Can Candida Cause Memory Loss?

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.