does have a huge big helping hand in the continuation of Candida, but it’s not the main cause. Stress certainly affects a person’s ability to consume healthy foods. Stress makes us more vulnerable to wanting to have salty foods, sweet foods, junk food, cola, spending long hours at night on computers, not sleeping properly. And, of course, as our vulnerability increases, our susceptibility increases, our resistance drops and then we leave ourselves wide open for a whole range of different illnesses as I mentioned.
He does also say something that is true here. “There have been many studies that have looked at the effects of Candida on vaginal epithelial cells on the influence of estrogen.” We know, for example, that women premenstrually, especially one to two days before their period, are much more prone to a thrush or a vaginal yeast infection. I’ve spoken about this on my videos before if you look under the women’s section. Why? Because estrogen as it starts to come up in that part of the cycle, it stimulates the production of glycogen and it does so to plump up the cells, so the cells of vaginal area plump up. The womb plumps up. Ready for implantation. Ready for fertility to occur. Ready to nurture that fetus. This is sugar. And, of course, is this Candida present in the vaginal area. It’s going to cause a problem because it’s going to feed on that glycogen because of the stimulation of estrogen and thrush will become quite an obvious symptom.
It’s also important to mention that large women, bigger people in general with higher fat, more fat cells, produce more estrogen in their own right. They are also more prone to yeast infections because of that fact. High cortisol. When you think about it. Cortisol is a very important hormone that our body produces under chronic stress, under acute stress. It was designed to allow us to handle stress for periods of our lives. A long time ago when a person had high cortisol, they were better prepared for warfare, for famine, for natural disasters.
But today, we get high cortisol because we’re talking on our mobile phone. We’re upset with something. We get high cortisol when we’re caught in traffic or we get high cortisol because someone doesn’t like us on Facebook or some junk like that. We get inappropriate high cortisol and we get cortisol high for too long. Cortisol slows our metabolism down. It slows it down. It allows us to preserve and maintain more body fat. And then, of course, we get that nice big fatty ring all around here. We get this big belly fat, which is common with high stress and cortisol. We get the little bat wings on the arms. We get the fat deposition at the back here. All these things are aimed. When there’s no food around that we’ve got the fat stores to survive on. A bit like how bears will eat all summer and then hibernate all winter and burn off the fat. If only a fat person could do that. Sleep all winter and wake up in spring skinny as a chicken. It doesn’t work like that.
You can see what cortisol’s role is. Cortisol does also suppress immune function and this guy does mention that in his article, which is fair enough. I must give him some credence here. He does have a few good points to his article. But it’s completely wrong to say that hypothyroidism is the main cause of yeast infection.
He says also “Candida diets kill your thyroid health and make Candida worse. If Candida feed on certain forms of sugar and carbohydrates and cutting all carbohydrates out of your diet will do the trick. Restricting carbohydrates in your diet is dangerous to your thyroid health.”
What he’s basically saying here is that these Candida diets involve stopping all carbohydrates. That is actually stupid and nobody should stop all carbohydrates in their diet. Carbohydrates are necessary for energy. They’re necessary also for good gut function. Our bacteria need to ferment carbohydrates and to grow on the residue of carbohydrates. I’ve never been a fan of carbohydrate restriction. You will note I talk about sourdough rye bread, for example. I talk about different types of grains and starches. Some people have got this stupid idea to take all grains, all starches out the diet and just live on juices, kale juice and a bit of chicken and stuff like that. You can’t live like that. You get sick very quick. Carbohydrate restriction is not a good idea in Candida. You will not develop a good microbiome with a carbohydrate restriction. Anyone that tells you to restrict carbohydrates is quite foolish and you need to walk away from these kind of people.
“Without adequate carbs in your diet, bad things will happen.” Well, of course, they will happen. No one’s talking about taking all carbs out of the diet. “Starving your Candida makes it more aggressive. Restricting carbs and starving Candida only contributes to the underlying problem.” This guy is quite extreme with his view with “kill” and “starve” and all these strong words. Be careful when you read these kind of article because there’s plenty of them on the internet.
This is this person’s three simple ways to correct Candida without killing your thyroid. “Eat carrots. Carrot fiber will help absorb excess estrogen within the digestive tract. Supporting healthy circulatory IgA production. Let’s talk a little bit about circulatory IgA. We didn’t go into that too much because this guy doesn’t really explain enough to you about IgA.
In my opinion, low IgA is not because of thyroid dysfunction at all. There may be a relationship between them, but the main cause of IgA are these things, which I’m going to read out to you now. High antigenic load. People eating the wrong kind of food. People having food allergies. Sometimes one inappropriate food when eaten, especially with leaky gut, can drain IgA. Your body makes about two to three grams of circulatory IgA per day in the bloodstream, as well as in the intestinal tract. And it does so to basically help to regulate the immune function in the digestive system very carefully. It’s almost like Velcro. It will stick to things it doesn’t like and help to remove them from the body. You can have a high IgA or a low IgA. Low IgA is quite common with people that are quite overwhelmed. Pharmaceutical drugs, anti-inflammatories, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, blood pressure pills, aspirin. Many drugs affect IgA levels.
