Candida

How should "Candida Syndrome" be regarded from a Peat perspective?

This topic, in and of itself, has almost an un-Peat flavor to it, I know.
Because Peat seems to poopoo Candida Syndrome
as a real danger.
I mean, he doesn't deny the existence of yeast,
but he seems to think--
based upon what I've heard and read from him--
that it is one of those hyped-up, largely concocted "diseases"
designed mostly to drain wallets.

And so that is why I haven't regarded it seriously since getting into Peat.
Actually, for years--decades really--I've looked askance at it for similar reasons.

However:
I have noticed some things in my own experience which make me wonder
if I should take it more seriously.

1. In recent years, and under the influence of slightly outre Peat notions,
I've experimented with brief dosings (1 day, 3 days) of "Peat antibiotics"
like minocycline and tetracycline
to retard endotoxin.

After some or all of those experiments,
and sometimes after experiencing some good effects,
I have then experienced some bad effects.

(I started a thread about a half-year ago discussing what I felt/feel
to be a "gap" in Peat thinking regarding antibiotics:
that they're a good thing to try, maybe, to reduce endotoxin,
while at the same time Peat doesn't seem to think
there is a need to take probiotics during or after.
I still think there is perhaps a gap there.)

2. It is hard to get good information about Candida.
It is not just Peat who seems to regard Candida as a kind of hoax.
The AMA would seem, in a rare confluence, to share Peat's skepticism.

But...sifting through what I've been able to find online over the past weeks,
one of the more persuasive people (and I'll link to him if anyone is interested)
says that where Candida really gets a foothold is in the colon,
and up around the cecum.

The cecum is the area in which the appendix is located, I believe.
I wonder if, if it is true about Candida fortifying around the cecum,
then perhaps there is a relationship between Candida and appendicitis?

I had an appendicitis and appendectomy about 3 years ago just after I discovered Peat's stuff.

3. A while back...how long?...2 years ago?...Charlie and I both embarked
upon trial runs of Peat-inspired courses of antibiotics:
me for 1 day, Charlie for about 10 days as I recall.
His "Minocycline Log" should still be up I guess.

Anyway, afterwards, in both our cases, we developed what Charlie thought was thrush
on his tongue.
I had the same white coating,
but I doubted it was thrush probably largely because Peat doesn't seem
very concerned about Candida.

Peat said he'd gotten rid of the coated tongue with Flowers of Sulfur,
just a few dabs on the tongue.
I can't remember Charlie's results,
but in my case there was no change.

Interesting, too, that sulfur is never mentioned
in the the online forums' discussions about anti-Candida substances
or included in anti-Candida products in "health food stores."
(Maybe just the smell makes it prohibitive?)
Peat seems to think yeast is very sensitive to sulfur
and that just a little sulfur over 2 or 3 days should knock it right out.

4. Apparently--and I confess I'm quite a dim bulb on this--
Candida is a yeast
but
it also goes through a phase where it becomes a fungus.
I haven't heard Peat speak about this.
Maybe yeasts are very susceptible to sulfur
but not fungi?

5. The online seemingly smart-guy-about-Candida,
the one above who said Candida gets a foothold in the colon and around the cecum...
he strongly believes, for those reasons,
that the only way to successfully attack Candida there
is with Nystatin enemas.

(I believe he may get this idea from a doctor/author named, I believe, Crook,
who has a book about Candida.
I don't have it.
I believe it was written quite a while back--perhaps the '80's or so.)

He also strongly believes (not saying that strength of believe indicates he is right, but...)
that when many people say they are having pain in the upper-right abdomen
because it is their liver due to Candida,
he believes it is instead pain in the colon at that location.

This is interesting to me because
I just recently finished a round of antibiotics because of a diseased tooth and
I felt like crap and have had...pain in that upper-right quadrant.

Anyhow!
Those are just some food for thought to open discussion.
I really don't know what to make of this Candida thing,
but I don't recall a dedicated thread/discussion about it in the past.
As I say...just to do so carries with it a whiff of Peat Heresy ...

Some incomplete thoughts.

Yeasts are fungi.

IIRC, Pet said that candida/yeasts? cause little problem when they get a reasonable sugar supply, but if they are starvesd they can put out filaments into/through? the gut lining, and this is when they can be problematic. He was against the 'anti-candida' protocols that involve eliminating sugar from the diet, and in general didn't think they needed to all be killed off with aggressive tactics. I don't think that means it can never cause a problem.

