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MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: Information in The Myers Way® is provided for informational purposes only. The information is a result of years of practice experience by the author. This information is not intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional or any information contained on or in any product label or packaging. Do not use the information in The Myers Way® for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing medication or other treatment. Always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before taking any medication or nutritional, herbal or homeopathic supplement, or using any treatment for a health problem. If you have or suspect that you have a medical problem, contact your health care provider promptly. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking professional advice because of something you have read in The Myers Way®. Information provided in The Myers Way® and the use of any products or services purchased from our web site by you DOES NOT create a doctor-patient relationship between you and Amy Myers, MD®. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All contents copyright © 2015 by Amy Myers, MD®. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Copyright Amy Myers, MD® 2015
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Welcome to The Myers Way® Guide to Candida eBook! I’m so glad you’ve chosen to learn about the root causes of Candida and discover the tools to rebalance your gut flora naturally. As you embark on this journey, we want to provide you with as much support as we can to ensure that you are armed with the knowledge and tools you need to be successful. We’ve provided a list below of some of our most helpful and popular resources, and the Amy Myers, MD® blog and online store are also full of empowering and educational resources.
Resources to Help You Succeed Sign Up for My Free Weekly Newsletter Receive news, recipes, and discounts straight to your inbox every week. I will never spam you or share your information. Join Our Community Forum Join thousands of others who have decided to use The Myers Way® approach to restore their health. Ask questions, read discussions, and hear others’ success stories in a welcoming and supportive online community. Complete The Myers Way® Comprehensive Elimination Diet eCourse with Candida Protocol If you’ve never completed an elimination diet, I highly recommend starting with my Comprehensive Elimination Diet to determine if food sensitivities are contributing to your symptoms along with Candida. The program uses a proven method to uncover your personal food sensitivities and find the diet that is right for your individual needs. It includes special protocols tailored specifically for those with Candida overgrowth. Complete The Myers Way® 30-Day Candida Control Program The Myers Way® Candida Control Protocol combines dietary changes, yeast-fighting supplements, and gut health support to restore your gut’s natural balance. The program includes everything you need to complete the 30-day protocol, including step-by-step instructions, meal plans, shopping lists, a recipe book, and all of the supplements included in the treatment program. Take 10% Off The Myers Way® Candida Control Supplement Package To purchase all three supplements included in The Myers Way® 30-Day Candida Control Program, visit our store and take 10% off. Sign Up for a Personalized Wellness Coaching Session If you’d like additional, one-on-one support from one of my Registered Dietitians/Nutritionists, sign up for a Wellness Coaching phone session. Your RDN can help with meal ideas, shopping tips, goal setting, accountability, and more.
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Table of Contents Quiz: Do I Have Candida Overgrowth? ............................... 5 What is Candida? ........................................................... 6 10 Common Candida Symptoms ...................................... 7 Why Gut Health is So Important and How to Heal Your Gut ... 8 The 4R Program ............................................................. 9 How Candida Wreaks Havoc on Your Gut and Your Health ...10 How Stress Contributes to Candida ............................... 12 Testing and Treatment for Candida Overgrowth .......... 13 Next Steps ....................................................................... 15
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Quiz: Do I Have Candida Overgrowth? Check each box that applies to you. ___ I have an autoimmune disease, such as Hashimoto’s thyroidits, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, lupus, psoriasis, scleroderma, or multiple sclerosis. ___ I have skin or nail fungal infections, such as athlete’s foot, ringworm, or toenail fungus. ___ I suffer from chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia, or I am tired all the time. ___ I have digestive issues, such as bloating, constipation, or diarrhea. ___ I have difficulty concentrating, poor memory, lack of focus, ADD, ADHD, or brain fog. ___ I have skin issues such as eczema, psoriasis, hives, rosacea, or an unexplained rash. ___ I am easily irritated and/or have frequent mood swings, anxiety, or depression. ___ I get vaginal yeast infections, have rectal itching, or have vaginal itching. ___ I suffer from seasonal allergies or itchy ears. ___ I have sugar and refined carbohydrate cravings. If you checked three of more items above, you have tested positive for Candida overgrowth. Copyright Amy Myers, MD® 2015 www.AmyMyersMD.com
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What is Candida? You might be wondering, “What on earth is Candida?” Candida is a type of yeast, which is a form of fungus, a very small amount of which lives in your mouth and intestines. There are actually many different types of yeast that can take up residence in your body, however, Candida albicans (Candida for short) is the most common and studied form of yeast. For this reason, I have chosen to use the term Candida in this eBook, but the symptoms, testing, and treatment information included in this eBook apply to all types of yeast overgrowth. Candida’s job is to aid in digestion and nutrient absorption, but when it is overproduced, it breaks down the wall of the intestine and penetrates the bloodstream, releasing toxic byproducts into your body and potentially causing a leaky gut. This can lead to many different health problems ranging from digestive issues to brain fog. The healthy or ‘good’ bacteria in your gut typically keeps your Candida levels in check, but various factors may allow the Candida to overgrow.
