Book Excerpts

10 Best Ways to Manage Stress by Kathleen Barnes (Take Charge Books, 2013)

CHAPTER ONE: What Is Stress and How Is it Killing You

If you’re alive, you’re experiencing stress on a daily basis, perhaps even hourly.

Stress is present in all of our lives. In fact, I venture to say that if you never experience stress, most likely you are dead.

Everywhere we turn, we are challenged. Stress is our response to challenge. It may be something as simple as a minor annoyance when you slosh coffee on your favorite shirt on your way to work to the day-to-day “excitement” that accompanies challenges with kids, spouses, families, bosses, things that don’t work, the news cycle and a million other things.

Then there are the stressors most of us recognize: financial worries, job loss, illness, divorce, death.

Even the good stuff is stressful: weddings, births, new jobs, new homes.

Yet stress—at least long-term stress—takes its toll.

 

Fight or flight

Let’s take a brief look at human nature—physical and psychological:

Think of our primitive ancestors. Their lives were centered around survival in the midst of an unfriendly world full of challenges. The hunter encountering a hungry saber-toothed tiger or the cavewoman gathering roots who suddenly disturbed a giant anaconda each instantly developed superhuman powers of combat or escape.

In what is called the “fight or flight” syndrome, when we humans are challenged, we must make an almost instantaneous decision whether to take on the foe or run like hell. Either way, we need to have superior muscle strength at cost of virtually every other physical process.

In times of fight or flight, digestion comes to a screeching halt.

Kidney and liver functions slow to near zero. Everything is focused on keeping the organism alive. That means fleeing or fighting.

The stress hormone adrenaline pumps a surge of energy to muscles, increases blood flow to the extremities and engages brain function so that it is so effective that time seems to slow down and complex thought processes can take place in a split second. This explains how a distraught 120-pound mother can lift a two-ton car off her stricken toddler, a feat of strength normally impossible.

Recovery time

Evolution notwithstanding, our ancestors also learned how to turn off the stress and ratchet down those raging stress hormones once the threat had passed. Once the exhausted hunter reached the safety of his cave or the terrified gatherer found refuge at her hearthfire, the most common response would be to take big drink of water followed by a lengthy period of rest and restoring that innate sense of well-being.

Our ancestors knew how to recover: They took the time to allow the stress response to stop and their bodies to return to normal. The heart rate slowed, digestion and organ function resumes and life was good. They were safe for another day.

Modern day saber-toothed tigers

Now fast forward a few million years to modern times. We are fighting those saber-toothed tigers and giant anacondas day in and day out, years on end, perhaps even for our entire lives.

Of course, these aren’t literal saber-toothed tigers and giant anacondas. Instead, it’s your son’s D in math, your disapproval of your daughter’s new boyfriend, the computer that ate the document you need for a key meeting in 15 minutes, a bounced check, the argument with your spouse, the jacket ruined by the dry cleaner, the neighbor’s dog that insists on using your yard as his toilet, the guy who cut you off in traffic, nagging worries about the health of an aging parent.

It’s life and it’s not easy. None of us can escape it.

But the big problem is that we never turn it off. We don’t give ourselves a chance to recover, even at the end of a long and stressful day.

We go from that meeting with the cantankerous client to the parent-teacher meeting to whining kids clamoring for dinner to baskets of unfolded laundry, permission slips, tears over math homework, news of war, murder, death and destruction on the television, a dinner of fast food because you’re too exhausted to do anything else and getting to bed later than you would like, perhaps lying awake for a couple of hours worrying about an unpaid bill or vague nagging suspicions about your spouse’s fidelity, only to have to get up and start all over again five or six hours later.

Forget about exercise. No time.

 Stress hormones and their toll on your health

We never stop to let the stress hormones dissipate and allow our bodies to rest and return to their normal function. We just keep pumping adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol into our systems until our overloaded systems become ill or even shut down completely.

We get fat because the cortisol glut encourages the buildup of belly fat, the most dangerous kind, increasing the risk of Type 2 diabetes and other health problems.

