Organic Lifestyle Magazine

No Makeup & Blemish Free? Healthy Gut, Healthy Skin – Here’s How

by
Last updated on: January 1, 2018

image_pdfimage_print

For a movie star, 1080 was bad enough; now there’s 4k resolution! Pores on the face can steal the show under high def scrutiny. The typical solution is  more makeup. Not just any makeup, high definition, movie star makeup, which is even worse for the skin than the conventional kind. It’s a vicious cycle in which many a movie or television star find themselves, while others have radiant, beautiful, blemish free skin.

Why do some stars look young and vibrant well past the age when most of us are blotchy and achy all over, even when they are caught off guard and makeup free by the paparazzi? It may seem like they know a Hollywood secret, but they don’t. There isn’t one. There’s no pill or insider trick. It’s health. Pure and simple. Health that is mainly due to diet. What you see is an actor who consistently makes the right choices, every single day.

Poor skin health is a symptom of an unhealthy microbiome. The health of the skin, eyes, and mouth are very good indicators for gut health. Anyone who wants healthy skin will have to eat a healthy diet.

Our microbiome breaks down and assimilates food, assimilates nutrients, and helps produce hormones, all while crowding out potential pathogens and keeping Candida numbers in check. The body’s gut flora primarily consists of bacteria and fungi. A healthy gut contains a ratio of about 1000 bacteria to 1 Candida yeast cell. In this ratio, Candida albicans is just a part of our beneficial gut flora. It’s no coincidence that the most beneficial gut bacteria survive and thrive on the most beneficial foods we can eat. Healthy gut flora live off of raw, organic vegetables and other healthy whole foods. Nasty, pathogenic bacteria, fungi, and other microbes live in a gut full of fast food and prescription drugs. The more fresh, raw, organic produce we consume, the healthier the gut flora will be. Candida is very opportunistic, and it will proliferate in a host who consumes a poor diet or otherwise disrupts their gut flora.

An abundance of Candida will seriously damage the intestinal walls causing an overly permeable or “leaky” gut. Most people in modern societies like ours are living with this right now. When Candida is left unchecked, it opens the door for other pathogens. More accurately, it makes holes in the gut for pathogens to invade the bloodstream. When someone has poor skin health, it is a safe bet that Candida is proliferating.

Our modern lifestyle disrupts our microbiome system:

  • Antibiotics in our food, water, drugs, soaps, and other bodycare products
  • Refined foods that feed the pathogens (healthy food feeds the good guys)
  • Vaccines, drugs (not just antibiotics, but anything toxic), heavy metals, and other toxins that kill beneficial flora
  • Pesticides, herbicides, and other toxins that kill our bacteria
  • Other toxic “foods” that disrupt our gut flora (like foods that contain heavy metals, artificial sweeteners, GMOs, etc.)

Here’s the thing that the medical community is not getting: anything that is toxic to the body will disrupt the body’s natural flora. Then Candida proliferates, and the body falls apart shortly thereafter. For better health, fix the body’s ecosystem. It will take time. Fortunately, it takes less time to get well than it does to get sick.

Natural Skin Health Via Gut Healing Protocol

Still not convinced? Try the following protocol for two weeks. Before starting, take pictures for a before and after comparison. The difference will be notable. We’re not just talking skin health. Allergies and most other ailments will dissipate, too. Fix the gut and eventually, the whole body follows.

Drink Lots of Cranberry Lemonade

Drink between a half a gallon and a gallon of cranberry lemonade each day to flush the liver and kidneys of toxins and help rejuvenate the endocrine system, which will help keep the blood clean and reduce “die-off symptoms” commonly associated with killing Candida.

Cranberry Lemonade Recipe

  • Glass gallon jar
  • Safe, clean, spring water or distilled water
  • 1 cup of unsweetened, organic cranberry juice, not from concentrate
  • 3 organic fresh lemons
  • A citrus juicer
  • Liquid stevia
  • Liquid cayenne

Fill the jar to about 85% capacity with spring water (or distilled water). Squeeze the lemons and pour the juice into the water. Add cranberry juice. Add stevia to taste and then add cayenne to taste. The amount of cayenne used is up to you, but the more the better.

If you don’t have access to a good source for spring water, use other clean drinking water that does not contain fluoride. If you don’t have access to organic lemons, use conventional. Fresh is almost always best. If there are no fresh lemons, use organic bottled lemon juice. If you can’t get cranberry juice that is not from concentrate, get the reconstituted kind (just don’t get any kind of cranberry juice that has any other ingredients like sweeteners or other juices). If you can’t stand cayenne, don’t use it. No glass jar? Use plastic.

