Category: Candida Crusher FAQ Videos

Greetings. New Zealand naturopath, Eric Bakker, author of Candida Crusher. I have a question here from a lady called Teresa Neal in Oklahoma in America. I’m not sure if it’s on the east coast or the west coast. I’ve heard it’s a very beautiful place.

Teresa is asking me a question today, “Eric, is vitamin C good for Candida?” Teresa, vitamin C is excellent, not just for Candida, but excellent for the body in general. I’ll give you a bit of an explanation why it’s so darn good.

First we have to understand we’ve probably been told for a long, long time that vitamin C is one of the best things we can take to counter the common cold or to boost your immune function. But why does this occur? Why is it such a potent vitamin to take? Why are doctors so dismissive of it and think it’s a load of nonsense?

Well, a good friend of mine, Dr. James Wilson taught me a lot about vitamin C. Dr. Wilson, of course, is the person who came up with the phrase “adrenal fatigue,” and Dr. Wilson said that the highest concentration in the body of vitamin C, there are two places, the adrenal cortex or the part of the adrenal gland that makes cortisol, and the lens of the eye. When you think about it. If the body puts vitamin C in a particular organ or tissue, it will do so for a very specific reason.

Vitamin C is in the adrenal cortex so it can help to produce cortisol. Cortisol is probably the most important hormone when it comes to boosting your immune function. It boosts multiple aspects of immune function. All the cells of the body contain receptor sites for cortisol, but the white blood cells contain hundreds of times more receptor sites than any other cell. The only cells that don’t contain sites for being activated by cortisol are hair and nails, because they’re dead tissue. But all other cells contain areas where cortisol activate them. But the white cells, in particular, have a very powerful affinity for cortisol, and cortisol can’t be manufactured without adequate levels of vitamin C in the body. Now you understand why vitamin C helps people with the common cold and the flu and cancer and many different immune problems.

Dr. Linus Pauling and Dr. Matthias Rath are two doctors who did most of the early work on vitamin C. Pauling, I think got two Nobel Prizes in his day. Very clever man. Pauling worked out that the average person needs right about 3000 to 4000 milligrams of vitamin C per day. Check out Dr. Pauling’s YouTube video on vitamins creating expensive urine. It’s a very good video and it will make you laugh when he was asked about vitamin C, if it was any good for the body.

Coming back to Candida. Vitamin C is exceptionally good for Candida, but I think along with many other different vitamins and minerals. You shouldn’t just take it on its own in exclusion from anything else. It forms a very important part of the diet. If you’re eating a lot of good vegetables, things like spinach and good green vegetables all the time, you’re going to be getting plenty of vitamin C. But if you want over and above, it pays to supplement.

The product I’m going to make very soon, which I’ve formulated already. I’m just waiting to find the right person to make it for me is called Canxida Rebuild and it contains plenty of vitamin C. Vitamin C must always be buffered. Meaning if you’re going to take straight ascorbic acid as a source of vitamin C, it could create a lot of heartburn and reflux and digestive problems, so you want to make sure that you’ve got some calcium/magnesium there to buffer it a little bit in the right form and also that you take it with something called bioflavonoids. Bioflavonoids are vitamin C like compounds. Anywhere in nature you find vitamin C, you’ll find a bioflavonoid. And the main ones are rutin, quercetin, and hesperidin. Bioflavonoids are very protective kind of vitamins. Plants have them along with the vitamin C to stop them from insect attack and to improve microcirculation. That’s what they do in our body as well.

Vitamin C also has a good effect on improving our gut function. It actually helps to boost production of stomach acid. It also increases the way that our body circulates blood and lymph fluid. It has a very good effect on helping to build various neurotransmitters or hormones in the body. It helps to stabilize blood pressure. It improves kidney and liver function. There are multiple effects. We could spend a whole hour just talking about the different health benefits of vitamin C. You can’t build good bone tissue without vitamin C, for example. It’s exceedingly important.