We get heart disease because our over stressed heart muscles can’t hold up under years of pumping harder and faster than necessary because of the elevated stress hormones. Blood pressure rises,increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke. It’s fair enough to assume that the escape into fast food land has also raised your cholesterol.

We get cancer because the constant presence of stress hormones has damaged us all the way to the cellular level, so our cells no longer are able to reproduce and live and die like normal cells, leading to cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and more. No wonder the rate of these dread diseases has skyrocketed!

If you have any of these health problems, your chronic stress has become toxic stress. It is dangerous. It is killing you.


From 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health: A Take Charge Plans for Women by Hyla Cass, M.D. and Kathleen Barnes (second edition, Take Charge Books, 2008 first edition McGraw-Hill, 2004)

INTRODUCTION

There are almost 109 million women over the age of 18 in the United States. Because of our fast-paced lifestyle; the accelerating pressure of career, family, and relationships; and the shift toward more equality in our social structure, we develop more health concerns by the day.

We are also more susceptible than men to many conditions, including depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, weight gain, and, of course, hormonal swings. I hear the same laments over and over from young women, middle-aged women, and older women, whether in my office, by e-mail, at public appearances, or even at social gatherings:

“I’m always tired—it doesn’t matter how long I sleep!”

“I can’t catch up on everything I need to do.”

“What can I do about my weight problems? I’m disgusted with myself!”

“I’m always feeling down in the dumps.”

“My whole body hurts! If it’s not my back, it’s my shoulders or my feet.”

“My PMS is actually getting worse as I get older!”

“I have absolutely no sex drive!”

“I had no idea menopause would be this bad. Between the hot flashes and night sweats, I’m miserable!”

” I’m totally confused about hormone replacement therapy. My doctor says there is no other choice—either take HRT with its risks, or suffer!”

And, from most of these women I hear, “My doctor says they are just signs of normal aging or that I’m just stressed and depressed—meaning that it’s really all in my head!”

Nonetheless, problems with fatigue, sleep, anxiety, depression, weight, pain, hormones, and memory are real and often debilitating. Part of the problem is that most doctors simply don’t have time to delve into the reasons for these symptoms. They may have only 10 minutes to hear out a patient, make a diagnosis, and then prescribe a pain medication, a diet pill, an antidepressant, or a sleeping pill.

f you have felt frustrated at not being truly heard and discouraged that everything you’ve done to try solve your health problems has failed, take heart. You’re not alone, and you’re not without tools to become your own health detective.

I have devised the Vibrant Health Plan based on my decades of experience in treating hundreds of women of all ages. As a conventionally trained physician with a specialty in psychiatry, I have incorporated nutrition and other natural techniques into my practice for more than 20 years.

At the core of this practice is a set of beliefs that have served my patients well:
• Treat the whole person—mind, body, spirit, and environment.
• Look for the deepest root problems beneath the symptoms, which includes using the best that science has to offer.
• Apply a continuum of treatments, always beginning with the safest, most natural, and most benign.

CRUSADE FOR REFORM

I am often asked how I became such a crusader for the reform of conventional medicine. The fact is, there was no single turning point or moment of enlightenment. It has been a long process, beginning with my earliest family life.

My father was a general practitioner who practiced out of our home in Toronto, Canada. From an early age, I recall following him around on his medical rounds at the hospital and going along on house calls. A caring and conscientious GP in an old-fashioned practice, I saw him practice integrated medicine long before that term was coined. Available and responsive, he ministered to his patients with care and skill. He would talk to me about what he was doing, assuming I understood, never talking down to me. Looking back now, I realize that as the doctor’s apprentice, I learned a great deal about the spirit and art of medicine, and even about practical aspects of diagnosis and treatment.

Moving forward many years, I studied medicine at the University of Toronto School of Medicine and then interned at the Los Angeles County– USC School of Medicine. I was struck by the serious class divisions in the system of medical care, experiencing culture shock as I was exposed for the first time to a clearly segregated medical care system with serious divisions based on socioeconomic status. In Canada, health coverage is universal, and I had not seen such a disparity in terms of quality of care and the respect given to patients and their families. Both my experience with my father and my medical school training had already given me a more humane and holistic view of medical care, in contrast to the prevailing mechanized, impersonal system.

