Can Yeasts Affect Mental Health?

The importance of mental health has become more and more apparent in recent years, to the extent that both practitioners and patients are making it a point to focus on this aspect of our well-being. We are finding out that mental health doesn’t just have implications for our mood, our emotions, or how we feel; poor mental health has implications for our risk of diseases, even serious disease like cancer an heart disease. 

More and more, we are realizing that the brain and the body are not separate but are intimately linked, and our emotional health is intimately linked to our physical health. This paradigm fits in very well with the paradigm of The Kaufmann Diet, which chooses to support the health of the whole body instead of targeting specific problems. When you support the whole body with nutrition, exercise, and healthy lifestyle––particularly with the aim of eliminating yeasts, fungi, and their poisons from the body––often times, your health and wellness are elevated. 

But what sort of implications does this have for our mental health? And, can diet––particularly The Kaufmann Diet––really play a role in improving our mental health?

The first question we should ask is, can fungi or yeasts influence our mental health. The answer is a resounding yes, and there are some obvious examples:

• • The first example is alcohol; alcohol is the byproduct of yeast fermenting sugar––a classic example of a mycotoxin (too much alcohol can kill you). The short and long-term effects of alcohol on our mental health are well-documented. 
  • Another example is the psychoactive component of “magic mushrooms” known as psilocybin, which has noteworthy effects on mental state. 
  • Finally, ergotamine, a mycotoxin produced by fungi that infest rye grains, has known effects on mental state; this is the poison that has largely been implicated in the Salem witchcraft trials as causing the accused girls to hallucinate and behave strangely. 

So, we do know that fungi and mycotoxins have very well-documented effects on the brain, but if you do not drink or take drugs or eat rye bread, does this still have implications for you? 

Research tells us that mycotoxins regularly contaminate parts of our food supply, particularly corn and grains like wheat. Other foods, such as peanuts and soy, are also susceptible to mycotoxin contamination. If you eat the way many people do, with lots of grains and other carbohydrates, it is likely you are being exposed to mycotoxins, and you might even be fueling an underlying yeast infection in your body you did not even know existed. 

The Kaufmann Diet is designed to mitigate these problems––both fungal contamination in our food supply and internal, pathogenic yeast infections. Often, when these issues are addressed, a myriad of health problems seem to resolve. Some have reported relief from mental health issues. 

Mental health problems can be serious, and you should never use diet or other protocols in lieu of a doctors advice, especially if you are on medication. However your doctor will likely be ok with you trying dietary changes for the purpose of enhancing your overall health. Try it for 4-6 weeks and see if both your physical and mental health are not elevated. 

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