🎉🎉🎉🎉 My book, The Eczema Relief Diet & Cookbook is now available at all major retailers!
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In this week's episode of The Less Stressed Life Podcast, Kiran Krishnan, chief microbiologist at Microbiome Labs shares about my favorite topic- fungus and all about candida overgrowth.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Mentioned in this episode:
Kiran Krishnan is a Research Microbiologist and has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition market for the past 17 years. He comes from a strict research background having spent several years with hands-on R&D in the fields of molecular medicine and microbiology at the University of Iowa before leaving to lead at the world’s largest supplier of therapeutic enzymes for the supplement and pharmaceutical industry.
Kiran also has helped design and conducted dozens of human clinical trials in human nutrition. Most recently, Kiran is acting as the Chief Scientific Officer at Physician’s Exclusive, LLC. and Microbiome Labs. He has developed over 50 private label nutritional products for small to large brands in the global market. He is a frequent lecturer on the Human Microbiome at Medical and Nutrition Conferences.
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🎉🎉🎉🎉 My book, The Eczema Relief Diet & Cookbook is now available at all major retailers!
☝️☝️☝️ You can get personalized help with eczema BEYOND food and to reduce food sensitivities by booking an intro call at https://www.eczemanutritionist.com/
In this week's episode of The Less Stressed Life Podcast, Kiran Krishnan, chief microbiologist at Microbiome Labs shares about my favorite topic- fungus and all about candida overgrowth.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Mentioned in this episode:
Kiran Krishnan is a Research Microbiologist and has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition market for the past 17 years. He comes from a strict research background having spent several years with hands-on R&D in the fields of molecular medicine and microbiology at the University of Iowa before leaving to lead at the world’s largest supplier of therapeutic enzymes for the supplement and pharmaceutical industry.
Kiran also has helped design and conducted dozens of human clinical trials in human nutrition. Most recently, Kiran is acting as the Chief Scientific Officer at Physician’s Exclusive, LLC. and Microbiome Labs. He has developed over 50 private label nutritional products for small to large brands in the global market. He is a frequent lecturer on the Human Microbiome at Medical and Nutrition Conferences.
Assess your Adrenals, Detox or Get my Guide
Join us on Instagram
instagram.com/anti.inflammatory.nutritionist/
Shop our Favorites
Loving the podcast? Leave us a review!
spk_0: 0:00
If Candida is overgrown, it's signaling that there's other things going wrong in your system. Typically, it's life stylish, right? It's your lifestyle that's allowing the candied ato over grow.
spk_1: 0:12
I have a little announcement for you today. The exam, a relief, a diet and cookbook, short term meal plans to identify triggers and sue flare ups is now available on Amazon and all other major booksellers. This is a project I worked on in 2019 with a publisher, and they have done a beautiful job making it look really good. The goal of the overall book is really to serve all of those looking for answers about how food may or may not be tied to Exuma and skin conditions and give them a plan to test this theory short term without being overly restrictive. My other goal is that you understand what's going beyond food with Exuma because so often people are told that there is no connection, but they literally see the connection. They see their child flaring or something else, and so they need to have something that they can use to test this theory. So part one is background. In Bo, it's exam a one a one topical info warnings I have about not to overlook certain kinds of infections or you'll never get better sleep issues. Get stuff environmental stresses Exeter's and other considerations for Children. And Part two is a meal plan and 75 recipes that are appropriate for those with allergies. The top eight allergies, anyone that's got gluten or dairy issues and shoes of histamines. So it includes a lot of other things I use in practice with my one on one clients about how to track symptoms easily and appropriately, and a lot of other just little details. So over at my Facebook page and Instagram page, both Krista Bigler RD, I'll be giving away a couple of copies. If you bounce over there and you find the post that talks about the book launch, you can tag a friend or two, and as many friends as you tag is as many entries as you get. And after approximately a week, I will randomly select a couple of people that have been tagging to share the book launch and ask them for the address to send them a physical book. So thank you for celebrating with me today It's kind of fun and cool. And now we're onto the show to talk about a topic that affects Exuma with the most popular guest of all time on the less stress life podcast Kron Krishnan Welcome to the less stressed Life podcast, where our only priority is providing those ah ha moments toe up level your life, health and happiness. Your host Integrative Dietitian nutritionist Krista Bigler helps health conscious women reduce the stress and confusion around food fatigue, digestive and skin issues at less stress. Nutrition dot com Now onto the show All right. Today we have KRON Christian in back and you might remember him from way back when Episode 23 I think it was. Forget everything you know about probiotics because if you're listening to this, you may have listen to that episode and it might be your favorite. So today we're talking about another topic that I find really interesting and probably I don't think there's like, a lot of fantastic information out there on it. So we're gonna talk about fungus, even though Koran really likes talk about the microbiome. We're going to go and talk about the whole phone go ecosystem. So if you don't know Koran. He is a research microbiologist that's been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition market for the past 17 ish years. He comes from a strict research background and spent several years with hands on R and D in the field of molecular medicine and microbiology at the University of Iowa before leaving in to lead the world's largest supplier of therapeutic enzymes for the supplement of pharmaceutical industry I Love Like How things are made. I feel like this could be how things were made. We could talk all about enzymes crimes, helped design and conduct dozens of human clinical trials. Lots of other things he access, chief scientific officer at Physician's Exclusive and Microbiome Labs on DDE is always developing new and interesting products. So I have this handful of companies that make cool things, and their company is one of them. And they're always doing something that I got an email the other day about a new product. I'm like, I'm surprised that you guys were doing that. So welcome, Koran.
spk_0: 4:04
Hi. Thank you so much for having me Krista. Good to be back.
spk_1: 4:08
Yeah, and you don't get around much. You only traveled like, 400,000 miles this year. Some last year, right? I'm lazy. I'm always
spk_0: 4:17
one of those trips was to Huntington Beach, California, where actually got to meet you in person.