My interest in a more relational, holistic approach, coupled with an appreciation for the mind-body connection, led me to psychiatry. During my residency at Cedars-Sinai/UCLA Medical Center, I eventually found that the standard “couch and Prozac” combination of psychoanalytic and pharmacological treatments had their limitations.

I was drawn to a more personal approach to patients, where therapists were more directly caring and interactive with their patients. I discovered art therapy with Helen Landgarten, then guided imagery and other more cutting-edge interactive techniques such as Voice Dialogue with Hal Stone. Not only did these methods work more quickly, but they clearly could affect the body in many ways, from relieving more obvious symptoms to boosting the immune system.

Then, during my family therapy fellowship, I discovered the “systems approach,” where the “identified patient” was not necessarily the true problem! It wasn’t just Johnny who was the “bad kid” or Jenna who was the depressed adolescent. In fact, there were secret family issues (Mom’s depression, Dad’s gambling) that had unbalanced the whole family dynamic, and the children’s problems were the family’s symptoms. Treatment would be successful only so far as the underlying issues (i.e., the parents’ problems) were uncovered and healed.

By the same token, I became aware that the symptoms my patients reported were just messages that something in their body systems was awry. They were clues that needed closer evaluation in order to uncover the real cause. I paid more attention to the mind-body connection and the doctor-patient relationship.

I carried what I had learned into my new medical practice and began to explore the influences of nutrition and lifestyle on health. I observed how imbalance in the body can affect the mind. The brain, after all, is an organ, affected by its internal physiological environment.

It became obvious to me that psychotherapy is more effective once the brain is functioning properly. I went on to discover how many typical psychiatric complaints—anxiety, depression, PMS, even schizophrenia—are frequently related to biochemical imbalances. These can range from low blood sugar, viral and fungal infections, hormonal imbalances, allergies, and toxic overload to deficiencies of specific nutrients.

I am able to diagnose these conditions with the appropriate laboratory tests that give a scientific basis for treatment decisions. Then I can often help correct the imbalances with natural approaches, including the use of well-researched nutritional supplements. In contrast, conventional physicians are most likely to prescribe first and test second, if at all, with problematic results.

THE THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH

Studies show that doctors are the third leading cause of death, accounting for 250,000 deaths per year. They don’t do it intentionally, but due to a lack of knowledge, errors, and excessive influence from drug companies, that is the end result.

There is little to counterbalance the over-prescribing of drugs, despite the fact that according to one study, there are more than 100,000 deaths per year in hospitals alone, due to medications taken as prescribed. That’s not taking into account drugs that were improperly prescribed or medication-related disability that, while not fatal, takes a huge toll. Or the deaths that were attributed to the condition but were really due to the treatment.

In my move toward “integral” or holistic psychiatry, I found myself treating a variety of medical conditions, from chronic fatigue to irritable bowel syndrome. Patients don’t walk into our offices as disembodied heads. Our bodies do not separate into specialized compartments for the convenience of cardiologists, allergists, endocrinologists, or gastroenterologists. You can’t get to the right diagnosis and treatment without looking at all systems!

Every symptom reflects an imbalance somewhere in the body’s systems. Conventional medicine has segmented the body into the various specialties, and often fails to address the reality of interactive systems.

Holistic or integrative medicine, on the other hand, addresses the interactive systems of the whole person. The patient is evaluated in a variety of ways and supplied with specific health prescriptions—for supplements, foods, exercise, natural hormones, mind-body techniques, and even prescription drugs when indicated. Moreover, the individual has to partner with the doctor in this process, both to carry out the regimen and to give feedback in order to fine-tune the program.

Compared to drug therapy, natural treatments offer safer, more user-friendly solutions with far fewer and less harmful side effects. They work with the body’s chemistry rather than adding what can be toxic substances to an already impaired body.