How much is enough? It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve with vitamin C, but I’m quite happy with people taking a minimum of 500 milligrams to 1000 milligrams per day. That’s usually a good dose in a supplement. But if you’re eating plenty of vegetables, you’ll be getting adequate amounts in. Fruits containing vitamin C you need to be careful of in the early stages of the Candida diet. But as time goes on, you can increase the amount of fruits you eat. Kiwi fruit are very high in vitamin C, and I don’t find them a problem with most people with a yeast infection. One kiwi fruit per day for many patients now I find has no real concern.

That’s my take on vitamin C, Teresa, it’s fantastic for yeast infection. It works very well. Take it as a multi-vitamin. You can take a bit on its own, but make sure that bioflavonoids are there with it and drink plenty of water. The other fallacy or bit of nonsense about vitamin C you will here is it creates kidney stones. There is no proof at all that vitamin C creates kidney stones. Intravenous is what I recommend for cancer patients up to 20,000 or 30,000 milligrams per day intravenously works very well for many people. I’ve got incredibly good cases I could mention regarding very sick people who recovered literally within a week with IV vitamin C. So I’m a huge fan of vitamin C myself.

Hi there. It’s Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand. I’m author of a book called Candida Crusher and formulator of the range of supplements called Canxida. Thanks for checking out my video. A question I get asked from time to time from patients all around the world is “Eric, is the Paleo diet any good for Candida? What do you think of the Paleo diet?”

You may know by now if you’ve seen some of my videos, the views I have on diets. Diet to me is not really a word I like to use too much because I believe that we’re all individuals and we all need to really work out what foods best suit our needs. If you’ve looked at my book, Candida Crusher, you’ll realize that I give you a lot of suggestions and guidelines, but I don’t say, “You need to do this and you need to have to do that.” I’m very open for people to experiment on different kinds of diets and I’ve always believed that no one size fits all. That’s for sure.

I went out clothes shopping yesterday. My wife took me out because I don’t really like buying clothes. I hate it, so she takes me out. And I go to have a look at the rack with T-shirts in it and there’s a million T-shirts with all different designs and colors and there is a really nice one I liked, a purple one with all flowers on it. And my wife said, “You can’t have that. You’ll look crazy in that.” And then I picked up another one and she said, “No. You’ll look even weirder in this one.” It’s a perfect analogy to show you that everyone has got different tastes. There are many different designs, shapes and colors out there. And why do you think they’ve got a rack with a zillion different designs and colors? Because not one size fits all. That’s why.

It’s the same with Paleo diets and SCD diets and jelly bean diets and South Beach diets, Atkins diets. Whatever diet you want. There are a million diets. You can see the books I’ve got on my bookcases. I’ve got a huge big bookcase the full length of this wall here. They’re all diet books. I’ve looked at lots of diet books over the years and I can tell you now, I’ve applied lots of different kinds of diets to people and I’ve found that many people would agree with parts of the diet, but not agree with other parts of the diet. They would incorporate some foods they weren’t supposed to do and yet, they felt okay on it. I’ve particularly found that with the blood type diet. Remember the blood type diet? The A, the O type, AB type. If you’re an O type, eats lots of meat. If you’re an A type, you’re more the vegetarian type. What a load of crap. I don’t really believe in these sort of diets.

When I went to the States in 2003, I can remember a doctor at a seminar saying, “I’ve got a new diet. Eat according to your social security number diet.” Don’t fall for diets. The Paleo, though, is not new. It’s been around a long time. I’ve been reading books like this for a long time. Paleolithic Prescription, this is back in the 80s. This is a good book. Native Nutrition. Quite a nice book. These books have been around 20, 30 or 40 years. I was recommending Paleolithic kind of eating habits to people back in 1986, a long time ago now, telling people that they need to cut back on a lot of different kinds of foods in their diet. Cut back a bit on bread. Cut back a bit on grains in general. Eat more of the lean meats and eat lots of vegetables, which is basically a Paleo diet. That’s the way I eat.