I don't think any fungi can thrive/spread in acid. I think sulpur is a fairly strongly acid mineral. Sulphur seems to at least slow fungus on my foot. Peat's idea that short sulphur dosing could deal to it wouldn't surprise me.
If I thought I might have troublesome systemic candida, I'd check UpH a few times, and if on average not too acid already, I'd consider short sulphur dose. I wouldn't take it over an extended period, or if I was already teetering on too acid.

I used to get what I think was thrush faisly regularly, but seldom do now. I think that coincided with eating more sugar, but there could have been other factors. In the past I've used garlic (anti-bacterial and anti-fungal) against thrush, and it cleared white tongue too, but I think it might have had unbalancing effects on intestinal microbiota as anti-biotics sometime seem to.

tara said:

Yeasts are fungi.

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Admittedly, I know next to nothing on this distinction.
But I have seen that a lot of "experts" on Candida, if not most, say they are different.
I don't know.
What I noted earlier that I'd never heard is that
the organism goes through different phases,
shifting from a yeast into a fungus.
And this is--if one buys into the argument--part of what makes Candida so evasive/resistant.

tara said:

IIRC, Pet said that candida/yeasts? cause little problem when they get a reasonable sugar supply, but if they are starvesd they can put out filaments into/through? the gut lining, and this is when they can be problematic. He was against the 'anti-candida' protocols that involve eliminating sugar from the diet, and in general didn't think they needed to all be killed off with aggressive tactics. I don't think that means it can never cause a problem.

Click to expand...

Yes, this is what I've heard from Peat
but--and maybe we've discussed this before?--
in my recollection I don't think Peat narrowed it down to only yeasts/fungi
which are the dangerous ones when deprived of sugars.
In fact, I seem to remember him not mentioning yeasts/fungi
but referring just to bacteria as dangerous when sugar deprived
because likely to drill into/through the stomach lining after food...?

So...this is what I mean when I assess that Peat doesn't really take "Candida Syndrome"
(I'll call it that for a handle) very seriously.

1. okay to take some antibiotics judiciously--
little worry about upsetting a balance between good bacteria and yeast/fungi

2. no need to take probiotics--in fact Peat seems to see only negatives there

3. any overload of yeast/fungi can be quickly knocked out by a few dabs of Flowers of Sulfur

This is the Peat view I've been operating under for several years.
I guess I'm just wanting to review those assumptions
in light of an intriguing pattern of symptoms/reactions I've observed in myself--
some seem consistent with how Candida is said to behave.

One could include some garlic in their diet every now and then as another way to keep Candida in check. :2cents

These entries support what you say, Tara,
about yeasts being a fungus.
Although I guess it seems that they are a distinctive form of fungus...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypha

A hypha (plural hyphae, from Greek ὑφή, huphḗ, “web”) is a long, branching filamentous structure of a fungus, oomycete, or actinobacterium.[1] In most fungi, hyphae are the main mode of vegetative growth, and are collectively called a mycelium. Yeasts are unicellular fungi that do not grow as hyphae.

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/jan99.html

This month's fungus is Candida albicans, cause of most "yeast infections" in humans.

I can hear you thinking, "Well this is certainly a change from the usual fungus of the month." I'm teaching Medical Mycology again this semester, so I thought I'd include the most commonly discussed of the human pathogenic fungi. Judging by the frequency of commercials on television, yeast infections are a very common cause of disease and discomfort, especially among women. Most cases of yeast infection in the United States are caused by Candida albicans. "Yeast" is the term for a fungus that exists as a single-celled organism rather than as hyphae. There are about 500 species of yeasts in 60 genera, or about 1000 species of yeasts or yeast-like organisms. Some fungi are called yeast-like because they exist as a yeast for part of their life cycle, but can be hyphal for a significant portion of it.

The terms yeast and yeastlike are vernacular terms for unicellular fungal organisms that reproduce by budding. This is an inadequate definition, mainly because some yeasts reproduce by fission
Many yeasts can produce mycelium or pseudohyphae under some nutritional and environmental conditions,
many filamentous fungi may exist in a unicellular yeast-like form that reproduce by budding
The term "yeast" is of no taxonomic significance. It is useful only to describe a morphological form of a fungus. Most yeasts have affinities to Ascomycota, but a small percentage have affinities to Basidiomycota.

