A quick rant...or two

So I'm back and ready to continue with this blog. I couldn't type for a while as I'd fractured my elbow being thrown off a bike so had to put up with a cast for a while and a lot of pain!

But I'm well enough now to try and get some things off my chest. I've been wanting to write this little rant for a while now as some of the issues around candida are really starting to annoy me.

1) The high levels of sugar found in a wide range of food products on supermarket shelves
2) The lack of seriousness towards candida problems by the medical profession.
3) Doctors who prescribe antibiotics but don't tell people about the risks


1) Sugar in foods

Sugar has no real nutritional health benefits to humans. It's simply a sweet flavouring. It does make life taste sweeter because believe me if you can't eat it (but you could before), life does feel a little greyer without this little pick-me-up to look forward to now and then.

But since starting the candida diet, I have been very surprised at just how much sugar is in nearly EVERYTHING. This includes the majority of sauces, ready-meals, breads, stocks, canned food, processed meat products, some dairy such as yogurts. Even a pro-biotic yogurt like Activia (which in theory should be a good option for a candida sufferer), has sugar added to it.

I recently went to buy a three-bean salad with tuna from Marks and Spencers, thinking it was a safe option but guess what, sugar is listed as an ingredient! WHY? What possible reason would have sugar included in a healthy-seeming three-bean salad with tuna? Is it just to provide a richer "caramelised" look or something? Sigh.


2) Doctors 1

From what I gather, doctors, and the medical profession in general, don't really acknowledge the existence of candida yeast overgrowth (except in patients with terminal diseases such as AIDS or cancer). This means that people with non-terminal illnesses don't get the testing or treatment they deserve which could impact on their overall health and other seemingly-unrelated diseases they might be suffering from.
I don't really understand this lack of acknowledgement, or the motives behind it (if any) but I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the sugar industry?


3) Doctors 2

Since I found out that antibiotics can be one of the main causes of candida outbreak, I've realised that of all the times I've ever been prescribed them by a doctor, NOT ONE has ever advised me to maybe take a course of probiotics afterwards in case the antibiotics destroyed my good gut bacteria. This simple measure could help with a lot of awareness raising amongst potential sufferers, and maybe prevent a lot of problems for people who are (probably) suffering from a range of complaints (as I was) and have no idea of the real cause.

Why doctors don't choose to advise this I'll never know but I guess it's symptomatic of the general approach by the medical sector.

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