Candida Probiotics
Candida Probiotics
The flora in our gut are extremely complex and dynamic and influenced by a variety of factors like genetics, age, stress levels, the food we eat, nutritional status, and whether you are male or female.
A healthy adult will have about 1000 different species within about 100 trillions (≈ 2 kilos) of good bacteria living inside the intestine, compared to a total of 10 trillion body cells. A healthy balance supports both your digestion and immune system. An overgrowth of Candida (>15%) knocks this system out of balance, causing innumerable dis-eases.
A course of full spectrum antibiotics will kill Candida plus most of your beneficial bacteria, giving the Candida yeast an opportunity to rapidly grow and dominate your gut.
Probiotics reintroduce health-promoting bacteria to your gut. They create large colonies, crowd out the Candida fungi, regulate stomach acidity, and boost the immune system.
Some health-promoting effects of various probiotics are:
- help balance the pH,
- better digestion of food,
- manufacturing vitamins B-12, H, and K
- cleaning up and elimination of waste products,
- supporting your immune systems, by maintaining an acidic environment in the gut and so inhibiting the actions of disease-causing alkaline bacteria,
- increasing the nutritional value of some foods by augmenting the breakdown and absorption of nutrients,
- producing antibiotics and some are anti-carcinogenic,
- preventing the negative side effects of antibiotics,
- exerting positive effects on the intestinal tract,
- suppressing activities in the insular cortex,
- potentially aiding in the treatment and prevention of depression (psycho-biotics).
Of the good bacteria, bifidus inhabits the large intestine. Acidophilus inhabits mostly the small intestine, vagina, and is also needed in the lining of the cervix and urethra, where it inhibits the presence of pathogenic microbes.
However, overgrowth of both acidophilus and bifidus, called SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) can cause problems as well.
You may not do well on a product with a high level of bifidus, and someone else may not do well with a high level of acidophilus. Others may not do well on the soil based organisms, we got from the soil on our food in ages past.
These organisms colonize us only for a short period of time until they die and then are cleansed out through normal digestive processes and peristalsis. Some experts claim that their lack is a primary cause of gut and colon problems.
An excess can cause a crossing of the blood-brain barrier and disrupt brain cells resulting in a wide range of mental, behavioral or cognitive issues like depression, anxiety, aggression, autism, attention deficit, chronic fatigue, etc.
Our lifestyle choices can negatively effect these positive health effects, like chlorine in the water supply, or antibiotics in pesticide/herbicide residues on fruits and vegetables. These kill both the pathogenic and friendly bacteria. Also stress causes an unhealthy composition of gut flora.
In a double-blind research study some people received active probiotic organisms and some received placebos, identical in appearance but with no active ingredients. After weeks of treatment, the receivers of probiotics reported significantly lower stress levels than before the treatment.
A similar double-blind study was performed among individuals diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. Those who took probiotics reported significant symptoms improvements.
As the anti-candida diet supports and enhances the effectiveness of the anti-fungals and probiotics, they need to be taken simultaneously.
When you take any action to try and eliminate a fungus, its first response is to fight back by trying to multiply, by releasing a lot of spores that lodge in various parts of the body and lie dormant.
Although you may kill off your active Candida, once the attack is over, the dormant spores will become active and infection will return. Therefore, it is usually essential to make repeated attacks with antifungals, probiotic supplements, prebiotics foods, etc.