spk_1: 4:23
Yeah, that was such a great conference. I very excited to come back to Arizona next year for the meeting of the Nerds. And I've had the fortune this year. Yeah, this year. Sorry. I don't know what you're I'm in half the time. So since that conference, I mean, you did a great job of assembling high quality nerds to talk intelligently about the microbiome, like, not in a way that makes anyone fall asleep. And it was wonderful. And we got into interview few of them. I've had Oh, Dr Frankel and Dr Silver. Mani and I can't remember who else. But it's been been really nice. I like when you connect us to other great people in the field. So
spk_0: 5:00
again, that's kind of the whole point is Argo and most of the people that came to speak our researchers in the Microbiome area, right? These are the people that we do research collaborations with. So they're the tip of the spear. Our whole world is about trying to connect the tip of the spear researchers in this field To practitioners like yourself who need the more practical applications for microbiome, science, oftentimes is a huge gap between those two existing worlds, and one of things I try to do is bridge that gap. So it was exciting to see that you were able to come and 2 300 other practitioners were able to be there and then interact with the researchers.
spk_1: 5:40
Yeah, it was fun because on Sunday we got to sit around in unorganized circles, which was wonderful, like we don't know organizations. We just sat around in circles and kind of 20 questions or tooth 100 question to the researchers, and that was great. I just kind of cut following around the same ones that I was particularly interested in because there was no end to the good information and exactly what you said. You can read certain things in research, and that is fantastic. But at the end of the day, I'm typically looking for what will work on that Most people are looking for it the end of the day, what's actually going to work, that it's technically safe and effective et cetera. And so, by talking to other clinicians or researchers, they can kind of give you like they've done a lot of hard work. And so you're getting a little bit of a shortcut to be able to access those brains, Which is great kind of what we're doing here on the podcast, too, were trying to access your It's
spk_0: 6:33
your open for you.
spk_1: 6:35
So Well, let's talk about I think this gets talked about a lot, but I don't love how it gets talked about all the time. So we talk about the microbiome, right, the bacteria ecosystem. But we don't always talk about the microbiome. I mean, people will talk about Candida, but often it's like this old school notion that we should starve it because of whatever. So let's talk about Microbiome, and then we can get into some of the nitty gritty.
spk_0: 6:58
Sure, yeah, So the microbiome in general is basically the fungal microbiota, if you will, within your system, you've got the viral, Um, which is all of the viruses that live in a way in and in a commence A ll organization within the body. Of course, you've got the microbiome of the Microbiota, which encompasses everything but you've got bacteria, viruses and fungus and in some cases, a me bos Protozoa Was there parasitic worms? There are all kinds of organisms that live within the system. The microbiome is actually far more prevalent than we would normally think. And Candida is, of course, the most prevalent genus within the microbiome itself. Each individual has up to 200 different species of Candida. Living in their system can be the ABA cans is the most well known and typically the most prevalent. But you can have a couple 100 different species of fungus living in and on you.
spk_1: 7:57
Yeah, that is a big topic. So when people talk about Candida kind of talking about a lot of things, so let's talk about specifically how candy the works. Everyone's got it right. You just said that we've all got a certain resident population. So where does it like to live? Doesn't like to live everywhere. What does it look like? Because I think sometimes when you're getting to know something, and I know specifically we'll talk about some different products later, it works on certain aspects of the organisms I love to know what things look like. Where does it live in your body. How does it feel in the body? Like if it gets overgrown? And how common is that?
spk_0: 8:31
Yeah, So the amazing thing about Candida is that it can basically live in every crevice in your body. Whether it's aerobic or an aerobics or doesn't have to be in any given area doesn't have to be where there's no oxygen or where there is access to oxygen. It doesn't have to be on a mucosal surface, necessarily, but typically 98% of time it is in a mucosal surface. You can have it in your respiratory track in your lower or upper respiratory tract. You can have it in your mouth in your eyes in your G I tract. You can have it in your sexual organ area, so it's present everywhere. So basically, Candida is present in virtually every aspect of your mucosal system. When the baby first comes out through Mother's vaginal canal, the baby's going to get us dose, if you will, on his or her system, both on the skin and through the mouth, through the nose, through the eyes of Candida as he or she is passing through the vaginal canal. If the baby's pulled out of the G I tract using a C section, then the baby's going to get exposure from the skin from close contact with mom and dad and any fluid bodily fluid exchange as well. So candy that could be present in all of this. What's interesting about fungus is they take on many different forms throughout their life cycle rights. Or they are deployed cells. Hap Lloyd cells. They have boats, sexual and a sexual reproduction. So if you think about a sexual reproduction like what bacteria do where you don't have to have mates, you don't have to have a female and male mate counterpart to create a new cell back. You're basically multiplied by buying our efficient meeting. One cell splits into two daughter cells in the case of candy that they can do that. But then they can also do sexual reproduction where there are male and female halves and then they create new progeny out of that and all of those forms because they've got the haIf a form and then they've got the regular cellular form, and all of those forms look a little bit different both to the immune system, to the microbes around it. And if you could physically see it, they would look different as well when they're in that reproductive hi faith form. Typically, if you could visualize them, they look quite like you would see fungus growing on the surface of a fruit or something like that might look a little white ish. I know in foods typically looks green, but that fuzzy white look to it. But when they're in their non haIf a form, they're basically invisible to the naked eye. If you looked at him and they were severely overgrown, you might be able to see a discoloration in the tissue. But they're there. We don't really feel their presence until they start to over grow and what tends to happen when they over grow. That leads to our realization that there there is one of two things. Typically, it's their over growing, and they're producing too many compounds that they normally produce. And in that case, it's things like alcohol derivatives, right, so they produce, like Aldo hides and things like that that we will then ingest. It'll get into our bloodstream, and it'll make us feel strange, right? It'll feel almost like you're drinking without drinking. And those alcohol derivatives can have an impact on our cognitive function. It can create a memory recall issues. It can create brain fog. Miss, we could create all of these feelings like you had to me drinks where you actually didn't have any drinks. So that is a realize effect of candida. Now, the more important and scarier thing is, they do cause blood infections in people there. In fact, the number one cause of blood infections in the United States nine out of every 100,000 people will get some form of candid isis within their life span, where they have essentially an overgrowth in the presence of candied A in the blood. And they could produce toxins in there that can activate systemic immune, inflammatory immune response and wreak havoc in your system. Right now, this can happen at a very low rate, which is almost like a subclinical rate, which just makes you feel like crap. Your immune system is suppressed, it's over inflamed. You get skin issues, you get hyper sensitivity and a lot of things so it can continue to drive that kind of subclinical effect if the overgrowth is at a low level or can lead toa a condition that you have to be hospitalized for which stomach candid eyes is now. All of this is due to immuno suppression and deformities within the ecological system of the body. Remember, none of this is like a corona virus or a staph infection or something that you pick up from the outside. It's not like you ran into somebody with overgrowth of candied, and you picked it up from them and you now you have candy to infection doesn't transmit like the flu, right? It doesn't transmit like other infections that you pick up from somebody else. This is an organism that is already within your system from day one, and then at the end of the day, the issues arise because of ecological dysfunctions and immuno suppression.