Eat Right

Produce detoxifies. Fresh, whole, organic, raw vegetables, herbs, and fruits pull toxins from the body and repopulates healthy, beneficial gut bacteria as it give the body the nutrients it needs including enzymes and other phytonutrients that are almost non-existent in most modern diets.

Try to eat a huge salad every day with lots of greens, plenty of other colors, garlic, cilantro, ginger, and more. Check out this salad recipe.

The Salad Base

  • Spinach
  • Arugula (I prefer baby arugula, mature arugula tastes funky)
  • Collard greens (they’re very bitter; use sparingly)
  • Lettuce (mix it up, try an organic spring mix)
  • Kale
  • Beet greens (the tops of beets)
  • Red cabbage (thinly shred like a slaw or a little thicker, depending on the texture you prefer)
  • Rainbow chard

Shredded, Grated, or Spiralized

  • Carrots
  • Zucchini
  • Beetroot
  • Daikon (or other radish)

Chopped or Diced

  • Leeks
  • Red onions
  • Red and yellow bell peppers
  • Cucumbers
  • Cilantro
  • Asparagus (try cooking it in a balsamic vinegar first)

Extras

  • Pomegranate seeds
  • Olives
  • Raisins or dried cranberries
  • Sesame seeds
  • Ground papaya seeds and/or ground pepper
  • Avocado
  • Eggs (try soft boiled)
  • Beans (black, pinto, kidney, green, garbanzo, etc.)
  • Garlic
  • Turmeric
  • Chia seeds

It’s not an exact recipe, and it doesn’t have to be. Mix it up. Try new things. My salads generally have about 15 ingredients. Make them big; make them diverse. Just imagine you’re in nature, not modern society, and all you have to eat is nothing but a wide variety of the best, whole, fresh, healthy vegetables and herbs. This is what a big salad a day can do for you. It’s life changing.

I throw in chickpeas or a three-bean salad combination. If you’re not vegan, try a sheep feta cheese with this salad and throw on some eggs. It’s good with meat, too, like chicken or steak.

Don’t ruin it with a crappy salad dressing! All this salad needs is a little balsamic vinegar (apple cider is better, but I don’t like the taste as much in my salads), or some fresh lemon juice. It doesn’t take much.

What Else to Eat and What Not to Eat

Eat whole foods; avoid refined foods. Brown rice is good; white rice is out. Avoid wheat; artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, or sweeteners; trans fats; and MSG. Avoid carbonated beverages. Avoid GMOs. Limit fruits, and besides stevia, avoid or limit anything else that’s sweet.

Our modern diet almost always includes too much refined sugar. We don’t have access to agave nectar, brown rice syrup, fruit juices, and other sweeteners in nature. It’s just too much sugar. You may be thinking honey is a good alternative, but this is only true when the gut is healed, the body is relatively free of infection, and the immune system functions properly. Otherwise, even with its antimicrobial properties, honey can feed infection as it goes through the digestion process.

Supplements

Candida evolves to be resistant to much of what we do to try to kill it. This is much more of an issue with conventional treatments than it is with supplements, but it’s still a possibility. A multifaceted approach is the best way to eliminate Candida quickly. They won’t have time to adapt. Lots of protocols recommend multiple supplements that essentially have the same active ingredients, leading the buyer to believe they are taking a multifaceted approach when they are not. This is one of the many reasons typical Candida protocols are not very effective, though poor diet is the number one reason for any natural protocol not working effectively. For those on a tight budget or only wanting to add one or two supplements to their routine, I listed the following supplement links in order from the most to the least important in regards to killing Candida and balancing the gut.

