So What’s Wrong with Yeast? I keep getting that question, and it’s a good question. After
all, yeast is a normal inhabitant of the human gut. So why do I say it’s bad? Maybe a
bit of an explanation is in order. Yeast by itself, as a yeast, is not bad. Everyone has Candida yeast in
their systems, working alongside your beneficial bacteria to help break down and digest
your food. The problem occurs when the yeast morphs into a harmful organism. When the
balance of yeast and bacteria in your intestines is upset, and the yeast outnumber the
bacteria, they grow “hyphae,” which are like little tails that can burrow into
your intestinal lining, and eventually go all the way through into your bloodstream. When
this happens, you end up with little holes in your intestines that allow molecules of food
particles to slip through into your bloodstream. These molecules are considered “invaders”
by your immune system and they start producing antigens to neutralize the invaders. This
is commonly known as a food allergy. And that’s just the start of the festivities.
Once in your bloodstream, these hyphated yeasts can settle anywhere, even in your brain.
Anywhere your blood goes, the yeast can go. When the bloodstream is overloaded, your
kidney and liver start their job of filtering out the yeast and their associated
mycotoxins, which can cause liver and kidney problems. If it’s too much for the liver
and kidney to handle, your skin is the next one in line for excreting toxins, and you
might have a rash, or acne, or psoriasis, or eczema. Candida produces something called an endotoxin, which is defined as
“any of a group of poisonous lipopolysaccharides found in the outer membranes of
Gram-negative bacteria” (and also in Candida yeast). So what’s a poisonous
lipopolysaccharide? Well, to cut out all the technical jargon, it’s a molecule chain
that causes inflammation, diarrhea, and hemorrhagic shock. The key word here is
inflammation. Most all of our health problems involve inflammation of one thing or
another. So yeast causes inflammation. What else? It also produces phospholipases, which
can cause prostaglandin production (there’s that inflammation thing again), and
tyrosine kinase activity. (A tyrosine kinase inhibitor is the newest weapon against
malignant cancers, so tyrosine kinase activity can be assumed to encourage malignancies.)
So does this mean that yeast can cause cancer? I think so, eventually. Something else
Candida produces is a lysophospholipase, which contributes to the mayhem. From the Cayman
Chemical website: “Lysophosphatidic
acid (LPA) is an extracellular signaling lipid that evokes multiple biological functions
including induction of platelet aggregation, smooth muscle contraction, and stimulation of
cell proliferation and chemotaxis. lysoPLD was first discovered in 1999 as the enzyme
responsible for generating LPA from lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC). It was later revealed
to be identical to an autocrine motility factor, autotaxin (ATX), which plays a role in tumor progression and metastasis.”
So too much Candida yeast is bad. But what about the yeast in our
bread? Or beer and wine? That species of yeast is called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Otherwise known as Baker’s
Yeast or Brewer’s Yeast. There’s a slightly different strain of Saccharomyces
used for wine, but it behaves basically the same way. The most common byproduct
(mycotoxin) of S. cerevisiae is alcohol.
You’ll get some of that alcohol when you eat yeast bread. You’ll get a lot more
if you drink beer or wine. The fuzzy head on a glass of beer is the live yeast out-gassing
and producing its alcohol. This is the order of severity, in my opinion: beer, wine, then
bread. I know every time I used to drink a glass of beer, I got a headache immediately,
sometimes even before I’d finished that glass of beer. I could drink one glass of
wine with no ill effects, but two gave me a headache. Bread didn’t seem to affect me,
so I don’t think there’s a huge problem with yeast in bread, although it still
adds to the problem. But consider this: A lot of people get cirrhosis of the liver and
they’re not consuming any alcohol. Of course, the doctor, when he hears this from his
patient, will just assume the patient is lying. I don’t think so. I think if you’re
a heavy bread-eater, and you’ve done it for years and years and years, it adds up.
Yes, maybe you will get cirrhosis. After all, everything you eat goes into your
bloodstream and is then filtered by the liver. So it’s no surprise to me that people
who have never had a drink in their life, but eat a lot of yeast breads, might end up with
an overabundance of alcohol in their liver. The following
is part of an article that Dr. Dave Holland wrote (used here with his permission): On
Brewer’s Yeast Dave Holland, M.D. There are endless publications regarding the health benefits of brewer’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, namely that it can lower cholesterol and be a good source of not only protein but also B vitamins and chromium.