spk_1: 13:33
So let me go back a little bit talking about some of the areas of shows up. Skin show up on the feet, right? As athletes foot, I can show up in the toenails that can show up. You talked about in the mouth that come maybe look like white coated tongue. People have complained of issue years each year. Canals. Sometimes it's in the Sinuses. What does it look like in the eyes?
spk_0: 13:51
You know, if it's overgrown in the eyes, your eyes are constantly gonna be red. You can actually have vision issues within the eyes. You can have severe dryness and sensitivity in the eyes, and, you know, in the worst cases you can actually compromise. Eyesight may be a cold morbidity of people with diabetes, for example, you know aren't getting adequate blood supply to the capital Aries in the eyes. So it's really problematic. And again, you know, there are hundreds of different species of Candida and 150 to 200 or so, and it's not always applications, and that's the one that we got. We tend to pay a lot of attention to. But all of these candida species are involved in different parts of the body. The skin, the aura faring, slower respiratory track G. I tract, the genital urinary track. They're all covered in different species of Candida.
spk_1: 14:40
So I want to talk about why this is such a limit for testing. But first, before we jump to that still talking about kind of the life cycle in how candy to functions. I'm imagining the haIf a like a tadpole version of Candida because it's sort of the doesn't have a tail.
spk_0: 14:55
It does. Yeah, uh, kind and a hook. Really? That's the part that really is interesting because it kind of barbs into the tissue.
spk_1: 15:03
Yeah, that sounds exciting. If you don't want too much of it now, when you mentioned toxins, all organisms need to consume and then create waste. And so we're talking about the waist of those particular in different ones. Create different types of waste or toxins that create kind of a domino effect in the whole ecosystem. Correct?
spk_0: 15:22
Exactly. You know, and remember, most people are familiar with east fermentation because we've all had a drink or two, right? And so virtually every alcohol out there is produced through some sort of yeast fermentation where youse takes things like sugars and convert them into alcohol. In this case, there's numerous derivatives of alcohol, so the type of alcohol that we see in wine and that we see in vodka and beer and all that there are derivatives of alcohol groups that can also be created things like Aldo Hides, and many of those can have a really toxic genic effect on the body, even more so than the conventional alcohol that were used to. So, yeah, basically, they're doing this all the time. They're producing these toxins and all that in your body all the time. But when the population is controlled, it is in material to your overall outcome, right? But when they're overgrown than the presence of those derivatives and the presence of those metabolites that they create in their normal metabolic function start to become a problem. So that's the difference. So it's not that these organisms come in and then they become ineffective, right? They're just doing what they do. It's just that your ecosystem is now allowing them to do it at a much greater level.
spk_1: 16:33
So you mentioned that people have over growths do to immuno suppression. What are some other reasons people are having candida over growths in general? And do we feel like it's probably at a higher right now, then maybe 100 years ago, or do we feel like we're more aware of it now? What? What do you think about all this?
spk_0: 16:52
So when you follow Candid eyes is nosocomial infection. So nosocomial are any infections they pick up in the hospital. When you look at the data behind that, you basically see that the prevalence rate of Candida infections have increased quite dramatically over the last several decades. Right, so they have data on that. So we do know that Candida overgrowth and Candid Isis has become a larger problem in the last few decades compared to even 50 years ago. A lot of that in the hospital setting is being attributed to patients being immuno suppressed in the hospital. They're taking lots and lots of drugs. That suppressor means to some, including simple antibiotics. But the other component of it is the nature or tendency tohave sterility in all of these environments. Right? So one of the best controllers of candida in our system are bacteria. Bacteria do a fantastic job of keeping these kind of potentially pathogenic fungus at in check. And so when we start looking at one of the drivers oven overgrowth, the candied A, you've got immuno suppression, which is one because our immune system also does a pretty good job of keeping fungal overgrowth in check and then the other one is a disruption of our microbiota, the microbes in our ecology. And then the last thing is suppression of both the immune system and the microbiota by things like heavy metal exposure. And, you know, heavy metal toxicity in toxicity from the environment itself. So things like roundup glyphosate, which not only brings about both an anti microbial effect but a heavy metal toxicity. In addition, so things that both suppress the immune system and affect our microbes. So it's an imbalance. It's no different than your lawn that should have a really good, healthy, thick grass natural grass growing on it. But the moment the grass becomes compromise, whether it's from toxicity, a poor nutrient sources and poor nutrient density in the soil, then weeds tend to over grow right, and then the best way to keep the weeds in. Jack, you could go through every day and bend over and plucked the weeds as much as you want, but they're just gonna come right back. If you don't re till the soil, improve the health of soil, detoxify the stolen, allow the grass to grow and prevent the weeds, which will prevent the weeds and it's tough. So think about our diet that has affected the diversity in our microbes in the bacteria within the microbiome, the toxins that come in in our food supply, the anti microbial Z antibacterials, the heavy metals that we get exposed to, and all of the different things that cause you made a compromise ation. All of this leads to opportunistic growth of the present Candida that's already there.
