Episode 272: The Candida-Skin Connection
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Candida, a type of fungus, can trigger skin issues when it overgrows. Dealing with these conditions goes beyond just a topical treatment — oftentimes it’s an inside job.
Here at The Funk’tional Nutritionist, we regularly see clients with skin concerns, so today Team FN dives into the intricate relationship between fungal overgrowth and its effects on the skin. By the end of this conversation, you’ll have a solid grasp of what causes Candida overgrowth, how to recognize it, and effective ways to find relief.
In this episode:
Candida-related skin issues & other symptoms [7:29]
How to test & assess for overgrowth [12:32]
Common triggers for Candida [21:53]
Foundational treatment steps [26:28]
Why antifungals & the “Candida diet” aren’t enough [36:06]
Diet recommendations for Candida [42:22]
Resources mentioned:
Carb Compatibility Project™ (Available for free within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)
The Funk’tional Nutrition Academy™
1:1 Functional Medicine Nutrition
Neurohacker Qualia Mind (Get $100 off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with code FUNK)
Organifi supplement powder (Save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase)
Ned Natural Remedies (Get 15% off your order with code FUNK)
Learn more about Gut Health and Healthy Skin
Related episodes:
152: Eating for Candida & Autoimmunity, Sugar Substitutes: A Mixed Bag Q&A
156: Integrative Dermatology - Acne, Eczema, Psoriasis, Rosacea & Beyond with Dr. Julie Greenberg
122: The Gut-Skin Connection - Leaky Gut, Rosacea, Acne, Eczema, Keratosis Pilaris & Psoriasis
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Erin Holt:
Welcome to the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast. I'm your host, Erin Holt. I'm an integrative and functional medicine nutritionist with a feisty attitude and well over a decade of clinical experience. I work with women all over the world through my online programs, and I'm also the founder of the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school and practitioner mentorship where we help other clinicians level up with functional medicine methodologies. I've got a bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model that are both systematically failing so many of us. Creating a new model is my life's work and this is what this show is all about. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you like what you hear today, I would love for you to subscribe to the show, leave a review in iTunes, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Now give me the mic so I can take it away.
Erin Holt:
Hi friends, today you’re gonna hear myself and Rachel from Team FN discussing Candida and the skin connection and our treatment strategies and what we see here at the Funk’tional Nutritionist. The vast majority of clients that come to us are still folks who have worked with other functional providers. They’ve been given functional tests, they’ve been put on a protocol, they walk away feeling confused and not getting better.
Erin Holt:
And if you listen to this conversation with Rachel and I and you are a practitioner who is looking to take more of a well-rounded and in-depth approach to your practice so that you can get your clients or your patients really good long-standing results, then I strongly encourage you to think about joining the Funk’tional Nutrition Academy. Our enrollment for fall cohort officially opens September 1st. So you can apply, you can have a discovery call, you can talk to somebody here at Team FN to make sure that this is the exact right fit for you. And we can get you started and secure you a spot in the fall cohort. I’m really proud and really believe in the work that we’re doing here. The practitioners that are graduating from FNA are really really really top notch. We’re doing good work here, we’re creating a ripple effect and it’s pretty awesome. So I would absolutely love to have you a part of it. You’re mentored by both Rachel and myself. We have visiting faculty, some really phenomenal practitioners that you get to learn from on top of having a really, really supportive community. So, this is your invitation. Get your application in and let's go!
Erin Holt:
Hello, friends. Welcome to the show. Today is going to be all about the candida and skin link, but before we get into that, we just got off a team meeting and I've just been really feeling a lot of gratitude and gratefulness for the team and everything we're doing here. And because I've been in that gratitude state, I'm receiving a real strong uptick in listeners kind of sharing their gratitude with me. So I figured I'm going to start each episode off with a little bit of listener love. So this is from Ruth following us from Ireland. She says, I've only been listening to your podcast and following your work for a couple of months, but the amount of healing I have found in those few months after following your advice, suggestions, and info has been unbelievable and I am beyond grateful.
Erin Holt:
So shout out to Ruth in Ireland. Thanks for listening and I'm so glad that this has been a support for you. All right, we're going to talk about, like I said, candida, which is a type of fungus, and when it gets overgrown, we can see issues play out through skin manifestations. We've talked before on the show about how skin health is oftentimes an inside job and requires more than just a topical approach for treatment. There's a link between fungus overgrowth or candida overgrowth and skin issues. And our goal today is to bring your awareness to this connection and to give you some things to think about and to troubleshoot. Rachel really sees all of our skin clients or our skin patients at TFN, so she's joining me today for this conversation. So.
