Vitamin D is available as a supplement or in our diets but by far the most effective way to get it is to get 20 or so minutes of sun a day (that is for a slightly warmer than temperate climate) and no you shouldn’t get skin cancer from this. If you have adequate cholesterol levels the sun will trigger your body to make vitamin D and then store it for the winter months. Wonderful.

Low vitamin D is proven to cause depression, impaired immune function including auto immune diseases and what is really relevant to our discussion – an inability to fight off opportunistic invaders such as yeast over growth. Every body has candida albicans in their digestive tracts but what makes certain people suffer an overgrowth? An impaired immune system can be a key player.

Mothers need good vitamin D levels to pass on to their babies – children born in winter or cold climates are known to have higher levels of immune disfunction. And all this good vitamin D needs is cholesterol. Cholesterol is also used in our body to make hormones and to help repair damage such as that caused by trans fats. High levels of serum cholesterol therefore can mean lots of repair is going on.

Serum (blood) cholesterol levels do drop if people eat less sat fats, but that could well be because if the body cannot get enough sat fat to ensure the integrity of its cell walls it will use cholesterol – so serum levels would drop as all the cholesterol is being used to prop up your cell walls.

But the truth is more complicated than that of course. Removing fat from our diet is not realistic – for best health results a certain amount of our daily calorie intake should come from fats, they play essential roles in our bodies from providing fuel to providing materials needed by the body for health. Not all fats are created equal, there are great differences in the molecular structure of fats, and they have different benefits and drawbacks.

Until recently most people felt that it was best to avoid saturated fats and to eat instead mono and polyunsaturates. Firstly, what is a saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fat?

Fats (lipids) are generally made up of fatty acids attached to a glycerol molecule. In our bodies the ratio is generally three chains of fatty acid to one glycerol molecule (triglycerides) and these chains can either be long or short. The chains of fatty acid are compiled of carbon and hydrogen atoms bound to each other. If all carbon atoms are bound to a hydrogen atom then the fat is saturated. Monounsaturated oils have two carbon atoms that are bound to each other rather than to hydrogen atoms (ie they are two hydrogen atoms short). The fatty acid chain bends at the point of the “unsaturated” bond. Polyunsaturates have two or more pairs of carbon atoms without hydrogen atoms, the fatty acids found most frequently in our foods are omega threes and omega sixes. Other attributes of these lipids – saturated short chain fatty acids are small and straight and therefore pack together easily and are typically solid at room temperature. Monos have a kink and therefore pack together less well, being solid only if refrigerated. Polys have multiple kinks and are liquid even in cold storage. The most important point to take out of this discussion on fat structure is that saturated fats have a very stable structure. In the unsaturates the carbon atoms that are paired with other carbon atoms do not make a stable bond – and if the bond breaks the fat and what it does to your body alter dramatically.

So why did saturated fat get a bad wrap? It was blamed for heart disease, hardening of the arteries, obesity etc.

But there is strong evidence that this is too simplistic. Saturated fatty acids do some very important things in our bodies. For example many protect the digestive tract from fungus and bacterium. Yes, that is right. This is of course particularly relevant for sufferers of candida and candidiasis. For example, Dr Crook in his book the Yeast Connection mentions a pill similar to nystatin made from a fatty acid found in saturated animal fat. So there. Coconut oil is know to have strong anti fungal and antimicrobial properties.

Saturated fat also plays an important part in our brains. Going on about coconut oil there have been recent studies showing how it can reverse and prevent alzheimers disease (about one teaspoon full per day). Our bodies also use saturated fat to make cell walls and to make certain hormones within the body. Some saturated fat is essential in our diets.

I imagine you are thinking, fine, but I don’t want to get heart disease. Well there are plenty of studies that show that those eating saturated fat do not necessarily have a higher risk of heart disease or even obesity. Yes, it is true. In fact, some people even say that you should up your saturated fat intake (while keeping your total calories the same) to lose weight. This is because saturated fat is your body’s preferred fuel as far as fats go. It is to do in part with the structure of saturated fat. It does not get denatured by heat (as do more complex polyunsaturates) and your body knows what to do with it. So when you get some sat fat it is easily metabolised and used as fuel. A rancid polyunsaturate on the other hand is deemed unnatural and dangerous and your body cannot easily metabolise it so it stores it away as fat. That is part of the problem with transfats.

