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THE CANDIDA-ASTHMA CONNECTION

Despite the dietary advice given in the last chapter, many of my patients protest that because some alcohol beverages are low in yeast content they should be allowed to drink a little.
They should not. For many reasons, alcohol almost invariably makes the problems worse and much more difficult to treat. Strangely enough, it may be alcohol, or rather one of its metabolites, which is responsible for some of the mental and emotional problems experienced by people who suffer with yeast infections, even if they don’t touch a drop of alcohol. This is because some people who harbour excessive Candida in their digestive systems make their own alcohol from ingested carbohydrates.
The Acetaldehyde Connection
Yeast organisms have the ability to convert sugars, especially fruit sugars (fructose), to a chemical called pyruvate. This can lead to a number of seemingly unrelated problems. An increase in pyruvate will often lead to an increase in lactate at the expense of blood sugar (glucose). As a result, some individuals will experience the symptoms of hypoglycaemia and, at the same time, may suffer varying degrees of anxiety. This is a well-known effect of excessive lactate because this natural chemical is ‘panicogenic’, meaning that it can cause panic feelings, and even anxiety or panic attacks, in susceptible individuals. Some of the pyruvate is converted to acetaldehyde and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is probably the main culprit in the bloating and gas which many Candida sufferers note. Alcohol (ethanol) quickly becomes acetaldehyde, once ingested, and current scientific opinion holds that most, if not all, the deleterious effects of alcohol are in fact due to the potential toxicity of acetaldehyde.
The scientific literature shows that there have been cases where Candida albicans has produced enough ethanol to induce an increase in blood alcohol levels sufficient to make a person drunk, even though not a drop of alcohol has been ingested. Try to explain that to the police next time you are stopped by a booze bus!
The first reported case (Time, 20 July 1969) occurred in Japan. A 46-year-old man, Kozo Ohishi, kept getting ‘drunk’ over a 25-year period, in spite of the fact that he was a teetotaller. When placed on a low carbohydrate diet because he wanted to lose some weight, his episodes of drunkenness decreased. After an investigation at Hokkaido University Hospital, he was found to have an enormous colony of Candida albicans yeast fungi in his digestive system. These produced enough alcohol to make him drunk. Once treated with anti Candida medication, he stayed sober! Since then at least thirty more cases have been reported in Japan, in patients ranging in age from 3 to 74 years. The condition is called Meitei sho in Japanese, which literally means ‘drunk disease’. On Sunday 25 September 1983, the Los Angeles Times reported the case of Duffy Mayo, a five year old who had been diagnosed as autistic. He would stagger around and giggle and laugh, very much like a drunk, and his breath smelled of alcohol! After treatment with anti-yeast medications and special diets, little Duffy improved.
According to Dr Bernard Rimland, an authority on children’s behavioural problems and autism:
There is a very strong likelihood that there are many of them out there somewhere. The trick is to find them.
He was referring, of course, to autistic children who may be suffering from systemic yeast infections. Dr Rimland is the author of the first and most influential textbook on infantile autism, published in 1964, the director of the Institute for Child Behaviour Research in San Diego and the winner of a Century Psychology Series Award. In a personal communication, he speculated that many cases of abnormal behaviour, learning disabilities and mental retardation may be caused or aggravated by yeast infection. But let us get back to acetaldehyde.
Once blood levels of acetaldehyde begin to rise the liver starts to suffer. The number of microtubules decreases, protein retention occurs and lipids may start to accumulate. It also depresses liver d glutathione levels, allowing the number of free radicals to increase.
According to Dr Orion Truss, author of The Missing Diagnosis, the first book about Candida, acetaldehyde also increases the ratio of a compound known as NADH (Nicotine Amide Dinucleocide Hydrogenase) to another called NAD (Nicotine Amide Dinucleocide). The doctors claim this can lead to several biochemical abnormalities and disturbances. The levels of lactate rise and tolerance to galactose decreases. Some food intolerances are more likely to develop because of this. One of the most controversial and spectacular hypotheses advanced by Dr Truss and Charles Lieber is that an increased NADH to NAD ratio can alter the metabolism of several brain amines which act as neurotransmitters, thus slowing down the degradation of serotonin (5HT) to its metabolite Hydroxy indole aceto acid (5HIAA). Excessive amounts of serotonin in the brain may be one of the results and this can cause severe behavioural disturbances in some people.
