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Review of the Candida Diet also known as the Anti-Candida Diet and why it typically does not produce desired results long-term with only short-term alleviation of symptoms.
Thinking of going on the Candida Diet to heal your gut and stop sugar and carb cravings?
While this may seem like a logical idea at first, be warned that it likely won’t heal you over the long term.
The article below explains why as well as my personal experience with it.
What is Candida Anyway?
Candida is a term that refers to a large family of yeasts, or one-celled fungi. Under normal circumstances, these organisms harmlessly inhabit the tissues of humans. This is because a balanced intestinal tract from mouth to colon contains a preponderance of beneficial bacteria that keep Candida in check.
When not enough beneficial bacteria are present in given body tissue to keep pathogenic yeasts under control, it transforms from a harmless state into an invasive species. In this rapidly growing state, Candida puts out long stringy hyphae or “roots”.
They have the ability to embed and penetrate through the gut wall and eventually cause leaky gut.
Candida overgrowth can occur in many tissues of the body. Well-known examples are oral candidiasis known as thrush, the scalp as dandruff, and vaginal yeast infections.
What Causes Fungal Overgrowth?
Candida is an opportunistic pathogen that can rapidly take over when a person is under a course of antibiotics. Antibiotics decimate beneficial gut flora but have little effect on Candida. This gives this normally harmless yeast the chance to take over dominance of the gut environment very quickly.
Many women don’t realize it, but oral contraceptives imbalance the gut in the same way as antibiotics. Again, this gives pathogenic strains of yeast an open door to take control.
A diet of processed foods high in sugars and simple carbohydrates also encourages Candida overgrowth as yeasts thrive on sugars.
Babies born via C-Section or to mothers who were treated with IV antibiotics during labor are especially vulnerable.
The reason is that they are not exposed to Mom’s healthy flora in the birth canal prior to birth.
Symptoms
Symptoms of Candida overgrowth are many the most common being fogginess in the morning upon waking (brain fog), digestive complaints of all kinds and a myriad of skin issues.
Many women plagued by yeast infections don’t realize that the source of the problem is actually their diet.
Over time, this leads to a pathogenic state in the gut environment. Using drugs and creams to resolve the problem is only a temporary solution when the source of the problem – gut imbalance – is not addressed head-on.
The Candida Diet
My husband and I tried the Candida Diet to resolve gut imbalance many years ago that had been exacerbated by our stressful and overworked lifestyle at the time.
It failed miserably!
Why?
The Candida Diet only goes part of the way in doing what is necessary to resolve gut imbalance.
It also did not include foods and supplements that help repair the intestinal damage caused by the overgrowth of pathogenic yeast.
For example, the Candida Diet removes sugar from the diet in all forms…even maple syrup and honey. Fresh fruit, however, is commonly allowed.
Candida overgrowth can frequently trigger an allergy to molds and other types of fungi. Hence, beneficial fermented foods including cheese are also eliminated along with any bread and other foods containing yeast.
Other foods excluded from the Candida Diet include vinegar, mushrooms, tea, coffee, dried fruit, and any form of fruit juices.
Temporary Improvement But No Healing
The typical scenario for a person who goes on the Candida Diet goes something like this:
- They feel better almost immediately primarily because all the sugar has been removed from their diet.
- They continue on the diet for some time perhaps many months or even a year. Pleased to see that symptoms diminish considerably during that time, they are convinced that the diet has “worked”.
- After a period of time, they try to reintroduce some of the foods that were removed. Sadly, they usually discover that their symptoms come raging back with full force.
- They realize that it is going to be next to impossible to continue the Candida Diet indefinitely. It is simply too hard to give up cheese and any and all sweets forever.
- They get discouraged, give up and stop the Candida Diet for good.
3 Reasons Why the Candida Diet Fails
The paradox of the Candida Diet is that symptoms greatly diminish. However, the patient doesn’t actually heal from the root cause of the problem which is a breach in the integrity of the gut lining.
Long-term healing is prevented on the Anti-Candida Diet for the following key reasons:
Reason #1
The Candida Diet allows starchy vegetables and tubers like sweet potato, cassava, yams, and arrowroot.
