Greetings.
Eric Bakker, Naturopath for New Zealand.
I've got a question here regarding candida and memory loss.
Can candida cause memory loss?
Well, the way I see it, when you've got a problem with your digestive system, especially
candida imbalance in the gut, it can cause a whole bunch of different problems.
A long time ago when I was a student, we used to think that people who had memory loss or
things like bipolar or schizophrenia or depression or anxiety or mood disorders, it was a brain
based problem.
We didn't think that the gut actually affected the brain that much back in the 70's and 80's.
You know, we had some idea that there was a powerful immune presence in the gut, but
we had no idea that most of the hormones that influence how we think and feel are actually
produced in the digestive system.
It's incredible.
So we're learning so much more about what we call the second brain now, with the gut.
And the second brain has a powerful influence on the primary brain.
So if you have got a problem with the gut.
A gut dysfunction, particularly the small intestine, a real imbalance through antibiotics
or stress or you know, crappy food or crappy lifestyle or things like that, if your gut's
really affected, it's going to affect how you think and feel.
And of course it's going to affect the memory.
It's going to affect the mood.
It's gonna make you more irritable.
John Hopkins University in 2016 did a large research on bipolar schizophrenia and candida
and they found an absolute link there.
For example, they found that men who had a big candida problem were more likely to have
serious mood disorders.
To me, it makes sense that if you've got a serious problem with memory, particularly
short term memory and you've got a digestive problem, you want to get the gut problem fixed
to see if there's a link between that and how you're thinking and feeling.
So, can candida cause memory loss?
Well, that's a difficult one to say, you know.
But if you have got a big problem with memory or cognition or thinking in general and you've
got things like bloating or gas or constipation or diarrhea, or if you're on any kind of pharmaceutical
drug long term, if you've been on any kind of antibiotics, if you've taken Tylenol, ibuprofen
or you have a proton pump inhibitor like and acid kind of a blocking drug, if you've been
on a drug regularly and you notice a memory problem, I would say you absolutely need to
get a handle on this.
Try and stop the drug or take some natural kind of medicine instead And then see how
the memory goes.
Particularly if you've done a stool test, found you've got poor levels of beneficial
bacteria and you've got memory loss and good bacteria, I would absolutely recommend that
you build your good bacteria back up again and then see what happens to the memory loss.
So remember also that memory's like a muscle, it can be trained.
I watched a very good TED Talk a YouTube video the other day, on how to build up a powerful
memory.
Anybody can build a powerful memory.
It's just a matter of like going to the gym, training that muscle.
So memory can be built up.
You can develop a powerful memory.
Stress is a great way to destroy short term memory.
Long term memory stays intact.
You talk to even people with dementia or Alzheimer's and they can still recall stuff that happened
30, 40 years ago.
It's the short term memory that gets affected.
The ability to imprint information that we hear of yesterday for example, many people,
if you ask what they had for breakfast yesterday, they'd have difficulty telling you that, which
is incredible.
Now let me remember, where was I?
Can memory, can candida cause memory loss?
That's right.
I forgot.
I would say there's certainly some type of link there.
As I mentioned previous, especially if you've got a digestive problem, you want to get a
handle on it.
So I hope that answers your question.
Thanks for tuning in.