Medical Profession’s Refusal to Consider Fungus as Cause.

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My doctor, when I tried to explain to her that all my symptoms seemed to be candida/fungus-based, told me “if you had a systemic candida overgrowth condition…you would be dead.”

And she is right.

With enough candida floating around in the system, I would indeed be dead.  Systemic candidiasis is a common symptom of people suffering with severe disease, such as AIDS.

But exactly how much causes death, and how much creates all the other potential symptoms…the list of which is very long…to make the condition a treatable one?

After all:

When they prescribe antibiotics to help kill off a bacterial infection, it is with the idea that there is not so much of this bacteria present that it is killing the patient.  Instead, it is creating an uncomfortable array of symptoms, that once the bacteria is killed, will go away.

The problem with this course of action is the obvious fact that using antibiotics to kill bacteria in the body, will also kill the good bacteria, creating a probable imbalance in the gut between the yeasts and healthy bacteria content that makes up our immune system.

What if this large portion of our immune system…in the gut…is responsible for most of the body’s level of health?

We depend upon some of the bacterial strains in our gut to effectively keep our immune system operating, and destroying any of a range of potential pathogens that could make us sick.

But despite this well-established notion that most of our immune system is in our gut…and that when we take antibiotics, that enter our gut, and kill pathogens as well as healthy flora…the same doctors that prescribe these drugs that destroy this ecosystem in our bodies will not consider that the very environment they may be feeding…one of an imbalance and over abundance of fungus…may be contributing to a myriad of other symptoms that people experience afterwards, as if from cause and effect.

Why?

I am not claiming anything.

I am simply asking you to question WHY.

Is Chocolate Good or Bad? Cacao?

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People are often confused about the nature of the cacao bean/nut and the final chocolate product that most in the western world are familiar with, and weather or not there are health benefits to be derived from either.

I will have to take the stance that I can’t definitively say whether or not chocolate in any form is “healthy” or not…but what I can do is offer a few thoughts on it to help you make the decision for yourself, while stating that I do consume chocolate several times a week, and on occasion, the cacao bean/nut itself.

Essentially, if you are going to eat truly raw chocolate, it would be in the form of the cacao bean/nut (people refer to them as either beans or nuts, but I believe from a strictly technical/botany standpoint, it is a nut…I’ll let the experts in that area argue it out).  You can even purchase bars of unsweetened cacao, referred to on the label itself as cacao, that would be used for cooking.

You have all also seen the unsweetened chocolate bars for cooking. 

The only difference that I have been able to discern between the two, unsweetened chocolate vs unsweetened cacao, is that the chocolate has likely undergone just a bit more of a processing procedure as compared to the cacao, which has been reduced to a different form with as little processing as possible, no additives or solvents involved.

There is a lot of controversy about both, and their health benefits.

The raw foodists are of course big on the cacao as a naturally occurring edible with huge anti-oxidant properties, magnesium, and a very large host of other macro and micro nutrients.

But the chocolate bars most of us are familiar with have been processed to such an extent that much of the nutritional value of the original cacao has been reduced, potentially to a great extent.

This is not to say that a quality form of chocolate is still not worth consuming, if chocolate is your thing.

But the trick is to look for what are the healthiest and most appropriate options that can enable you to both indulge your sweet tooth a bit, as well as derive some nutritional value from the food.

In this regard we look always to the dark chocolates, not the milk chocolates.  Then to the percentage of cocoa on the label and then to the sugar content and additives on the nutritional label and ingredients.

Common milk chocolate bars are nothing more than chocolatized sugar cubes.  Nutritional value is next to none in these bars.

Most of the brand name dark chocolates are not much better, loaded with plenty of unhealthy additives.

So I simply look for the shortest ingredient labels filled with nothing but organic ingredients, very preferably Fair Trade ingredients, and then I always shoot for the 85% to 87%  dark chocolate/cacao. 

My favorite brands would be Dagoba, Sweetriot, and Green & Blacks.

I’ll dip my chocolate in my favorite raw almond butter and add a bite of organic rice cake in my mouth and it’s quite…DARN…delish. 🙂

Syntol Update on B Subtilis:

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I contacted the Arthur Andrew company directly on behalf of a friend who had what seemed to have a negative reaction to the use of their Syntol AMD product, and concerns over the B. subtilis strain of bacteria used in the product.

The person who answered the phone was very kind, and they seem like a great company.

He assured me that he would send me a report by email about the safety and effectiveness of using this strain in the product, since he said he receives lots of calls/inquiries on it almost daily.

I re-stated wanting to get that report more than once, and made sure we closed the conversation with a reminder to send it to me by email.

A week later, the report has not been received, having checked my spam folders as well on many occasions.

I am all for giving the benefit of the doubt under these conditions, but I did stress needing to get the information…with the controversy surrounding this particular strain, I’d have thought it important to get any relevant studies into the hands of someone requesting it in order to support the product’s development and effectiveness.

Since it was not received…and even if it is, it will take a lot of convincing at this point…my friend and I have chosen to have her use an enzyme product with a separate multi-strain, high-cell-count probiotic in combination instead, and she has not had any herx reaction as of yet at about half-doses.  The enzyme product is designed to help “eat” the exterior of candida, and the probiotic is from a well-known company as well, both of which can be found in most health food stores. 

The probiotic does not contain the B subtilis strain.