Female Yeast Infection Causes

LEAKY GUT AND THE LIVER 

The liver is an amazing organ. The largest organ in the body, it has more than five hundred functions. You can't live without your liver. It assists with metabolism, storing vitamins and minerals, and detoxifying toxic compounds. The liver's portal vein delivers both blood containing nutrients from digested food as well as toxic substances from the small intestine to your liver. Nutrients from the food are then carried through your circulatory system to feed every cell of your body. But what happens to the toxins?
 

One of the liver's many tasks is to recognize and neutralize these poisons, which come from substances such as heavy metals, pesticides, toxic foods, alcohol, cigarettes, synthetic chemicals, medications, and the by-products of stress hormones. If the liver can't keep up with neutralizing the toxins, they leach back into the bloodstream. Leaky gut makes the job of the liver more difficult by forcing it to break down undigested food particles as well as deal with the microbes and their by-products that have entered the bloodstream. The combined effect is an interference with the liver's efficiency.
 
Bile, which is stored in the gallbladder, helps release toxins from the liver. But in a toxic body, where the liver is overloaded, the bile itself becomes toxic and can kill off good bacteria in the small intestine, setting the stage for candida to take over. The function of bile can be further compromised by excess estrogen hormones, which reduce bile flow through the liver and also elevate bile cholesterol levels. This poses a risk of gallstones and recirculation of estrogens, which can increase the risk of developing breast, ovarian, uterine, and prostate cancers.

An impaired liver can lead to problems in another important area, states an article in the journal Lancet: "When the gut becomes leaky, more toxic substances are delivered to the liver, and if the livers functional ability to detoxify is impaired, more metabolically active substances are delivered through the bloodstream to other tissues, including the brain."
 
Like the GI tract, the blood-brain barrier can become leaky. When this happens, toxins that escape the liver become stored in fatty tissues, such as the cells of the brain and the central nervous system, causing further inflammation and oxidative stress. This accounts for the wide range of noninfectious diseases you see today. Detoxifying the liver and gut are essential if you want to keep inflammatory agents out of the rest of your body.
 
ELIMINATION: CONSTIPATION AND HEALTH 

The importance of elimination to overall health is grossly neglected by most doctors. Many people tell me that their doctors have said that daily bowel movements aren't necessary. This is false. Daily elimination is essential, and two to three movements a day is best. The optimal transit time for food to go from your mouth out through your rectum is twenty-four hours. Yet, in my eleven years of practice, I have found that the majority of people have transit times that range between forty-eight and seventy-four hours. Looking at this on a larger scale, we see a nation that is suffering from an epidemic of constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, and colitis.

The main cause of all these conditions is inadequate water and fiber intake from fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. When grains are refined, both minerals and fiber are stripped away, robbing the body of nourishment and the assistance the fiber provides in cleaning the colon walls.

If your bowels are backed up, your GI tract must focus more on getting rid of waste than on absorbing nutrients, which sets the stage for malnutrition and dysbiosis. Elimination problems also cause autotoxicity. Toxins that are not released from your body fast enough are reabsorbed into the bloodstream. Constipation can also make the pH level in the large intestine more alkaline, creating a breeding environment in which yeast, parasites, bacteria, and viruses thrive. To find out more, you can check out Female Yeast Infection Causes.

How Are Yeast Infections Caused

WESTERN MEDICINE'S DENIAL 

To this day, Western medicine does not recognize intestinal and systemic candidiasis as a health condition. Don't be surprised if you take this information to your doctor and he or she dismisses it or tells you that you are crazy. Often doctors only recognize and treat Candida albicans overgrowth in cases of oral thrush and vaginal infections or in conditions associated with HIV/AIDS.
 

With antibiotics, hormone replacement drugs, birth control pills, and steroid drugs accounting for millions of dollars in prescriptions written each year, doctors are going to be the last ones to acknowledge that the drugs they so freely prescribe are actually creating the problem and that intestinal candidiasis even exists. While there are some doctors who will treat intestinal and systemic candidiasis, they are few and far between.
 
THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM AND THE ORIGIN OF DISEASE

One of the most overlooked systems of the body is the digestive system. An imbalance in this system - comprised of the mouth, salivary glands, stomach, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, and small and large intestines - is responsible for the onset of the majority of health conditions and chronic progressive diseases plaguing Americans.
 
While there has been a lot of attention focused these days on the importance of a healthy immune system, few people realize that about 75 percent of the immune system's cells are produced in the digestive tract. For this reason, no matter what condition a client is experiencing, I always start treating them with my foundational program of cleansing and re-balancing the digestive system. I'm still shocked to see some top medical specialists continue to ignore diet and infection (including candida) as the source of serious gastrointestinal conditions, including ulcerative colitis and Chron's disease, even after their treatments consistently fail to help their patients, many of whom end up in my office.