Erin Holt:
Hi, Rachel.
Rachel Mistry:
Hey, Erin. Thanks for having me.
Erin Holt:
And good news for all of you listening. We have actually brought on another practitioner, so we've been able to bring down our waitlist here at TFN. We currently have a two month waitlist, so that's real improvement. If you're interested in joining, you can go to thefunktionalnutritionist.com/membership to apply. And good candidates for our 1:1 functional medicine work are folks who have really already attempted a lot of the basics, especially around food and diet.
Erin Holt:
And if you're still in a position where you're kind of refining your food and your diet and figuring out how to eat to feel good, we recommend the Carb Compatibility Project. It starts in September. You can check out more information on our website. But Rachel, what are your thoughts around that in terms of who's a really good candidate to work with you one on one?
Rachel Mistry:
Yeah, I think that's a great question. A lot of the people who come to us in the one to one membership have focused a lot already on the foundations. They've gotten their blood sugar in check. They are eating a low inflammatory diet. I can tell you that the patients who enroll in the one to one membership who have already gone through a program like CCP, we just see so much more success because we're able to dive in deep right away.
Rachel Mistry:
We're not addressing some of those more foundational things, and anyone can benefit from kind of tuning in and tightening up their foundations. And CCP just provides such a great support for that as well.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, it's kind of like a fast track to success. And the cost of the CCP is less than half the cost of working in our one on one membership, so you kind of get a little boost too. All right, so let's talk about the skin because it's a rough one. Why don't you cue it up, since you're really the practitioner who sees the most skin clients in our practice?
Rachel Mistry:
Yes, and skin conditions can be super, super frustrating and also extremely isolating. A lot of people who have skin issues feel a little bit or a lot a bit of embarrassment. It's not always something that they feel comfortable talking about.
Rachel Mistry:
Sometimes it's on their arms, their legs, in public places that people can view. And from a functional medicine perspective, it's worth mentioning that there can be so many different root causes for skin issues. I want to highlight that today we'll be talking about that candida fungal skin connection, but we really want to make sure that we're addressing our patients with skin issues holistically as well. And whenever we treat candida, the same rules apply. We want to address the patient as a whole.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, for sure. So let's narrow in, because this could be a 17 hour discussion. If we were like, let's talk about skin root causes specific to candida. What are some skin conditions that you see associated with candida?
Rachel Mistry:
So I see a lot of eczema and psoriasis. I do see some acne related to candida as well. Seborrheic dermatitis. A lot of times, seborrheic dermatitis, it can start on the face, and then I also sometimes see more severe cases where it's spreading to the chest and the neck. Some people also know seborrheic dermatitis. It almost has the same root as dandruff. It's just almost like dandruff that has started to spread to other parts of the body. Rosacea.
Rachel Mistry:
And then we can also see tinea versicolor. I actually just saw a TikTok on this the other day where a girl, I think she's living in Hawaii or somewhere tropical, she's in her bikini and she's like the last few months I've just been embracing my cheetah spots. I got home and my mom, who's a doctor, is like, oh, that's yeast. We need to get that taken care of. We need to treat that. So her cheetah spots were cheetah spots were slowly spreading across her abdomen and her arms. Just these little circle like patches. That's also definitely a sign of yeast as well.
Erin Holt:
And when that presents, what color are they? Are they white? Are they darker? Like, how would somebody know that? Oh gosh, maybe this is something I'm dealing with.
Rachel Mistry:
It's a little bit across the board. So the tinea versicolor is more of like a pale whitish color. The seborrheic dermatitis is more of like patchy white flakes, almost like dandruff on your skin a little bit. I've seen it both where it's white but oftentimes red and a little bit same thing with the psoriasis, the eczema, the rosacea. We think more of like redness associated with that. So it kind of is across the board.
Erin Holt:
What are some other skin related signs that somebody might be dealing with candida because I know when I'm in an intake appointment, when I'm collecting data, when I'm asking questions, there's some real specific signs that I'm looking for to see if I am suspecting a yeast overgrowth.