However, there are also a few disturbing studies about brewer’s yeast. For example, Coleman in 1990 fed mice a 10% brewer’s yeast diet. The mice subsequently developed diabetes. In another observation, poultry fed grain mixed with brewer’s yeast developed gout and atherosclerosis (Costantini, 1994). Svlhia in 1963 had noted that Saccharomyces yeast produce uric acid, the notorious chemical found in the joints of people who suffer with gout. Further, in the Archives of Internal Medicine (136:332, March 1976), a man was admitted to the hospital, ill with fever and Saccharomyces yeast that cultured from his blood stream. The doctors determined the source of the yeast to be his supplementation with the same. He improved upon discontinuing the supplement.
Recently, red yeast was used successfully to lower cholesterol in a number of people using this over the counter supplement. It is known that yeast and fungi produce chemicals – mycotoxins – that lower cholesterol. This is the basis of the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor drugs like Mevacor and Zocor, etc. However, these drugs, being mycotoxins, also increased the rate of liver cancer when they were tested at high doses in laboratory mice. We aren’t mice, and the equivalent dose we would have to take to equal that used in this study would be way out of the recommended dosages prescribed by physicians, but what are the long-term implications of taking these drugs, since one usually is relegated to taking these for life (that is, unless they change their ways!)? How is taking a carcinogenic substance in small amounts over 10-20 years going to affect us? Couple that with the documented, daily exposure to carcinogenic mycotoxins we get in our grains every day, according the Journal of the American Medical Association, Jan 23, 2001, and the overall exposure to disease-causing, carcinogenic substances is only likely to increase our chances of being a statistic for the American Cancer Society. This is not personal, biased information, but documented science. So my conclusions after my “yeast research” is that yeast
bread could be harmful over the long run. Most of us have been eating yeast bread all of
our lives, so we’ve already had years of exposure. Someone actively fighting a
systemic fungal infection would do well to stay away from bread, beer and wine. We’ve
said before that on a Phase II diet, sourdough bread is okay in moderation. The reason for
this is that the yeasts in sourdough bread (real sourdough, not quick sourdough
that uses baker’s yeast) are the wild yeasts that are floating around in the air. Our
bodies can cope with these wild yeasts because we’ve evolved to become accustomed to
them. Saccharomyces cerevisiae isn’t an
airborne wild yeast, so we should still be careful to consume as little of that as
possible, and I don’t think beer or wine should be on anybody’s menu if they
want to stay healthy and disease free. However, there are people who would rather die
happy (with a beer in one hand and a sandwich in the other), than live longer and do
without. It’s a personal choice. J Can You
Get Healthy by Writing About Your Life? Several issues back, I talked about relieving the baggage of some
pains by writing a few journal pages each day. I would like to expand this a bit with
another exercise. Whether you keep an actual Journal or not, get out a piece of paper
and write down some small, ordinary daily activity (walking the dog, tuning the car radio
to your favorite station, etc.). Imagine that this event appears in your list of Life
Accomplishments to be reviewed at the end of time (your actual spiritual beliefs are not
important at this point – just play along with me). Now, reflect on what that
activity really means to you. Shut out the rest of the world for a minute or two and
ponder what you did and how you felt about what you did. Do your feelings about the
activity reveal anything to you? Is there any mystery contained in it? No subject, however
simple or mundane you might consciously rate it, lacks the potential to reveal your inner
feelings. Every time you do this exercise, you reach into your inner mystery, attempting to place your life in a
broader context. Your task here is not to shy away from the unknown but to interact with
it, to stretch your hand forward into that shadowed area of yourself that you might have
ignored all your life. The very act of writing becomes a means for your personal growth.