As naturopath Mark Percival states in Functional Dietetics: "Destructive eating habits lead first to gastrointestinal dysfunction and then subsequently contribute to virtually every noninfectious disease known to us (and likely some of the infectious diseases as well)."
 
Scientists tell us that there are ten times more bacterial cells living inside the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract), the stomach, and intestines than there are human cells in the entire body. The small and large intestines alone have a combined length of twenty- to twenty-five feet, the width of a tennis court if you stretch them out. A balanced ecosystem in the GI tract has a ratio of 85 percent healthy microorganisms to 15 percent unhealthy ones. Inadequate diets based on foods that are depleted of nutrients and filled with chemicals and preservatives upset this ratio and can create maldigestion, malabsorption, intestinal dysbiosis (overgrowth of microbes such as fungi, parasites, bacteria, and viruses in the gut), and elimination problems. What's more, these problems are not isolated conditions that affect just the digestive system; they also affect other systems of the body, including the immune system.
 
MALDIGESTION: THE CAUSE OF INDIGESTION 

Maldigestion occurs when the body is unable to properly break down food. Reasons for this include lack of hydrochloric acid (HC1) in the stomach, inadequate chewing, poor food combining, excessive drinking of liquids with meals, pancreatic enzyme deficiencies, hiatal hernia, and stress. Chronic poor diet contributes to maldigestion.

When food goes undigested, the particles create toxic by-products that irritate the intestinal walls and cause increased permeability. The toxins can then cross the mucosal lining, where they enter the bloodstream (leaky gut syndrome). The blood sees these particles as foreign invaders and creates an antibody response by having the white blood cells come to the rescue to defend your body. However, this activity produces inflammation, allergic reactions, and food sensitivities. In addition, the undigested food particles produce fermentation, which fuels fungal overgrowth and the proliferation of bacteria and parasites. Symptoms of maldigestion include belching, bloating, gas, abdominal pain, and heartburn. To find out more, you can check out How Are Yeast Infections Caused.

What Do You Get Yeast Infections From

ANTIBIOTICS: CREATING A VICIOUS YEAST CYCLE 

It takes only one dose of antibiotics in your lifetime to raise your yeast levels and create imbalances in your body. If you last took a course of antibiotics when you were ten years old, a poor diet and high stress levels will continue to feed the yeast over time until you begin to feel symptomatic.
 

What Do You Get Yeast Infections From

North America, especially the United States and Canada, and pockets of Europe, have the highest numbers of people with candidiasis because Western medicine's standard protocol is to use antibiotic therapy for common infections.
 
A vicious cycle starts with the use of antibiotics. For example, you have a cold or the flu and you visit your doctor, who prescribes antibiotics. The problem starts right there because colds and flu are viral infections, not bacterial ones, which is what antibiotics are designed for. Antibiotics are useless against colds and flu, yet many doctors prescribe them anyway. When you take the antibiotic it kills both good and bad bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract, as it cannot distinguish between them. Antibiotics do not affect Candida albicans, so without friendly bacteria like Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacteria, which keep the Candida albicans under control, the candida now multiplies.

There is no question that antibiotics have saved thousands of lives, but we've pushed a good thing too far by overprescribing these medications. Overuse also creates "super germs" that are resistant to common antibiotics, so germs that could once be killed off have now become life threatening.

As I mentioned, it takes only one dose of antibiotics to raise your yeast levels. Think about how many times you've taken antibiotics - not to mention the antibiotics you ingest from consuming dairy and animal products. The majority of antibiotics manufactured today are given to cows and chickens because they are infested with infection due to their poor housing conditions. So unless you are eating antibiotic-free and hormone-free animal protein, you are ingesting these drugs and hormones when you eat these foods.
 
CANDIDA'S TOXIC BY-PRODUCTS 

Once candida is in an overgrowth state, the body has to deal not only with the overgrowth but also with the toxic by-products, or mycotoxins, that Candida albicans puts out - "79 at latest count," according to C. Orian Truss, MD - all of which weaken your immune system and attack the body.

Mycotoxins are neurotoxins that destroy and decompose tissues and organs. They are so powerful that they upset the very communication of cell interactions, disrupt RNA and DNA synthesis, damage and destroy neurons, are carcinogenic, and cause ataxia (lack of coordination) and even convulsions. These pernicious yeast toxins confuse body systems, which accounts for the cross-wiring problems of the immune system whereby the body attacks itself, as in those with autoimmune diseases.
 
Candida toxins commonly get through the gut lining when it becomes leaky and enter the bloodstream, where the liver can detoxify them. However, if the liver's detoxification ability is impaired due to inadequate nutrition and toxic overload, these toxins will settle in other organs and tissues, such as the brain, nervous system, joints, skin, and so forth. Over time, chronic disease will occur. 