  • Formula SF722 is one of the most effective products (perhaps the best) for killing any kind of fungal infection. It’s been shown in labs that Candida cannot adapt to undecenoic acid (the active ingredient in SF722) like it can with almost every other way we try to kill it.
  • Shillington’s Intestinal Cleanse will kill parasites, Candida, and other bad guys while it heals the gut, improves regularity, and removes nasty biofilm (little-known fact: there’s good biofilm, and there’s bad biofilm), all while setting up a hospitable environment for beneficial flora.
  • Undecyn has many different active components formulated specially to kill pathogens in the gut, urinary tract, and vaginal area, but it kills bad guys everywhere.
  • FloraMend is a probiotic that passes through the stomach acid and releases in the intestinal tract.
  • Olive Leaf Extract supports the immune system and promotes a healthy intestinal environment and provides natural protection and a healthy environment for cells, without suppressing immune system function or harming beneficial microflora.
  • Shillington’s Intestinal Detox is important for anyone who may have heavy metals in their system, and this formula heals the whole digestive tract. It’s not as necessary for more people, but if you experience digestive upset or heavy metal toxicity the intestinal detox is perfect for these issues.
  • MicroDefense – Pure Encapsulations is effective against all common parasites. With the Intestinal Cleanse and the Undecyn, this is overkill for most people, but if you’re very concerned with parasites, it’s the formula designed for that.
  • Allium Oil, made with organic olive oil, garlic, and vitamin E, encourages healthy, smooth sebum production and release and fights infection. (See this article for more on sebum.)

The SF722, Undecyn, the MicroDefense, and to a lesser extent the Intestinal Cleanse, will damage beneficial bacteria, so there are two options to get the most out of your supplements. One method is to take the FloraMend probiotic (and olive leaf) at bedtime and upon take the other microbe-killing supplements during the day with meals. Another option is to wait a week or two for symptoms to subside and then stop taking the SF722 and Undecyn and start taking the probiotic, but for those who are particularly ill, healing may take a little longer with this approach. Taking beneficial bacteria and the supplements that help support it at night makes for better B vitamin production, mineral uptake, and hormonal balance. Note that one of the great things about the olive leaf extract and the Intestinal Detox supplements is that while they do kill pathogens, neither formula will kill the good bacteria.

There are certain vitamins and minerals that have been proven to curb Candida growth, and of course, Candida depletes many of these nutrients. The right diet should suffice, but most people will do well with a nutrition formula, a mineral formula, fats and vitamin D, and a B vitamin complex. This is especially true for anyone who does not have access to high quality, nutrient dense food on a regular basis. Biotin, otherwise known as B7, helps prohibit Candida from converting to its hyphal filamentous growth structure, which is the form where tentacles drill through the gut. But there are at least a dozen other minerals and vitamins that we know are just as significant to gut balance, hence the holistic approach.

Maintenance for Clear Skin

After the gut is healthy and the body is healthy, continue to eat well, avoid processed foods, take the aforementioned supplements (nutrition formula, a mineral formula, fats and vitamin D, and a B vitamin complex), and continue to stay away from processed foods, wheat, alcohol, and vaccines. Or, stay away from them for a month and then go eat some bread and get your flu shot, watch the zits pop up. Your choice.

For those who are willing to spend considerable money to look younger than should be possible:

You can take systemic enzymes with collagen, but don’t take them at the same time. Take systemic enzymes on an empty stomach. If you take them with food, enzymes will help digest the food, which is great, but also take them on an empty stomach.

Use essential oils in place of perfumes, and make your own deodorant and sunscreen. Avoid all skin care products with chemicals, which is to say, avoid all conventional skin care, and read the “natural” labels diligently. Or, don’t use that stuff and just make everything yourself.

Conclusion

Candida is a hot topic of debate within both the naturopathic community and conventional medicine, with views ranging from Candida being the root of everything that’s wrong with the body to it being a very rare issue that is completely overblown. The reality is that a Candida infection in the gut is a process that happens when one is not well, and when left unchecked (it doesn’t take long) Candida will allow other pathogens to infiltrate the body through the gut. Candida is the key to many other diseases due to how it burrows into the intestinal walls. Once someone is chronically ill, it may or may not be Candida causing their problems, but you can bet Candida has played a big role.

Illness is never due to just one type of pathogen. If you feel ill, whether it be from a chronic illness or just a cold, it’s a little-known fact that there’s often more than just one virus, bacteria, or other pathogen affecting you.

Recommended Reading:
Sources:



[ubermenu config_id="main" menu="205"]
Michael Edwards

Michael Edwards

Owner at Organic Lifestyle Magazine
Michael Edwards is the founder, owner, editor-in-chief, and janitor for Organic Lifestyle Magazine. At age 17, Michael weighed more than 360 pounds. He suffered from allergies, frequent bouts of illness, and chronic, debilitating insomnia. Conventional medicine wasn’t working. While he restored his health through alternative medicine he studied natural health and became immersed in it.

Bio Page  -  Author's Website

Michael Edwards
Michael Edwards