(Organic Lifestyle Magazine) The human body is colonized by an unfathomable number of different microbial species including bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Candida is a normal member of human gut flora. Virtually all of us have it. When beneficial bacteria is not present Candida can become virulent. Lyme patients often undergo long-term antibiotic therapy. Antibiotics destroy beneficial intestinal bacteria which then allows candida, other fungi, and other pathogens to flourish.
Most pathogens, including candida and Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme bacteria), need carbohydrates to survive. How they get their carbohydrates differs, but a diet high in sugars and starches literally feed Candida and Lyme as well as other living pathogens both directly and indirectly.
Since virtually all of us have Candida, those with Lyme are especially susceptible. Even without antibiotic treatments, a weak immune system allows Candida to flourish, grow hyphae, and colonize all around the body.
Some people are not susceptible to Lyme disease. Scientists think that genes and overall health determine susceptibility, but the presence of virulent Candida is probably one of the best measures of the health of a person. As mentioned, we all (or nearly all) have candida, but healthy bodies do not have virulent candida. Candida overgrowth is what happens in a compromised immune system. In other words, even if someone has not been treated with antibiotics, it stands to reason that virulent candida, and many other pathogens are present in the body of someone who is susceptible to Lyme.
Why Lyme Is Becoming More Prevalent
Ticks can’t survive in very cold climates. Warmer climates help ticks reproduce and survive longer, proliferate earlier, and live farther north. And yes, our climate is warming. We can argue that this is caused by man-made pollution or the reversal of our polarity, or the ebb and flow of the planet’s ecosystem, or even intentional geoengineering, but the climate is, without a doubt, getting warmer. Even a minor adjustment in average temperatures can have massive effects on the ecosystem. Warmer winters are also expanding the geographic range of animals associated with Lyme, helping to explain the spread of the disease in northern climates like Canada.
In addition, we have more deer. Deer were nearly extinct at the turn of the 20th century. Hunters decimated deer populations and Lyme disease is believed to be most often contracted by deer ticks. Over the last century, deer have obviously made a comeback.
It’s not just the deer, forty to 90 percent of white-footed mice carry Borrelia burgdorferi, and these mice are also proliferating and expanding their territories lately. There are other creatures that carry the ticks, and other parasites that carry the disease as well.
Some researchers estimate that global warming has doubled tick populations in the US, and increased populations by up to five fold in Canada.
Why Candida Is So Common
Our modern world’s continued fervor for irradicating germs, mostly bacteria, live us to deal with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and fungi. Our sugar and starch consumption is also increasing while our diet diversity is decreasing, and consequently, our gut’s ecosystem diversity is also decreasing. Fungal infections are becoming increasingly prevalent in the human population. Candida albicans incredibly opportunistic and is the most common fungal pathogen found in humans worldwide.
Even the fruit we consume has far more sugar than what our ancestors were accustomed too. Check out the difference between our modern hybridized bananas and the wild ones:
Try looking into other fruit as well and you’ll see that we used to have to work a lot harder for that sugar.
Why You Have To Address Address Both Lyme and Candida
Candida overgrowth opens up the gut. There little tiny holes that are only supposed to allow digested, completely broken down foods. When Candida becomes virulent it makes the gut much too permeable, consequently, pathogens including parasites, undigested proteins, and sugars get into the bloodstream radically overwhelming the immune system. The body is not capable of handling Lyme under such stress. The immune system already has its work cut out for itself under healthy conditions. And, in case you haven’t heard yet, your immune system is only as good as your gut health.
Have you ever heard the phrase “feed a cold, starve a fever?” There is some truth to it, but its incomplete. The phrase should be, “feed a virus, starve bacteria and fungal infections.” But Lyme and Candida take a long time to get rid of, and fasting for months is not a good idea. But we can still starve them by restricting sugars and starches, and we can speed up their demise with supplements.
