Candida
Important Facts About Candida
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BTS-Anti-Candida Diet Advice
Dear Patient,
If your findings show that you have an intestinal Candida overgrowth that needs treatment, an effective remedy will be prescribed to you, which you have to take according to the instructions. However, experience has shown that medication for intestinal fungi without a special diet is not sufficient. The dietary advice given below is based on the scientific research of the German Professor Dr. Hans Rieth, MD, and has become the gold standard.
Yeastlike fungi need to have a source of organic carbohydrates to live on. Their easiest supply is organic carbohydrate in the form of short chain sugars, like our household sugars or fruit sugar. The more sugars they have available the better they thrive. For this reason you have to avoid short chain carbohydrates like glucose, fructose, household sugars, malt sugar, all kinds of sweets, chocolate, sweet juices and other sweet drinks, white flour products and jams in your daily nutrition during the anti-Candida treatment. Of course you have to avoid foods, which you are intolerant to as well.
However, be warned of extreme diets, which reduce not only the short chain but also the complex carbohydrates and fruit for weeks or even months. Here not only the fungus but also the patient will be harmed.
- You might be very concerned before starting the diet that you will find it extremely hard to avoid sugars, but you have to consider that your need for sugars will go down rapidly once the Candida is eliminated.
- It is very important to sweep out the accumulated yeast cells with fibre. A rich supply of fibre mechanically eliminates the accumulated yeast cells from the intestines. This is especially efficient when you eat fibre several times a day, also for example in form of a supplement. Fibre also encourages a faster digestion, which is important to get the Candida out of your intestines and has the additional advantage of making you feel full. This makes the diet easier.
Rich on fibre are:
All kinds of vegetables: especially raw
Breads: Wholemeal rye breads, wholemeal breads, bran breads
Cereal products: seed sprouts, wholemeal, wholemeal flakes, grains, whole grain pasta,
brown rice
- Are you allowed to eat yeast during your Candida diet?
In principle you can eat baking yeast, beer yeast and other food yeasts as they don’t colonise your gut like Candida albicans and its relatives. However, if you have an allergy or sensitivity to Candida you might experience a cross reaction against the related food yeast. In these cases you have to avoid any yeast-containing foods. Watch out for yeast also in stock cubes, Marmite or other sandwich spreads. If you are not sure if you are allergic to yeast, please leave out yeast as a precaution.
- If you have tested sensitive for certain foods, you should only reintroduce them after the candida treatment.
- Please do not drink great quantities of milk during the diet as this has shown to make the candida more persistent. The same applies to great quantities of calcium supplements (if you take much more than the recommended intake). Candia cannot digest lactose, however.
- However, make sure you drink enough liquid as clean, still water, thinly brewed herbal or fruit teas etc.
- Supply of nutrients:
Always make sure that your intake of vitamins, minerals and trace elements is sufficient,
as Candida sufferers are often deficient in them.
You are allowed to eat
- potatoes, brown rice and brown pasta, buckwheat
full grain bread, crisp bread, also sugar free wholemeal
baking products (those baked with yeast only if you are
not allergic to yeast)
- fruits which are not so sweet, fruit low on carbohydrates like strawberries
or raspberries etc. (= low GI and GL)
- meat and fish in all variations except in batter or a breadcrumb coat
- egg dishes with milk or milk products,
oven baked egg dishes
- milk and milk products without sugar, natural yoghurt
- all kinds of vegetables and salads
- mushrooms !!
- milk sugar (lactose)
- wholemeal bakery, nuts in moderation, muesli without sugar
- sugarfree chocolate, for example with Maltitol
- artificial sweeteners like aspartame, xylit, saccharin
- sugarfee drinks like mineral water, coffee,
teas, moderately dry wines and dry champagne
You should avoid
-white rice, white pasta
-yeast and all foods with yeast if you are allergic to yeast
-any kind of white bread or white flour products
-sweet fruits (like grapes, bananas, dates etc. with a high GI/GL)
- dried fruit
- egg dishes with white flour
- yoghurts or similar with sugar and/or sugared fruits
- glucose, household sugars, malt sugar,honey, fructose (!)
- any kinds of sweets, cakes, biscuits, custard
- sugar substitutes like sorbit or mannit
- sweet drinks like lemonades, coke, fruit juices,
sweet wines, beer, sweet liquors
– Is a diet alone enough to kill Candida?
The special diet is vital to diminish the number of fungi but you will need the medication in addition as nobody can starve Candida to death. In emergency candida can switch to a protein metabolism and when seriously starved they start penetrating the intestinal lining to get sugars from the blood. This provokes the danger of a systemic fungal infection, which can cause even worse problems.
How should you eat after the diet phase?
After approx. 8 weeks of this diet you should not go back to a nutrition rich on sugar and sweets.
Instead you should try to eat healthy whole foods as long as possible, at least for 4 – 6 months. Whilst eating whole foods you should avoid all refined sugars, but you are encouraged to eat all kinds of fruit, including the sweet ones. White flour is not advisable anyway, as it is low on nutrients and fibre.
Whole foods contain a high percentage of vegetables, fruits and salads. They should be prepared very gently (not overcooked) and should supply you with moderate quantities of milk, milk products, eggs, fish and meats. Your diet should be versatile but not too rich.
Speak to your nutritionist or naturopath about a healthy diet.