Fat Molecule

Adrenaline is like emergency credit in your energy account. It can be called upon in a drastic circumstance to get you out of a tight situation. However, interest is charged – you will have less energy later when you come down off the high. Additionally if you use this emergency credit all the time you will find out you are over drawn and there is none left. You then have to be good for a long time, resting a lot, never calling upon that credit etc until you have allowed your body to repair and replenish that supply. And that repair can take years.

So it is important to get stressed as little as possible – particularly if it is not important.

So how does exercise help you reduce the number of times that you get stressed?

Firstly, being unfit causes its own stress and being fit allows us to function at our peak ¹, so the fit person is less likely to suffer any chronic condition, including a yeast infection.

Exercise also relaxes tension in muscles and improves sleep². Good sleep is essential to health in every area of our body, including our immune system’s ability to fight off candida albicans.

Exercise also reduces stress by helping your brain to function more effectively³ – which is great when you are in a potentially stressful situation, as you will more easily be able to think of solutions to your problems. Stress is often the result of the perception that demands are greater than resources in a persons life⁴. Therefore, if you can improve your brain function, your resources increase and your stress will drop. Exercise improves brain function purely by increasing blood flow to the brain. This takes more nutrients including sugars to the brain for use and more quickly removes the toxins that can build up in the brain during intense thought. These toxins if not removed cause a ‘woolly’ headed feeling. Leading to more stress.

And then of course exercise releases endorphins into the blood stream – a chemical that increases our sense of happiness and well-being.

There is lots of scientific proof that exercise is excellent for helping us manage stress and live a happy life, and I have found it to be just so true. It is funny, as a teenager I disliked exercise for the sake of it. I enjoyed sport such as hockey and tennis, but being told to jog three laps around the oval and then do sit ups did nothing for my mood (I thought). But I discovered that I love walking. Love it. Bush walking, town walking, walking with friends, walking alone. As I got older I discovered I also love dancing. Belly dancing, zumba dancing, dancing around the living room to latin dance music – flamenco dancing (my version) anything. And then I did a yoga course because I heard it was good for you and I love that to. And now the very thought of getting exercise makes me happy. I even dance while folding the washing. I love it. So if you think you don’t like exercise, try something new, keep trying, it is so good for you.

And just further to our discussion the other week, I was reading a parenting book that was discussing anger management, which is a variant of stress management, really and it pointed out that breathing deeply works as a stress release as the additional oxygen helps remove adrenaline from the blood stream⁵ – and exercise, particularly cardiovascular helps us breathe more deeply. So just do it!

Exercise also plays a vital role in restoring your body’s chemical balance if you do get stressed.

When we become stressed our adrenals, which are situated above our kidneys release adrenaline. This is a stress hormone. Its function is to prepare us for fight or flight. It is a vital survival instinct. Some of the effects of adrenaline on the system are to prioritise where our energy, largely via our blood flow, is directed. It moves energy from essential but not urgent functions such as digestion, reproductive organs, immune function to short term urgent body parts – mostly our limbs, to be ready for action. An adrenaline rush also causes our liver to release sugar into our blood stream. ¹ If we are needing to run away from a lion this is perfect and as we run our body uses the adrenaline that is in its system, thus returning our blood chemistry to normal and ending the effects of the adrenaline on our system in good time. If you do not run away from the lion (or do anything else physical with that adrenaline) then the body thinks that the threat still remains (as you have not used the adrenaline yet) and the effects of the adrenaline remain in your system and over time can cause the essential organ functions such as digestion, reproductive organs and immune system to become damaged, thus affecting the rest of the body².