Mineral deficiencies are more likely to lead to Candida overgrowth, though the most virulent cases almost always seem to come sometime shortly after prescription antibiotic usage. These deficiencies do not seem to cause Candida, but they do exacerbate the problem, and Candida overgrowth does lead to mineral deficiencies. Low stomach acid can also lead to mineral deficiencies with calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, iron, copper, and zinc.
Iron or folic deficiency may facilitate an invasion of Candida albicans in some individuals, but studies don’t show a significant enough correlation to indicate that these deficiencies will cause Candida overgrowth, at least not alone.
Magnesium and molybdenum break down the toxic metabolites of Candida albicans. Acetaldehyde is the most well known of these toxins. With a magnesium or a molybdenum deficiency, our body is unable to remove acetaldehyde from the body. The toxins promote cell decay which feeds the Candida lifecycle (pathogens love two things: sugar and decaying or dead cells).
Candida can also prevent us from assimilating minerals. With a gut filled with fungi and other pathogens, the proper breaking down of minerals (and proteins and other nutrients) does not happen. Obviously, this opens the door to an extensive list of autoimmune diseases.
B vitamins, including pantethine (B5) and biotin (B7), are often cited as supplements that inhibit Candida growth, but there are also studies that indicate Fungi feeds off of these and other nutrients. To supplement with such specific nutrition when the gut is in such disarray is a fool’s errand.
A deficiency in calcium and magnesium, can lead to and exacerbate sugar cravings. Supplementing with these minerals can help. Though we are rarely deficient in glutamine, supplementation with it does help eliminate sugar cravings.
Copper has a fungicidal value in the body’s tissues. Copper compounds are used commercially as sprays on vegetables, as algicides in swimming pools, etc. Having too much copper or not enough copper in the body can disrupt gut flora and other nutrient balance.
Improper fat digestion or a diet lacking in healthy fats can also help Candida to flourish. Short-chain fatty acids have fungicidal properties. A healthy body synthesizes appropriate protective fatty acid compounds.
Heavy Metals, Hormones, Pharmaceuticals, GMOs, Pesticides, Antibacterial Soil, and Other Toxins
Toxic compounds kill beneficial bacteria if for no other reason than that they’re toxic. Pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs designed to kill microbes will do the same thing inside humans once digested. Inhaled steroids used to treat asthmahave also been shown to cause oral candidiasis, which makes one wonder what happens in the gut with steroid use.
People with mercury fillings are often subject to Candida outbreaks. Tiny particles break free, and mercury vapor is released that we then inhale and swallow. The body doesn’t just slough off the mercury. Its molecular structure is so similar to selenium, which the body needs, the cells snap it up as if it were a beneficial mineral. In the gut, mercury creates an environment that is not friendly for beneficial bacteria. An overgrowth of “bad bacteria” and Candida results.
The majority of fungal conditions or chronic infections should be considered a conscious adaptation of the immune system to an otherwise lethal environment by heavy metals. Mercury suffocates the mechanism and can cause respiratory intracellular cell death. So the immune system reaches a compromise: Grow bacteria and yeasts that can bind large amounts of toxic metals.” – Dr Dietrich Klinghardt
Some doctors specializing in Candida treatment have reported that they have discovered clinically that 98% of their patients with chronic Candida also had mercury toxicity.” – Dr. John P. Trowbridge
Mercury vapors from dental fillings play havoc on the body through a host of means, the least of which is to feed the bacteria, fungi, and yeasts that thrive on mercury. Mercury will promote the growth of Candida, though as it absorbs the mercury, it thereby protects the system to a certain extent from its toxicity – until they are saturated then they begin to re-release the mercury in organic form. Mercury fed Candida become more and more virulent and eventually penetrates the intestinal walls and invades the cells. These fungal microorganisms become quite at home in the cell, and can easily be considered a principle characteristic of cancer.” – Dr. Mark Sircus
Endocrine disrupters interrupt hormones in ways that Candida find beneficial. Candida binds to certain hormones, altering their shape so they’re no longer able to fit into their target receptors, making these hormones inactive. Candida likes estrogen. Too much estrogen helps support Candida in a variety of ways. Candida also produces a waste product that, in the human body, mimics estrogen. With enough Candida in the body, the endocrine system can lower the acidity of the digestive tract, the urinary tract, and the reproductive systems. Candida can effectively raise the pH level in parts of the body to make it more alkaline the way Candida likes it, creating a feedback loop. Other areas of the body quickly get too acidic, promoting more disease.
