The Ugly Truth About Sugar

It was 2:00 am. I was asleep, but woke up and made my way to the kitchen. I poured a big glass of milk and sat at the kitchen table with a sleeve of Chips A’Hoy cookies. It was kind of a ritual. I loved Chips A’Hoy cookies.

But this particular morning, through my sleepy stupor, I noticed this sick kind of insatiability, like I couldn’t eat the cookies fast enough.

Kind of like feeling possessed.

I looked down. The sleeve of cookies was near gone.

At the time, I didn’t know about the work of Dr. William Crook and his book, “The Yeast Connection.” But when my new naturopathic doctor asked me if I’d ever been tested for candida, he explained that though candida lives in our mouth and intestines and helps with digestion and absorption, when imbalanced and overproduced it could be the cause of a seemingly endless of array of problems throughout the body.

I looked at him and said, “However you measure it, I will be off the charts.”

At that time I had many chronic symptoms, with a team of doctors who all had their recommendations for the specific problem I sought their help. Even my gynecologist had his recommendations, “Carol, take an antibiotic every time you have sex,” as ‘the cure’ for the chronic yeast infections I experienced.

Take an antibiotic every time I have sex? I was 26 years old and in a healthy monogamous relationship.

As I suspected, the yeast in my body could not be measured and had become what is described as a polysystemic disease, which means it affected more than one system in my body.

Indeed.

I learned that yeast over-growth, or candida albicans as it is formerly known, loves sugar. That it has an insatiable appetite for sugar. It thrives and grows and flourishes on sugar. It will die without sugar. It screams for sugar.

I was relieved.

Relieved that I found an explanation that made sense for what I was experiencing, for the constant and unstable cravings controlling my health and the whole quality of my life.

I learned that sugar is as addictive as heroin, destroys the balance of friendly bacteria and unhealthy bacteria on the gut wall and acts like an opioid on the brain.

I learned that when candida is imbalanced in our body, it releases toxic by-products and breaks down the digestive wall causing leaky gut, and so much more, like,

Digestive problems like bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea and dysbiosis
Exhaustion. chronic fatigue and poor sleep patterns
Headaches, dizziness, poor concentration, poor memory, brain fog and inability to focus
Hormonal imbalance, mood swings, irritability, anxiety, depression and panic attacks
Autoimmunity such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, lupus, multiple sclerosis and even psoriasis
Vaginal yeast infections and urinary tract infections
Chronic allergies, including asthma
Insatiable cravings for sugar and refined carbohydrate
Fungal infections, like nail infections and athlete’s foot
Seems like an amorphous list? It did to me at first, except I could check near everything listed.

If you have candida, I suspect you recognize yourself in there too.

To combat the effects of candida, I recommend my clients include supplements like garlic capsules, caprylic acid, oregano and/or clove oil and colloidal silver to kill the over-growth of yeast.

You should also include high dose probiotics of 50-100 billion units, and fermented vegetables to repopulate the friendly flora, counter the overgrowth of unfriendly bacteria, support healthy digestion and absorption and support healthy immune function.

And most importantly, include a diet high in leafy greens in juices, smoothies and salads, and exclude the 5 top inflammatory foods, gluten, sugar, caffeine, dairy and alcohol for a healing interim.

Milk and cookies might be a sweet memory from days gone by for some, but I discovered that there is an ugly truth about sugar and we can no longer look the other way.

If you suspect you have candida, or know someone who may be suffering from it’s effects, please contact me at carol@carol-egan.com