I am pretty much assuming that if you have access to a computer and you can read my blog post (ie you speak english) then you are not often needing to run away from wild animals. But I would also guarantee that many of us experience stress and therefore adrenaline releases. In the last 24 hours I personally have experienced a few possible adrenaline situations. First – last night we went to our local authentic chinese eatery– plenty of anti-yeast approved diet food here. We ordered, we waited and waited and waited. By the time it arrived our children were so tired we took it home as take away to eat once they were in bed (thankfully we had brought them separate food for their dinners). Then today I was driving along a two lane high way behind an enormous four wheel drive. He was so big he seemed to think he needed both lanes. No, actually it looked like he was trying to read a map while driving. Every time his head bent over to read the map on the passengers side he swerved fully into the other lane and then back again. I haven’t seen such bad driving since Africa or Malaysia. I stayed well behind, but somehow he pulled left and I zoomed around him. Wouldn’t you know my luck he pulled into my lane and decided to speed up. Right on my tail the worst driver I have seen in this country. Great. Could have been stressful. And then today cheeky child. Was stressful! Any of these sound familiar – stressed caused by being busy, by other peoples actions, by relationship friction etc etc. Often this stress requires no physical exertion, so no message is sent to our nervous system that the threat is past and we are left with the adrenaline running through our veins. What do we do? Exercise. If you are running late and it is stressing you out then my advice is – run to get ready. Literally. Move your muscles. Something fast – stomp your knees up and down while you are hanging out the washing if that is the best you can manage. Jog really fast on the spot like Rocky for a minute or two if that is all you have time for. But use that adrenaline for what it is for and get rid of its effect upon your essential systems. How is this important in controlling yeast infections? Well, to effectively combat yeast infections we need our digestive and immune systems to be in peak condition and we don’t really want elevated blood sugar levels either. And exercise not only removes the adrenaline it improves digestion³ and immune function above their normal levels⁴. What a winner!

photo by chmeredith

You may not really agree with me yet, but that is alright – I have the facts and before I am finished on this topic there will be more of us out there committed to exercise.

A fascinating book Move Your Body Tone Your Mood by psycholgist Kate Hays details both the importance of exercise and outlines the phases people go through in their emotional relationship with exercise. She says that if we are not yet committed to exercise then we are in one of a few different states. We could be totally resistant, we could be fact gathering and becoming converted to the idea that exercise is something that we should do, or we could have started to do it, we could be fully involved or we could be lapsed. And this is not a one way chronology, we move forwards and backwards along the scale of commitment at different times in our lives.¹

So where are you? Totally opposed to the idea? Are you fact gathering? Have you started to exercise but aren’t fully in the flow yet? Or are you the gym queen or king – totally taunt toned and terrific? Or are you lapsed. Personally I would currently define myself as all of those except opposed and fully got it happening. I am consciously fact gathering because I love exercise and its benefits, I squeeze some in to my week, but I would like to do a lot better and I am lapsed because there have been times in the past where I was completely happy with my exercise level and activity.

So what is to love about exercise? Particularly as a yeast infection sufferer? Oh so much. Exercise boosts mood, helping to alleviate and prevent depression and stress². Stress and depression are risk factors in all chronic disease³ including systemic candida infections. If you can handle stress and other negative emotional states your immune function absolutely thrives and you may find your yeast infections become a thing of the past.

Exercise can also be used as therapy, helping you process and remove past stresses that are still taking their toll upon your body⁴.

Exercise helps with digestion in a number of ways – it helps control appetite⁵ and it also ups your metabolism (through creating greater muscle mass)⁶ and you use more calories while exercising which helps you to control your weight. Being overweight is a risk factor for topical yeast infections⁷ as well as increasing your risk of diabetes⁸ which is not just a health risk in and of itself but it makes it more likely that you will suffer from systemic and topical candida⁹.

Exercise helps you remove toxins that weaken your system both through ‘better’ bowel movements and also through perspiration.

We will examine all of these areas in greater detail in following posts. If you have a yeast infection on your skin you might legitimately be worried about the effect of exercise sweat upon your infection – but really, there are ways around this that we will discuss.