Antidepressants alter gut function. Antidepressants that influence the neurotransmitter serotonin are particularly egregious. NSAIDs can damage the entire intestinal tract. NSAIDs often damage the mucosal lining of the stomach (causing ulcers) and the small intestine.5
Toxic compounds don’t have to reach the gut to cause problems. Toxins damage our cells just like they damage microbes when we breathe toxins in or absorb the compounds through our skin. The pathogens will come to feed off of the damage. We could go on endlessly about how all of the most talked-about toxic compounds reak havoc in the gut and the immune system, but it’s all the same. They do damage to the body and they strain the immune system which puts the body out of balance and leads to infection. Think of infection as the garbage men. It’s their job to consume the garbage, the damage, the decay of our bodies. If we have a lot of damage to feed infection (or too much sugar), the infection takes over the body, and the damage its presence ensues helps to feed its own cycle.
Candida mutates and develops resistance towards treatment. It has been found that Candida Albicans has the ability to rearrange its genes and adapt to many methods of eradication that may be used against it, including antifungal medications, oxidative stress, and temperature increases.
When Candida has access to the bloodstream (which happens with a leaky gut), it can colonize in the sinus cavities, glands, and organs in the body, including the skin and the brain.
The cell wall of Candida is made up of mostly sugars and proteins. One of the sugars that make up the cell wall of Candida is called beta-glucans. Beta-glucans are also used as a structural building block for Candidabiofilm. The beta-glucans can stimulate and suppress the immune system of the host.
Candida can bind to certain hormones, altering their shape so they’re no longer able to fit into their target hormonal receptors. This is one way Candida can manipulate the endocrine system and disrupt hormonal balance.
A healthy gut has a healthy biofilm made up of beneficial bacteria with a little bit of yeast. Healthy biofilm has a beneficial symbiotic relationship with our body. Candida also develops a biofilm.
Candida biofilm is the resilient, gelatinous matrix that Candida creates around itself when it colonizes tissue around the body. This biofilm allows Candida to grow while protecting it from the immune system. In other words, Candida uses its biofilm to suppress or activate the immune response of the host to adjust its environment.
Some Candida proteins look similar to gluten protein molecules, which also look similar to the proteins that make up our thyroid. This causes autoimmune disease.
Candida needs an alkalinity to survive. When it finds itself in an environment that is too acidic, like your gastrointestinal tract, Candida will release ammonia to lower the PH of the environment.
An abundance of Candida causes anxiety, depression, ADHD, and other a plethora of other mental health disorders. The toxins released by Candida can impair neurotransmitter production and neurotransmitter function an disrupt brain chemistry. Your thoughts, feelings, moods, and your way of seeing the world can be profoundly influenced by Candida.
Yeast needs energy. Sugar supplies this energy. If oxygen is low or non-existent (like in the middle of a ball of dough, or inside much of our body), yeast will produce carbon dioxide and ethanol, also known as alcohol.9 Alcohol levels can be so high in the body that the individual may actually be drunk, fail a breathalyzer test, and experience a hangover after the sugar is used up.
Activated Charcoal: Binds with positively charged things in the gut, like Candida in its pathogenic form, and many of the toxins it produces, which then gets defecated out of the body. (more on activated charcoal)
Astragalus: A potent antimicrobial that also is anti-inflammatory, boosts the immune system, slows tumor growth, helps prevent and reverse diabetes, and more.
Berberine: This plant-root alkaloid extract has confirmed, potent anti-viral, antibacterial, and anti-fungal properties.