How do you get Candida overgrowth? Risk factors include: • • • • • • • • • • •
A round of antibiotics that kill too many of those friendly bacteria A diet high in refined carbohydrates and sugar (which feed the yeast) Chronic stress Alcohol Oral contraceptives and oral estrogens Diabetes Pregnancy Hypothyroidism (Check out The Myers Way®: Guide to Thyroid) Weakened immune system Even a diet high in beneficial fermented foods like Kombucha, sauerkraut, and pickles can feed Candida, causing an overgrowth
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10 Common Candida Symptoms If you have any of the following symptoms it could be a sign that you have Candida overgrowth: 1. Skin and nail fungal infections such as athlete’s foot, ringworm, and toenail fungus 2. Feeling tired and worn down or suffering from chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia 3. Digestive issues such as bloating, constipation, or diarrhea 4. Autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, lupus, psoriasis, scleroderma, or multiple sclerosis 5. Difficulty concentrating, poor memory, lack of focus, ADD, ADHD, and brain fog 6. Skin issues such as eczema, rosacea, psoriasis, hives and rashes 7. Irritability, mood swings, anxiety, or depression 8. Infections such as vaginal infections, yeast infections, urinary tract infections, rectal itching or vaginal itching 9. Severe seasonal allergies or itchy ears 10. Cravings such as strong sugar and refined carbohydrate cravings
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Why Gut Health is So Important and How to Heal Your Gut You might be reading the list on the previous page and thinking, those sound like a lot of unrelated symptoms, how could they all be caused by this one fungus? The answer to this question is something that I cannot emphasize enough--the gut is the gateway to health. This means that anything that hurts the gut has the potential to negatively impact every other aspect of your health. This strong link between your gut health and your overall health is why healing your gut is the first step toward optimal health and the foundation of my practice. Functional Medicine uses the 4R program to restore your gut. You can read about it here, and you can learn more about it, as well as develop the tools to put it into practice, in The Myers Way® Guide to the Gut eCourse. I have witnessed dramatic reversal of all types of conditions, including chronic and inflammatory illnesses, in a very short period of time by utilizing this simple approach. The Myers Way® Candida Control Program, featuring a 30-day dietary and supplement protocol, is based on the 4R approach and provides the foundation for long-lasting gut health.
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The 4R Program 1. Remove
Remove the bad. The goal is to get rid of things that negatively affect the environment of the GI tract such as inflammatory foods, infections, and gastric irritants like alcohol, caffeine or drugs. Inflammatory foods such as gluten, dairy, corn, soy, eggs, and sugar can lead to food sensitivities. I recommend The Myers Way® Comprehensive Elimination Diet and IgG food sensitivity testing to determine if any foods are a problem for you. Infections can be from parasites, yeast (like Candida), or bacteria. A comprehensive stool analysis is key to determining the levels of good bacteria as well as any infections that may be present. Removing the infections may require treatment with herbs, anti-parasite medication, anti-fungal medication, anti-fungal supplements, or even antibiotics.
2. Replace
Replace the good. Add back in the essential ingredients for proper digestion and absorption that may have been depleted by diet, drugs (such as antacid medications) diseases, or aging. This includes digestive enzymes, hydrochloric acid, and bile acids that are required for proper digestion.
3. Reinoculate
Restoring beneficial bacteria to reestablish a healthy balance of good bacteria is critical. This may be accomplished by taking a probiotic supplement that contains beneficial bacteria such as bifidobacteria and lactobacillus species. I recommend anywhere from 25 -100 billion units a day. Also, taking a prebiotic (food for the good bacteria) supplement or consuming foods high in soluble fiber is important.
4. Repair
Providing the nutrients necessary to help the gut repair itself is essential. One of my favorite supplements is L-glutamine, an amino acid that helps to rejuvenate the gut wall lining. Other key nutrients include zinc, omega 3 fish oils, vitamins A, C, and E, as well as herbs such as slippery elm and aloe vera.
