Last Tuesday Bayer AG received U.S. antitrust approval to takeover Monsanto, clearing the last major regulatory hurdle for the 66 billion dollar deal to happen. The deal has received antitrust approval from most jurisdictions around the world. Bayer is still waiting for Mexico and Canada’s approval, but according to a recent statement, the company believes the deal will close by the June 14 deadline. If the deal is not completed by June 14 Monsanto could pull out or seek a higher price.

Approval from the U.S. Justice Department is contingent on the sale of $9 billion in Bayer assets to BASF. The sales of those assets include the Liberty herbicide brand as well as the company’s canola, soybean, and vegetable seed businesses. These products compete with current Monsanto products.

Makan Delrahim, head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, says that this is the largest divestiture in U.S. antitrust enforcement history.

Recommended: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Acquiring Monsanto is the latest move in a series of steps to transform the 154-year-old company. Bayer used to be a plastics business. Now they are considered a “life-science” company. Bayer will be equal parts health industry and agriculture industry.

When the deal goes through there will be three massive global corporations that control the world’s agriculture industry: DowDuPont, Syngenta AG, and Bayer-Monsanto.

The DOJ’s weak divestment requirements will do nothing to stop Bayer-Monsanto from controlling more and more of our food system. This merger will damage the bargaining power of family farmers, prevent farmers from accessing diverse seed varieties, and allow seed prices to rise.” – Tiffany Finck-Haynes, senior food futures campaigner with Friends of the Earth via Bloomerg

Must Read:

• How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering
• Scientists Against GMOs – Hear From Those Who Have Done the Research
• Doctors Against GMOs – Hear From Those Who Have Done the Research

Image credit: importantlinks.de

Why and How the Two Go Together

The human body is colonized by an unfathomable number of different microbial species including bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Candida is a normal member of human gut flora. Virtually all of us have it. When beneficial bacteria is not present Candida can become virulent. Lyme patients often undergo long-term antibiotic therapy. Antibiotics destroy beneficial intestinal bacteria which then allows candida, other fungi, and other pathogens to flourish.

Most pathogens, including candida and Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme bacteria), need carbohydrates to survive. How they get their carbohydrates differs, but a diet high in sugars and starches literally feed Candida and Lyme as well as other living pathogens both directly and indirectly.

Since virtually all of us have Candida, those with Lyme are especially susceptible. Even without antibiotic treatments, a weak immune system allows Candida to flourish, grow hyphae, and colonize all around the body.

Some people are not susceptible to Lyme disease. Scientists think that genes and overall health determine susceptibility, but the presence of virulent Candida is probably one of the best measures of the health of a person. As mentioned, we all (or nearly all) have candida, but healthy bodies do not have virulent candida. Candida overgrowth is what happens in a compromised immune system. In other words, even if someone has not been treated with antibiotics, it stands to reason that virulent candida, and many other pathogens are present in the body of someone who is susceptible to Lyme.

Why Lyme Is Becoming More Prevalent

Ticks can’t survive in very cold climates. Warmer climates help ticks reproduce and survive longer, proliferate earlier, and live farther north. And yes, our climate is warming. We can argue that this is caused by man-made pollution or the reversal of our polarity, or the ebb and flow of the planet’s ecosystem, or even intentional geoengineering, but the climate is, without a doubt, getting warmer. Even a minor adjustment in average temperatures can have massive effects on the ecosystem. Warmer winters are also expanding the geographic range of animals associated with Lyme, helping to explain the spread of the disease in northern climates like Canada.

In addition, we have more deer. Deer were nearly extinct at the turn of the 20th century. Hunters deci­mated deer populations and Lyme disease is believed to be most often contracted by deer ticks. Over the last century, deer have obviously made a comeback.

It’s not just the deer, forty to 90 percent of white-footed mice carry Borrelia burgdorferi, and these mice are also proliferating and expanding their territories lately. There are other creatures that carry the ticks, and other parasites that carry the disease as well.

Some researchers estimate that global warming has doubled tick populations in the US, and increased populations by up to five fold in Canada.