Ute:
Dear Khalif,
10 November 2009, 5:57 amSorry, I have only just seen this comment.
We have to be aware that the candida diet is a generally healthy diet and for that reason a lot of people will feel better on it. The cause of your problem might be a different one. To treat a condition we always have to know the cause. Before you have not found the cause of your health problems you cannot apply an appropriate treatment. I would check first if your problem is really candida. If not, you can look what else it might be and then treat the condition appropriately.
Kind regards, Ute
Ute Allison, ND
angela hodge:
Hi,I have a question that no nutrionalist/Dr can give me an answer to.Due to having unexplained weight gain after contracting the Epstein Barr virus where upon I just couldn’t even shift a few lbs,I was diagnosed, through testing (many years ago)to have candida and a intolerance to yeast. After six months of the rigid anti-candida diet,I finally can loose half a stone.I try to not eat many foods containing sugar after coming off the diet but unfortunately I always completely lapse at Christmas time from the diet and gain the weight within a COUPLE of weeks and am ‘back to square one’. This has been happening for 10 years and I am getting depressed with my situation and would like to know why this happens. I haver dieted in my life so I know it’s not the case of the’Yo Yo’ effect and who’s ever heard of a metabolism that is that slow!
6 March 2010, 8:51 pmUte:
Dear Angela,
8 March 2010, 6:21 pmI am very sorry to hear your story. Not an easy question of course. Otherwise you would have had the answer by now.
It is also very difficult to give you a hit and miss diagnosis with not being able to do blood and other tests on you.
However, I can tell you one thing for sure that if you have intestinal candida overgrowth, you will not get rid of it just by dieting.
I will send you an article about the chance to starve candida to your email address. If you feel that under the anti-candida diet you are better, then it might make sense to see a good naturopath and do a proper anti-fungal treatment and then see how your metabolism is reacting. There are so many studies now on the role of the gut flora and so many new results have been discovered. Our lab scientist recently told me that they are now tracing special bacteria which keep the weight on some people. This shows that recolonising the gut flora can have many and some unexpected benefits. Kind regards, Ute Allison, ND
Sara Nicholls:
Hi, I have been looking at this website and have found it very interesting. I have two small children on of whom is 5. The other night she woke up saying her vigina was itching I checked and noticed that there was quite a lot of white discharge. I put her in the bath and she removed it with a tissue. She felt better and went back to sleep. This has only happened a few times. I was speaking to my sister and she thinks it could be Candid. What do you think, should I get her tested? Also, I wonder if it is worth testing myself, I feel ok at the moment and have quite a lot of energy but am always interested in being 100% sure that I am healthy. Please let me know your thoughts. Kind regards Sara Nicholls
26 August 2010, 12:44 pmUte:
Dear Sara,
31 August 2010, 3:55 pmI am very sorry for the delay in my answer, but I had a total computer crash and it took a few days to be up and running again.
As for your little daughter: this could be a fungal infection, although that would go with strong itching.
I would actually try to see a pediatrician first to make sure it is not anything else. If you do our test right away and it comes back negative you would still be looking for an answer.
Kind regards, Ute
Ute Allison, ND
maria:
Hello, I can see aspartame is allowed in the diet, but I thought this is a very dangerous poison?..
14 October 2010, 11:25 amUte:
A general diet has to be one for everyone, unless you discuss your indivudual requirements with your therapist. Candida does not grow on Aspartame. That is the only meaning of this. It is totally up to you if you want that extra burden in your diet. Aspartame is certainly not a dangerous poison. Otherwise it would not be allowed in any food. Of course it is not ideal and a lot of people react badly to it – however a lot of people react very badly to egg, soya, wheat etc. There is no general healthy food either. And of course you do not have to use Aspartame. This recommendation is just for people who are so addicted to sweet, that otherwise they could not stick to the diet. So it seems the smaller evil. But the recommendations certainly do not mean that you have to use these foods.
14 October 2010, 5:33 pmLinzi:
Hello,
I have been following your diet, supplement and hygiene programme for 7 weeks after recenlty being diagnosed with Candida through your testing facilites.
However i am still feeling extremely bloated and uncomfortable after meals. I have been extremely strict with the diet so i am not sure where i am going wrong. In terms of allowing certain sugars, I only have two portion of fruit a day, I have cut out yeast and even though you say wholemeal bakery is OK i have cut that out too. I am even drinking lactose free milk even though you allow limited amounts of milk sugars on the diet.
Do you have any advice to reduce these symptoms as i am due to finish my supplements in a weeks time but i do not feel fully recovered yet.
8 March 2011, 2:08 pmUte:
Dear Linzi,
8 March 2011, 3:30 pmAs you know we are a laboratory service and not a free therapy service. Whereas we always give a very individual interpretation of your result based on your questionnaire and we are usually prepared to give some general recommendations and also inform about modern dietary approaches, we always stress that every patient is different and that you need to see a therapist to deal with your individual problems. We do not deliver anti-fungal programmes with our lab results since we are not familiar with your exact medical history, medication etc. This would be totally irresponsible. And from the little information I have I cannot give you a well founded answer to your question. I am very sorry for this. But it has good reasons that a therapist will take an hour or even more for a consultation to understand your situation. We can even recommend phone consultations, but you need to see a health professional if you have problems like this. Very sorry, Ute