A CASE IN POINT

I remember one early patient in particular, a 55-year-old college teacher named Jean whose story is pretty typical. She was being treated by her internist for high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and heart palpitations. She was referred to me, a psychiatrist, because of her anxiety, depression, and insomnia. I could find no obvious psychological explanation for these symptoms, except maybe for the stress of her physical illness. She was taking an array of medications, with their attendant side effects. Based on some simple lab tests and my own clinical experience, I determined that a likely common cause was a magnesium deficiency.

After a brief trial on this inexpensive and common mineral, together with a multivitamin-mineral formula and essential fatty acids, Jean was able to decrease her medications. Encouraged by this result, she trusted me enough to eliminate some foods to which she was allergic, which helped her even more. In a short time, not only were her anxiety, depression, and insomnia gone, but she soon was medication-free, depending instead on a list of supplements (I added a few to those mentioned here) to restore her normal body chemistry.

As an integrative physician, I see cases like Jean’s all day long, with sometimes seemingly simple solutions to what appear to be complex conditions. Part of the problem may even stem from the prescribed medications.

Situations like Jean’s leave me with the following questions:
1. Why had Jean’s internist been unaware of her mineral deficiency, or even, of its possibility? Why didn’t he at least give her a basic multivitamin-mineral formula?

2. Why give prescription drugs first? This approach is like unplugging the noisy smoke alarm instead of looking for the fire!

And, more pointedly, why is the prevailing standard of medical practice so symptom- and drug-oriented, especially when this approach so clearly fails to serve the patient?

One answer is all too clear: through sales representatives, medical journal ads, research articles, and conventions, the pharmaceutical industry is the main source of education for many physicians in practice. The bad news is that drugs are expensive and often cause more harm than they cure. For example, the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for arthritis can cause severe gastric irritation and even ulcers.

Or, as numerous human and animal studies show, the statin drugs for lowering cholesterol deplete the body of the essential nutrient coenzyme Q10, which heart cells depend on for survival. This leads us to believe that statins, while certainly lowering cholesterol, may be doing more harm than good.

In his 22-page, fully referenced report reviewing this issue, researcher Dr. Peter Lonsjoen recommends that all statins be labeled with a warning to take them with 100–200 mg of coenzyme Q10 daily. Has your doctor mentioned that to you? Have you seen it in any drug ads? This is the tip of the iceberg for the complexity of the pharmaceutical industry and our health (fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/02/May02/052902/02p-0244-cp00001-02-Exhibit_A-vol1.pdf). I cover this in Supplement Your Prescription: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know about Nutrition.

Most doctors have minimal exposure to more natural treatments, which they dismiss as “unscientific.” In fact, the science is there, published in the very same medical journals that tout drugs. The supplements that I recommend are well backed by published research.

Fortunately, this situation is changing as more doctors are encouraged by the results they observe in their patients who are incorporating natural approaches. (Hint: if you find solutions to your problems in this book, please share them with your doctors.) Physicians and even medical schools are showing greater interest in integrative medicine, which incorporates the best of both worlds.

The medical profession aside, I believe that with all the variables affecting our health and well-being, from diet and lifestyle to toxic exposure, we each need to take greater responsibility for our own health. Rather than taking our body to the doctor as we would take our car to the mechanic, we need to become participants in a working partnership in which the physician becomes a resource.

I wrote the book Natural Highs as a “brain handbook” to help those outside of my own office practice to learn how to change their own brain biochemistry and to orient those who were coming to see me. Now, in 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health, I want to reach the millions of you out there who are stuck, stymied, knowing that something is wrong, but unsure of where to look for the solution. Here is a new handbook, one for the body as well as the mind.

This book is meant to help you learn as much as you can and do as much as you know how to maintain optimum health and find a doctor who is willing to join you in the process.

ABOUT KATHLEEN BARNES

Kathleen Barnes has long personal experience with alternative and complementary therapies. She taught yoga for more than 30 years while working as a foreign correspondent on three continents. She wrote a natural health column for Woman’s World magazine for six years until the first edition of this book launched her on a new career writing and editing natural health and sustainable living books. Writing for professionals and consumers in these and other forums has deepened her understanding of the field, including a practical knowledge of what readers need, want and are able to do.