spk_1: 19:34
I like that. Used a lawn, too. Demonstrate the microgram because that's my favorite analogy for it as well. That's, Ah, work on the past
spk_0: 19:42
totally like everyone can relate to it right in some way or the other. Whether you have a long now, you grew up having a lawn. We all know it's a constant challenge for people to keep the lawn healthy and prevent the weeds from growing because they're really good at over growing and the weed haIf a few will leak or go into that is always present, right, and then the moment the grass is compromised, the weeds over grow. We see that in our gardens as well. You know, we try to maintain a garden here in our house and typically towards the end of the growing season as we were starting to get into the winter. Then we don't really tend to the garden as much as we used to, because we're not even going outside as much as we used to. And so then the moment you stop, right? And so the moment you compromise that balance in the ecosystem, the opportunistic CE take advantage of that and start to grow. And we have an epidemic of things that disrupt our ecosystem.
spk_1: 20:32
Yeah, and talking about fungus. You mentioned some things on how this kind of feels earlier, and I think that I mean, focus is different. But in many ways I think that some of the symptoms that people may experience can be very similar to kind of opportunistic or the wrong kind of bacteria being overgrown. So, for example, you mentioned brain fog. Um, and we talked about like skin irritations in a gene. I mean, see that? But from both fungus and certain strap staff, et cetera, overgrowth, digestive imbalances itching. I feel like candy bacteria. But I feel like is more fungus. But this comes to people are wanting answers, right? Like we want to feel like we have a reason for a problem. But I found that testing for fungal issues is a bit elusive and not always very accurate at all. So let's talk about some of the sometimes people culture, which actually Dr Ceremony. I learned from him that trying to culture like heads and we're not very inaccurate. But then there's also urinary organic assets. What are we looking for? Their there can be still testing, but it rarely shows up because it's hanging out in any crevice. So what do you say about fungal testing? Yeah, and to me
spk_0: 21:37
it's irrelevant, right? So some of the symptomology, I think it's quite clear that you have a fungal overgrowth like we talked about a lot of times. It comes along with things like brain fog and itchiness and irritability, if you will, of your immune system, right, and it can be kind of characteristic over bacterial issues. The other thing that you could look for is, of course, the immune response to the fungus as well. But in general, testing for fungus is an issue because it's not going to give you a definitive yes or no that you have a fungal issue now There's also outside of using really strong prescription anti fungal Tze. There's no real problem in taking the route off trying to control fungal overgrowth anyway, right? And what do I mean by that? Well, that means some sort of dietary changes, taking steps to improve the growth and diversity of the microbiome so that it can control the bacterial part of the microbiome int so it can control the fungal overgrowth. Using a couple of natural anti fungal XK unbeaten, very helpful and in in fact can turn the corner pretty quickly for people as you start, see that your symptoms were associated with fungal overgrowth. So at the end of the day, you know the testing is not very accurate. It's not going to give you a definitive yes or no and what it gives you a false positive or a false negative, which it can do both. Depending a type of testing you're doing, Really, the approach would be pretty much the same whether you have a definitive fungal overgrowth or you don't. Now there are cases where you require a prescription anti fungal. That's something for you and your doctor to decide. But if you're subclinical and you've got the symptomology is, and you suspect them to be fungal related, utilizing a natural anti fungal that's not very harsh on your system and then doing things to support the bacterial, the beneficial bacterial overgrowth, and modulate the inflammatory immune responses. Some degree is overall beneficial. Anyone. It'll help control the fungus. And even though the fungal overgrowth is not that significant, it's still beneficial for your system.
spk_1: 23:42
And I think what you were saying and kinder words a moment ago was that if your blood sugar is running amok and all you're eating nous sugar, then you may be allowing the natural residence of your fungal ecosystem to over grow significantly right?
spk_0: 23:57
Exactly. So the way we think about candied all the time is that it's a canary in the coal mine, right? If Candida is overgrown, it's signaling that there's other things going wrong in your system. Typically, it's life stylish, right? It's your lifestyle that's allowing the candied ato over grow. Whether the lifestyle is causing the rest of your microbiome, the bacterial components their microbiome to be compromised, which means that either using too many anti microbial is in your household you are eating foods that have a lot of antibacterial, innit? Maybe you've had too many courses of antibiotics over the last several years because every time you get in a respiratory infection or a Sinus infection, you're going to the urgent care center looking for an antibiotic prescription and or your diet is completely out of whack. You've got too much sugar intake. Too many simple sugars in your system, of course, highly processed foods. You're not sleeping enough. You're compromising your immune system by not providing enough micro nutrients. So all of these things kind of coalesce together to create a scenario. Whether it can be done is allowed toe over grow, and more often than not, unless we're talking about a blood infection. Candied overgrowth is a signal that your lifestyle needs correcting, and the way to control the Candida is by just correcting the lifestyle. It'll be brought back under control,
spk_1: 25:20
so I want to talk about products because there's I don't know. I think there's like a couple of classes, really, but I have some concerns about. Sometimes people will go and try something typical, like oregano that is used for both bacterial and fungal overgrowth, but it seems someone people have done this. It almost feels like there's a little bit of resistance that starts to develop after time. So let's say someone just kind of my word willing people like what is that willy nilly like really, really take a regular here and there and don't really have a plan. So, like I'm picking weeds, but not really replanting and grassy you'd is kind of how I would describe it. So it feels like when people are sort of just kind of willy nilly treating candied over gross without this strategy. So if they're taking that oregano, yeah, are they sometimes inviting resistance to the party? Is there fungal resistance like bacteria resistance? So it's not so
spk_0: 26:09