Why Candida Is So Common

Our modern world’s continued fervor for irradicating germs, mostly bacteria, live us to deal with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and fungi. Our sugar and starch consumption is also increasing while our diet diversity is decreasing, and consequently, our gut’s ecosystem diversity is also decreasing. Fungal infections are becoming increasingly prevalent in the human population. Candida albicans incredibly opportunistic and is the most common fungal pathogen found in humans worldwide.

Even the fruit we consume has far more sugar than what our ancestors were accustomed too. Check out the difference between our modern hybridized bananas and the wild ones:

Try looking into other fruit as well and you’ll see that we used to have to work a lot harder for that sugar.

Why You Have To Address Address Both Lyme and Candida

Candida overgrowth opens up the gut. There little tiny holes that are only supposed to allow digested, completely broken down foods. When Candida becomes virulent it makes the gut much too permeable, consequently, pathogens including parasites, undigested proteins, and sugars get into the bloodstream radically overwhelming the immune system. The body is not capable of handling Lyme under such stress. The immune system already has its work cut out for itself under healthy conditions. And, in case you haven’t heard yet, your immune system is only as good as your gut health.

Have you ever heard the phrase “feed a cold, starve a fever?” There is some truth to it, but its incomplete. The phrase should be, “feed a virus, starve bacteria and fungal infections.” But Lyme and Candida take a long time to get rid of, and fasting for months is not a good idea. But we can still starve them by restricting sugars and starches, and we can speed up their demise with supplements.

For more information on Candida, along with a protocol including recommended supplements and diet, check out my article Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections.

I also wrote, Best Supplements To Kill Lyme and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Lyme Disease, but I recommend starting with Candida.

Sources:

• Tetracycline Effects on Candida Albicans Virulence Factors – NCBI
• Carbohydrate utilization by the Lyme borreliosis spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi
• Dietary Carbohydrates Modulate Candida albicans Biofilm Development on the Denture Surface – Plos One
• Candida Related Complex: A Complicating Factor In Lyme Disease – Public Health Alert
• Adaptive immune responses to Candida albicans infection – NCBI
• Does Lyme Disease Thrive on a High Sugar Diet? – Alternative Health

Whole Foods Market executives emailed suppliers last Friday to announce that the company will delay the rollout of its GMO Labeling Policy. The company’s comprehensive labeling policy was slated for September 1st. They have not announced a new timeline for the policy.

In a copy of the announcement obtained by The New Food Economy, Gallo and two vice presidents write that the pause is a response to suppliers’ concerns about having to comply with two competing sets of rules: Whole Foods’ own GMO labeling requirements, and rules newly proposed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which are currently open for public comment.”

The confusion is understandable. As currently proposed, the USDA policy would make several substantive changes to the way GMOs have traditionally been defined by the food industry—starting with the terminology itself. The government’s preferred nomenclature is “bioengineered” (BE), which only refers to a food that has had another organism’s genes spliced into it by a process called transgenesis. Other types of genetic modification, including some produced by gene-editing tools like CRISPR, would not need to be labeled. – New Food Economy

Whole Foods previously announced that it soon would require food suppliers to “label products that contain genetically modified (GMO) risk ingredients and were not third-party verified as non-GMO or organic.”

Whole Foods stated in a separate memo that all suppliers still must acquire third-party verification by a Whole Foods-approved program for any “non-GMO” claims on the food labels.

Be sure to check out How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering.

Some reports indicate that Americans eat more and more of their meals at restaurants. Other reports say restaurant eating is on the decline. Most reports say that millennials are eating out more and that they don’t know how to cook. We’re not sure where the truth lies, but we’re pretty sure it’s not normal for twenty-year-olds to be cooking most of their own meals. And, more importantly, young consumers are growing more concerned with finding healthier food choices, whether they are eating out or not.

On that note, the single most important thing you can do for your health is to prepare your own food from scratch. Now, a new study published in the journal Environment International states that Americans’ are getting more than they bargained for when they eat out. Eating out restaurants frequently is correlated with higher body levels of phthalates.