Rachel Mistry:
Yes. So really, any other type of yeasty kind of fungal vibes elsewhere in the body. So we're thinking about recurrent yeast infections for women athletes. Foot or toenail fungus can be another sign of this. Kind of a less specific sign is also that histamine intolerance when we're just seeing generalized rashes popping up, but also like, itchiness irritation for some people, even just that runny nose, scratchy throat, watery eyes. It's a super vague symptom, but sometimes that can point us to yeast as well. Vaginal itching and then I see a lot of itchy ears in my yeasty patients as well.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, some people are just like, I'm just a Yeasty Gal. I had a client say specifically that I'm just a Yeasty Gal. She's very self aware. I am full of yeast. But I will also see sinus stuff in addition to this because just sinus on its own, I'm not immediately like, oh, yeast, it's a yeast issue. But if it's pairing with some of this stuff and if I'm suspecting yeast, I'll also just ask pointed questions about do you ever get weird rashes on your chest or in your armpits or in the bra line? Things where places where moisture kind of gathers tends to be yeastier places, right?
Rachel Mistry:
Swampy spots.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, the swampy bits. And of course, just having these symptoms, like standalone doesn't mean you have this full blown systemic candida overgrowth. One thing I'll actually do is if somebody has a skin manifestation and I'm sort of suspecting candida, but maybe not going to go the full tilt to test for it.
Erin Holt:
We'll talk about testing later. Or if I'm trying to decide, is it worth running, like, a $300 test to figure out if you have yeast is? I'll have them use, like, a topical antifungal just for a couple of days to see if that removes. If that improves the situation, then it's like, okay, now we know we're dealing with yeast, so let's take some next steps. We're not using just to be clear, we're not using the topical antifungal as like, the full fend treatment, but just to kind of assess if we could be dealing with yeast.
Rachel Mistry:
Definitely, I use that too. That's helpful.
Erin Holt:
And then when we're seeing those signs of outward yeast overgrowth, the way that we approach things from a root cause approach is like, hey, there's probably some signs that there's an overgrowth of yeast in your gut. And so we want to look there.
Erin Holt:
So let's talk about how we assess for that. Are there tests that we can run to look for candida overgrowth?
Rachel Mistry:
For sure. And so I would say the most common one, the test that I'm using if I'm suspecting yeast is an organic acids test. And this is, I think, the best way to detect yeast. I don't want to call it the gold standard. It's just what I've had the most success with in practice. We're specifically looking for those markers of arabinose. Sometimes it's presented as D-arabinitol, but this is a metabolite that will get excreted in high levels in the urine when there is yeast presence in the body and in the digestive tract.
Rachel Mistry:
Another test I use a lot in practice is a stool test. But it is worth mentioning, and I know you feel similarly, that stool testing, it's really hard to get yeast to show up on stool testing in the first place because yeast is kind of tricky. It hides in biofilms. And so just because you have a negative candida profile on a stool test, it does not mean that you're in the clear. And so that's why I think it's so important to also do just a really thorough intake appointment as well, to ask those kind of deciphering questions that you had mentioned too.
Erin Holt:
Yeah. And you're so good about not bombarding people with labs right out of the gate. You really like to kind of drip labs out.
Erin Holt:
I just saw something that was talking about, I'm like, I should do a whole podcast episode on this. But how more data can actually be overwhelming for people. It can kind of inhibit assessing for root cause. Because we have so much data, we're like, what do we even treat. Where do we even go here? So I'll sometimes start off with a stool test and if it doesn't show signs of a fungal overgrowth, but I still really suspect it. That's when I can kind of bring in an organic acid test. But if what we were talking about earlier, if somebody's showing skin signs and manifestations of fungal overgrowth and an antifungal works, usually I'm just like, let's just do the organic acid test as well, just to make sure that we are catching it. I feel like you and I kind of have a little bit of like a love hate relationship with organic acids where it's like, it's so good when it's good and then sometimes it's just like kind of like a waste of money.
Erin Holt:
I hate to say it, but I feel that way sometimes about it.
Rachel Mistry:
Yeah. And I think organic acids tests are not my first approach and a lot of times and we'll dive into this more throughout our chat today, but I think of candida as a secondary condition, right? Like, why is the candida overgrowing in the first place? So regardless you want to address the gut microbiome, you want to address what's going on in that environment and in the terrain that allowed it to overgrow. So across the board, running a stool test is going to be an integral part of treating skin issues, regardless of if it's candida or not, but especially if it is candida.