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How Candida Wreaks Havoc on Your Gut and Your Health Now that you know why gut health is so important, and the strategy behind healing your gut, let’s look at what Candida does to the gut and how this impacts your overall health.
Your Gut’s Delicate Balance
As you probably know by now, your gut contains trillions of bacteria that aid in digestion and keep your digestive system healthy. There are hundreds of different types of these good bacteria, and they exist in a delicate balance with each other and with other organisms, including yeast. If your gut is healthy, your good bacteria will keep your yeast population in check. But, if you are low on good bacteria or create an environment that causes the yeast to proliferate faster than the good bacteria can get rid of them (because of any of the risk factors on page 7), you may get an overgrowth of yeast.
The Gut and Brain Connection
When your gut is drowning in yeast it isn’t able to perform its usual tasks with the same efficiency and effectiveness it normally would. This causes the symptoms you would typically associate with a gut issue, such as bloating, constipation, or diarrhea. What many people don’t realize is that 95% of your neurotransmitters are produced in the gut. In fact, the gut is often referred to as the second brain. If you’re suffering from yeast overgrowth, your neurotransmitter production is impaired. On top of that, Candida affects your brain and mood function by producing alcohol and acetaldehyde, both of which are toxic to the nervous system and often contribute to symptoms of brain fog. This is why so many of my patients suffering from Candida overgrowth complain of brain fog, poor memory, and depression or anxiety.
95% of your
neurotransmitters are produced in your gut.
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Candida and Leaky Gut Now you know how Candida affects digestive health and the brain, but how does it lead to issues like allergies, infections, and autoimmune disease? Candida has the unique ability to change shape in order to protect itself from harsh environments. It responds to a shift in temperature or acidity levels by transforming from a rounded yeast cell into an elongated hyphal cell. These elongated cells have the ability to permeate the gut lining, causing leaky gut, and, once in the bloodstream, invade other tissues. This means that Candida can quickly transition from a gut problem to a full-body problem as it colonizes the skin, mouth, ears, thyroid, genitourinary organs, or elsewhere. When your gut is leaky, things like toxins, microbes, undigested food particles, and more can escape from your intestines and travel throughout your body via your bloodstream. Your immune system marks these “foreign invaders” as pathogens and attacks them, often attacking surrounding tissue or tissue with a similar chemical structure to the foreign particles. This continuous stream of pathogens and invaders in your bloodstream puts your immune system on high alert and can trigger an autoimmune disease. For more information on this, read my book, The Autoimmune Solution. Effectively treating Candida involves stopping the yeast overgrowth, restoring the friendly bacteria that usually keep them in check, and healing your gut so that Candida can no longer enter your bloodstream.
9 Signs You Have a Leaky Gut Infections--gut: parasite, small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), or yeast overgrowth (candida)
Bones: osteopenia, osteoporosis Brain: anxiety, depression, brain fog Digestive system: bloating, constipation, diarrhea, weight loss, fat malabsorption Hormones: irregular periods, PMS, perimenopausal or menopausal symptoms
Metabolism: excess weight, obesity, diabetes Nutrients: iron deficiency/ anemia, omega-3 fatty acid deficiency, vitamin deficiencies Skin: acne, eczema, rosacea
Immune system: frequent colds, flu, and infections; joint pain; muscle pain; autoimmune disorders
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How Stress Contributes to Candida There are many dietary factors that play a role in developing Candida overgrowth, but stress can also be a major contributor because of its effect on the immune and digestive systems.
The Effect of Stress on the Immune System
When you experience any kind of stress, including physical, mental, or emotional, your body swiftly kicks off a response via your adrenal glands. Your adrenal glands’ response is to release a cascade of stress hormones, chief among them cortisol. Cortisol is highly inflammatory, its purpose is to activate your immune system so that you can respond to a wound or injury (since this was the type of stress we evolved to face). But, after this initial rise in inflammation to boost immunity, cortisol actually works to suppress the immune system. This is because your body knows that a high level of inflammation is not sustainable, it stresses the immune system and can lead to autoimmune disease. To make up for the wave of inflammation it produced initially, cortisol returns your immune system to anywhere from 40 to 70% below the baseline, leaving you with a suppressed immune system.
The Effect of Stress on the Digestive System
A secondary effect of stress is that it temporarily shuts down your digestive functions, something that also goes back to what stressors we evolved to face. If you’re running from a predator you want all of your blood flow concentrated in your limbs for fleeing and your brain for quick thinking, not being wasted in your gut.
