Norma Galante, a Boston college student, went to her local medical clinic complaining of vaginal itching and a slight discharge. The physician took a culture of the discharge and examined it under the microscope. He diagnosed a mild bacterial infection and prescribed an antibiotic.

When Norma took the medication, however, it only made the symp-toms worse. She went back to the doctor and he gave her another antibiotic It didn't work either. She tried again, and again, but he couldn't find a medication that would help. "I kept going back to the clinic, and the doctors kept prescribing different antibiotics," Norma says. Out of frustration, the physicians finally prescribed a topical anti-candida cream to see if that would be of any help. While Candida is not affected by antibiotics it can be treated topically with anti-fungal creams and suppositories. Her symptoms subsided. She felt relieved. At last she thought her problem was solved.

Yeast infections are persistent and often recur. This was the case with Norma. It wasn't long before she had another infection. The medications she used seemed to relieve the symptoms, but within a few months they would flare up again. Before long she began to develop other fungal infections like athlete's foot and skin rashes (ringworm). Fungal infections of one sort or another became an ongoing nuisance. She felt chronically fatigued. Everything she did seemed to tire her. She became depressed. "The doctors didn't have any answers," she recalls. "To them I had a minor problem, But I was living with the itching and the fatigue every day; it wasn't a minor problem for me."

After receiving little help from her doctors she began searching for an answer herself. She scoured health food stores for books and information on yeast infections. After studying these materials she realized she was suffering from a systemic or entire body Candida infection. She cut sugar out of her diet and began taking a dietary supplement derived from coconut oil called caprylic acid. It worked! Both the vaginal yeast and skin infections healed. Without the constant strain of fighting the infection her energy returned. She was able to function normally again without feeling constantly fatigued. "I was so relieved to find something that brought my energy back," she says.²

One of the most widespread health problems in Western society is caused by the fungus Candida albacans. Many women are familiar with this troublesome pest because it is a common cause of vaginal yeast infections. It is also the same organism that causes oral thrush and diaper rash in babies. Candida is a single-celled fungus or yeast cell that inhabits the intestinal tract and mucus membranes of every living person on the earth. Within days after birth, newborns are infected and have a budding colony living in their digestive tract. Normally, competition from friendly bacteria and the cleansing action of our immune system keep Candida numbers low and prevent them from causing any adverse health problems. But when the immune system is compromised or friendly bacteria in our gut are killed by taking antibiotics, a Candida infection can quickly flare up. A single course of antibiotics can lead to a raging Candida infection. Approximately 75 percent of women experience vaginal yeast infections at one time or another.

Vaginal yeast infections are typically treated as if they were only localized in one area of the body. Many people, however, have systemic infections in which Candida grows out of control overrunning the digestive tract and affecting the entire body, including the reproductive system. Systemic yeast infections called candidiasis (or yeast syndrome) affect the entire body and can afflict men as well as women. Symptoms are numerous and varied (see table below) and even doctors have difficulty identifying the problem.

Because it is not easy to identify, hundreds of thousands of women and men are plagued with candidiasis without even realizing it. Vaginal yeast infections or oral yeast infections (thrush) can be identified by the white discharge they produce. Recurring vaginal yeast infections are one of the signs of a systemic infection. But you can have candidiasis without an active vaginal yeast infection. Anyone who has taken antibiotics, birth control pills, steroids, or immunosuppresive drugs is at high risk of having a systemic yeast infection, even if no noticeable symptoms are evident.

Typical symptoms also include fatigue, depression, allergy symptoms, and recurring fungal skin infections (athlete's foot, jock itch, ringworm, etc.).

Skin fungus can afflict any part of the body from the head to the toe. Dry flaky skin that persists despite the use of hand lotion and skin creams could very well be a fungal infection. Often what people call psoriasis is really a fungal infection. Dandruff is caused, in part, by skin fungus. Preadolescent children are the primary victims of scalp ringworm (tinea capitis), a skin fungus similar to athlete's foot. Not until puberty do glands secrete oil containing medium-chain fatty acids that help protect the scalp from skin fungus (Click here for more information on skin health).

One of the most potent non-drug or natural yeast-fighting substances is caprylic acid, a medium-chain fatty acid derived from coconut oil. It is very effective against Candida and other forms of fungi. It is even effective mixed with a little coconut oil or vitamin E oil as a topical application for fungal skin infections. Fungal infections that have lasted for months have been known to clear up in a matter of days using caprylic acid and a little coconut oil. It works just as effectively inside the body, killing fungi without the least bit of harm. Women in the Philippines who eat their traditional coconut-based diet rarely if ever get yeast infections. Eating coconut oil on a regular basis, as the Filipinos do, would help to keep Candida and other harmful microorganisms at bay.

The efficiency of caprylic acid is reportedly so favorable that many supplement manufacturers put it in their products used to fight systemic and vaginal yeast infections. John P. Trowbridge. MD, President of the American College of Advancement of Medicine, and author of the book The Yeast Syndrome, highly recommends caprylic acid as an aid to fight systemic Candida infections.

William Crook, M.D., the author of The Yeast Connection and recognized authority on yeast infections, also recommends it. He reports that many physicians have used it successfully and that it works especially well for those patients who have adverse reactions to antifungal drugs.³ It is reported that caprylic acid is just as effective as nystatin, the most popular antifungal prescription drug, but without the side effects.

Besides caprylic acid, two other medium chain fatty acids found in coconut oil have been found to kill Candida albicans. A study done at the University of Iceland showed "capric acid, a 10-carbon saturated fatty acid, causes the fastest and most effective killing of all three strains of C. albicans tested, leaving the cytoplasm disorganized and shrunken because of a disrupted or disintegrated plasma membrane. Lauric acid, a 12-carbon saturated fatty acid, was the most active at lower concentrations and after a longer incubation time."⁴ This study shows great promise that all the medium chain fatty acids in coconut oil work together to kill Candida albicans.

Note: This website is for informational purposes only, and is educational in nature. Nothing here is to be taken as medical advice.