Note that some anti-candida diet practitioners recommend caution with these foods, but others do not.
Reason #2
The Candida Diet doesn’t include a small cup of traditional bone broth with every single meal. This is an incredibly necessary food for proper healing/sealing of the gut wall caused by candida overgrowth.
For more severe cases, short-cooked meat stock needs to be used and NOT bone broth. Some people cannot tolerate the glutamate in long-cooked broths.
Long-term gut healing is quite simply NOT going to occur without using the correct form of stock or broth.
Thus, any candida diet benefits will usually be temporary.
Reason #3
More important than the allowance of starch in the Candida Diet is the inclusion of grain-based foods. Some practitioners recommending the Candida Diet misguidedly include gluten-free grains.
Others recommend none at all (in an apparent scramble to mimic diets that actually work to fix the gut like GAPS and to a lesser extent the bone broth diet).
The bottom line is that there is no uniformity to what is recommended, hence, the protocol’s unreliability in providing relief over the long-term.
Anti-Candida Diet Shortfall
Even if the Candida Diet is used in conjunction with a gluten-free, casein-free diet, it fails in the majority of instances.
The reason is that disaccharides, or double sugars, are present in many carbohydrates including ALL grains – not just gluten-containing ones.
An inflamed, imbalanced gut overridden with Candida is unable to digest double sugar molecules completely. This occurs because the lack of beneficial gut flora has compromised the function of the enterocytes.
According to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, author of Gut and Psychology Syndrome and one of the key scientists at the forefront of gut restoration research today, the enterocytes are the cells that reside on the villi of the gut wall and produce the enzyme disaccharidase.
This enzyme breaks down the disaccharide molecule into easily absorbed monosaccharide molecules.
When the enterocytes are not nourished and strengthened properly by adequate beneficial flora, they become weak and diseased and may even turn cancerous. They do not perform their duties of digesting and absorbing food properly.
Undigested Food Nourishes Pathogenic Yeast
Weak and diseased enterocytes also have trouble digesting starch molecules. They are very large with hundreds of mono sugars connected in long branchlike strands.
People with weak digestion due to Candida overgrowth and messed up enterocytes have a terrible time digesting these complex molecules.
The result is a large amount of undigested starch in the gut. The putrefying matter is the perfect food for pathogenic yeasts, bacteria, and fungi like Candida to thrive upon.
Even the starch that manages to get digested results in molecules of maltose, which is — you guessed it — a disaccharide! This maltose also goes undigested due to a lack of the enzyme disaccharidase and becomes additional food for Candida.
Biggest Candida Diet Benefit
We’ve established that the Candida Diet usually fails miserably in resolving gut imbalance problems over the long haul.
However, it does include and recommend one fantastic herb that is very helpful for keeping Candida under control if only temporarily…Pau d’Arco tea.
I’ve found this herb is especially helpful during traveling (when the diet is less than optimal) or for a few days after you get home to get back on the wagon.
What is the Best Diet for Candida?
In conclusion, it is best not to waste your time with the Candida Diet. It doesn’t work in the majority of cases and you will ultimately feel frustrated in your efforts to heal over the long term.
The best diets for healing and sealing the gut wall and permanently rebalancing the gut environment are the GAPS Diet or the very similar SCD (Specific Carbohydrate) Diet.
To read more about the GAPS Diet and what the food list includes, check out this introductory post on using GAPS to heal autoimmune disease.
Also, this post The Five Most Common GAPS Diet Mistakes is a review of the most common pitfalls of this approach to gut healing.
Reference
Gut and Psychology Syndrome, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD
More Information
Macrobiotic Diet and Extreme Vitamin D Deficiency
Biofilms: Overlooked Step in Treating Candida
Can Candida Sufferers Drink Kombucha?
How to Take Probiotics
Can someone give real help with candida please so much misinformation so discouraged
Anyone of the mentioned Candida diets will bring about better health, simply because processed foods are eliminated from the diet. Which we all know these foods are detrimental to health and even our longevity. There is a lot of confusion about the Candida diet and what really works and different ones work for different folks.