Erin Holt:
100%. Have you been tinkering around more with using biofilm disruptors before you run the stool test?
Rachel Mistry:
I'm only doing that if it's a repeat stool test and patients are not seeing the improvements that they would have hoped for or that they would have expected. Like what might still be hanging around that we did not address. If I feel like we're doing all the right things and the needle is not moving as expected, but I don't like to do that across the board, especially when it's somebody's first dual test because we might get more things show up that maybe weren't an issue beforehand as well.
Erin Holt:
Totally. I'd be curious if you see more fungus show up on a stool test using those biofilm disruptors.
Rachel Mistry:
Definitely, I would suspect that would be the case. And maybe even on organic acids testing too. Something else that's worth mentioning as well is there's a condition called SIFO which is a little bit different than SIBO. So SIBO is small intestine bacterial overgrowth and that's when bacteria has translocated or it's moved to a location where it does not belong in the small intestine. And SIFO is small intestinal fungal overgrowth. There is not a formal test for SIFO. So we're really looking for clinical clues, clinical judgment here.
Rachel Mistry:
We're putting on our thinking caps. If you're presenting as somebody who has SIBO, like Bloating, no matter what you're eating, feeling like you're nine plus months pregnant, having also those yeasty like symptoms, SIBO testing is negative, but maybe yeast is detected on either a stool test or an OAT. We can treat it similarly. And so not implying that everyone needs a SIBO, an OAT, and a GI map, but that can be a slightly trickier situation because there's not a gold standard test to rule that out as well.
Erin Holt:
And it's important to note that candida is not necessarily a bad guy. Right. It's a commensal, meaning it normally lives in the gut. It's part of the microbiome. It's part of the flora that exists in our gut. It becomes a problem when it has the opportunity to overgrow.
Erin Holt:
So it's a commensal, but it can also be considered an opportunist, meaning when it gets the opportunity, it will take it and it will run with it. So can you kind of speak more to that a little bit?
Rachel Mistry:
Definitely. And so, like you shared, candida lives in the gut, the skin, and even that vaginal microbiome. It's a problem when it overgrows. And so we always want to think about kind of circling back to that concept of what's going on in the first place that allowed candida to overgrow. What is the other imbalance in the gut that is presenting? Is there a deficiency of beneficial bacteria? Is there bacterial overgrowth of the bad guys that we don't want present maybe, contributing to that? Is there maybe low stomach acid or low acidity in the colon that's allowing this candida to thrive? I see this a lot in practice, too, where their digestive immune system function is really depleted. So we see low secretary IGA on testing, and if the digestive immune system resources are depleted, the body's going to have another hard time clearing that candida. So we want to think about why when you see candida, it's not what herbs do I take, it's why is it overgrowing or not, what prescriptions do I take, but what's going on?
Erin Holt:
Yeah, I really want to highlight and underscore this fact that candida is not a pathogen. But like anything in the gut, it has potential to cause problems if there's too much of it. And if there is too much of it, what we don't want to do is go in and blindly try to kill it all dead or starve it all off with some crazy restrictive candida diet. What we need to do is look at the environment and ask what imbalance in the environment allowed candida to grow. I saw a video on Instagram from Nedra Glover Tawab, and she said, taking a vacation is wonderful, but it will not save you from burnout. Vacation is a wonderful tool for taking a break, but when you return from vacation, you are back in it. She said, go on vacation, but clean up your life. And I think it's the same for candida in your gut. You can do a candida diet, you can take the antifungals, but once you're done with that, you're returning to the same environment that created the dysbiosis in the first place.
Erin Holt:
Like, you got to clean up your life. You got to clean up the environment, alter the environment that allowed the candida to grow. And I think Rachel and I will just continue to scream that from the rooftops for as long as we possibly what is let's talk about that environment. What is that environment? What's the environment that allows candida to overgrow and thrive and kind of take over?
Rachel Mistry:
I would say first and foremost, I'm always asking somebody about their history with antibiotics. Right? I have a lot of people who will take antibiotics for a sickness, an infection, for acne, whatever it may be, and then they're like, oh my gosh, I got so much worse. Of course, digestively, but also sometimes skin stuff, brain fog, fatigue, because just wiped out their microbiome. We decreased those butyrate producers, those short chain fatty acid producers. So antibiotics definitely a trigger for an environment that fosters candida. The typical standard American diet high in sugar.