But I can tell you now, the research I’ve done, I’m not a fan of red meat. Small amounts of red meat from time to time are okay. One day red meat will be seen to be very, very toxic to the body like alcohol is. I think red meat is fine. Don’t get me wrong. But I think people in this country where I live eat red meat nearly every day. And I know in the States, a lot of people eat big steaks three or four times a week. It’s too much. Meats are a very powerful concentrated food. If you are going to eat red meat like I do, you have a very small piece of red meat. You don’t have like a big 16-ounce steak. It’s not good for your digestive system to do that. Not at all. It’s a very heavy, strong food.

I’m more of a fan of fish. Fresh fish that I catch myself or fresh fish that’s been caught on the day. I love eating fresh fish at least three times per week and free range eggs. Those are my two preferred proteins. I also like to eat a lot of different kinds of things like chickpeas or garbanzos, broad beans that I grow myself. Different kinds of grains. Brown rice I find is quite a good food for most people on the Candida diet approach. And again, this flies in the face of the Paleo diet. Paleo adherents who are strict say no rice. Preferably no grains, all meats, all vegetables, some fruits, some legumes, nuts and seeds and things like that. I think that’s all okay. But I think you need to work out the protein that suits you best. It’s probably like going shopping. What color do you like to wear? Do you like light colors? Do you like dark colors? What are you attracted to? What makes you feel good when you wear it?

Protein is the same. What makes you feel good when you eat it? I feel great on fish. I feel really good when I eat fish, and I know it. I sleep better. I feel better, so I’ve learned that over the years. I stay with fish. Now, you may feel better eating lamb or eating pork or eating beef. You need to try this out. See how your gut feels. Literally, what kind of gut feelings do you get from eating this kind of protein. Because protein forms the basis of the diet. It’s a very important thing to eat is a good quality protein in your diet.

Once you’ve worked out the good quality protein you eat, then you need to work out what quantity of protein you need to eat. And that all depends on how much work you do. If you’re very physically active, you can usually eat more protein. My 20-year-old son is working out, getting into the weights, building up muscles. He’s eating three times more protein than I am. That’s because he’s training a couple of hours a day. Training hard and he’s walking twice a day. He’s looking quite all pumped up. I think when you’ve got that kind of life style, and I had that in my 20s, you need to increase your protein intake.

However, when you’ve got your face in a laptop like I have and you’re not really lifting a lot of heavy weights anymore, you don’t need to eat that quantity of red meat or any kind of protein for that matter. I tend to do a lot of gardening and walking, so lighter duties. But still quite a bit of digging. I find that the protein load I eat is quite sufficient. I like to eat protein at least twice per day. I usually have rolled oats in the morning, so porridge that is cooked with water, and I’ll have a green apple with that. For lunch most days, I’ll make up a kind of vegetable dish maybe with a bit of eggs and spinach in it is quite a normal combination we have. But it could be a piece of fish. It could be a stir fry dinner or something like that. In the middle of the day and at the end of the day, I have something similar. And then I’ll often have one or two pieces of fruit between the meals.

And again, if you are picking Paleo, a good diet will give you good energy, good sleep patterns, and it will help you to maintain your weight. You shouldn’t gain excess weight or lose excess weight. That’s a good barometer also of your diet is your weight. Energy and weight are two good barometers. Diets should make you look good, feel good, satisfied, not looking for lots of sweet food all the time.

Yes, I am a fan of the Paleo approach. But I would say modify the Paleo approach to suit yourself. Maybe get some books out on Paleo and read them. Get a feel for it. Or go online, there are some good websites on Paleo diets. It’s my preferred form of diet. Specific carbohydrate diets are quite good, too, but again, you need to modify the specificity to suit yourself. The body ecology diet is another good diet, but again, you need to modify it to suit yourself. I’m sure that’s what most people do. When they look at these diets, they look at it and they initially go quite strict on what that person recommends, but then they modify that diet to suit themselves. That’s what it’s all about.

I hope that’s given you a bit of insight on the Paleo approach to Candida. It’s a good one. You call the shots.

Hi there. Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand. Thanks for tuning into my video. I’m an author of a book called, Candida Crusher and I’m also the formulator of a range of products called Canxida. Thanks for checking out my video.