The classic excuse for not exercising is: I don’t have time. We all have just as many hours in the day, and whenever I am tempted to give into that argument myself I remind myself that exercising is an enabling, gateway habit – it opens the door to other good things. When we exercise we have more energy, more health which allows us to have greater time for other things. I can promise you that if you follow a moderate exercise programme the time that you spend on exercise you will not miss because you will have more than that amount of time extra due to the improved energy levels that you will have. And you will just be so much healthier, you will wonder how you ever survived without exercise. I emphasis again that exercise is an essential part of your yeast free life style.

However, sometimes we might really feel like a taste of “chocolate”.  If so, analyse yourself.  Are you the kind of person who if they feel like chocolate will not be put off.  You will eat the entire fridge rather than the chocolate and then still want the chock?  If so, maybe a taste of cocoa product would be better than an avoidance binge.

Alternatively, some people cannot stick at a taste and if they have a bit they will have a lot.  If that is you, probably no cocoa tastes for you.

Interestingly, craving cocoa/ chocolate, can be a symptom of magnesium deficiency.  Maybe investigate that option.  Other people have found that acai berries successfully remove the craving.

But, if you are going to have a smidge of cocoa, without compromising your anti yeast diet, here are some recipe ideas.

1.  Make yourself a cup of roast dandelion tea and add cocoa to taste.  Drink.  Note – this will be extremely bitter.  You can add almond milk or another acceptable milk replacement if you like. Traditionally cocoa drinks were consumed unsweetened, without dairy, but with spices.  They were valued in part for their bitter nature.  Experiment with adding cinnamon, cloves etc.

Bitter drinks and foods play a specific and important role in our diets.  Bitter is one of the five basic flavours in Traditional Chinese medicine food theory.  It drains heat (inflammation) and toxins.  It is extremely useful.  You may be pleasantly surprised at how much your body likes it – I know that mine does.  Not to excess of course.

2.  Make yourself a chocolate and nut paste.  Either buy an organic whole nut paste (almond is good, probably not peanut!) or make your own by soaking nuts for 24 hours, then roasting them at about 60 degrees celcius until as desired.  Run them through a food processor with some organic shredded coconut if you like and then add a little cocoa powder to taste.  Can be eaten on a spoon, and keeps well in the fridge.  Some people add a little sea salt, preferably Himalayan.  The coconut has anti bacterial anti fungal properties.

If you want it sweet, some people allow themselves stevia or xylitol while eating the anti yeast diet.  These are fairly new wonder sugar substitutes – go easy on them would be my advice. They may still feed the body’s craving for sweet things, which is part of the western world’s dietary crisis.

Chocolate is often eaten ‘as a treat’.  We want to do something nice for ourselves, something that conveys approval of ourselves, that we are ‘worthy’ of some nice little indulgence.  Marketing often portrays chocolate in this light – as a little treat that really we are entitled to.

And it is an easy treat.  It is relatively cheap (compared to a holiday in Tuscany, a Porsche, new diamonds, even a massage or a manicure etc).

It is relatively fast and easily accessible – it takes two seconds to eat a square of chocolate.  In our habitually frenetic society we feel guilty about taking too much time to treat ourselves, so we do something nice for ourselves in the form of chocolate.

I am sure that you can see where the problems lie here.

Firstly – we are treating ourselves with something that isn’t great for us.  Occasionally in a healthy body, fine, but as a continual substitute for a balanced fulfilling life it will harm our bodies.

Secondly the underlying issues are going unaddressed.  Instead of getting exercise, doing something you want and relaxing, catching up with friends etc, you eat a piece of chocolate.  Your life would be richer, you would be happier, and therefore healthier if you took the time to really ‘treat’ yourself well.  Don’t worry it will gobble up your time and you will be less productive – people who have good life balance actually tend to excel.  And any way, most of us could swap some of our TV time for a more productive and renewing form of relaxation.