Rachel Mistry:
We know that glucose sugar is the growth medium for yeast. So a high sugar diet definitely going to contribute to that. Yeast overgrowth a lot of women on hormone replacement therapy or on the birth control pill that estrogen especially can be a trigger for candida. And then kind of piggybacking off what I just mentioned a little bit earlier that chronic stress, low secretary IGA like you said, we need to address the terrain, address the home, address the environment. A big thing that I see a lot in practice, actually, is a connection between individuals who are on PPIs, acid blockers and candida as well. And those PPIs, the proton pump inhibitors, decrease that stomach acid output. And then the colon is just not as acidic. We're not digesting our foods as well.Yeast is doing more fermentation as well in the gut when we see that too.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, yeast doesn't really candida doesn't really do super great with an acidic environment. So it's kind of like, typically speaking, like, the more acid, the better. And not just stomach acid, but acid in our colon from those short chain fatty acids, like you're saying. And we just know that low stomach acid in general, we can see so many other skin manifestations pair with that. And if you like that list that you just read out or you just set out, if you think about it, it's kind of a snapshot of the average person in modern day world. Right. Lots of antibiotic use the standard American diet, birth control, high stress.
Erin Holt:
And it's not a huge shocker that we're seeing more fungal overgrowths, more candida overgrowths as a byproduct of just like the way that we're living our lives and that low secretory IGA it's such a big one, and we just do see it paired so much with high stress. We know that high stress is going to suppress the immune system. It just is. There's no two ways around it. I speaking from experience. I had just had a couple of really stressful months and I just got leveled out. I got the flu. It's just like our ability to fend off virus pathogens and everything just gets so much lower when we're running and gunning.
Erin Holt:
So kind of keep that in mind. So these are the things that can lead to candida. We talked about some symptoms that you might be dealing with candida. I want to be careful with how I say this because this is not medical advice. This is just education. You can bring this education, this information to your own practitioner. So when I say, what's the treatment? What are things for people to consider if they are dealing with a candida overgrowth? We don't like to give specific protocols on this show. And honestly, guys, it's not because we're trying to gatekeep information, but it's just not responsible.
Erin Holt:
Like anything we do. Candida treatment really does require an individual approach. So with all of those long winded disclaimers out of the way, what is your approach?
Rachel Mistry:
Like I mentioned, I want to get a stool test to see what's going on in the environment of the gut. I definitely want to support beneficial bacteria. I see so much deficiency, dysbiosis, or just so much deficiency on stool testing. When we are testing and so thinking about diversifying the diet, bringing in prebiotics, bringing in those polyphenols. I work with so many people who feel like they're eating a very low inflammatory diet and they're doing a great job, but they're eating the same foods every week, and they're like, oh yeah, I eat a lot of plant foods, but it's blueberries every week. I'm like, can we bring in some blackberries? Can we bring in some plums, some peaches, some more seasonal produce to add some variety to their guts? I definitely treat any problematic bacteria, any opportunists that are maybe showing up on stool test, H.pylori.
Rachel Mistry:
If it feels clinically significant, I love to rule that out. And I do want to clarify, we're not just using antifungals, we're not just using herbal botanicals, we're not just using prescription antifungals. We're treating that terrain. And so, in some trickier cases, not implying that this is everyone who does have yeast, but if yeast just will not clear and we've addressed the secretary IGA, we've addressed the beneficials, we've done all of the typical foundations. Sometimes we want to look at the home environment, like, is there mold, is there yeast or fungus overgrowing in the home or environment? I've seen that with certain types of mold in the home associated with that yeast overgrowth in the body because it suppresses the immune system. And then you can't clear that yeast that's overgrowing in the first place. Without getting too long winded, I'd say those are my foundations.Those are the steps that I definitely take as well.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, I think a couple of things that I'll say, I really, for a long time now, have seen H. pylori and candida kind of present together. Sometimes they kind of like pack a one two punch. So that's just something to consider as well, because we do have a lot of practitioners that listen to the show. So it's a little bit of a clinical pearl, I would say. It's not uncommon for those two to pair together. Another thing that I like to throw into the mix is we'll talk about ways that we specifically address trying to bring down candida levels, but throwing in short chain fatty acids in a supplement form.