Biotin: With the presence of the B vitamin, biotin, it is said that yeast is unable to change into its mycelium form. On the other hand, there are some studies that suggest Candida can feed off of biotin.
Black Walnut: Studies have shown that black walnut can effectively kill canker sores, herpes, and syphilis sores. The husks of black walnuts have potent anti-fungal powers; more powerful than many prescription drugs. Fungi and parasites thrive in an acidic environment.
Caprylic acid: A the fatty acid in coconut which contains antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. Coconut or coconut oil by itself does not have very strong antimicrobial properties.
Chlorella: It’s not an anti-fungal, but Chlorella is negatively charged like charcoal and has a host of other benefits that counter Candida symptoms. Chlorella also helps remove heavy metals and limited amounts of positively charged Candida from the blood.
Cinnamon: A potent natural antifungal with tons of other health benefits. Read more on cinnamon.
Clays: Like activated charcoal, bentonite clay can bind with Candida and heavy metals and other positively charged items to pull them out of the body through defecation.
Cloves: This strong smelling spice contains some of the same compounds as oregano oil. Studies have shown that cloves contain powerful antimicrobial and anti-fungal compounds.
Cranberry: There is nothing better for a urinary tract infection than unsweetened, unadulterated cranberry juice. Click for Recipe.
Diatomaceous Earth: Often called DE for short, this supplement is another negatively charged chelator (like charcoal and bentonite clay, but not as effective in that way), that also kills pathogens, but Candida biofilm protects itself well from DE. More on DE.
Enzymes: Hemicellulase, protease, and Cellulase have been shown to break down the cells walls and the biofilm of Candida. These must be taken within a protective capsule that will break apart in the gut and not the stomach acid. More on enzymes.
Garlic: Allicin, a compound in garlic, has antifungal, antibacterial and antiviral properties, and garlic helps strengthen the immune system. Read more about garlic.
Goldenseal: A popular herb that has been used by Native Americans for hundreds of years, with potent antimicrobial activity, including some pretty decent antifungal properties.
Goldenrod: Goldenrod is antifungal, diuretic, diaphoretic, anti-inflammatory, expectorant, astringent, antiseptic, and carminative.10
Molybdenum: Also breaks down the toxic metabolites (byproducts) of Candida albicans.
Mushrooms: Fight fire with fire, and fungi with fungi! Many mushrooms produce natural anti-yeast factors to prevent other fungi from taking over their turf. The reishi mushroom is well known throughout the world for its plethora of health benefits, including powerful antifungal properties, but there are many other mushrooms that help clean the gut as well.
Lemongrass: Lemongrass oil is the most powerful antibacterial and antifungal essential oil.
Neem: This plant’s properties include immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, antihyperglycaemic, antiulcer, antimalarial, antifungal, antibacterial, antioxidant, antimutagenic and anticarcinogenic.
Oil of Oregano: This extract is very well known for its ability to kill off pathogenic activity, and there are plenty of studies that demonstrate its efficacy.
Olive Leaf Extract: This extract is known for killing fungal and pathogenic bacterial infections without harming healthy bacteria. I suspect this is because it’s weak and doesn’t penetrate biofilm.
Pau D’Arco: Also known as Lapacho, this supplement has received worldwide attention in recent years due to the numerous studies proving its amazing health benefits including the ability to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria and difficult fungal infections like Candida.
Probiotics: Most everyone knows to take probiotics to fight yeast infections, but make sure the probiotic is of quality. Lots of cheap probiotics break down in stomach acid and the ingredients end up actually feeding yeast. Also, able to pass through stomach acid and into the gut where it needs to be to do its job. Taking probiotics with antimicrobial supplements will reduce the effects of both.
Turmeric: Turmeric is potent antimicrobial herb with proven antifungal properties and a host of other amazing health benefits. Check out How to Optimize Curcumin.