It is possible that you will stumble on this strange occurrence while you are in the
middle of writing, discovering that the writing itself is an avenue to understanding
yourself and your subconscious motivations. Use is as a form of personal contemplation. Once you experience writing as a means of growth, it becomes possible
to invite growth every time you sit down to
write. Many writers say they write to discover what it is that they really think. Often, I
formulate a pre-belief, but when I write it down (as if I were trying to explain it to
others), I find the flaws and I can correct them and set myself on a more adjusted path.
For some of us, the wiring of our brains is such that the written word can bring better
clarity of thought Those who write down all their feelings, write to find out what they
believe, or, more fundamentally, what they believe to be the Truths of Life. That sets our outlook – our attitude – about how we face
each day, how we communicate with others, how well we perform our daily tasks (or whether
we even get off our lazy butts). Our attitudes about the things of life do affect our
state of health. Using this writing exercise can help you to adjust yours. The Effect of Attitude For an example, I will use this study, published in the August 2002
issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. That study suggests that
a person’s attitude about aging can have a significant impact on how long they live
(longevity). The study involved 660 adults aged 50 and older from an Ohio community who
participated in a community-based survey, the Ohio
Longitudinal Study of Aging and Retirement (OLSAR). The researchers measured attitude toward aging and longevity, as well
as the following:
Attitude toward aging was measured with the Attitude Toward Own Aging subscale, which measured
whether or not subjects agreed or disagreed with statements such as:
Longevity was measured with data obtained from The National Death Index (NDI). NDI tracked
participant survival from the baseline interview in 1975 to January 1, 1998. The study found that people who had a positive attitude
about their own aging lived an
average of 7.5 years longer than those who had more negative attitudes. In this
study, a positive attitude toward aging had a greater impact on survival than age, gender,
socioeconomic status, loneliness, and functional health – all factors that were
controlled in the study. A positive attitude toward aging also seemed to favorably
influence longevity more than low systolic blood pressure and cholesterol levels, lack of
smoking, healthy body weight, and exercise. How do negative attitudes and expectations about aging shorten
lifespan? According to Becca Levy, PhD, lead author and assistant professor of
epidemiology and public health at Yale University, one possibility is increased stress
resulting from the negative attitudes. (see Stress article immediately following this one.) The researchers maintain that their study indicates a need to correct
negative stereotypes of aging. They suggest approaches
such as:
Sources: Levy BR, Slade MD, Kunkel SR, et al. Longevity increased by
positive self-perceptions of aging. J. Personality and Social Psychology. 2002;83:261-270. Crocker J, Major B, Steele C. The Handbook
of Social Psychology.
McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1998. Now, go back through this article on the attitude about aging and
replace all occurrences of age or aging or longevity
with whatever is bugging you today. Psychologically, the results on your health (stress,
etc.) will be the same. And, if you write down how you feel about everything you do in
life, it’s like talking to someone about your feelings, problems, hurdles… you
will get it out on the table and give yourself a chance to do something about it. There really is a lot of psychology involved here, but much of it has
a deep-seated evolutionary reason – we are programmed, not always externally, but by
that which comes with the package (your brain’s subconscious inherited software).
Many psychologists would argue against that, but all you need do is watch a child who isn’t
old enough to have been influenced by Sci-Fi TV yet. They will determine who is friend or
foe in a matter of seconds. You can compare these children to those who have been exposed
to horror movies also. Sit two of them in the back yard and watch them. The child who is
programmed for fear will respond to the bushes rustling as if there is a monster doing it.