Erin Holt:
I've seen that can be helpful throughout candida treatment and beyond. And then another thing is that candida die off can be kind of gnarly. It can make people feel real shitty. So you just want to make sure that you're taking good care to support drainage and detoxification pathways. You're supporting the liver. These little critters don't really want to get killed off. You're making sure. Rachel, did you talk about pooping? Like making sure that you're pooping regularly and then potentially throwing in some binders as well can be something to consider.
Rachel Mistry:
What works for some of my patients too? Definitely the daily bowel movement. I'm a sucker for castor oil packs I've seen that really help with die off. We're just like increasing that blood flow and lymphatic flow to the liver and then especially some of my skin patients. If we are treating candida, it's a sticky, literally sticky situation with yeast and saunas. But for some people, if they are going through that die off detox process, getting in the sauna can make them feel a lot better. Of course, these are the people who don't have the yeast overgrowing in those swampy areas, but generally it can help quite a bit.
Erin Holt:
And so are there certain go to herbs or supplements that you like to lean on if you're going to try to bring down candida levels?
Rachel Mistry:
For sure. I do use a lot of sacro-B, saccharomyces boulardii that's that probiotic yeast that eats yeast. It gently crowds it out of the GI tract. And then in terms of herbals or botanicals, that can actually help to remove yeast. Caprylic acid and oil of oregano can be great products. And then every once in a while I'll use candex. I think you're familiar with that one too. It kind of like gently breaks apart the walls of the cell walls of the yeast, so it's more gentle. It won't create that die off like some of the other herbs will, depending on the severity.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, I think for some of our sensitive Sallys, people who just tend to be hyperreactive or who know that they tend to have a die off reaction when they're on some type of kill protocol, that candex can be really helpful for a more gentle approach. I've also leaned heavily on prescription antifungals.
Erin Holt:
So of course it's going to require a physician who's able to call that prescription in. So that advice is going to be predicated on the fact that you have a good relationship with a doctor that can do that. Fortunately, we've got some collaborations that work really well for our practice, so we're able to get our hands on Nystatin or send our clients and our patients to their own doctors to get that prescription. So Nystatin is the one that I will recommend. I want everyone to just kind of understand that there are certain antifungals like Diflucan that tend to be harder on the liver. Nystatin is not one of those. I just have not seen the literature to support this. So I've had a lot of really good luck collaborating with practitioners, with physicians who are willing to call in a nice statin prescription.
Erin Holt:
There's been a small handful of times where doctors have said, I won't do that because it's really hard on the liver. And then obviously when a client hears that, they get freaked out. And so I just want to say that that has not been my experience and also the literature doesn't back that up. That is for other antifungals. If it's something you're going to be on longer term, it might not be a bad idea to just monitor your liver enzymes if it's something that you're concerned with.
Erin Holt:
Any thoughts around that, Rachel?
Rachel Mistry:
Yeah, I agree with that completely. The fluconazole is really, really intense, and I've worked with some patients who have come to me on Nystatin for a year, two years plus, and their liver function tests are all clear. They're being monitored by their physician, their PCP, and have had no issues with that longer term Nystatin.
Erin Holt:
So again, disclaimer disclaimer, not medical advice. This is our experience. Speaking of experience, why don't we give some examples of patient cases or client cases that we've seen?
Rachel Mistry:
Yeah. So I have been working with a patient who has struggled with long term skin issues, long term, both rosacea and eczema in different parts of their body. And they came to me taking basically going on and off of antifungal treatment plans. So lots of antifungal herbs. I think it was like one month on, two weeks off for the better part of a year. They were on at one point in time, they were on a candida diet.