much resistance. The problem is that the ecological impact that they're making with taking those things aren't gonna lead to a net control of the Candida. Let me explain that so you know the way candied exist within the system. Of course, it's an opportunistic organism, so it's gonna take over any open real estate or it's gonna take over when the metabolic profile of that ecology favors hit right. For example, the pH goes up in your gut. Let's just use the gat as an example. The acidity in the gut is less now, when the gut is more acidic, there are bacteria that do better in that environment than Candida would, and so the bacteria have a better competitive basis against the Candida, and it'll keep the candied under control. But when the pH starts to go up for various reasons and there's numerous that weaken, talk about. Then you start to give the edge to the Cannes Beata when the nutrient sources air far more simple sugars and sugars and processed foods that supports to grow the candied over the bacteria. And a lot of times, what candy that does is a form relationships with certain pathogenic bacteria that also like those conditions. And they will create what I call pathogenic condominiums, if you will. Right? So imagine so. Canada doesn't really produce bio films, but they can hang out with bacteria that do produce bio films, and they'll form a partnership where take something like a streptococcus will produce a biofilm and then allow the candidate to live within the biofilm and because both of them like a higher pH, both of them like more sugar intake. So they both kind of like similar environments. And the streptococcus goes, Hey, I can create kind of a protective shell for us. You do all your metabolic functions and produce things that are good for me. And let's create this partnership in this pathogenic condominium. So they build layers and layers of biofilm with both candied and streptococcus. Right? So imagine you've got this pathogenic condominium you've got other commence a ll bacteria around there trying to kind of break down this pathogenic condominium and compete with these organisms, some lactic acid back. You're trying to produce lactic acid to bring down the pH, so it makes it less favorable for the candied and the streptococcus to grow. And while all of this is going on, you throw in a regular oil in there that just that hurts a lactic acid bacteria that hurts the commence, a bacteria, and then may hurt the streptococcus in Onda Candida to some degrees. Well, all of which get harm to some degree and it doesn't in any way favor the growth of the commence ALS and the lack of casted producing bacteria. Right? So we're not creating a net change in the ecological forces that works against the candida and any pathogens that they may have formed a partnership with. That's a problem with it. So we keep taking the oregano than what we're doing is we're kind of just creating a favorable environment for the back here that do okay with the oregano being around and then we're creating a new overgrowth in those bacteria. And those bacteria may not necessarily compete against the candied and streptococcus right. So over time, then the effect of it becomes less and less in terms of trying to alleviate the problem that we're trying to alleviate. So when we saw that, that was problematic to us because, like you said and people were doing it non specifically, they would take it for a week or two weeks and stop and then again take it again and you know, for 34 days and then stop and then take it again. Or there were people that were taking it that we're taking like a regular oil, for example, every day for three years, you know, and their system is just in tatters because that stuff is going in and it's killing all kinds of stuff. It's not just targeting the overgrowth or it's not just targeting the problematic microbes. So yeah, that kind of this ecosystem disruption is not gonna end up with a net benefit in the system.
spk_1: 30:01
So let's talk about something that I think seems more selective and kind of unique. But it's not really out there. So undead kalinic acid, which is a mouthful we can call you a I don't mind saying it anymore, but from learning how to spell that at first, I'm like Honda Colette IC acid. So that's a little more selective. Four fungus. How is it different from other anti fungal herbs?
spk_0: 30:25
Yeah, it's really quite interesting. So understand no IQ acid under psych clinic acid. They call it different things at different varieties in describing the actual compound. But it's a derivative of castor oil, and what we really liked about it was its ability to attack hyphen component of Canada as well. So we talked about Canada in your system. At any given time can exist as a typical Sellas. We see a fungal cell that's growing, or it can exist in this stranger what we call haIf a form and that haIf a form is in the middle of a life cycle and typically is not targeted by other anti fungal herbs. And what tends to happen is we put in an anti fungal that just triggers the non haIf a form than the candidate's life cycle gets selected for candy to remain in the hi fi form. So it just remains in that haIf a form until the anti fungal is gone. And then the high faking very quickly turned into your typical can be the cells that you see growing in the system. So the hi fi form is almost like a protective form for the Canada against typical anti fungal tze. And so we started working with this compound clinically about six years ago. Way before we ever put a product out. We had met a couple of doctors in the Chicago area that we're using it quite frequently, and then Tom, my business partner, as a clinic in Chicago. So using into his clinic and we started seeing some really significant improvement in people with chronic candied overgrowth and then digging into the research more, you start to find out that it can have an impact on the standard can be the cells, but it also does have an impact on the high fates up. So that was a really interesting, in fact, to us. And and that kind of takes care of Canada in both of its life cycle forms.
spk_1: 32:08
And in layman's terms, we really talked about haIf a form, but it's like the bay before the tadpole for right?
spk_0: 32:13
Exactly. Yeah, that barb's into the tissue. It has like a little barb that sticks into the tissue, and it's a normal part of the life cycle of Candy does, so you'll find a good portion of it. Can't eat in your system in that high faith form, and it can remain in that form if the anti fungal is present. And then the moment the antifungal was metabolizing gone, the dose that you took then the high fable just regenerate itself into regular candida.
spk_1: 32:36
It's a curiosity me. How uncommon on deck Alena Castle products are. Actually, I see it a lot in topical toenail type products, like when I'm looking out there in the world. But I can count less than five products on my personal hand that I've seen for use in clinical practice, at least. Why do you think it's so uncommon? Because it doesn't sound like sourcing is a huge issue of it's coming from casserole. But maybe maybe I'm wrong about that. Is sourcing an issue like Why is it not more common? Is there? I think it's interesting and unusual.