Undecylenic acid: This fatty acid is six times more effective than caprylic acid. It’s been shown in studies that Candida cannot build a tolerance for undecylenic acid, which probably makes it the most potent Candida killer on this list.
Wormwood: This is a potent antimicrobial’s active ingredient is Artemisia, and it is better known the world over for its ability to kill parasites.
Zinc: helps with protein digestion, enzymatic reactions, energy production, antioxidant functions, and it is imperative for proper mineral balance. It’s common to see a zinc deficiency in a Candida laden body.
The Best Anti-fungal Supplement Products Available (that I know of)
I’ll bet someone is going to ask why I don’t mention colloidal silver. I don’t think it’s good for you, I’ve never found it particularly helpful, and I just don’t trust it. But to each their own; you can find tons of very intelligent naturopaths who are much more educated than I am who will vehemently disagree with me on colloidal silver.
If you’re on a budget and can only afford one supplement, SF722 is my first recommendation. SF722 is undecylenic acid. The gel tab is derived from Bovine, so vegans beware.
Undecyn is vegan-friendly and it combines undecylenic acid with betaine HCl (very acidic) and berberine. Some use both, as the formula provides differing avenues for absorption of the undecylenic acid which may be more or less effective depending on the body’s state at any given time.
Abzorb is one of my new favorite supplements and one of the few I personally take regularly. On an empty stomach, Abzorb is a potent probiotic and a systemic enzyme. That means the capsule breaks open in the gut, not the stomach. If, on the other hand, you take Abzorb with food, you’ve got a potent digestive aid with enzymatic activity and beneficial bacteria to help break down the food and populate the gut with beneficial bacteria. It’s a fine probiotic, with potency I can attest to, but there are much more potent probiotics available as well, which many like to use in conjunction with Abzorb, though for most people this would likely be overkill. It wouldn’t hurt to use both, but it maybe a waste of money.
Then there’s a mushroom complex that I would take every day if I were a wealthy man. This formula contains turkey tail, reishi, maitake, blazei, and cordyceps. The health benefits of this supplement are too many to list.
The Gastro-Cleanse contains psyllium husk, activated charcoal, goldenseal, chlorophyll, apple pectin, and 50 million lactobacillus acidophilus specifically designed to accompany the antimicrobials.
And then there’s the straight berberine at 500mg per capsule. That’s a potent dosage, and one I don’t recommend for long-term, as the gut would not likely be able to build up a healthy ecosystem with such a powerful antimicrobial continually bombarding the system.
The MicroDefense gives you olive extract, sweet wormwood, clove powder, and grapefruit extract; all good stuff to help balance the gut, but the company is owned by Nestle, so buyer beware. We’re looking for an equivalent that we can carry.
(Dr. Mercola) Refined sugar was not consumed on a daily basis until the past 100 years. Before that, it was a treat afforded only by the very rich as sugar cane was a difficult crop to grow. In the past 100 years, rates of obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and numerous other chronic diseases have skyrocketed.
When sugar and tobacco were introduced by Native Americans to Europeans as they began to settle America, the average life span was relatively short.1 This meant health consequences from sugar and tobacco were easily buried in the myriad of other life challenges the early settlers faced.
As early as the 1920s, research documented the damage sugar does to your body. To this day, tobacco continues to be a leading a cause of premature death.2 Unfortunately, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) call tobacco the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., that title may well belong to sugar. Yet people who would never consider smoking may have little concern over the amount of sugar and starch eaten each day.
From a nutritional standpoint, your body does not need refined sugar. Although you need glucose, your body manufactures the glucose it needs in your liver through a process called gluconeogenesis. If you never ate another morsel of candy, sugar or starch again, you would live quite comfortably and likely in far better health.
Sugar Feeds the Growth of Cancer Cells
Recent research reported in this short news video demonstrates that the amount of sugar you eat each day should be an important consideration in your nutritional plan. In 1926, German biochemist Otto Warburg observed cancer cells fermented glucose to lactic acid, even in the presence of oxygen (known as the Warburg effect), and theorized it might be the fundamental cause of cancer.3 This led to the idea that tumor growth could be disturbed by cutting off the energy supply, namely sugar.