The unprogrammed child will listen to the sound and make a decision (usually within 30
seconds) as to whether that sound represents a danger or not. He might also respond to the
example set by the other child, assuming s/he has a reason for their reaction. Have a
stranger walk toward them and smile. The TV-programmed child will react with trepidation,
while the other will have no fear (the smile can be seen, at least subliminally, from 30
paces away). It is part of our evolutionary programming that a smile is a good sign that
someone has benign intentions, and the child knows this without having been told. This leads us into the psych field of snap judgments. You form an
opinion of others (and they of you) within 20-30 seconds (commonly called “first
impressions). That had, as its origin, a survival instinct in our past. Today, we make
these judgments for many reasons: an interviewer knows whether to hire you within 30
seconds of meeting; you decide to like or dislike someone at a party within the first
minute and will decide whether or not they will become a friend within three minutes. (A
recent article in Science Magazine says that undergraduates picked
winners with 70% accuracy when they looked at pictures of congressional candidates they
did not know anything about and judged them based entirely on how competent they appeared to be.) Researchers believe the data that drives such decisions originates in
your brain’s limbic system – the place where your emotions are sorted out. The
conclusions you generate are based on your experiences and your environment, which
includes social stereotypes that you might even
reject on a conscious level. Experience plus environment plus stereotypes equals
programming; some from within, some from outside – some unintentional, some with
specific purposes in mind (e.g., all media marketing, no matter what the product
– drugs, religion, social beliefs). What does this have to do with your health (which is what this
newsletter is supposed to be about)? How you have programmed yourself, or how society or
church or government has programmed you, makes a great deal of difference about how you
react to everything in your life, including you healthcare options and your attitudes
about what makes you sick and what makes you well. You can see now that those programs we run in our brains come from
several sources: basic survival instinct, self-induced, and the things we are told
repetitively by others. You no doubt have heard of a process called brain washing. That was a big deal during WWII,
the Korean war, and even the Vietnam war. Basically, this is just another term for external programming, except that it is more
intense and generally of shorter duration. Because both phrases carry a negative
connotation, today the government uses the word resocialization.
They mean that when you are acting or thinking differently than what they believe
is the right way, you need to be reprogrammed to fit into society without being one of
those people who is always rocking the boat. We clearly are not following the party line with this
publication. Many doctors and Big Pharma would like us to cease and desist because we (and
numerous others like us) are rocking their boat and, if we can get you to think for
yourselves, you might get off their drugs and that hurts their wallets (both
the pharmaceutical companies and their government lackeys). They might think we need to be
resocialized, but I think we all need to be deprogrammed. My reason for writing all this is to get you to think for yourself. I
don’t want you to follow anyone else’s program (not even mine). If you will
spend some time, every day, analyzing what you do and why you do it, you might be able to
break free of the restraints that others want tied around your mind. And if you can break
that, you can help yourself start down a path to health, both mental and physical. Write
it down, think about it, then decide for yourself. The
Effects of Stress on Your Health The previous article, assuming you didn’t fall asleep halfway
through it, pointed out that stress can be unhealthy and some ways you can discover your
attitude about various things in life by writing out your feelings. Hey, we all have
stress now and then, don’t we? Some people contend that they work better under
stress, and they might be right, but they are probably suffering in other areas because of
it. So why is stress so unhealthy? The hormone cortisol is released in the body during stressed or
agitated states. This hormone is more than a simple marker of stress levels; it is necessary
for the functioning of almost every part of the body. Excesses or deficiencies of this
crucial hormone can also lead to various physical symptoms and disease states. Cortisol is a steroid hormone made in the adrenal glands, which are
small glands on top of the kidneys. Some of its important functions in the body include:
regulation of blood pressure and cardiovascular function; regulation of the body’s
use of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Cortisol secretion increases in response
to any stress in the body, whether physical (illness, trauma, surgery, temperature
extremes) or psychological. When cortisol is secreted, it causes a breakdown of
muscle protein, leading to the release of amino acids (the “building blocks” of
protein) into the bloodstream. These amino acids are then used by the liver to synthesize
glucose for energy, in a process called gluconeogenesis. This process raises the blood
sugar level so the brain will have more glucose for energy. At the same time, the other
tissues of the body decrease their use of glucose as fuel. Cortisol also leads to the
release of so-called fatty acids, an energy source from fat cells, for use by the muscles.