One of the major toxins produced from Candida albicans is acetaldehyde, which is transformed by the liver into ethanol (alcohol), creating feelings of intoxication, brain fog, vertigo, and a loss of equilibrium. Acetaldehyde also alters the structure of red blood cells and the transportation pathways of materials that are needed to feed the dendrites (nerve cell extensions), causing the dendrites to atrophy and die off. In addition, acetaldehyde creates a deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B1), a vitamin that is critical for brain and nerve function and essential for the production of acetylcholine, one of the braids major neurotransmitters. This deficiency brings on emotional apathy, depression, fatigue, insomnia, confusion, and memory loss. 

Acetaldehyde also depletes niacin (vitamin B3), which is key to helping the cells burn fat and sugar for energy. Niacin plays an important role in the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that affects mood and sleep, and in producing a coenzyme that breaks down alcohol. In addition, acetaldehyde reduces enzymes in the body that help to produce energy in all cells, including brain cells.

Gliotoxin, another mycotoxin, deactivates important enzymes that move toxins through the body and also causes DNA changes in the white blood cells, which suppresses the immune system. As your immune system continues to weaken from fungus and mycotoxins, more infections arise, and you end up at the doctor's office again - being prescribed more antibiotics and perpetuating the vicious cycle. To find out more, you can check out What Do You Get Yeast Infections From.

What Is A Yeast Infection And What Causes It - Recurrent Vaginitis

What Is A Yeast Infection And What Causes It

Here's why I think so many women are troubled by recurrent vaginal yeast infections:

• Candida yeasts thrive in a dark, warm, moist environment. The vagina and the intestinal tract serve as ideal places for these yeasts to live and multiply - especially when other factors encourage their growth.
• Broad-spectrum antibiotics. These drugs are often prescribed for children with ear infections and respiratory problems, teenagers with acne and women with cystitis, even for people with colds and flu, against which they have no effect. Many of these antibiotics are prescribed needlessly. While eradicating bacterial "enemies," they also knock out bacterial "friends," including Lactobacillus acidophilus and other naturally occurring friendly bacteria. They do nothing whatsoever to kill viruses that cause colds and flu. As a result, the usually benign Candida albicans multiplies and causes infection. Antibiotic-laden chickens and antibiotics in other animal products we eat also disturb the normal balance of bacteria in the intestinal tract.

What Is A Yeast Infection And What Causes It

What Causes An Yeast Infection In Women - Vaginitis

What Causes An Yeast Infection In Women

In the past 10 years or so, an area of women's anatomy rarely mentioned in public has become front-page news: the vagina.

A major factor in prompting this publicity was the decision by the medical establishment powers that be to allow women to purchase anti-yeast vaginal suppositories over the counter. Unless you're blind, deaf, dumb and never turn on your TV or look at a magazine, you can't have escaped advertisements touting Monistat 7, Gyne-Lotrimin and other anti-yeast vaginal suppositories for yeast infections.

What Causes An Yeast Infection In Women

Causes Of Yeast Infection

Causes Of Yeast Infection

PHYSICIANS' COMMENTS 

Richard Mabray, M.D., a Victoria, Texas, board-certified gynecologist, tells me he has had good results with progesterone, given as intra-muscular shots and sublingual (under the tongue) drops.
 
Other doctors give women sublingual drops as needed their menstrual cycles and increase the amount they take during the days when they most frequently experience PMS symptoms.

Causes Of Yeast Infection

What Is The Cause Of A Yeast Infection - PMS

What Is The Cause Of A Yeast Infection

What is PMS? It's a conglomeration of symptoms that affect women, primarily during the week before their menstrual periods. 

Several times each week, the average American man or woman hears and reads about PMS. Frequent media attention has now made PMS a household word. I even ran across a cartoon showing one moppet whispering to his playmate (with an irate mother in the background): 

"Don't worry, Mama's PMS is making her grouchy." 

What Is The Cause Of A Yeast Infection

Yeast Infection How Do You Get It

Yeast Infection How Do You Get It

If you're bothered by vaginitis, vulvodynia, PMS or endometriosis, you've developed these problems because your immune system isn't as strong as it should be.

Other disorders that may bother you, including weight gain, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, sexual dysfunction, sinusitis and asthma, also develop because your immune system has been weakened and a Candida albicans overgrowth may have occurred, resulting in what experts call dysbiosis. This is a state of imbalance in the microorganisms of the digestive tract that results in disease. Dr. Cass explains to her patients that dysbiosis means "The bad bugs in the gut have outnumbered the good bugs. The goal is to restore balance, i.e., get rid of the bad and increase numbers of good guys."

Yeast Infection How Do You Get It

Causes For A Yeast Infection - Yeast Relationship

Causes For A Yeast Infection

What Is "The Yeast Connection"?

It is a term to indicate the relationship of superficial yeast infections in your vagina and digestive tract to fatigue, headaches, depression, PMS, irritability and other symptoms that can make you feel "sick all over."

Superficial yeast infections cause symptoms in distant parts of the body. Scientists say there are several possible reasons how this happens: Japanese researchers suggest Candida albicans puts out a variety of types of toxins that can weaken your immune system.

Causes For A Yeast Infection