Rachel Mistry:
That just really created a lot more stress, a lot more overwhelm for them. It felt too restricting. They didn't notice an improvement in how they felt. And when we ran a stool test on them, they had never had a stool test run before. Their microbiome just showed a ton of that deficiency dysbiosis. So their beneficial bacteria were totally wiped out because they were on a restrictive diet for a period of time, they were on these long term antifungals, and then, of course, their secretary IGA was low because we had just kind of bombed the gut every month for such a long period of time. And so slowly but surely, their levels of beneficial bacteria are coming up. We're doing a lot of work on their sec IGA and managing stress, kind of treating them very holistically. And skin is trending in the right direction. It's not always that simple.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, but, I mean, that's a pretty common trend. And I'm thinking of a client, very similar situation, an older client of mine who I mean, older, not like older in age, but it was a while ago where she came and she had been on oregano oil and other antifungal herbs for two years straight. So she had worked with a provider, had never really gotten officially tested for it. It was suspected that there was yeast overgrowth. So she went on antifungals and just never really came off of them. Her main symptoms were vulva pain, so that's really, like, why she sought out my services.
Erin Holt:
But she also saw skin manifestation. So she would get really flushed, she would get a lot of rashes, redness flushing. We did a stool test on her, and her candida was like her candida was high. So she had been on these antifungal herbs for two years, and that was not enough to clear the candida. And just like you said, Rachel, her secretary IGA was like, in the gutter. It was super, super low. So it was really more of like, how do we take a step back, stop going after the candida, kill the yeast, kill the yeast, kill the yeast, kill the yeast. Because that approach isn't actually working to lower the yeast.
Erin Holt:
So how do we take a step back, look at the whole person, look at everything going on with their stress levels, with their overall microbiome. And how do we assist that and so taking a more full spectrum approach, I guess, is the way that we were able to reduce her symptoms and reduce the candida, but it wasn't just continuing to do more of the same. And I think we don't just see that with antifungal herbs, but we see that with a candida diet. I'm like, I don't want to ever hear the term candida diet again because it is so unnecessarily restrictive. And between Rachel, you and I, we have helped people clear candida probably like dozens and dozens and dozens of times, and neither of us are suggesting any type of overly restrictive diet. It's not necessary. It really isn't.
Rachel Mistry:
Definitely. And I think for some people, I've seen certain cases where they've come to me and they're like, when I went on the candida diet, it provided some short term relief for a lot of people. It's not sustainable, it's not realistic. I mean, we're removing that dietary yeast, we're removing that glucose fuel source, but it's more of a band aid approach. It's symptom management. It's not root cause medicine more than anything.
Erin Holt:
Yeah. And I do think that when you are attempting to reduce candida in the gut, it makes sense to be mindful of your sugar intake. I mean, I think that that's fair because those glucose secretions do change the form of yeast and it makes it called a typhi form. So it kind of has almost like finger projections and they can kind of embed into the gut.
Erin Holt:
So there really is a sugar candida link that's not just a pretend manufactured thing. However, we don't have to get super restrictive. Like, some people are like, I can't have fruit. And I'm like, you can have fruit. You can have fruit and still clear candida. So I think that, honestly, a lot of the times I'm recommending an eating plan like the Carb Compatibility Project, because it reduces overall sugar intake without being super hardcore. It provides fibers and plant variety to support beneficial bacteria, that variety that you were talking about, so that those healthy bacteria can grow, they can thrive, they can release short chain fatty acids, they can acidify the colon yeast, and candida don't like that. So that's really good.
Erin Holt:
The overall diet plan supports estrogen clearance, so we know that there's that estrogen candida link. There is a mindfulness component to reduce overall stress. So it's not just as simple as being like, don't ever have any sugar ever, and the candida goes away. It's, again, more of a full spectrum approach, even with diet.
Rachel Mistry:
Oh, absolutely. And I think as a society in general, people are eating more and more sugar, or sugar is just added to so many more foods. I think this is part of the reason why we're seeing more of that candida in practice, too. And so to echo what you shared, balancing blood sugar is key. That CCP way of eating is going to be a really key part of also treating candida.
Erin Holt:
Yes. Agreed. Okay. We kind of discussed how to address the candida, but then you had talked about there's other factors at play with a candida overgrowth, like low stomach acid. And I know that we've talked about that so much on the show before, but I think it bears repeating with this whole conversation. So can you speak to that a little bit?
Rachel Mistry:
Absolutely. I mean, when I think about stomach acid, it's the first step in, well, chewing your food, of course, and being mindful of when you eat is also it plays a role in digestion. But physically, stomach acid is one of the first parts of breaking down food in our body. And so when stomach acid is chronically low, we can end up with these nutrient deficiencies and unwanted organisms, bacteria and yeast hanging out in our digestive tracts. And so we always want to rule out low stomach acid as part of a candida treatment plan or a candida root cause. And this is also multifactorial. Right. So age plays a role in stomach acid. As we age, we're going to start producing less acid in general. Chronic stress, if somebody is constantly in fight or flight, they're really not going to be in that rest and digest state.