An interesting example is our observation, at the Institute for Orthomolecular Research in Sydney, that alcoholics, heavy drinkers and some patients with a previous history of psychosis can react paradoxically to heavy supplementation with tryptophan, an amino acid frequently prescribed to improve sleep and ameliorate some types of depression. Tryptophan is the precursor of serotonin and, if administered correctly, can cause a sudden elevation in brain levels of serotonin. As too much serotonin can be just as bad as too little, alcoholics given this supplement often remain totally unable to sleep for days. A truly paradoxical effect.
Even some ‘normal’ patients who are obviously highly susceptible to brain levels of that neurotransmitter have reported feeling ‘spaced out’ after taking oral tryptophan.
Acetaldehyde may have other powerful effects on the brain. It has been suggested that it is primarily responsible for the development of alcohol addiction. Some of the amines which act as brain neurotransmitters are inactivated by monoamino oxidase (enzymes) and eventually converted to other chemicals by a mechanism which shares an enzyme used in the metabolism of acetaldehyde. Leiber suggests that acetaldehyde in the brain may compete for that enzyme so that unmetabolised products can combine with neurotransmitters and form compounds similar to opiates, which are notorious for their ability to create dependence and addiction. Some of these combinations may produce pseudo neurotransmitters which could have profound effects on human moods, behaviour and mental function.
In July 1982 at Dallas, Texas, and in Birmingham, Alabama in 1983, two international symposia were held — the Candida albicans conference and the symposium on the yeast-human interaction. Much of the information presented here is taken from those meetings, as well as from several articles presented in the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, interwoven with my own clinical experience over a decade of treating these conditions. Dr Truss and other scientists have advanced the hypothesis that yeast infections may play a role in several autoimmune diseases, including lupus (a degenerative disease of connective tissue throughout the body) and Crohn’s disease (a severe inflammatory disease of the digestive system), by interfering with those cells which normally prevent ‘killer’ cells from attacking organs and tissues. Dr Truss also found marked abnormalities in the urine of Candida sufferers, suggesting that the infection may produce dangerously low levels of an important neurotransmitter called ‘GABA’ (Gamma amino butyric acid).
*52\145\2*

THE CANDIDA-ASTHMA CONNECTIONDespite the dietary advice given in the last chapter, many of my patients protest that because some alcohol beverages are low in yeast content they should be allowed to drink a little.They should not. For many reasons, alcohol almost invariably makes the problems worse and much more difficult to treat. Strangely enough, it may be alcohol, or rather one of its metabolites, which is responsible for some of the mental and emotional problems experienced by people who suffer with yeast infections, even if they don’t touch a drop of alcohol. This is because some people who harbour excessive Candida in their digestive systems make their own alcohol from ingested carbohydrates.The Acetaldehyde ConnectionYeast organisms have the ability to convert sugars, especially fruit sugars (fructose), to a chemical called pyruvate. This can lead to a number of seemingly unrelated problems. An increase in pyruvate will often lead to an increase in lactate at the expense of blood sugar (glucose). As a result, some individuals will experience the symptoms of hypoglycaemia and, at the same time, may suffer varying degrees of anxiety. This is a well-known effect of excessive lactate because this natural chemical is ‘panicogenic’, meaning that it can cause panic feelings, and even anxiety or panic attacks, in susceptible individuals. Some of the pyruvate is converted to acetaldehyde and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is probably the main culprit in the bloating and gas which many Candida sufferers note. Alcohol (ethanol) quickly becomes acetaldehyde, once ingested, and current scientific opinion holds that most, if not all, the deleterious effects of alcohol are in fact due to the potential toxicity of acetaldehyde.The scientific literature shows that there have been cases where Candida albicans has produced enough ethanol to induce an increase in blood alcohol levels sufficient to make a person drunk, even though not a drop of alcohol has been ingested. Try to explain that to the police next time you are stopped by a booze bus!The first reported case (Time, 20 July 1969) occurred in Japan. A 46-year-old man, Kozo Ohishi, kept getting ‘drunk’ over a 25-year period, in spite of the fact that he was a teetotaller. When placed on a low carbohydrate diet because he wanted to lose some weight, his episodes of drunkenness decreased. After an investigation at Hokkaido University Hospital, he was found to have an enormous colony of Candida albicans yeast fungi in his digestive system. These produced enough alcohol to make him