Phthalates are not food additives; at least, they’re not intentional. Phthalates are chemicals that are mixed with plastics to make them more pliable or flexible. They are also linked to reduced semen quality, diabetes, lower IQ, cancer, and more. The chemicals can leach into food as they are stored in restaurant-style plastic containers, handled with food-handling gloves, and processed through plastic processing equipment.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

George Washington University, UC-Berkeley, and UC-San Francisco analyzed urine sample data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is a government-backed health survey that is performed every two years. Data from more than 10,000 Americans (between 2005 and 2014) included urine analysis along with what they ate the day before and where they got the meal. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents reported having eaten restaurant food the prior day.

We found that people who eat out more at full-service restaurants, cafeterias, and fast-food restaurants have nearly 35 percent higher phthalate exposures than people who bought their food from a grocery store, and are presumably eating at home,” – Ami Zota, senior author on the study, Mother Jones

The reports also states that people who ate restaurant-made meat sandwiches (including hamburgers) saw increased phthalate levels higher than that of people who ate homemade meat sandwiches. Fast food consumption showed a big increase in phthalate exposure.

Our findings suggest that eating fresh, less processed foods at home can potentially reduce biologically-relevant phthalate levels in your body, and that’s something you could do tomorrow,” – Julia Varshavsky, lead author on the study

Phthalates last in the body for about a day, so the good news is that it’s not too hard to detoxify oneself of most of them by not eating out, but it begs the question, what other plastic and chemical contaminants are we getting from restaurant foods? Not to mention rancid industrial cooking oils, GMOs, and extreme cooking temperatures that cause Advanced Glycation End Products.

Study:

• Dining out associated with increased exposure to harmful chemicals called phthalates

Recommended Reading:

• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• Start Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet
• How to Make the Healthiest Smoothies – 4 Recipes
• How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

A newly published study in Nature Communications has discovered that a peptide found in tobacco plants, NaD1, is able to combat Candida albicans cells. The compound is found in the plant Nicotiana alata, which is one of roughly 70 species of tobacco not grown for commercial use. The outer layer of Candida albicans, the most common cause of yeast infections, is torn apart by the peptide, causing the death and explosion of the fungus. According to Dr. Mark Hulett, a study author from the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science,

They [the peptides] act in a different way to existing antibiotics and allow us to explore new ways of fighting infections. It’s an exciting discovery that could be harnessed to develop a new class of life-saving antimicrobial therapy to treat a range of infectious diseases, including multi-drug-resistant golden staph, and viral infections such as HIV, Zika virus, Dengue and Murray River Encephalitis.”

Candida’s Diet

Candida is an especially insidious fungus. Since the candida is always present in the body, keeping the opportunistic microbe in balance is key. Unfortunately, the standard American diet, high in sugar and processed foods, is incredibly suited to the fungus.

Recommended: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Figuring out the Future

The discovery of this plant’s effectiveness in killing Candida could be a breakthrough in treating the fungus. Or it could be devastating in a way we haven’t anticipated. Candida serves a necessary function, aiding in nutrient absorption and digestion. It also releases toxins as it dies, and death by explosion seems guaranteed to cause significant die-off symptoms.

Recommended: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Maybe this will work. Likely it won’t because it doesn’t deal with how the candida got out of control in the first place. The issue is diet, and that will take a more thoughtful and holistic approach than pharmaceuticals can offer.

Sources:

• La Trobe’s Infection-Busting Discovery – Latrobe.edu
• X-ray structure of a carpet-like antimicrobial defensin–phospholipid membrane disruption complex – Nature Communications
• 6 Most Common Types of Candida – yeastinfection.org
• Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections – Organic Lifestyle Magazine

Two of the pillars of modern medicine are in trouble and it’s for the same reason – ignoring microbial evolution. Conventional medicine charged ahead with rampant antibiotic use without a full understanding of the microbiome and how our immune system works or taking into account the additional impact of eating antibiotic-treated animals regularly. Bacteria consistently exposed to low-level antibiotics has evolved past those treatments, requiring doctors to prescribe increasingly strong antibiotics to conquer these incredibly resilient bacteria. For years we’ve been treating harmful pathogens like elite athletes, giving them increasingly difficult hurdles that only the strongest survive. Now, antibiotic-resistant superbugs will kill 10 million people a year by 2050 if the way we use antibiotics doesn’t change.

