Candida Albicans - The Main Cause of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) ?

We live with yeasts. There are yeasts in the air we breathe, on the food we eat and living happily in our intestines. It is impossible to avoid them but fortunately, the healthy body has systems in place to keep yeast infections under control. Candida Albicans is the opportunist microbe and overgrows prolifically given the chance.

As I discussed before, medications and illnesses will deplete the beneficial gut bacteria and this allows the undesirables to proliferate and this can happen very quickly, especially if the diet is high in sugars and other carbohydrates. This is called dysbiosis – literally meaning , difficult life.

All yeasts have similar needs. If you have ever made bread or beer you know that mixing water, yeast and a form of sugar in a warm place creates lots of bubbles. This reaction is the result of yeasts feeding on sugar and multiplying. For Candida, the gut provides an ideal environment to set up home and have a big family. Friends will also be invited, but friends of Candida, not of us!

When bread or beer is made, the gases easily escape into the atmosphere but what happens if this fermentation goes on inside us? There is no immediate escape so gases build up causing much noise and often severe cramping pains. Eventually gas escapes as very smelly wind accompanied by acute embarrassment. Sometimes the gas does not escape easily and becomes trapped causing more pain and bloating. A story I hear often is that a bloated abdomen becomes apparent over the day and goes down overnight no doubt escaping during sleep.

So why the diarrhoea that often typifies IBS? When the yeast Candida colonises in the gut is becomes less of a yeast and more of a fungus. The organisms join forces and start to line the gut wall, anchoring with minute rootlets into the intestines. When this happens, there is little room for the good guys to colonise which means the delicate lining becomes eroded as there is no protection. Food cannot be digested and absorbed properly which means it leaves the body rapidly and barely altered from when it was eaten. Another likely scenario is that instead of being absorbed as nutrients, other unwanted microbes cause the food to putrefy adding to the toxic load. Whilst these effects are going to cause much discomfort and distress, another very troublesome situation is occurring – malnutrition.

This is the disaster that will almost certainly perpetuate or worsen the illness. We take for granted that our food will be digested once eaten but it is an extremely complex process - one which is dependent upon all areas of the gut doing their bit before the food is moved on to the next stage. With IBS these stages can be inadequate or missed out altogether. The end result is that nutrients are not absorbed and the body’s digesting fluids and enzymes cannot be created. Many other processes cannot be instigated. The vicious circle continues and we get sicker.

Next time, I will tell you the story of Micaela Stafford. This was a lady I met a few years ago who had the most severe form of gut dysbiosis I have ever witnessed. She has allowed me to tell her story.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Host to a Host of Undesirables

It is my belief that our gut microbes have a great deal to do with who we are as people. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Let me tell you how I see it:

We are literally heaving with microbes! We have more microbes in our gut than we do cells that make up our bodies. More than there are stars in the universe and they can weigh more than a kilo.

As far as we are concerned, they come in three types:
1) The ones we need for our health.
2) The ones “passing by” (in quantity, some of these may also make us ill).
3) The ones that make us sick – the opportunists.

Now, if we have enough of the ones we need for health, they will ensure that the microbes in the other two categories don’t do us much harm.

The microbes needed for health help with many functions – including the digestion of food, protection of our gut wall and keeping all other microbes in check. In return, we feed them – a truly symbiotic relationship.

All living things need to take in a form of energy and as this is used, waste products are created which have to be released. The waste products (or metabolites) of the “good guys” in our intestines are things we need such as B vitamins and enzymes. The metabolites of the passers-by are of no consequence in small quantities but then we come to the bully-boys. The metabolites of these can really make us ill - substances similar to opiates and others related to the tetanus toxin, production of  gases such as hydrogen sulphide (rotten eggs) are just a few of the effects that affect our health. Regrettably, our modern diets nourish these pathogens, perpetuating the problem.

Very often, these pathogenic organisms are left to dominate when we have been subjected to poor health over a period of time, repeated use of antibiotics, chemotherapy treatment for cancers and other continuous drug treatments for chronic illness. In order to colonise, some of these microbes have the ability to “anchor” themselves to the intestinal wall thus creating microscopic fissures in the delicate single-celled lining. This allows them, their metabolites and minuscule particles of undigested food into the blood stream. What happens then is another story but just consider what opiate-like substances might do to the brain if this can happen.

The most common opportunist microbe to invade the gut when conditions are right is candida albicans. This yeast acts as a fungus when allowed to overgrow. It needs another blog to describe the effects and this will be the subject for next time.

IBS - The Untended Garden

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is, for whatever reason, a condition in which the gut microbes have become unbalanced.

We have trillions of good, bad and on-the-fence microbes on and in us. In a healthy person these live in harmony, with the good guys calling the shots. In a less than healthy person they live in conflict. In someone with IBS there has been an all out war where the good guys have been beaten into submission. This causes all the miserable symptoms now called irritable bowel syndrome. Often you can’t tolerate the very foods needed to keep you healthy. Everything will now be out of sync. Your gastric juices, enzyme and bile production vitamin manufacture, liver function, immunity and lots more cannot work until your gut microbes are normalized.

I will use an analogy to illustrate the steps that are required to normalize your insides because when nature finds a good way of doing something it is repeated often where a variety of life forms dwell together. I will use a garden for my example, but I could just have easily used a pond, a forest or even a compost heap!

Imagine you have to make an overgrown garden into a tidy one with attractive flowers and productive plants and of course you will want to attract birds and insects which will ensure a good harvest.

Will you straight away go and buy the plants and stick them in where you can? No of course you won’t –

you have hard work to do first! The overgrowth has to be removed or severely cut back and the weeds must be uprooted. Nutrients must be replaced and then you can you start replanting. Eventually, you have a garden which will become almost self sufficient, needing only minor attention from you. Everything will be balanced.
If you have IBS, the only way to tackle it is from the “ground” up. You can only benefit from good microbes and nutrients when the bad guys have been evicted to make room on the gut wall for colonization and absorption. When this has been achieved, with a little TLC your gut will look after your health forever.

This also takes TIME!