drunk. Once treated with anti Candida medication, he stayed sober! Since then at least thirty more cases have been reported in Japan, in patients ranging in age from 3 to 74 years. The condition is called Meitei sho in Japanese, which literally means ‘drunk disease’. On Sunday 25 September 1983, the Los Angeles Times reported the case of Duffy Mayo, a five year old who had been diagnosed as autistic. He would stagger around and giggle and laugh, very much like a drunk, and his breath smelled of alcohol! After treatment with anti-yeast medications and special diets, little Duffy improved.According to Dr Bernard Rimland, an authority on children’s behavioural problems and autism:There is a very strong likelihood that there are many of them out there somewhere. The trick is to find them.He was referring, of course, to autistic children who may be suffering from systemic yeast infections. Dr Rimland is the author of the first and most influential textbook on infantile autism, published in 1964, the director of the Institute for Child Behaviour Research in San Diego and the winner of a Century Psychology Series Award. In a personal communication, he speculated that many cases of abnormal behaviour, learning disabilities and mental retardation may be caused or aggravated by yeast infection. But let us get back to acetaldehyde.Once blood levels of acetaldehyde begin to rise the liver starts to suffer. The number of microtubules decreases, protein retention occurs and lipids may start to accumulate. It also depresses liver d glutathione levels, allowing the number of free radicals to increase.According to Dr Orion Truss, author of The Missing Diagnosis, the first book about Candida, acetaldehyde also increases the ratio of a compound known as NADH (Nicotine Amide Dinucleocide Hydrogenase) to another called NAD (Nicotine Amide Dinucleocide). The doctors claim this can lead to several biochemical abnormalities and disturbances. The levels of lactate rise and tolerance to galactose decreases. Some food intolerances are more likely to develop because of this. One of the most controversial and spectacular hypotheses advanced by Dr Truss and Charles Lieber is that an increased NADH to NAD ratio can alter the metabolism of several brain amines which act as neurotransmitters, thus slowing down the degradation of serotonin (5HT) to its metabolite Hydroxy indole aceto acid (5HIAA). Excessive amounts of serotonin in the brain may be one of the results and this can cause severe behavioural disturbances in some people.An interesting example is our observation, at the Institute for Orthomolecular Research in Sydney, that alcoholics, heavy drinkers and some patients with a previous history of psychosis can react paradoxically to heavy supplementation with tryptophan, an amino acid frequently prescribed to improve sleep and ameliorate some types of depression. Tryptophan is the precursor of serotonin and, if administered correctly, can cause a sudden elevation in brain levels of serotonin. As too much serotonin can be just as bad as too little, alcoholics given this supplement often remain totally unable to sleep for days. A truly paradoxical effect.Even some ‘normal’ patients who are obviously highly susceptible to brain levels of that neurotransmitter have reported feeling ‘spaced out’ after taking oral tryptophan.Acetaldehyde may have other powerful effects on the brain. It has been suggested that it is primarily responsible for the development of alcohol addiction. Some of the amines which act as brain neurotransmitters are inactivated by monoamino oxidase (enzymes) and eventually converted to other chemicals by a mechanism which shares an enzyme used in the metabolism of acetaldehyde. Leiber suggests that acetaldehyde in the brain may compete for that enzyme so that unmetabolised products can combine with neurotransmitters and form compounds similar to opiates, which are notorious for their ability to create dependence and addiction. Some of these combinations may produce pseudo neurotransmitters which could have profound effects on human moods, behaviour and mental function.In July 1982 at Dallas, Texas, and in Birmingham, Alabama in 1983, two international symposia were held — the Candida albicans conference and the symposium on the yeast-human interaction. Much of the information presented here is taken from those meetings, as well as from several articles presented in the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, interwoven with my own clinical experience over a decade of treating these conditions. Dr Truss and other scientists have advanced the hypothesis that yeast infections may play a role in several autoimmune diseases, including lupus (a degenerative disease of connective tissue throughout the body) and Crohn’s disease (a severe inflammatory disease of the digestive system), by interfering with those cells which normally prevent ‘killer’ cells from attacking organs and tissues. Dr Truss also found marked abnormalities in the urine of Candida sufferers, suggesting that the infection may produce dangerously low levels of an important neurotransmitter called ‘GABA’ (Gamma amino butyric acid).*52\145\2*

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