While this book is often written from my point of view as a physician, Kathleen provided her broad knowledge and years of experience in creating the core content and organization of this book.

She is currently in the process of writing her 13th book and has recently launched her newsletter and website, Natural health Now at www.kathleen barnes.com.

With our heartfelt wishes for your success in discovering or regaining a healthy balance in body, mind, and spirit, we both offer you our knowledge and experience, as well as our compassion and our commitment to helping you find your way to vibrant health.


From Trial by Fire: A Woman Correspondent’s Journey to the Front Line by Kathleen Barnes (Thunder’s Mouth Press 1990)

 

Chapter One

Full Circle: Manila, June 1988

I cradled the .38 in two hands, trying to sight down its stubby barrel despite my trembling hands. The target twenty yards away was shaped like a man. I was to aim for the heart.

“Go on! Pull the trigger!” My instructor urged.

Time froze. I was suspended in the moment, arms outstretched, finger on the trigger, reviewing the lifetime of violence I had experienced in the four years since I left the United States.

I thought of my shock while I watched the rotting mess that was the body of a young women, a human rights worker, as it was exhumed from its temporary grave. The woman’s mother wailed. We friends clutched each other and gagged and wept at the sight of an unrecognizable lump of meat that was once a vibrant and laughing woman. As the corpse was lifted, a tiny fetus dropped from its mother’s body.

I thought of my helpless frustration at the moment I became convinced that I was about to die at the hands of abusive soldiers on a dark and frighteningly isolated rural road. Of how I wished I had a gun. And of how that wish was followed by the paralyzing fear and deep certainty that there was nothing I could do to fight them all off, even if I had an arsenal at my disposal.

I wanted to weep when I remembered the three innocent men walking down a street, greeting passing soldiers with chants of “Cory! Cory!” and being mercilessly mowed down by dark-of-the-night soldiers who had chosen that tranquil moonlit night to attempt to overthrow Cory Aquino’s government.

I thought of my rage in a hospital emergency room when I held the hand of a friend who had been shot. In the same nanosecond, I thought of the face of a demonstrator captured on film. The woman’s mute rage expressed so eloquently her agony over the death of her husband at the hands of soldiers of private armies who wanted to stop their protest.

I grieved as I remembered the bullet-riddled car that had been parked in my driveway only a few weeks before, still reeking of the blood and brains of a man who was nearly my brother.

I had never fired a gun before. Yet an avalanche of events brought me to that instant in time when a life decision had become necessary. If I pulled that trigger, would I become part of the violence myself? I felt a gnawing pain in the pit of my stomach.

How could I throw away a lifetime of sincere belief that violence begets violence? All of those college days of peace marches and antiwar editorials? All of those nights spent drinking wine with friends and theorizing about how I would react if armed villains invaded my home? All of those hours of meditating on the mysteries of life and death that resulted in a deep personal belief that God is embodies in human life?

All of my highbrow soliloquies on the evolution of society beyond violence became compressed in that single instant, that single tiny motion of squeezing a trigger.

I swayed, on the verge of fainting.

Then I squeezed the trigger.

PAK!

I shuddered.

The bullet plunked into the target’s shoulder.

“Wow!” whistled the colonel, a friend who had insisted on teaching me to shoot.

His fellow officers applauded. “Are you sure you have never fired a gun before?” one asked.

I fired again, with more confidence. Another hit, this time in the target’s abdomen. If that paper and straw target had been a man, he would be dead by now. My hands still trembled, my stomach still burned, my head was still light. But it seemed that my eye and hand were steady.

PAK. PAK. PAK.

Two more in the target. One near miss.

The colonels began to make jokes about Deadeye Dick. They didn’t know me. They didn’t know what personal price I paid each time I pulled that trigger. I didn’t feel at all like Superwoman, but my hand wasn’t shaking anymore.

“Try this .45,” one offered.

The .45 was heavier and had a bigger kick. I only hit the target three of five times.

I hated it, but I was achieving my objective of feeling more comfortable with guns.