For decades, scientists and researchers dismissed the idea, and the sugar industry backed them up. Warburg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1931 for his work in cellular respiration and energy production. His life’s mission was to find a cure for cancer, but his findings were largely ignored by the conventional medical community as they were considered simplistic and didn’t fit the genetic model of disease that was widely accepted.
Recent research from Belgium4 shows there is indeed a strong link between glucose overstimulation and mutated proteins often found inside human tumor cells, which make the cells grow faster.5 The study began in 2008, triggered by the researchers’ desire to gain a greater understanding of the Warburg effect.
The rapid breakdown of glucose in tumor cells is not seen in healthy cells, making glucose the primary energy source for cancer. Researcher Johan Thevelein, Ph.D., a molecular biologist from LU Leuven in Belgium, commented on the results of the study in a press release, saying:6
“Our research reveals how the hyperactive sugar consumption of cancerous cells leads to a vicious cycle of continued stimulation of cancer development and growth. Thus, it is able to explain the correlation between the strength of the Warburg effect and tumor aggressiveness.
This link between sugar and cancer has sweeping consequences. Our results provide a foundation for future research in this domain, which can now be performed with a much more precise and relevant focus.”
Cell Mutation Not Limited to Sugar Consumption
They’re quick to point out that while they believe the presence of added sugar in your diet may increase the aggressive growth of cancer cells, their research does not prove it triggers the original mutation.7 That said, previous research has shown that the genetic mutations found in cancer cells are actually a downstream effect caused by mitochondrial dysfunction, not the original cause, and excessive sugar consumption is one of the things that triggers mitochondrial dysfunction. I’ll discuss this more in a section below.
Granted, there are thousands of manufactured chemicals in your home, car and workplace that may cause or contribute to cell mutations. Air pollution, personal care products, plastics and chemical treatments often contain chemicals with carcinogenic properties, and such exposures also play a role.
The mutation of a cell, fed by your daily sugar habit, may grow into cancer. Cell mutation from sugar consumption occurs after mitochondrial damage. However, sugar also provides nutrition to cells mutated by contaminant exposure, and is required for these mutated cells to grow and multiply. As such, your sugar intake becomes an important factor, and one that you have a great deal of control over.
Normally, energy is drawn from glucose through a process of oxidation that requires the presence of oxygen.8 But, cancer cells use a process of fermentation, even when oxygen is present, to create energy. The process, called glycolysis, extracts less energy during the process, but requires less energy and fewer steps to get energy from glucose.
This means that even in the absence of oxygen, tumor cells can extract energy from glucose molecules. Rapid cell division of cancer cells to fuel growth requires the presence of a lot of sugar. Warburg believed a defect in the mitochondria of cancer cells allows the cells to use glycolysis to fuel growth, which suggests cancer is actually a metabolic disease that is affected by your diet.
Research Supports Cancer Is a Metabolic Disease
In the U.S. an estimated 600,000 people will die from cancer this year, costing over $125 billion in health care expenses.9 The World Health Organization finds cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for nearly 8.8 million deaths in 2015.10Imagine if that many people were dying each year from the flu or polio. This would be headline news each day. Have we become so used to the idea of cancer that 1.6 million new cases every year in the U.S. is old news?
Conventional cancer treatment focuses on surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. However, many of these treatments have only been successful at lengthening lives by months and not in curing the disease. The basis for these treatments is that cancer is a genetic problem and not one triggered and fed by mitochondrial dysfunction. As a result, the nutritional link is typically overlooked.
The featured study exposes the flaw in using only pharmaceutical, surgical and radiation treatments on tumors and other cancer growths. Warburg postulated that by cutting off the food supply cancer cells rely on for survival, you effectively starve them.
