The Link Between Sugar, Candida, Being Overweight and Cancer

There are headlines in the newspapers today about the link between being overweight and developing cancer. It strikes me that it is the sugar in the diet which is the link between the two as it is known, but not widely enough, that cancer cells feed on sugar. It puzzles me why this correlation isn't pointed out in health articles but I suspect it is because of the howl it would cause in the sugar industry, which tries to claim that it does no harm.

I have a tendency to develop yeast overgrowths (or candida) in my digestive system which is exacerbated by the fact that I, like so many others in the population, have a sweet tooth. For so many years I ate far too much sugary food, to the exclusion of good food at one time because I couldn't keep my weight under control eating both, so out went the good stuff.

When I lived at home with my parents, I was fed meat and two veg every day, along with sweet treats which were controlled by the fact that I would be in trouble if I over ate what was left over. At the age of 21 I left home and was able to choose for myself what I ate. Big mistake! Out went meat and two veg and in came a lot of pasta and sweet stuff. So to hopefully help others this is a simplified explanation of how the health of the digestive system and the wrong foods can make a person feel lousy.

As a child I suffered from numerous earaches and sore throats for which I was prescribed antibiotics. In fact I was allergic to penicillin by the time I was about 7 (I came up in lumps a lot like the mumps I had already suffered).

I was a sleepy child, a sleepy teenager, my twenties were pretty sleepy too but I coped. My thirties were a slog through feeling 'tired all the time' fuelled by a diet high in pasta, pizza, ice cream and chocolate.

At the age of 40 I went to see a kinesiologist recommended by a sceptical friend whose husband had visited this lady with a successful outcome. My friend didn't think there was anything wrong with me because I painted my face every day and stayed cheerful. I can remember feeling as though I was swaying as she was saying this to me and thinking that you can never know how someone else is feeling.

A couple of weeks later I saw my kinesiologist who had asked me to fill in a dietary and health questionnaire. Before she tested me (using muscle testing) she said she thought I had food intolerances and candida (which is like having thrush in your gut but it doesn't itch!) and her testing confirmed this.

I had to give up wheat based foods (my first thought was that I would have to give up Cinnamon Toast Crunch which I would eat dry by the handful as well as in a bowl with milk), cow's milk, peppers, coffee, tomatoes and a few others which have been added to since.

I started taking herbs for the candida, the leaky gut, the parasites, along with vitamin and mineral supplements. I embarked on a sugar free diet for the next five months, which was very difficult but I stuck with it. I started having colonic irrigation and generally looking after myself better. Gradually I started feeling better and even lost about ten pounds, but still wasn't 100% and it wasn't until I got a prescription for an anti fungal from my doctor that I felt well for the first time that I could remember.

Because of my sweet tooth, following some unavoidable antibiotics nearly four months ago, I am once again on a sugar free diet, anti fungals, herbs and acidophilus to get rid of another bout of candida. It is an opportunist which will take over whenever it gets the chance.

You would have had to lived in another country to not have seen Yakult and Actimel adverts exhorting us to top up our good bacteria, but they miss the point that the sugar they contain can exacerbate a yeast overgrowth. Acidophilus is best for us without the sugar. The good bacteria act like policemen in the gut by keeping the yeast that we naturally have in our gut in check, but antibiotics, the Pill, HRT, steroids and over indulgence in sugary foods can knock out the good bacteria and the yeast turns into a fungal form which looks a bit like tadpoles under a microscope.

The wiggly end of the 'tadpole' burrows through the wall of the small intestine. The walls of the small intestine are porous like blotting paper to allow the goodness from our food to leach out into the blood stream to go and do its good work of maintaining our bodies. When the fungal form of candida starts burrowing it causes a 'leaky gut' situation, which is rather like a sieve. This is often found in children with autism I have read.

The problem with a leaky gut is that most of us don't actually chew our food properly. To quote Dr Ellen Cutler, we virtually inhale our food with nary a bite. Food needs to be chewed up to 30 times before we swallow it to break it down to help our stomachs to digest it. When it is swallowed without much chewing, food is not automatically broken down by stomach acid, which is often assumed, and undigested food particles can proceed through the digestive tract, where it can escape through the sieve-like 'leaky gut' into the blood stream. This is how food intolerances can start.

When there is something in the blood stream which shouldn't be there, the immune system is alerted that there is an 'invader', albeit only a bit of food in the wrong place, but the immune system is there to repel invaders. The immune system goes on to produce white blood cells and antihistamines which circulate around our bodies looking for something to attack. If you have ever wondered what the link is between the food that goes in your mouth and pain or bloating two feet further south in your abdomen, or perhaps in the joints of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, or the lungs of asthmatics, then this is it. Those white blood cells and histamines will search out your weak points and the immune system has a memory so this will happen every time the wrong food is consumed.

The answer is to avoid troublesome foods, and yes it can be very difficult, but feeling normal, bright and alert truly is worth it and this is why I haven't eaten any sugary, sweet food since Sunday and am starting to dream about chocolate! Using my protocol, I should be better by next weekend and it will all have been worth it, but it is tough at the moment. Even fruit is out of the question because it is still sugar even though it is in a 'good' form.

Wish me well, because I am having a tough time with my sweet tooth and its cravings. I am going to have a gymnema sylvestre tablet, that will help now I have thought about it, I haven't had one since this morning.

While this is probably over-simplified, it goes a long way to explaining why so many people are diagnosed with IBS by their doctors, who then seem to go on to do absolutely nothing to help the problem apart from prescribing the current drug for alleviating the symptoms.

Identifying the offending foods and avoiding them and getting rid of yeast overgrowth solves a majority of IBS symptoms. That is what I do as a kinesiologist and wish more people knew what we can do for them so that they can start to feel bright and alert as well.

Hopefully this blog will help those who read it consider kinesiology as a valid way of finding what is causing them to feel less than well or just plain lousy and actually being to do something constructive about it.