Now we are finding that vaccines do the same thing with complex pathogens. The vaccine suppresses the host’s response to the pathogen but doesn’t kill it. This gives more virulent, more quickly replicating bacteria a chance to multiply without killing the host. No one dies…but the bacteria evolves to the point that the vaccine is no longer effective.

Recommended: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

Whooping Cough

People vaccinated for pertussis are carriers of the whooping cough bacteria, even if they never contract the illness. In that respect, the vaccine succeeds…but only in the short term. Since the host of the pathogen doesn’t expire from it, the bacteria develop into a stronger version of pertussis. Caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis, whooping cough has never been eradicated and the number of cases has been slowly increasing for years. Conventional news outlets are quick to blame anti-vaxxers every time there’s an outbreak of whooping cough, an easier solution than examining the effectiveness of the vaccine.

The whooping cough vaccine was first modified in 1992 on a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control after it was linked to seizures. The new version targets specific proteins in the bacteria, which is the perfect opening for other proteins to fill the power vacuum. Like antibiotics, microbes that don’t get targeted are able to thrive. While research has periodically called for an examination of the vaccine as reported cases of pertussis increase, a 2014 study from Australia confirms that the strains of whooping cough not targeted by the vaccine are thriving. Ruiting Lan, senior author of the latest study on whooping cough and associate professor at School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales says, “It’s like a game of hide and seek. It is harder for the antibodies made by the body’s immune system in response to vaccination to ‘search and destroy’ the whooping cough bacteria which lack pertactin. This could mean that these pertactin-free strains have gained a selective advantage over bacterial strains with the pertactin protein.” In the course of four years, the percentage of whooping cough samples that lacked the protein targeted by the vaccine jumped over 70 percent. And that’s just in Australia. Lan also commented that “The fact that they have arisen independently in different countries suggests this is in response to the vaccine. More studies are needed to better understand the effects of vaccination on the evolution of the organism…”

Marek’s Disease

Another example of disease evolution in relation to vaccines is Marek’s Disease, a deadly ailment affecting chickens that has evolved enough to render two vaccines irrelevant and costs the poultry industry more than 2 billion dollars a year. Andrew Read, a scientist Pennsylvania State University Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, believes that the vaccine may be causing more harm than good. He’s been researching how vaccines allow bacteria and viruses to evolve and gain virulence for over 15 years and is also associated with the concept of “leaky” vaccines. Leaky vaccines, also called imperfect vaccines, save the vaccinated individual from death but turn them into a disease incubator. In his study of Marek’s Disease, Read linked leaky vaccine and increased microbe virulence.

When vaccines prevent transmission, as is the case for nearly all vaccines used in humans, this type of evolution towards increased virulence is blocked. But when vaccines leak, allowing at least some pathogen transmission, they could create the ecological conditions that would allow hot strains to emerge and persist. This theory proved highly controversial when it was first proposed over a decade ago, but here we report experiments with Marek’s disease virus in poultry that show that modern commercial leaky vaccines can have precisely this effect: they allow the onward transmission of strains otherwise too lethal to persist. Thus, the use of leaky vaccines can facilitate the evolution of pathogen strains that put unvaccinated hosts at greater risk of severe disease. The future challenge is to identify whether there are other types of vaccines used in animals and humans that might also generate these evolutionary risks.”

Marek’s Disease affects chickens, which doesn’t sound scary. The disease isn’t going to just jump to humans…that’s not how things work. But if we’re learning anything, it’s that science’s refusal to seriously consider and investigate vaccines mean that we don’t know exactly how things work.