Research has also shown that genetic mutations are not the trigger for cancer growths but rather a downstream effect resulting from defective energy metabolism in cell mitochondria. This defective energy metabolism changes the way your cells function and promotes the growth of cancer cells.
In other words, if your mitochondria remain healthy, your risk of developing cancer is slim. Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D., author of “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management and Treatment of Cancer,” has received many awards and honors through his long and illustrious career for the work he’s done expanding knowledge of how metabolism affects cancer.
He is one of the pioneers in the application of nutritional ketosis for cancer. While in nutritional ketosis, your body burns fat for fuel instead of starches and carbohydrates. By eating a healthy high-fat, low-carbohydrate and low- to moderate-protein diet, your body begins to burn fat as its primary fuel. Research from Ohio State University demonstrates athletes who eat a ketogenic diet experience significant improvements in their health and performance.11
Nutritional ketosis is also showing great promise in the treatment of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease,12 Type 2 diabetes13 and seizures14 that are unresponsive to medications. This recent research from Belgium confirms the work Warburg, Seyfried and others have done, and supports the hypothesis that cancer is a metabolically based disease and not a genetic problem.
Chemotherapy May Not Be the Answer
Traditional administration of chemotherapy may increase your risk of metastasis (the spread of cancer cells through your body) and may trigger additional tumor growth. Chemotherapy is sometimes recommended prior to surgery to help shrink the size of the tumor, increasing the likelihood a woman could have a lumpectomy instead of a full mastectomy.
Recent research reveals that giving chemotherapy prior to breast cancer surgery may promote metastasis of the disease, allowing it to spread to other areas of your body.15 This greatly increases the risk of dying. The study found that mice had twice the amount of cancer cells in their blood and lungs after treatment with chemotherapy. The researchers also found similar results in 20 human patients whose tumor microenvironments became more favorable to metastasis after chemotherapy.
Other studies in men with prostate cancer have demonstrated chemotherapy may cause DNA damage in healthy cells that boosts tumor growth and helps the cancer cells resist treatment.16 Research continues to reveal the effect chemotherapy has on your body and the devastating effect it has on healthy cells. At least as far back as 2004, researchers have known that “chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival.”17
Your Healthiest Choice Is to Avoid Sugar
Sugar is a primary factor driving the development of a number of different health conditions and chronic diseases. Sugar contributes to several of the leading causes of death in the U.S., including:18
While all forms of sugar are harmful when consumed in excess, processed fructose — the most commonly found sugar in processed foods — appears to be the worst. Manufacturers use the addictive property of sugar to drive sales, and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) allows them to achieve their goals at a lower price. Although it tastes like sugar, HFCS gives your body a bigger sugar jolt. Dr. Yulia Johnson, family medicine physician with The Iowa Clinic, comments on the use of HFCS:20
“Your body processes high fructose corn syrup differently than it does ordinary sugar. The burden falls on your liver, which is not capable of keeping up with how quickly corn syrup breaks down. As a result, blood sugar spikes quicker. It’s stored as fat, so you can become obese and develop other health problems, such as diabetes, much faster.”
It stands to reason that if you want to live a healthier life and reduce your health care costs and your risk for cancer, you’d be wise to avoid refined sugar as much as possible, if not eliminate it from your diet entirely.
Eating real food (ideally organic), following a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein diet described in “Fat for Fuel,” and fasting are all things you can do to optimize your health and reduce your risk of chronic disease. For inspiring stories of others who have used a ketogenic diet to stabilize their health, read my article, “Promoting Advances in Managing Cancer as a Metabolic Disease Need Your Support.”
If you do pick up packaged foods, read the labels carefully so you can make an informed decision about the sugar you’re adding to your diet. Sugars may masquerade under several different names on food labels. Some of the more common names are listed below, but there are more than are listed here.
Labels list ingredients in order of the amount in the product. In other words, there is more of the first ingredient than the second, and so forth. When evaluating sugar, remember if it is listed in the fourth, sixth and ninth positions, the combined total may put it in the first or second position.21