Cultures of Candida albicans In the strictest sense of the word there are no inherently pathogenic yeasts-- those associated with human or animal disease are incapable of producing infection in the normal healthy individual. Some alteration of the host's cellular defenses, physiology, or normal flora must take place before colonization, infection, and disease production can take place. Pathogenicity among yeasts is extremely variable-- the most virulent is Candida albicans. There are also other pathogenic Candida species, as well as pathogenic species of Cryptococcus (especially C. neoformans), Torulopsis, Trichosporon, and Rhodotorula. Most of these have airborne spores or conidia and can be isolated as contaminants from skin, sputum, feces or other clinical specimens. This can lead to confusion about which organism is actually the pathogen. Only a few species in a few genera have regularly been associated with production of disease in humans or animals. In compromised host there are many others that can be opportunists.

marcar72 said:

One could include some garlic in their diet every now and then as another way to keep Candida in check. :2cents

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Yes, mar.
The possible drawback to garlic to combat yeast/fungi
is that garlic is, I believe, also a very strong anti-bacterial agent?
If this is true,
and if one is trying to knock down the Candida
while at the same time encouraging the "good" bacteria--
well, the garlic would knock down the good guys too....

This is, apparently, a problem too with oregano oil.
It suppresses candida, but also helpful bacteria.

My doctor recently said I had Candida overgrowth, and there are different strains. Some recent research showed that nystatin could only knock out one of them, the other three usual medicines were similar, and none of them could knock out one or two of the strains. He said to use berberine so that's what I'm taking. The pills he tried to sell me were 500mg and it looked like a 90 day supply.

In one interview I listened to recently RP kind of admitted we have to live with bacteria in the gut, sort of implying that they might as well be harmless ones.

TheBigPeatowski posted about a yeast called Saccharomyces boulardii, the idea being to displace the Candida. I found loads of studies showing benefits from it so I'm using that, too.

FWIW, fungus is one of the five kingdoms of life, and there are four phyla of fungus. Most yeast are in one phylum and then it gets really complicated.

Hi, everyone!
I've been lurking around here for a couple months now (new to Peating, only been at it for 6 weeks).
Although I'm a bit intimidated by all of your obvious intellect (WOW! What a bunch of smart, articulate, passionate people!), I wanted to comment on this thread because it's relative to my situation. I've been dealing with fungal issues for over a year now -- it's probably my main health concern currently. Was really hoping to overcome the issue through Peating, but I've been disappointed after reading others' posts about seborrheic dermatitis, thrush, and other fungal issues. It doesn't seem that anyone has had any real success in eradicating them. I've tried the sulfur powder, both internally and topically -- no change (I've tried EVERYTHING else under the sun over the past year as well, to no avail).
The world of fungus is very complicated indeed. As I understand it, the specific type of yeast responsible for seborrheic dermatitis/dandruff and ringworm (and some other symptoms) is "malassezia" yeast. It can also morph from a yeast form to a hyphal form, depending on conditions. Maybe there is candida involved as well -- I'm sure that there can be different types of fungus involved at the same time.
I just always pay attention whenever anyone mentions fungal issues generally, because it stands to reason that if there is a "cure" for one type, it would probably work for other types as well.
If I don't see improvement soon, I think I'll just bite the bullet and order some oral anti-fungal medication, probably fluconazole. Really hate to go that route, but I so need to be rid of this. Anyone ever try oral anti-fungals?

Check out methylene blue thread and info about it on the web. Could help candida and fungal issues.

There is famous quote from Claude Bernard:
“ the microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything.”

Peat highly believes this is true, so our focus shouldn't be on micro-organisms. I agree with Peat on this especially when you don't suffer (or minor) health issues and you want to prevent disease. Also our focus should never be a single micro-organism (pathogen?), unless there's an acute infection.

But when someone's terrain is stressed and you suffer, the terrain is significantly altered by those micro-organisms as well. This favors pleomorphism, basically intracellular microbial proliferation, in whereas the cell's equilibrium is going to be far off from healthy. Changing things is not going to be easy and our focus shouldn't still be the micro-organism, but if this all can be changed by "trying" to improving metabolism I don't know.. There is still a gap in our understanding, however improving immune function along with metabolism and neuro-endocrine health is going to be needed for sure.

(For me candida like symptoms resolved by avoiding vitamin D supplements.)

Molybdenum may help candida

In my experience most people confuse the white coating on a tongue as Candida, but this is not what it is. The white tongue coating is bacteria, and while it is thick, is not at all like the fungal infection. Candida, when it does infect the mouth as thrush, is a series of very painful or uncomfortable lesions, where the fungus is actually in the tissues of the tongue, not just on the surface, and appears in patterns or splotches, and also the places where it is infected the tissues are red and tender much like a canker sore. When the coating is just on the top of the tongue and causes no pain or discomfort, this is simply bacteria growth.

artemis said:

Hi, everyone!
I've been lurking around here for a couple months now (new to Peating, only been at it for 6 weeks).