A couple of weeks before, I had returned to Manila from a long trip to the States. I returned to an empty house that still echoed with the pain of the death I had recently suffered. The house reverberated with the very real threat to my life and the lives of those I loved.

My first night home, the phone rang. A sinister woman’s voice hissed, over and over, “I’ll kill you bitch.”

I began to lie awake listening for sounds in the night.

Her calls became a daily burden. She would sometimes repeat her hate message into my answering machine a dozen times until it ended in a screeching crescendo of fury.

After nearly four years in Manila, I was feeling overwhelmed by the violence of the culture that surrounded me.

I was tired of the McDonald’s security guards who brandished shotguns in some paranoid fear of Big Mac thieves. I was tired of the swaggering goons carrying clutch bags concealing handguns. I was tired of the need to stay completely for robbers, whether in a taxi, on a jeepney or walking down the street.

One night over drinks in a rowdy Australian bar, I confided my fears to the colonel, who was strictly a professional source, but who would soon become a friend.

He demanded to know if I was living alone and if I had a gun. I answered “yes” to both.
“Do you know how to fire a gun?” he asked.

“Well, I guess you just pull the trigger,” I hedged. I was terrified of guns. To me, they were like snakes waiting to strike. Yet there was a gun, a strangely placed gift of love, paradoxically nestling on my bedside table with a picture of the man I loved, an incense burner and a subliminal tape, the gift of a concerned friend, called “Getting Out of Anger.”

“You come out to the range and I’ll teach you how to shoot,” the colonel insisted.

After several invitations eventually became demands, I went to the shooting range one Saturday.

My friend noticed I was lacking in enthusiasm.

He matter-of-factly cleaned the .38 while he explained its function to me. My mind refused to focus on his words. I simply stared mesmerized at the instrument of death in his hand. I wondered it if was the same type of gun that had killed the human rights worker, or that had blown out the brains of countless rebels, policemen, soldiers, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and ordinary folk all over the world.

The colonel gave me some ear plugs and showed me how to cradle the gun to steady shaking hands.

I shot several dozen rounds that day. By that time, I had become sufficiently at ease and confident of my capability to hit the target. I finally convinced myself the gun would not explode if I touched it. My colonels dubbed me a crack shooter.

I thought back to a bucolic summer day on the St. Lawrence River a bare five years before. I thought of how far I had traveled in those five years, in terms of distance and in even greater personal terms. I had turned all of my belief systems upside down in a search for the meaning of violence. I had lived in the heart of violence and I had not emerged unscathed.

My bizarre odyssey has led me to strange, confusing and frightening places. I have met the great; those the world thinks are great and the humble. I have met the everyday people who have left indelible marks on my soul. I have been excited, scared out of my wits and always challenged.
My quest to understand the roots of violence left me on that Manila shooting range with a .38 in my hand, more confused than ever.

I doubt if I will ever be psychologically capable of shooting another human being. But then I think of my days of rage and I wonder.


The Yeast Connection and Women’s Health by William G. Crook, M.D., with Hyla Cass, M.D. and Elizabeth Crook (edited by Kathleen Barnes) (Professional Books, September 2003)

 

Eating Right

You’ve gotten the message about eating the sugar- and yeast-free diet to address the problem of yeast overgrowth, and if you’re following that diet, you’re most likely eating in a healthy way.

Now I’d like to throw out a few basic ideas about healthy eating.

Over the years, Americans have become very confused about this topic. There’s the high fat-low carbohydrate diet. There’s the high fiber, low fat diet. There’s the cheeseburger diet, the grapefruit diet, the good fat versus bad fat diet. I’m sometimes confused myself. I certainly don’t know all the answers, but I can give you the bare bones of what I consider some of the best approaches to healthy eating.

Remember to shop around the outer perimeter of your supermarket where you’ll find the fresh foods. The interior aisles are crammed with processed foods. And, as I mentioned in previous chapters, rotate your foods so you eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Get at the very minimum five servings a day, nine or ten is better yet. Of course, if you’re doing the anti-yeast special diet, you’ll want to keep your fruit intake very low.