Related:How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children

We Cannot Keep Up

Vaccines are designed to target a specific strain of a bacteria or virus and encourages the immune system to defeat it. The vaccine and its response are frequently victorious. But that focus has ignored the realities of infection and the way microbes evolve. The defeating a particular pathogen or strain of bacteria leaves room for another one to take its place. In the case of Marek’s Disease, the third iteration of the vaccine still works, but there isn’t a new one in the works.

In its success, the vaccine has opened the door to a host of other issues that modern medicine won’t be ready for until it’s too late. Of course, we won’t be ready. You can’t fix something until you admit there’s a problem, and admitting that vaccination causes serious issues is too costly an error to cop to.

Sources:

• Vaccines Are Pushing Pathogens to Evolve – Quantas Magazine
• Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens – PLOS Biology
• Whooping cough bacterium evolves, mutation makes existing vaccine less effective – TechTimes
• Leaky vaccines could lead to more virulent pathogens – PLOS Blogs
• ‘Leaky Vaccines’ Could Spur More Dangerous Disease – Mercola.com

There are a lot of reasons why Candida is so hard to kill.

From Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections.

Candida mutates and develops resistance towards treatment. It has been found that Candida Albicans has the ability to rearrange its genes and adapt to many methods of eradication that may be used against it, including antifungal medications, oxidative stress, and temperature increases.

When Candida has access to the bloodstream (which happens with a leaky gut), it can colonize in the sinus cavities, glands, and organs in the body, including the skin and the brain. When areas of the body have less blood flow it’s harder to fight off infection.

The cell wall of Candida is made up of mostly sugars and proteins. One of the sugars that make up the cell wall of Candida is called beta-glucans. Beta-glucans are also used as a structural building block for Candida biofilm. The beta-glucans can stimulate and suppress the immune system of the host.

Candida can bind to certain hormones, altering their shape so they’re no longer able to fit into their target hormonal receptors. This is one way Candida can manipulate the endocrine system and disrupt hormonal balance.

A healthy gut has a healthy biofilm made up of beneficial bacteria with a little bit of yeast. Healthy biofilm has a beneficial symbiotic relationship with our body. Candida also develops a biofilm.

Candida biofilm is the resilient, gelatinous matrix that Candida creates around itself when it colonizes tissue around the body. This biofilm allows Candida to grow while protecting it from the immune system. In other words, Candida uses its biofilm to suppress or activate the immune response of the host to adjust its environment.

Some Candida proteins look similar to gluten protein molecules, which also look similar to the proteins that make up our thyroid. This causes autoimmune disease.

Candida needs an alkalinity to survive. When it finds itself in an environment that is too acidic, like your gastrointestinal tract, Candida will release ammonia to lower the PH of the environment.

An abundance of Candida causes anxiety, depression, ADHD, and other a plethora of other mental health disorders. The toxins released by Candida can impair neurotransmitter production and neurotransmitter function an disrupt brain chemistry. Your thoughts, feelings, moods, and your way of seeing the world can be profoundly influenced by Candida.

Yeast needs energy. Sugar supplies this energy. If oxygen is low or non-existent (like in the middle of a ball of dough, or inside much of our body), yeast will produce carbon dioxide and ethanol, also known as alcohol. Alcohol levels can be so high in the body that the individual may actually be drunk, fail a breathalyzer test, and experience a hangover after the sugar is used up.

Fungal Supplement Stack – Knock Out Yeast, Candida, Mold, Fungus

The first three should be plenty for most people, but for really prominent fungal issues or for impatient people with a bigger budget I’d recommend all of these:

• Formula SF722 – Thorne Research
• Syntol AMD – Arthur Andrew Medical
• Berberine 500mg – Thorne Research
• MycoCeutics MycoPhyto Complex – EcoNugenics
• MicroDefense – Pure Encapsulations
• Abzorb Vitamin & Nutrient Optimizer (500mg) HCP Formulas

I recommend taking the SF722, Berberine, MycoCeutics, and Microdefense with meals, and the Abzorb and Syntol separately, on an empty stomach (like in the morning and before bed). The Abzorb and the Syntol are a bit redundant, but I find good results using both if the budget can afford it. If money is really tight, just get the SF722 and put your money into your diet.