Click to expand...

Welcome artemis

I think the single best thing you can do for any fungal overgrowth is to raise body temp over 98.6 on a consistant basis.

To the extent that the 'terrain' is important for whether candida a. can become/remain pathological, I guess pH, local food supply in the intestine, the rest of the local microbiota, mineral status of host, intestinal barrier strength, immunity, and temperature and maybe other factors, could all be relevant. If these are all optimised for our general health, maybe c.a. is unlikely to get or maintain a dominant hold. Peat's approach is to optimise several of these parameters. I wonder which ones are most critical? Eg, I wonder if anyone suffers persistent yeast infection if they can maintain their pH in the optimal range, or keep their temperature up consistently (snap, zachs), etc .

It's the whole organism that matters. We shouldn't see terrain as something physiological only, even our thoughts can be considered as terrain.

Not sure what is most critical in this respect, and will differ among persons. Candida in general isn't that a difficult yeast to deal with for a proper functioning immune system/ body. I actually meant my reply to cover micro-organism issues in general.

Anyway yeah following Peat's approaches will bring you further for sure. Just note that peating is not about diet it's a philosophy (not my words, I think pboy's?, but I highly agree with it). So I am just not sure to what extent things can revert back to normal for a given individual. Also if you see those venn diagrams for certain diseases, you see a huge shift in equilibrium.

So much to consider.

Looking into methylene blue and molybdenum now (thanks, honeybee and lexis!)

Suikerbuik, interesting about the vitamin D supplements. May try eliminating those & see what happens.

I totally agree that it's all about the terrain, and that it's generally not helpful to just hone in on one microorganism. I would love to get my temperature up, but I'm operating without the most important piece of the puzzle in place: thyroid. I've never been able to get an Rx from a regular doctor, despite a long history of slow metabolism, coldness, low body temps, very low pulse rate. I ordered from mymexicandrugstore five weeks ago, and just got an email saying they shipped it but it might be another 5 weeks before I receive it! So frustrating. So in the meantime I'm doing everything else Peaty that I can do. The fungus is definitely changing, shifting, moving -- but not leaving!

Suikerbuik said:

There is famous quote from Claude Bernard:
“ the microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything.”

Peat highly believes this is true, so our focus shouldn't be on micro-organisms. I agree with Peat on this especially when you don't suffer (or minor) health issues and you want to prevent disease. Also our focus should never be a single micro-organism (pathogen?), unless there's an acute infection.

But when someone's terrain is stressed and you suffer, the terrain is significantly altered by those micro-organisms as well. This favors pleomorphism, basically intracellular microbial proliferation, in whereas the cell's equilibrium is going to be far off from healthy. Changing things is not going to be easy and our focus shouldn't still be the micro-organism, but if this all can be changed by "trying" to improving metabolism I don't know.. There is still a gap in our understanding, however improving immune function along with metabolism and neuro-endocrine health is going to be needed for sure.

(For me candida like symptoms resolved by avoiding vitamin D supplements.)

Click to expand...

A lot of food for thought here, Suiker.
Very interesting about the vitamin D bit:
do you have any thoughts as to Why this worked?

And this begs the question implied by "candida like symptoms":
working in a very shadowy world indeed when we don't know
what "disease" we have in the first place....

tara said:

To the extent that the 'terrain' is important for whether candida a. can become/remain pathological, I guess pH, local food supply in the intestine, the rest of the local microbiota, mineral status of host, intestinal barrier strength, immunity, and temperature and maybe other factors, could all be relevant. If these are all optimised for our general health, maybe c.a. is unlikely to get or maintain a dominant hold. Peat's approach is to optimise several of these parameters. I wonder which ones are most critical? Eg, I wonder if anyone suffers persistent yeast infection if they can maintain their pH in the optimal range, or keep their temperature up consistently (snap, zachs), etc .

Click to expand...

For me, the great difficulty in getting past Square One
when theorizing about treatments for "Candida"
is that there would seem to be NO tests to even identify the "disease"
and to know with any reliability whether one is suffering from it or not!

This is why, for decades, I've always thought of Candida as a made-up disease.
I worked at a "health-food" store in the '80's
and I remember the big influx then of anti-Candida products
and anti-Candida books.
Looked into it a bit and thereafter have tend to just shelve it as quackery.
Peat seems to concur with this general view, so he reinforced my tendency in that direction.

Here's the thing about this whole "terrain" analysis.
Well...I think I'll put it in a separate post...