The Fungus Link To Gut Health

Naturally, we are all born with a certain amount of yeast in our gut along with other microbes, such as beneficial bacteria. However, many practitioners believe that serious problems arise when the balance of those microbial colonies is tilted in favor of yeasts.

This can happen in a few ways. Poor diet and bad habits, such as drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco, can negatively affect beneficial bacterial colonies in the gut. Medicines––in particular, antibiotics––can play a role in damaging the beneficial flora of the intestines. Chronic stress, too, is thought to negatively affect beneficial bacterial colonies. When beneficial flora becomes damaged, opportunistic yeast can flourish, becoming the dominant species in the gut. This is known as dysbiosis. From the gut, fungi can proliferate throughout the body. In fact, many practitioners believe that if you have a fungal infection anywhere on or in the body, you likely have a fungal problem in the gut.

Fungal problems in the gut can be exacerbated by what we eat. What can potentially feed a fungal problem in the gut is the diet many Americans regularly consume––a diet rich in grains, sugar, corn, potatoes, pasta, etc. This diet would ostensibly supply fungi with its favorite food of choice, sugar. With the volume of sugar many Americans consume, fungal proliferation in the gut continues unabated.

Once fungi gain a stronghold, health problems may begin to ensue. These problems are often difficult to diagnose, in part because doctors receive very little training in the study of fungi. Most medical practitioners will tell you that fungal infections are relegated to the superficial or the very serious in severely immunocompromised patients. Regardless, there is evidence to suggest that fungi can strongly and negatively affect otherwise healthy people.

One of the best ways to rule out fungi as the source of health problems, both in the gut and elsewhere, is to try an anti-fungal program. This is one of the roles the Kaufmann 1 Diet is designed to play––starving pathogenic fungi in the body. Combined with natural anti-fungals, such olive leaf extract, carpylic acid, oregano oil, etc., the Kaufmann 1 Diet works to eliminate fungi in the gut and throughout the body.

Once you have begun this process, it may be good to include probiotic supplements in your regimen. These supplements will aid in recolonizing the gut with beneficial bacteria, restoring the healthy, natural flora of the gut. This, too, may aid in preventing further fungal proliferation in the gut and elsewhere in the body.