I’ve got an interesting question here from a patient that I’ve seen now for some time and wants to remain anonymous. Doesn’t really want to give out any details. That’s fine. I respect that. The patient wants to know if sauna is good for Candida. This lady is kind of incredible. She’s very much into fitness, into exercise, she’s eating quite a healthy diet, and she wants to know the best ways to detoxification including sauna therapy. If I find it valid or not.

I love saunas. In fact, I think they’re a fantastic adjunct to cleansing in general. If you look at people in many countries, Scandinavian countries for example, have been doing sauna now for generations. It’s a really good way to clean up the body. It heats the body up. Your skin is your largest organ. And when you can eliminate toxins through the skin, 15 or 20 percent of all toxins get cleared through the skin, so by warming up the body to no more than about 100 degrees, say 43 Celsius, is a good way to eliminate a lot of garbage out of the body. Candida produces many different kinds of toxins and so do bacteria. By doing this sauna therapy, heating up, you’ve got a good ability to flush toxins from the body.

But is it mandatory? No, it’s not. It’s not something that I recommend everybody do because some people find it very uncomfortable to get into an environment called a sauna. There are different methods of sauna. I prefer the older method of hopping into one of those nice pine rooms with some hot coals and then pouring a scoop of water on them, preferably with a bit of pine essential oil in there, and that gives a beautiful ambient atmosphere, a lot of steam, a lot of heat. Some people find that uncomfortable, but this is traditionally how saunas have always been conducted.

The newer method is infrared sauna using bulbs or tubes that emit an infrared light into your body, so the room doesn’t really get hot, a small room. You can actually buy these small mobile devices. They’re quite handy. So they put this infrared light into the body. It heats up the body internally. Tissues get warmed up and you perspire quite promptly. Either way, the old method or the new method, whatever turns you on, but yes, I think sauna therapy when conducted properly is fantastic for cleansing the body in general.

This is how I do sauna. I don’t have a shower first. Some people say have a shower first. I don’t find it necessary myself. Obviously take your clothes off, go down maybe to your underclothing, your briefs or panties or whatever you want to wear you in there, put a towel around you. You hop into the sauna and with the steam on the ambient one I was telling you about, I will normally sit in there for about 5 or 10 minutes and get quite warm, get very hot, and start perspiring. When I start perspiring reasonably well, I hop out. I go straight out of there. I usually drink a glass of water and then I’ll towel dry myself for a moment or two and relax, then I’ll hop back in for the second time. And I found the second time is when the pores of the skin open right up. This is when you perspire very, very heavily. Perspiration seems to come out of places you didn’t even know that you could perspire from. It’s remarkable how much sweat you can lose with a sauna. And then I’ll put another scoop of water on the hot coals and I’ll just sit there for a good 10 or 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and I’ll really take it in. It’s my time to relax. I love this warm, humid, moist environment.

Steam rooms are another thing you can try out, a room called a steam room. You need to be careful with sauna therapy if you’ve got blood pressure issues or on certain medications. You might want to check with your health care professional before you say, “Yes, Eric, I’m going to do sauna.” Get yourself checked out before and particularly if you’re over 50 like me. If you’re an old guy or an old person because I’m considered old these days, get yourself checked out. You should have a medical at least once per year anyway. So find out that everything is okay.

The second tip I’ll give you is make sure you drink plenty of water. You’ll be surprised how much perspiration comes out of the body, so you need to put a lot of water back. I will easily drink two pints of water after a sauna.

The third tip I’ll give you when you’ve finished your sauna is make sure that you have a nice relaxing shower and have tepid showers. Have it a little bit warm and then cool it down, then don’t finish off with a cold shower. I don’t find that to be a really good idea. I find a tepid shower to be good. Not hot, not cold. And then gently turn it down and turn it down until it’s reasonably cool and stay under there for a good three or four minutes and really cool the core down. If you don’t cool the core down, when you are driving home or you’re at home with the sauna, you can be perspiring for some time after. So make sure that you cool the body down properly and make sure you’re well hydrated. Those are good tips for a sauna and you’re going to feel fantastic. You’ll have a good night’s sleep as a result.

How often to do saunas? Usually twice a week is sufficient and you can do it in six week blocks, I find, works quite well. Just make sure you drink that water.