Candida Sees an Opening and Takes Advantage
Remember how earlier I said that typically your body can keep Candida under control all on its own? This is because your immune system and your healthy gut bacteria are both actively working to keep it from multiplying too quickly. But, when your immune system is suppressed and your digestive systems keeps being temporarily shut off, Candida has the opportunity to multiply unchecked and becomes too entrenched for your good bacteria and immune system to get it back under control.
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Testing and Treatment for Candida Overgrowth 4 Effective Tests for Detecting Candida Overgrowth: IgG, IgA, and IgM Candida Antibodies
Blood tests check for IgG, IgA, and IgM Candida antibodies in your blood, and can be performed at most any lab. High levels of these antibodies indicate that an overgrowth of Candida is present somewhere in the body and that your immune system is reacting to it. Remember, Candida has the ability to suppress the immune system so it is important to ask your doctor to test your total IgG, IgA, and IgM levels along with the Candida antibodies. Low levels of total IgG, IgA, or IgM could cause a false negative response to the Candida antibodies, meaning you could have Candida, but since your immune system is lowered, you are unable to produce a response and your blood test comes back negative. Since I see so many patients with suppressed immune systems, I find in my clinic that blood tests can often be negative even when the stool or urine tests are positive. Complete Blood Count (CBC) Often, I will see clues on a CBC that let me know that yeast is present. A low white blood cell count (WBC) has been associated with yeast overgrowth as well as a pattern of high neutrophil and low lymphocyte count. While these are non-specific to yeast, after working with thousands of patients, I can tell you I see this pattern very frequently in those with Candida overgrowth. Urine Organix Dysbiosis Test This is a specialized functional medicine lab test and it looks for D-Arabinitol in the urine, a waste product of Candida. Elevated levels indicate Candida overgrowth in your small intestines or upper gut. Comprehensive Stool Test This is also a specialized functional medicine lab test that will check for Candida in your colon or lower gut. Standard or conventional stool tests typically do not test for Candida. With the comprehensive stool test, your stool is directly analyzed for levels of yeast. The lab can usually determine the species of yeast as well as which treatment will be most effective.
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How to Treat Candida Overgrowth
The full Candida control treatment protocol that I use with my patients is covered in the companion resource for this eBook, The Myers Way® 30-Day Candida Control Guide. The program utilizes the proven 4R approach to get rid of your Candida overgrowth and ensure long-lasting gut health. The cornerstone of the treatment is a low-carbohydrate diet that starves the yeast, accompanied by specific enzymes to break down the yeast cell wall, a natural anti-fungal supplement that ‘pokes holes’ in the yeast cell wall, and very high-potency, multi-strain probiotics to restore your healthy gut bacteria. If you do not already have The Myers Way® 30-Day Candida Control Guide, you can purchase it here.
Recommended Reading
Your gut is a complex and fascinating ecosystem that is truly the key to optimal overall
health. To learn more about how to maintain gut health, possible underlying gut-related causes for your symptoms, and how to treat them, I recommend the following articles and eCourses. 9 Signs You Have a Leaky Gut 10 Signs You Have Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth 10 Signs You May Have a Parasite Gluten Sensitivity: Is Something You Are Eating Making You Sick? Functional Medicine IgG Food Sensitivity Testing The Myers Way® Guide to the Gut eCourse To gain an in-depth understanding of gut health and how it impacts your overall health, I highly recommend my Guide to the Gut eCourse. Through four hours of instruction paired with worksheets, shopping guides, and checklists, you will be empowered to discover the root cause of your symptoms and be able to self-treat at home with food and supplements.
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You’re Ready to Take the Next Steps in Your Candida Journey! Now that you’ve learned what causes Candida overgrowth and how it affects your health, you’re ready to begin The Myers Way® 30-Day Candida Control Program! The program includes everything you need to successfully eliminate your yeast overgrowth and heal your gut through a 30-day meal plan and supplement regimen.
You will receive: • The Myers Way® Candida Control Guide: In-depth explanations of how to follow the protocol and why it works, including a 30-day meal plan, day-by-day instructions for taking your supplements, and what to expect as the yeast dies and your gut begins to heal. • Candida Control Recipe eBook: Easy-to-follow instructions for every dish included in the meal plan. • Candida Control Weekly Shopping Lists: Printable lists to make grocery shopping a breeze. • Candida Control Wellness Kit: All three yeast-fighting and gut-restoring supplements included in the protocol. If you didn’t purchase this eBook as part of the full The Myers Way® 30-Day Candida Control Program, you can purchase it here.
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