spk_0: 33:08
Yeah, it is. And in fact, we were a little bit surprised about that when we first ran into it several years ago, started using it and found it to be so helpful and useful. One of the issues when you want to put it in a capsule form because you want to get it inside the individual is it can be a strong asset, so it starts to eat away the capsule. So we've gone through several trials on the production side to figure out the type of formulation, the type of oil carrier that maintains the undersea clinic acid without allowing it to eat away the capsule from the inside we've gone through gelatin capsules, veggie capsules and so on that maybe one of the reasons, but one of the other reasons is because in our industry doesn't innovate that much right. The vast majority of the companies in our industry, Army to companies. And what does that mean? Me too? Well, they don't really have RND teams. They don't have scientists actively working in the company, looking for underserved areas of health and pathologies and then trying to come up with solutions for those. That's not how most supplement companies work. Most public mint companies are run by owned by marketing people, and they basically look at what's hot out there. And then they try to create their version of that hot thing. That's why you see CBD is hot. Now there's overnight. There's 1000 CBD brands out there, right? You'll see that protein is hard. And then before you know this 1000 protein brands out there, vitamin D becomes hard then, all sudden, everyone has a vitamin D product. It's a very me to industry, and until something is made to be sexy and really appealing to the masses, most companies won't pick it up. A candied a product is not a mass appeal product, right? It's service's market. Yeah, it's
spk_1: 34:57
deals massive, just feels
spk_0: 34:59
massive in our world, right. But you have to think about your typical products of Walgreens and CVS and Costco and all that. They are trying to appeal to just the average person walking around that knows very little about how that has your conventional problems of trying to lose weight, maybe trying to bump your immune system up during cold and flu season. Taking a multivitamin with Flintstones multivitamin of gummy multivitamin. That's the biggest chunk of the supplement industry, right? More than 52% of the supplement industry are these crappy multivitamin ts, right? So that's the audience. And most supplement companies are playing, too, and that audience walking around is not going by. And I have candied overgrowth. And you could do something about it in our world, in functional medicine, with an audience that is really vigilant about their health and have suffered really significant health issues over long periods of time. And then they come into the function of medicine. Frey. Those people are a whole different class, right, and those people are no what Candida is. I think about it this way, like stopping ah 100 people in the streets of any big city, asking how many of them know what Candida is? You might get one out of 100 people that know exactly what it is, right? But most of them know what weight loss components are. Most of them know what vitamin D is in a most of the node. Vitamin C is, and so that's where some woman cos appeal to. The only reason we found it is because we did a deep dive into looking for solutions for Candida, for the patients that we see, and I could tell you to do our job right, and we make this a component, an ingredient that is more mainstream. You'll start to see cos comping it.
spk_1: 36:41
Yeah, I kind of wonder how long it's been around. Any idea? I mean, like, it's better on forever. But when did it start becoming in products? Or wasn't research around on the clinic acid at a certain time? Because this more recent or has it been around for a long time and just no one's really done anything with it. It's been
spk_0: 36:58
around for some time, so because it's a derivative of castor oil, there's been studies from decades ago on the ability of castor oil to reduce fungal overgrowth. They didn't necessarily identify the one derivative in it. The one component of castor oil is under psych clinic acid, but the research on the impact of casserole has been around off to top my head. The first studies I saw on this are 2030 years old, but I did not see it in any product. And what we first saw it in a product. It was about six or seven years ago and it was the only product that we found it to be in. We did not see it in any other product in the United States. We did find it in some products in Asia and we did find it in a couple of products in Europe and often some of these regions tend to be a little bit more progressive with utilizing derivatives of either oils of plants are probably finals and so on. So it is a really effective component and it has to be brought to the forefront. So people know that there is an option, right? So that's really the key. I mean, I've introduced this as a compound to so many people on so many Facebook groups and all that that have been fighting Candida and trying what they call quote unquote everything and have never heard of this.
spk_1: 38:11
So I mean it. It works. I think of it is quite selective, right? It works on the hi fi form. Doesn't work on any bacterias that just specifically selecting hi fate of the candy. Because sometimes people can take this and things that we thought were coming from Bacterial overgrowth also seemed to improve. So just kind of curious that ends up working on opportunistic bacteria. Does anything help? It worked better, etcetera.
spk_0: 38:34
No, we don't have any data that it'll work on opportunistic bacteria. So we think that when you're using under cyclonic acid that you're pretty much going after the hyphen form of Canada. Now, that is not quite enough. So when we formulated our anti fungal product, we didn't just put under cyclonic acid in it, right? So we also wanted to lower the production rate of the growth rate of the A sexual candida, the cell form of Candida that could be multiplying by buying our efficient without the haIf a form. Because remember, Candida was discovered to have both types of reproduction. It can reproduce like bacteria do, or it can reproduce through sexual reproduction, which is the haIf a form. So that's when we started using populace as well. Well, we're looking for is in nature, where animals and humans and all they come in contact with a good anti fungal, which really negates the growth of fungus. And that's populace, because bees use it in the deep eyes to prevent fungal overgrowth on their sugar, which is honey and and it's extremely potent. And that's why one of the reasons why honey can sit at room temperature and not grow fungus, not grow bacteria that in Temuco bail compounds within honey as well. But the populace is extremely powerful. So the way we thought about it was if you used both pro polis and undersea clinic acid, then we are going, after all possible life cycle forms of the candida, and we're not disrupting the bacteria within the systems and which allows then. So then what we're doing is creating a selective pressure against the candida in that ecosystem. So we're bringing something in that's gonna prevent and reduce the rapid growth in the survival of the Candida, which then gives an edge to those lactic acid vector and the other commence a ls that are trying to grow too controlled Candida. Now then there is a problem of the pathogenic condominiums right that we talked about. We don't have any evidence necessarily that the undersea clinic acid or the pro police can actually penetrate through the bio films to get into the candida That's in the pathogenic condominiums. Now that can be taken care of by sport based bacteria. Spore based bacteria do a really good job of producing an enzyme Alfa amylase that breaks down pathogen biofilms. And so when you go into the system with the UN disclaim ic acid with the pro plus and the spore based tractor like the age of 58 or the Mega Spore, then you are targeting those pathogenic condominiums. You're targeting the cellular form of the Anita and you're targeting the hyphen form of the candida all the while supporting the good. Commence a lactic acid bacteria so that they can grow, and then they can continue to maintain control over the candida. Even once you remove the anti fungal Sze
spk_1: 41:25
you know, you were mentioning earlier how a lot of people are out there looking for candida solutions and there's not a lot of you a products on the market for aural consumption. But there are. I mean, when I look online, I seal a handful of them for toenail fungus, which is maybe, ah, much larger concern. People don't may be related to the fungal. Maybe you don't think about it very deeply. But if someone is dealing with foot fungal thing, do we think that addressing it topically is enough? By the way, that takes a really long time to correct. It seems as well, Or do people need to address it internally as well? And you know something else you were talking about? You can't really catch Candida issues, but people share their microbiome when they live together. So does it seem like when people live in a house, hold on one person has candied overgrowth? Do you think there's a greater susceptibility to the other person? And maybe that's automatic because you're maybe consuming the same things. You have the same environment, so we're allowing for that overgrowth.