Taken together, these energy-directing processes prepare the individual to deal with
stressors and ensure that the brain receives adequate energy sources. The body possesses an elaborate feedback system for controlling
cortisol secretion and regulating the amount of cortisol in the bloodstream. The pituitary
gland, a small gland at the base of the brain, makes and secretes a hormone known as
adrenocorticotrophin, or ACTH. Secretion of ACTH signals the adrenal glands to increase
cortisol production and secretion. The pituitary, in turn, receives signals from the
hypothalamus of the brain in the form of the hormone CRH (corticotropin-releasing
hormone), which signals the pituitary to release ACTH. Almost immediately after a
stressful event, the levels of the regulatory hormones ACTH and CRH increase, causing an
immediate rise in cortisol levels. When cortisol is present in adequate (or excess)
amounts, a negative feedback
system operates on the pituitary gland and hypothalamus, which alerts these areas
to reduce the output of ACTH and CRH, respectively, in order to reduce cortisol secretion
when adequate levels are present. OK, so that explains our basic reptilian “fight or flight”
condition. This cortisol pumps us up for a few hours to help us think and run, while
robbing the rest of the body of the things it needs. What about normal everyday life? The body’s level of cortisol in the bloodstream displays what is
known as a diurnal variation - that is, normal concentrations of cortisol vary
throughout a 24-hour period. Cortisol levels in normal people are highest early in the
morning (around 6-8 AM) and are lowest around midnight (for a normal person whose “work
day” corresponds to the sunlight day). In addition to early morning, cortisol levels
may be somewhat higher after meals. Certain drugs can also lead to increased cortisol levels. Examples
include the diuretic spironolactone and estrogen hormone therapy. Low
cortisol levels can be due to drug therapy with androgens or the anti-seizure medication phenytoin.
Athletes who train rigorously can have higher-than-average cortisol levels, and women in
the last trimester of pregnancy also generally have elevated cortisol levels. Recent
research has even shown that drinking two or more cups of coffee per day can elevate
cortisol levels. Increased physical and psychological stresses, which includes people
suffering from depression, anxiety, panic disorder, malnutrition, and alcohol abuse also
often have elevated cortisol values. But are those things dangerous? Aren’t we all subject to some of
those things once in awhile? Some stress is not a big deal. Obviously your body was made
to handle that, and in some cases, it is good for us (it could save your life). But what
if the stress levels associated with your work, or even your play, keep your cortisol
levels high all the time? For example: you have to drive to work in horrible traffic
conditions; you work for a mean boss who has threatened to fire you on more than one
occasion; you don’t get along with a few of your coworkers; you bolted your food at
lunch so you could have a short walk and still get back before the time clock declares you
late again; then there’s that nasty drive home; then you find the kids are in trouble
at school; and your spouse is mad at you for something you don’t even remember doing;
then dinner is burned, and ... and this happens every day? An elevated cortisol level is not something you can immediately feel.
If it is elevated for too long, over a period of months or years for example, you might
begin to feel its effects because of the negative impact it has on your overall health.
Besides impacting the immune system, fertility, and bone health (osteoporosis,
osteopenia), the list of the risks includes: abdominal weight gain, loss of verbal
declarative memory (words, names, and numbers), insulin resistance, and Type 2 Diabetes..
An additional problem of long-term elevations of cortisol is that the adrenal gland may
wear itself out and no longer be able to produce even normal levels of cortisol. This is
called “adrenal exhaustion” and is associated with many other health problems. Persons exposed to abnormally high levels of cortisol over time might
even develop something known as Cushing’s Syndrome. This condition generally
affects adults, and approximately 10-15 of every million persons will develop this
condition each year. Signs and symptoms of Cushing’s Syndrome include elevated blood
pressure, development of diabetes, pink-to-purple stretch marks on the abdominal skin,
fatigue, depression, moodiness, high triglyceride levels, and accentuated fatty tissue on
the face and upper back. Women with Cushing’s Syndrome often have irregular menstrual
periods and develop new facial hair growth. Men may show a decrease in sex drive. There are lots of things on the market to help “manage your
symptoms” (one of the main ones being Phosphytidal Serine, which can
be obtained without prescription in Damage Control
Master Formula from http://www.masterformula.com/
or Proloftin from http://www. proloftin.com/). The “cure” is something only you can provide: find a
way to change your life so the stress isn’t killing you. Get a new job. Get a new
spouse. Learn to cook better meals. J If those aren’t possible, the answer is to get a new
attitude. Change the way you think about your life and you will change your stress
levels. But first, you have to know what it is you really do think about your
life. That kind of puts you in a circle back to the previous article. J As Oddball (Kelley’s
Heroes) used to say, “Stop with the negative vibes, man!” |