So next time you want to ‘treat yourself’ with chocolate I challenge you to reach for your diary and schedule something that you really want to do – and then do it.  It is a better treat.  As an interesting side note, a psychiatrist friend of mine said that it is a hall mark of people suffering depression that they DO NOT make time to do things that they enjoy.

I have been talking about “chocolate” but actually what I want to talk about is cocoa products.

courtesy of www.dunkyspoons.co.uk

Chocolate is often full of sugar, fat, dairy products etc that all bring their own health effects with them. Obviously any chocolate that contains added sweeteners is unsuitable for the anti yeast diet. But what about the cocoa itself?

Cocoa has strong effects upon the body, and it is disputed as to whether or not the total effect is positive or negative. I would say that that depends upon where your health is. For example it can release serotonin which is a mood altering drug that can make you feel ‘happier’ – who doesn’t want to be happier? But on the other side, if you are feeling unhappy then turning to a dietary stimulant for serotonin might be bad for you in other ways. You might be better not to mask the problem with cocoa, but to fix it. Also, eating foods that make you feel better is well on the way down the slippery slope of comfort food eating which if done to excess can lead to issues with weight and poor health.

Summary of serotonin – fine if you enjoy it as a side benefit to an occasional piece of chocolate – not fine if you are hiding from real issues that need fixing, and over consuming calories in the process.

Cocoa is also a stimulant. It contains theobromine, an alkaloid that has a similar but lesser effect on the body to caffeine. This effect is to stimulate the adrenals to release adrenaline and cause the liver to put more sugar into the blood stream – thus causing the energy high associated with caffeine, but also taking its toll on the body in a number of ways – the body does not like high blood sugar levels so chemicals will be released to lower blood sugar, sometimes taking it down too far, sometimes stressing the pancreas which is used in blood sugar regulation. This in turn can lead to type 2 diabetes.

Cocoa is said to lower blood pressure, research has shown it to contain anti oxidants. However, I would suggest that this type of research, similar to that on red wine, is really to justify our eating foods that we like, it does not mean we need to eat chocolate (or red wine) as plenty of other plant products in our diets can do the same things for us, generally better and with fewer side effects.

What causes balanitis – it can be caused by a fungus, by a bacterial infection or it can be symptomatic of a more serious disease – for example balanitis can be an early sign of male diabetes in children.

In babies balanitis may be caused by bacteria or fungus already present as a yeast infection spreading to infect the penis.

How to treat Balanitis
First talk to your doctor and rule out the possibility of the inflammation being caused by something more serious. Then practise really good hygiene. Pull the foreskin back and wash thoroughly with gentle soap. Allow it to dry thoroughly and receive air if possible. This destroys the environment that bacteria and fungus like and they are responsible for most balanitis. This simple practice will help clear up many cases of balanitis. For babies, make sure the nappy is changed often when wet.

If simple hygiene methods aren’t enough, then you may need to use either an anti fungal or topical antibiotic cream. It can be helpful for your doctor to culture a swab from the glans to establish what is causing the balanitis, as bacteria and fungus are killed by different medications.

If your balanitis still does not respond, sometimes circumcision will be recommended.

How important is it to treat balanitis?
If left untreated a couple of nasty things may happen. It may spread to be a general (very painful) infection of the total penis. It may cause scarring of the ureter which makes passing urine painful. This would then necessitate an operation to enlarge the ureter again. More pain. So get it treated as soon as it appears. And if you have to go for circumcision, oh well, it won’t kill you!

And what is the experience of eating chocolate?  Is it appropriate food for the anti candida diet?
“No way!” I can hear you yelling from here.  It has no place in a yeast removal diet.  Yet it is a topic that bears discussion because eating chocolate is a powerful experience for many of us and it is one that we want to repeat.

The power of chocolate I would say can be usefully broken down into two categories:

1.  Actual physical effects

2.  Emotional effects (separate from those created by the chemicals released in chocolate.)

Over the next few posts we will examine these effects and then draw some conclusions on chocolate in the yeast free diet.