Many people also take pharmaceutical drugs from tap water. If you go to the big cities, there are traces of drugs in all the tap water today. They can’t filter it out. Viral infections. Many people have a low grade chronic ongoing viral load. This will cause a complete drain on the bodies IgA production. If you’ve got a very small leak in the valve of your tire, you can keep pumping it up all the time. But over a period of months, it will keep going down. That’s what we call a viral load. You can have smoldering infection in your tonsils, the adenoid. You can have a smoldering infection in the ileocecal valve. There are different parts of the body where you can have a smoldering infection. I’ve spoken about this many times.
You’re flying across the rain forest, there’s a small fire burning. You fly back next week; the whole forest is gone because that little fire took out the whole forest. One match stick can take out an entire rain forest. Just like one virus when left unchecked can wipe out the whole immune system. Depending on the integrity of the immune system.
Poor nutrition. You’re not eating the right stuff. You’re not getting enough vitamins and minerals in your diet. You’re eating junk food. The crap food I had when in America was disgusting. I walked into a restaurant and the guy said, “Sit down, sir. We’ll fix you a real healthy breakfast.” It was crap. I couldn’t believe what these people were giving me to eat. I basically couldn’t eat this kind of stuff. I said to Tracy, “I’ll be glad to be back home to my own vegetables and my own fruits and the food that I’ve got, fresh fish and good quality food.” If you eat crap, you feel like crap and you look like crap. Simple as that.
Inflammatory bowel disease. Very common with IgA dysfunction. It’s incredible how many people have got irritable or inflammatory bowel. Parasites. Poor levels of beneficial bacteria. As you can see, there are many reasons why IgA can be low.
How do we increase IgA? Again, I’ve done a video on this. The four R method is good. Remove, replace, re-inoculate and repair. This guy doesn’t talk about any of that stuff. You just eat carrots and your IgA will go up. It’s not as simple as that. Remove the offending foods. Very important to do. Remove the offending drugs. Find out what pharmaceuticals you’re taking that could be affecting the immune system in the gut. You replace enzymes. Many people lack digestive enzymes. Re-inoculate. Make sure that you get good levels of beneficial bacteria through your foods or take good probiotics. And repair, so heal the leaky gut, remove the offending foods. These are all clever things to do. None of them are mentioned in this article. This is just one of the sensationalist articles.
Balance your blood sugar. And here’s the killer for you. Eat more fruit when you’ve got Candida. It’s an easy way to lower cortisol and boost your immunity. Fruits are easily digested in the upper portion of the digestive tract, long before it reaches the lower portion of the digestive where Candida belong. I’m sorry my friend, Candida can live anywhere in the gut. This person’s assuming that Candida only live in the large intestine. Candida can live in your mouth, your throat, your stomach, your pancreas, your small intestine, the whole flipping digestive system. Eating fruit is a stupid idea with Candida. Stupid idea.
Too many patients over the years have shown me through clinical experience that loading up your diet with lots and lots of sweat fruits like bananas, pineapples, plums, pears, peaches, all those sort of things is a bad idea. These are playing right into the hand of a yeast infection, so I don’t recommend that you do this at all. The only fruits I recommend with Candida are things like coconuts, avocados, pomegranates. Some people can get away with kiwi fruit. Many fruits have got a very powerful allergenicity about them, too, which means that they have a really bad effect on the person’s immune system. They’ll lower the IgA. They’ll bypass through the leaky gut. They will create bloating, brain fog, gas, all these sort of problems.
This person probably hasn’t got a clue about all these issues because this person probably never sees any patients. Making these stupid assumptions on fruits are easily digested is dumb. You may as well say, “I’ll have one or two glasses of cola a day because it won’t affect you.”
Restore your circulatory IgA is point three. This person is saying here, which I do agree with. But eating carrots to restore IgA is not a good idea. Then, I’ve got a simple three food triple thyroid boosting daily protocol. You believe what you want to believe, but I just think these articles are a bunch of crap and I read too many of them and they’re often written by misinformed people who are trying to push one particular product and one particular protocol.
I couldn’t care less what protocol you follow. I couldn’t care if you buy my book or my products or anything. It’s all up to you what you do. I designed this channel to give people information based on my experience. I made this channel to help people to become well and also dispel a lot of these stupid myths about fruit is okay with Candida because fruit is not okay for the majority of people. I have got a minority that can tolerate fruit, but generally upon careful analysis they had no yeast infection at all. They had some bacteria imbalance and poor levels of beneficial. People with bad Candida should not eat fruit. People with bad Candida need to understand that pharmaceutical drugs will continue to make them sick.
Thyroid and adrenal health do factor in with Candida, but they are not the primary cause. There’s an association there with them. As I’ve mentioned before, many people with a continual immune dysfunction will be much more prone to having Candida. And when they’ve got Candida, it also places a drain on the adrenals and thyroid.
What should you treat first? The adrenals and thyroid or the yeast infection? That depends on the symptoms. It depends on the severity. In most cases, you can treat them both at the same time.
I hope that’s dispelled some myths for you, Natalie, and given you a bit of information and insight into what this person’s saying. I would just take it with a grain of salt or maybe a grain of carrot. Thanks for tuning in.