spk_0: 42:22
Yeah, absolutely. So any time this thing's on the surface of the skin, unless it's something that you picked up from contact like a contact dermatitis that comes about Typically, it's driven by dysfunctions on the internal side. Right? So same thing with acne we finished and publishing first study on acne showing weaken significantly. Reduce acne lesions on the skin by just focusing on the gun without using anything. Topical it All right. We saw about a 40% reduction in acne lesion count Just using a probiotic in 30 days. And that speaks volumes because that shows you that what is reflected on the skin is really a problem or something that's occurring underneath in the circulatory system. The susceptibilities of the skin are dictated by what is going on in the mucosa layer of the skin, which is just below the epidermal layer. Right, So absolutely you could treat the topical issue. You could treat the toe fungus over and over and over again a lot of times your reintroducing it by keeping your foot in the same kind of shoes and so on. But at the end of the day, one of the reasons it takes so long to get rid of that is because the problem is arising from the inside. So, absolutely, if you've got a topical issue with fungal overgrowth, you have to address the internal side as well. Again, these are opportunistic organisms were all exposed to it. We all have it on our skin and virtually every part of her body. There's a reason there's a smaller population of us that gets overgrowth. It's because of the compromise of immune system and the microbes within the microbiota that is leading to that overgrowth. You know, people pay a lot of attention to the toenail fungus stuff, and in fact, there's a lot of very common toenail fungus products. And again, that's because it's a topical cosmetic issue. Right? People, more often than not, pay more attention to cosmetic issues that affect their self image and effect their self esteem than things going on internally, which actually could be much worse for their overall outcome. Right. And that's why you will see dozens and dozens of mainstream toenail fungus products and very few of any mainstream candied a product that deal with the Candida. Internally. There's a study published by John Hopkins University that showed that they were following individuals that were given a course antibiotics right, so they took microbiome samples from those individuals before they started the course of antibiotics and then during and then up to six months after. And sure enough, they found that there was a significant change in those people's microbiome sze while they were taking the antibiotics and up to six months after he indicating a dis bio sis from taking the course of antibiotics. And that, despite aosis, was present six months later, even after stopping the antibiotic right, so that had been shown in a number of other studies already. So that wasn't the most surprising part of that study. The most surprising part of that study was that they also followed the microbiome changes in individuals that lived in the same household as a person taking the antibiotics, and these individuals were not taking an antibiotic. And yet they saw the same type of dysfunction in their microbiome, and that same dysfunction was present up to six months later, right? So imagine if your roommate takes a course of antibiotics. It affects your gut as well. If you're intimate, Partner takes, of course, antibiotics. It effects your gut as well, and that's think they followed both intimate partners and platonic partners, so it doesn't have to be somebody you're sleeping with in the same bed. It could be somebody just lived in the same household. Another room. So we do share a microbiome cloud, if you will. And a negative impact on one of the individuals Microbiome Cloud that they're putting out into the environment has an impact on other people as well. And so sure enough, if somebody has lifestyle choices or something else going on, that's disrupting, Ah, healthy balance of the microbiome allowing for candida overgrowth than that same thing is going to potentially impact those that are the most close to that individual.
spk_1: 46:32
I'm envisioning the next product that you're gonna come out with some kind of air purifier cloud.
spk_0: 46:39
We've got this project going on where we're looking at all of the bio mes right? So, of course your skin microbiome your Oh, and there's another thing I'm gonna remember to tell you about the skin microbiome but looking skin microbiome your home, your pats, your soil and all that and identifying ways of testing where the health values are, where the indexes are for a measurement of health of each of those bios. And then how do you change it? Because all of those matter right. All of those have an impact in you, even if you are really good about your diet and you eat really clean than the other by arms around you in your home in your car and your your pets, your dogs, your soil outside all of those would have a negative impact. So it becomes important to really start to take a broader step, understanding all of the ecosystems around you that impact you. And a lot of times people are just focusing on their own ecosystem within their bodies and not paying as much attention to the ecosystems that they exist within right. So that's an important thing Now. A study just came out, which I actually just posted on social media not too long ago, showing the chronological predictability of measuring different microbiologists. Right? So there's a group that's been studying the microbiome to figure out whether or not they can predict someone's chronological and or biological age by just measuring different sites of your microbiome. They started with measuring your gut microbiome and published a big paper on that, and they were showing that with a pretty good deal of accuracy, without knowing your actual chronological age. They can look at your microbiome samples and predict what your chronological ages and then even, maybe what your biological age is meaning, how healthy you are. And then most recently they did it. A second version of study and this is a large scale study, more talking about 8000 plus individuals that they've sampled, and they looked at the skin microbiome. They looked at the aural microbiome, and they looked at the gut microbiome and the biggest predictor and the best predictor of both chronological and biological age. And mostly they focus on chronological age was your skin microbiome? And so, without knowing your age, they could swab your skin microbiome. And they could predict using a computer modeling system what your chronological age is. And then when they dig deeper into the data, they were indicating that as you start to see a tax or shift in the skin, microbiota. So a drop in diversity within the skin microbiota and an increase in certain tax ah, within the skin microbiota. It actually indicates an aging process. Similar patterns are found in the gut microbiome as well, And so if you start to get fungal overgrowth on the skin. It's a riel significant predictor that something is going wrong with their system overall right, and but when it shows up on the skin, people become much more cognizant of it because it also has a cosmetic impact. So that connection to this skin and connection to the people who see fungal overgrowth in the skin is really deep. Because fungal overgrowth on the skin means not only has your skin microbiota now gone out of black, but internally, there's lots of issues going on that are driving that opportunity growth.