Rachel Mistry:
They're going to produce less stomach acid as a whole. I see this a lot in practice, too. We need minerals to make our stomach acid. Sodium, potassium, zinc. We burn through these more when we're in that fight or flight state, when we're in that go go go kind of mindset, I don't want to call it rare, less frequent cases. We can start to see some autoimmunity against those parietal cells. Those parietal cells are the cells in the stomach lining that produce acid. And then, honestly, probably one of the most common root causes I see. Yes. H pylori.
Rachel Mistry:
But eating too quickly, just not being mindful, not sitting down, chewing your foods, eating without distractions. I feel like so many people I talk to now are, like, grabbing something as they're running out the door on their way to work, or they're sitting and scrolling social media, watching TV while they're eating. They're just not chewing their foods. And so I know that's not the trendy thing to talk about, but chewing your foods can literally help with stomach acid.
Erin Holt:
Totally like, eating on the go, being distracted, doing all of the things. But also, a lot of people skip meals or they're not prioritizing feeding themselves, and they get so past the point of hunger that by the time they sit down to eat, they're just eating wicked fast.
Erin Holt:
I just caught myself doing this last night. We had pasta and meat sauce with elbow pasta, and I was, like, swallowing them whole. I was eating so fast. This is not good for my digestion. That's something to be thinking about, too, is like, are you waiting to the point where you're so hungry you could bite your arm off. And so that's what's causing you to eat wicked fast.
Rachel Mistry:
Definitely. And kind of on that note, it is worth mentioning that people who are on plant based diets traditionally also tend to have slightly lower levels of stomach acid. This doesn't mean people on a plant based diet need to start eating meat again, but definitely thinking about what are some other ways that we can support stomach acid production. If you're on a plant based diet as well, and this creates a trickle down kind of cascade effect. Right. We're going to have maldigestion malabsorption of our proteins. So you could be eating a really healthy diet, but if you're not absorbing it, you're not getting the benefits from it. Nutrient deficiencies, which on their own can cause skin issues. We can see SIBO occur because of low stomach acid, bacterial overgrowth, and candida. And I'm always sharing with patients, we want to work top to tail.
Rachel Mistry:
So chew your foods, eat without distractions. Be mindful optimize your stomach acid. Optimize kind of that lower part of your GI tract as well.
Erin Holt:
Yeah, all super, I mean, just good suggestions for food hygiene in general. All right, so why don't we close things out with since we've been talking about food and diet, we touched upon it a little bit. But just to kind of summarize, what are additional strategies to support candida clearance through diet? We recognize that there's more to it than just killing the candida. We might need to bring in some herbal antifungals.
Erin Holt:
We might need to bring in some prescription antifungals. We might have to address the microbiome at large. We might have to address our stress and our immune response. All of that. From a food perspective. What can people do from a food perspective?
Rachel Mistry:
Diversify your diet. Eat a variety of plant foods, a variety of fibers. I love bringing in fermented foods, cultured foods, kimchi and sauerkraut.
Rachel Mistry:
I recommend a lot of resistant starches, which are cooked and then cooled carbohydrates, so like roasted potatoes that you've then let cool and you can reheat it. And the resistant starch will stay. Same thing with even rice and even those bean based pastas. We can get some resistant starch from that polyphenols, those, like, deep red produce items. And then balancing our blood sugar is very foundational. And so it's less about what to avoid, what to take away. When we are balancing our blood sugar and treating candida, it's what can we add that could be support? Add stomach acid, add diversity, add or balance blood sugar. Eat in a way that's going to support your blood sugar, more protein, more fat. And the CCP can also really teach that as well.
Erin Holt:
Yeah. And so we'll close out there. Join us. You can come hang out with me and Rachel for the CCP. You get to ask Rachel questions. She can kind of handhold you through some of your steps because she knows what she's talking about. But hopefully we cleared up some questions and helped to link up your understanding of candida and skin and what you can do about it.
Erin Holt:
So thanks for being here, Rachel.
Rachel Mistry:
Thanks for having me.
Erin Holt:
All right, CCP starts in September. We'll see you there. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.