There are dozens of scientific studies that show that people who eat the largest numbers of fruits and vegetables are generally healthier and live much longer. Make them the mainstay of your eating plan.

Eat your fruits and vegetables as close to the natural state possible. This means fresh and raw is best, frozen is second best and canned is a distant third.

If you can grow your salad greens and tomatoes and other vegetables, you’re in the best possible position since they are as fresh as possible and you can assure they are pesticide free.

If you aren’t able have a garden, buy your produce at your local farmer’s market. It hasn’t traveled far to get to you, which means its vitamin and mineral content will be high. Buy organic if you can to avoid the pesticides and chemicals.

If you have no other choice, look for organic fruits and vegetables at your supermarket. The problem with these is that they have often traveled a long distance to get to you, so their nutritional content has diminished. Avoid non-organic vegetable and fruit fare at the supermarket since have most likely been sprayed with all sorts of pesticides and fungicides the residue of which can remain in the food and it is often treated to keep it fresh longer.

Eat a high fiber diet rich in whole grains. In addition to all those fruits and vegetables, which are great sources of fiber, look for whole grains. Throw away all white flour products, white rice and processed foods in your pantry. Not only are they detrimental to yeast elimination, they’re simply not healthy.

If you’re not sensitive to these grains, use whole wheat, brown rice, stone ground corn meal, oats, barley, quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat. Become an avid label reader and if a label says a product contains wheat flour – this is a euphemism for white flour. Don’t buy it! (For more information on cooking some of the more unusual grains, see The Yeast Connection Cookbook by William G. Crook, M.D. and Marjorie Hurt Jones, R.N. 2001).

Eat modest amounts of good fats. Nut and seed oils like olive oil, canola oil, safflower, walnut, sunflower, sesame, and flaxseed are the fats you should seek out. They’re all great sources of essential fatty acids. Be sure to get unprocessed, unrefined oils that have EFAs intact. Oils tend to become rancid when they remain on a shelf at room temperature, so purchase your oils from a store with a rapid turnover and keep them refrigerated.

Avoid hydrogenated oil products like Crisco or any other spread that remains solid at room temperature. New government labeling requirements will also let you know trans fatty acid (TFA) content of foods. Basically, you want to avoid TFAs completely.

Keep your meat and dairy consumption fairly low. I think in general a vegetarian diet is very beneficial for almost everyone, but if you still want to eat meat, look for organic chicken and beef.

Much of the non-organically produced meat supply contains antibiotics, which can worsen your condition if you have yeast overgrowth. Insecticides are also commonly used in beef and pork. It’s given to the animal before slaughter and after slaughter as a preservative.

Natural yogurt is great. I recommend low-fat varieties for general good nutrition and to help re-balance the intestinal flora.

Eat seafood in moderation. Seafood is good – but the pollution of the world’s oceans, especially heavy metals like mercury, has entered the food chain and made it inadvisable to eat seafood more than three times a week. Unfortunately, the best nutritional sources of seafood like salmon and tuna that have high levels of essential fatty acids are also the ones with the highest concentrations of heavy metals. Be sure to rotate the types of seafood you eat. Trim away the fat and dark meat. Also avoid stews that call for the whole fish since toxins accumulate in the internal organs. Avoid raw shellfish entirely if you have cancer, diabetes or any disease that impairs immunity.

Avoid tap water. Tap water often contains chemicals from a variety of sources. These include insecticides and weed killers that remain in the water in spite of purification and filtration. Fluorine and chlorine and other chemicals are added to the waster and chemicals are picked up from plastic pipes or copper pipes. Use well, spring or distilled water.

My comments:
Again, this is only the bare bones primer of healthy eating. This is what everyone should do, regardless of your health condition. If you have yeast-related problems, you’ll need to be much more vigilant about all the types of food you eat, at least until you’ve controlled the yeast overgrowth and identified your hidden food sensitivities.


All material is copyrighted by Kathleen Barnes and her co-authors. Excerpts may be reprinted with permission by e-mailing: takechargebooks@citcom.net.