spk_1: 49:52
I'm glad you brought that up because I work with a lot of skin issues. It's like you knew that there were This was a whole skin month on the podcast and unfortunately, so often we want to deal with skin issues is a topical problem, but there's some of them are very simple to resolve, and some of them are very long standing. Takes a lot of effort because there is a lot going on in the inside and it's kind of like your body's last straw trying to demonstrate it, which is frustrating, and people don't want this visual thing to take a long time to fix, but unfortunately it's often a measure that there's this bigger thing inside. And we just want things topical to stay topical and to stay simple. So I'm glad you brought it up.
spk_0: 50:29
Yeah, and people forget that what you visually see on his skin is a temporary system, right? So the skin grows from the inside out and what you're seeing, the epidermal layer is temporary, meaning it's gonna get slough it off, and then the dermal layer is gonna push up into the epidermal layer, and your skin keeps growing from the inside out. And so the fact that things persist means that they're coming in from the inside and they keep showing up on the surface, right? So if we just focus on the surface, all we're doing is treating a temporary layer that's there that's going to slough off. But the same problem is it growing from the inside out. So it's gonna keep reappearing.
spk_1: 51:07
Well, you know, I wasn't gonna ask another question, but what you just said, they're led me to root this resistant fungus. Now you've talked about some answers for a with the environment, etcetera. But let's say someone's dealing with something that seems to be resistant. It just keeps coming back. S o that might be environmental. It might be something. There might be a host of things, but I kind of wonder about this other major fungus without being weird about it, right, Because it's just it's becoming a part of our lives now, which is mold. Mold is a fungus, and so I wonder how often that is also going on underneath the surface, where it seems like, Okay, we get a hold of it, and then it's back type thing,
spk_0: 51:46
right? And I think, you know, mold in the environment plays a significant role in what's going on to fungal overgrowth on your system, right? So in part because exposure to mold toxin mole that may be growing in your walls or in your closet somewhere or your pipes or in your car or in your bed. You know you might be sleeping on mold overgrowth in your bed, and then they're producing toxins, and then the most spores are airborne, the constant exposure to the mold spores and mull toxins in the environment. I actually have a significant impact on compromising your immune system, which then allows the mold and fungus on your system that's already there, colonized to grow and remember everything around. This is anti bacterial, right? So one of the problems with an anti bacterial world like, for example, you're cleaning all your surfaces with antibacterials. All of these antibacterials are allowing mole to be more prevalent in our environment. And so environmental mole has an impact on our immune system and the way our body functions, which then actually supports and allows the growth of mold and fungus, is colonizing our system as well.
spk_1: 52:51
Well, that's what I was going to say when someone's exposed to something for so long. Now we have this new resident. I wouldn't say. I don't think that the fungus or the spores or that Michael toxins or whatnot that mold really sets up in our system. They're not native, right, So, like they're coming in and they set up their own super community as well, right? And then they start for do scene, and they have their own life cycle inside of you, which makes it kind of challenging,
spk_0: 53:13
absolutely. And then then the constantly producing toxins inside of you and some of those toxins air really toxic genic, right? Some of them are kind of hyper toxins that create systemic inflammatory effects and really compromise your immune system. Really? Compromise your bodies detox systems as well. So they set up the an environment that really favors not only their growth, but the growth of the mold and fungus that already colonize is your
spk_1: 53:37
system. Yeah, that's my least favorite because of potential skin issues, because who really wants to get into that? Deep of when we perceive it is just the topical issue. So we were talking about you es and s Olynyk acid on deck Olynyk asset. However, there's a few other names for it. Right? What were some of the other ones you gave
spk_0: 53:54
under sin OIC acid on this site? Clinic acid? Yeah, there's a number.
spk_1: 53:58
Yeah, So we were talking about India clinic acid and how it's not very common to find on the market. But of course, Microbiome Labs has a product called Mega maiko Balance as a practitioner only based product. But if you go over to christa Bigler dot com forward slash shop, you confined howto get all microbiome lab products, which are well used in my practice mega sports been a favorite for years now, thanks across right.
spk_0: 54:22
I think that we find it to be extremely effective, especially when your parent with spores and the key there, is that the two anti fungal sze in the product, the on this clinic acid and the pro police are going to target the fungal overgrowth and create in selection pressure against the fungal overgrowth in the system. But you also need to support the increased diversity of the beneficial backer within the system because ultimately that's what's gonna lead to long term control, right? You don't want to be on an antifungal forever. You don't wanna have to take something like the mega Michael balance for the rest of your life just to keep your fungal overgrowth under control. And so the only way that to do it chronically is to not only while you're bringing down the fungal overgrowth, you're increasing the growth of the beneficial Commence ALS. Ultimately, they're the ones that are going to do the job of keeping things in home your Stasis. So we always encourage people to use it with the mega spore, and in some cases we add in that 8 to 58 which is the high doses up till it's if there is suspicion that there could be bacterial pathogens that are part of the pathogenic condominiums and often times when you have fungal overgrowth, especially candy toe that is a present issue. So we always advise people. Take the mega Michael balance with your regular dose of mega spore and then try to get to caps of the 8 to 58 in as well during the acute phase of trying to bring this under control.
spk_1: 55:50
Koran. Where can people follow along with Microbiome Labs online? So come
spk_0: 55:55
to our website Microbiome Labs within ask dot com. From there, you can find lots of research. Resource is webinars videos. You can also help my name into YouTube, and you'll find a number of talks and presentations and all that that's on there. And I think our blawg may still be connected to our website as well if they come on our website. But just come over to microban labs dot com and you'll find a number Resource is to nerd out one.
spk_1: 56:21
Awesome. Thank you again. So much for coming back to talk to us all about one of my favorite topics. Fungus.
spk_0: 56:28
Thank you.
spk_1: 56:29
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