I like many of you have done immense research and trying different anti Candida diets. In my case I was experiencing some health issue that put a damper on my life; symptoms such as extreme boating, brain fog, no energy, always tired, constipation and large cysts all over my body with concentration on my face and neck area.
In reading this article and through all the post I see no one mentioning Linda Allen’s Candida Diet or her Yeast Infection No More book. This was the last and final diet I had to do because it is the one that worked for me. I am fully recovered and Candida symptom free.
Read my full story here http://www.antiagingresourcecenter.com/Extreme-Bloating.html
Candida is a beast! There is a lot of valuable info out there. But just like the long list of symptoms reguareding Chronic Candida, there is a long list of causes which can be completely different for different people, as is the list of associated conditions. It all depends on the individuals constitution, history and life style. So where does that leave you?
Chronic Candida is a real condition, Harvard Medical school has even released results from a study claiming that Chronic Candida “the leading fungal infection behind all human disease”. Do you have it, 3 day spit test regime or IgG anti-body test – decide which level of confirmation you need. Then choose your response. All the diets are difficult, and over the years, most people I’ve seen doing the diets, never had long term success- only success while on the diet. But they do help manage the condition and in general, can be a great start. If you know you can’t stomach months of restrictive diet – then visit the linked site and see if it can provide some further solution for you.
Grace in Healing
Chandra Wellness
http://www.thecandidaconsultant.com/
That picture is sick!!!! you are a sick person. Who posts those kind of pictures????
I am not agree with you Natalie, The picture helped me to recognize my problem. By the way I am still waiting for an answer to my question
Thanks to all
Question, for how long should I take the Alvita tea? thank you for this post, it has been very helpful.
And yet, I just read an article that raved about the antimicrobial, antifungus qualities of copper and suggested we should be taking copper supplements.
Seems like for everything I read, tellingme what I should or should not eat, there is an opposing view
This is a great article, I loved your perspective and your theory.
This type of dieting will have to be a diet and lifestyle change for it to be effective.
I will trail this myself and what the Mindset and Motivational shifts have to be to make this work.
Thank you again
Donna
i reckon the reason why i did not work for you was that starchy foods ARE NOT allowed on a anti candida diet and that you should OBVIOUSLY take some stuff to fight the candida and not just starve it of…i could go on and on but i reckon you should just do some resurch sara.
I have no idea what Candida diet this article is referring to, but I’ve NEVER seen a Candida diet that allowed for starches or grains of any kind. Such a diet is usually given by a health food company that provides additional supplements that are so expensive and hardcore that they allow for maybe one or two starches. But even then, it’s one or two. And NO fruit is ever allowed.
I agree. Perhaps it is because she is basing this all on a diet from 20 years ago. All the candida diets I have seen allow no carby veggies, no fruits, etc. I think she is just trying to promote the GAPS diet, which is a great diet too, but the way she promotes by using poorly researched information on candida diets is quite misleading!
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You are a terrible person for using that picture. Seriously, I stumbled across that picture while reading about candida and it was stuck in my head for days, then I click on your site and there it is again. Seriously. What is wrong with you?
I was with you the first half of the article, but then you said this:
“Healing is prevented on the Candida Diet for the following key reasons:
Reason #1: The Candida Diet allows foods like potato, yams and other starchy vegetables.”
You are completely wrong about that. I never read one candida diet, not one, that allows potatoes, yam’s or other starchy vegetables. All of the Candida diets say specifically to AVOID this foods. They make it very clear that those foods are a BIG NO NO. So I don’t understand, why you would state something like that. So I became extremely bewildered after reading it, and then I figured it must have been an error , so I just kept reading but then it got extremely confusing. I was trying to look for the answer of curing candida since you say the diet will never cure it, but I got lost.
Thought I’d let you know and hopefully you can update. Thanks.
There is a diet that allows all vegetables and its a fairly popular diet. Dr. Jeff candida plan. My only purpose for this comment is to say that. Not to say whos right or wrong.