This page is based on Dr. Bruce Semon's book An Extraordinary Power to Heal (2003). This page
gives general explanations about how yeast can cause so-called autoimmune
illnesses and chronic disease. For detailed explanations, including an
extensive chapter on how the immune system is supposed to work--and how yeast
prevent it from working correctly--we recommend that you read An Extraordinary Power to Heal.
Dr. Semon is available to see patients and for consultation. For more information about his medical practice, call 1-877-332-7899, or click here.
We also have
many specific pages about specific medical conditions that you may also want to
visit, including Fibromyalgia, Multiple Sclerosis, Crohn's Disease, Ulcerative Colitis., and Skin conditions, including eczema and psoriasis.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; Crohn's Disease; Fibromyalgia; Irritable Bowel
Syndrome; Lupus; Multiple Sclerosis, Numbness in the hands; Rheumatoid
Arthritis; and Ulcerative colitis: what do these have in common? They all
respond to dietary intervention and anti-yeast treatment.
Why might chronic
diseases ranging from psoriasis to ulcerative colitis to arthritis respond to
dietary intervention and anti-yeast treatment? These diseases are all marked by
the body appearing to attack itself. They are called "auto-immune" diseases.
I have always considered the idea of the body attacking itself as a strange
idea. Why should the body do that? In 40 years of research, the biomedical
research community has been unable to come up with any answer. Maybe the concept
is wrong.
Maybe the body is not attacking itself primarily. Maybe the primary
target is not the body but the yeast Candida albicans. To understand how such
terrible diseases can occur, we need to look at the interactions of Candida
albicans and the immune system.
Yeast are normal residents of the intestinal
tract. After antibiotics, yeast grow to fill in the space left by dead bacteria
and the yeast continue to grow at this higher level. The body still must contain
the yeast so that the yeast does not invade the rest of the body. If Candida
invades the body, the result is often death.
The best way to look at the
immune system is to understand that the immune system has both defensive and
offensive weapons. The main defensive weapon is inflammation. Inflammation is
like putting up a wall, a hot wall, which makes it difficult for invading
foreign microorganisms to get through. Inflammation will occur anytime the
immune system contacts a foreign invader. But as you know the inflammation is
painful. Along with the inflammation, should come the offensive weapons which
kill the foreign invader. The problem is that Candida has many tricks to evade
the offensive weapons of the body's immune system.
Candida is a very difficult organism for the body's immune system
to clear.
Why?
Yeast have a capsule on the outside which prevents the
first line (phagocytic) white blood cells of the body from engulfing the yeast
and killing it. So the body must rely on the other parts of the immune system.
Candida has other tricks to evade the body's immune system. One of
these tricks is to change its outside. The immune system recognizes the outside
receptors of the invading organism and then sends out signals to start an immune
response. Some of the immune responders then look for cells with those
receptors. Candida albicans can change the receptors which it is
displaying, making it difficult for the body's immune cells to react
appropriately. In essence, Candida albicans is a moving target, which
changes its form.
The most important thing to know about Candida is that Candida
albicans can make factors which suppress the immune response to itself.
These factors can be found in the circulation of people with significant
Candida infections. When these factors are purified and placed in
cultures of immune cells, these immune cells do not develop the responses to
Candida which they are supposed to develop. In other words,
Candida can make factors, which prevent the body from reacting to and
killing the Candida. These factors prevent the total eradication of
Candida from the body.
The Candida can suppress the offensive
weapons of the body's immune system. But the inflammation will still be
generated because when the immune system detects a foreign invader, there will
always be inflammation. The problem is that the foreign invader, the
Candida, is not going away, because the immune system's offensive weapons
are suppressed. The inflammation will remain and inflammation is painful.
In
the intestinal tract, there is Candida, which tries to invade the intestinal
wall, and the immune system responds with inflammation. The problem is that the
Candida suppresses the immune system's offensive weapons, so the Candida stays
and the inflammation is prolonged. This prolonged inflammation is called
ulcerative colitis if it occurs in the large intestine and it is called Crohn's
disease if it occurs in the small intestine. These disorders are prolonged
inflammation resulting from the immune system's inability to clear Candida.
In ulcerative colitis, there is painful inflammation of the intestine rather
than regulated containment. As the body fights the yeast in the intestine, some
of the cells fighting the yeast circulate and come into contact with yeast on
the skin and start an inflammation there, leading to eczema and psoriasis .
Candida causes autoimmune problems such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis in
this way. Candida puts out receptors on its cell surface which are actually
human receptors for connective tissue and the immune system. If the body attacks
the Candida in the intestinal tract, the body's immune system will attack
anything which looks like the Candida. Because of the connective tissue
receptors on Candida, the body's immune system may attack other cells in the
body which have these receptors.
Many tissues such as the joints have
connective tissue and as the body attacks the Candida, the body will also attack
these cells. The result is painful joints or other inflamed tissues.
Candida
also has receptors which are similar to those in the brain. When these cells are
attacked, the result is multiple sclerosis.
In other words, Candida acts as a
long term vaccination displaying the body's own cellular receptors to the body's
immune system. When the immune system sees such receptors for a long enough
time, it will attack cells which display such receptors, which includes the
cells of the body. There is research which shows that such immune system
reactions occur. The yeast Candida is the primary target. If the Candida is
removed the body stops attacking itself.
The way to reverse this Candida
problem is to take the anti-yeast drug nystatin. This drug is not absorbed and
kills the yeast living in the intestinal tract. Then the yeast is no longer a
target for the body's immune system. In An
Extraordinary Power to Heal, we have a complete chapter on nystatin,
including prescription and dosing information.
Second, the diet contains many
foods which contain yeast compounds. To treat yeast these foods must be removed
from the diet. Removal of these dietary yeast compounds enables the body to
clear itself of yeast chemicals. Some of these yeast chemicals are toxic to
bacteria and will clear space for the yeast to grow again. If these yeast
chemicals are left in the diet, nystatin will not do much good because the yeast
keeps growing back. For more help in implementing yeast free diets, please see
our books. An Extraordinary Power to Heal
(2003) gives you detailed instructions, day by day and week by week, about how
to eliminate toxic foods from your diets. We give you the recipes and menus to
do this in Extraordinary Foods for the
Everyday Kitchen (2003) and Feast Without
Yeast(1999).
Fortunately, because nystatin is not absorbed, nystatin causes no side
effects except for a little nausea. No harmful side effects have ever been
caused by the use of nystatin. Therefore there is no risk to this therapy. I
have found in clinical practice that symptoms are reduced within one to two
weeks of starting diet and nystatin and by six weeks of diet and nystatin
therapy there are significant reductions in pain and inflammation from chronic
illness.
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