Candida

In Aajonus's framework, yeasts feed specifically on undigested or poorly digested carbohydrates and on the toxic byproducts that result from using carbohydrates as fuel. The body produces what New York City Medical University (and elsewhere he refers to as Columbia University) identified as advanced glycation end products, which are the waste products of burning carbohydrate as glycogen, analogous to carbon monoxide as a waste product of burning fuel in a car engine. These advanced glycation end products store at a rate of 70% in a healthy body and up to 90% in an unhealthy body, which Aajonus considered one of the strongest arguments that human beings are not designed to eat high-carbohydrate food. Candida and yeast are the organisms the body deploys to break down and remove these accumulated byproducts.

Bacteria, by contrast, primarily feed on organic cellular tissue, dead cells, and damaged but protein-based material. Yeasts do not do that work. Their specific function is the sugar-damaged environment: tissue that has been bruised, cauterized, or poisoned by carbohydrate byproducts and the products of excess insulin and adrenaline activity. This specialization means that if a person has spent a lifetime eating bread, pasta, pizza, potatoes, and other starchy cooked foods, they have accumulated vast stores of toxic sugars in their tissues, and candida will be present in corresponding abundance because that is precisely what the body recruited it to address.

Candida is not feeding on healthy tissue. It feeds on tissue that no longer functions well, that has been damaged and is no longer of use to the body. As Aajonus put it, "yeasts are getting rid of sugar-damaged cells. They're eating up those sugar-damaged cells. They don't function well anymore. They don't do any good for you anymore."

Aajonus described a hierarchy of efficiency among the body's biological cleaners. Bacteria eat approximately 50 times their weight in 24 hours and produce waste products of only 1 to 5 percent. Parasites eat approximately 100 times their weight in 24 hours at the same low waste ratio. Fungi, including yeasts, are slower and less efficient in their waste reduction. They may reduce the toxicity of what they consume but produce waste in the range of 15 to 20 percent, and in some descriptions closer to 50 percent of what they consume remains as byproduct.

This relatively high waste output is the direct cause of the symptoms associated with yeast infections and candida. The waste products of fungal activity are dry, and as they pass through the skin, they cause intense itching, dryness, and sometimes peeling. A vaginal yeast infection itches intensely because of this high volume of waste product passing through moist tissue. Athlete's foot peels the skin and itches severely for the same reason. Rectal itching is most often unidentified yeast cleaning that area. The uncomfortable symptoms are not signs that something is going wrong but signs that a significant volume of fungal waste is exiting through the skin, which means the cleaning is actively occurring.

Because fungi produce more waste than bacteria or parasites, Aajonus considered fungus the third choice for the body's cleansing hierarchy, used when the toxicity is too severe for bacteria or parasites to survive it. He described this in terms of the toxicity literally killing bacteria or parasites before they can eat the damaged tissue, leaving fungus as the only viable cleaner.

The fundamental driver of candida in Aajonus's framework is the accumulation of cooked carbohydrate byproducts in the body. People who have eaten heavy starch diets throughout their lives, including large quantities of bread, pasta, pizza, potatoes, and any grain-based food, have been storing these toxic sugars for decades. These substances can mold, rot, or ferment inside the tissues. He described being able to smell this fermentation on a person's skin: "Under their skin they have a fermentation smell. Or it has a moldy smell to it. Those starches are breaking down."

Candida is one of several agents the body uses to address this, alongside other fungal, bacterial, and viral bodies. The problem is that if a person continues eating poorly while candida is active, the body keeps storing more toxic sugar material at the same time the yeast is trying to clean existing stores, making resolution nearly impossible. The yeast is constantly being fed more of what it is trying to eliminate.

A person who has been a heavy starch eater has so much stored that the candida will not go away quickly regardless of dietary changes. As Aajonus stated, even with 95 to 100 percent adherence to the diet, "it's not going to go away for years because your cells are damaged with carbohydrate byproducts." The promise of strict adherence is not rapid resolution but significant mitigation: people at 95 to 100 percent compliance have "no symptoms, maybe a little itching once in a while in one particular area, but that's it. No other symptoms. No fatigue that goes along with it. No irritability. No intense rashes."

Candida does not arise from carbohydrate accumulation alone. Aajonus identified overactive adrenal glands combined with excess sugar and a lack of dietary fat as a set of conditions that together saturate the body and cause candida. The overproduction of adrenaline and insulin from stimulating substances including alcohol, coffee, teas, soft drinks with caffeine, aspirin, and salt consumed in large quantities over years creates toxic conditions and dryness in the tissues that cause internal lesions. These lesions create the stagnant pools of blood and damaged tissue that candida then feeds on.

He stated that candida usually occurs before adrenal exhaustion, but that the two conditions occur together in approximately 86 percent of cases. As the adrenal glands produce excess adrenaline and this combines with stored sugars throughout the body, yeast is what comes to feed on those pockets of adrenaline and sugar stored in the tissue.

Smoking places a person at higher risk of developing candida, and a person with a high adrenaline level who drinks alcohol is at particularly high risk. The mechanism in all these cases is the same: overstimulation of the adrenals and pancreas, creating excess adrenaline and insulin, which creates toxic dryness, which creates lesions, which creates conditions requiring fungal cleaning.

Aajonus described the body's temperature and moisture conditions as determining where fungal activity occurs. Fungus tends to grow in cooler, moister areas of the body. He identified bone marrow as a location where fungus is very prevalent, explaining why penicillin has a tendency to go there. The brain, being cooler than most of the body, also has a tendency toward fungal activity. Under the nails, in the joints, in the crotch area, in the rectum, and in the vagina are all common locations because these areas can become cool rather than warm. The body deliberately cools an area to let fungus do its work there.

In an individual who has yeast growing throughout the body, including in the bones, the yeast will exit through the skin and cause drying and itching as the cleanup process proceeds outward. Aajonus told one client that they had "yeast growing in everything, even in your bones" and that as the yeast came out through the skin there would be a reaction involving drying and itching.

Men and women experience candida differently. Women have an advantage because the body can direct adrenaline and sugar byproducts toward the vaginal area, where they can be expelled as vaginal yeast infections rather than accumulating throughout the systemic body. This route of elimination is more local and faster. Men do not have this option and instead accumulate the toxic material through the entire system, making systemic candida more comprehensive and more difficult to resolve in men.

Women who eat a high yeast-nutrient diet, meaning high in carbohydrates and cooked starchy foods, are more prone to vaginal yeast infections precisely because they are providing constant food for yeast in a part of the body that already tends toward fungal activity. Women who are high carbohydrate eaters will, in his words, have "a lot more yeast infections because they're eating a lot of yeast nutrients and food for yeast."

Aajonus said he did not need laboratory tests to identify candida. He could identify it through physical examination and direct questioning. Key signs included little red splotches on the skin, very sensitive skin, perspiration in the crotch that smells alcoholic, and pallid complexion. The full symptom picture he described includes a somewhat pallid complexion, sensitive and swollen extremities, dry skin, extreme lethargy, a critical attitude, a general dislike for people, and a tendency toward isolation.

He noted that perspiration with an alcoholic smell in the crotch area is a specific indicator, and that most people touch themselves and smell it instinctively even if they are not consciously aware of doing so. "It's just an animal thing. And whether they know it consciously or not, there are messages that are going when they are doing it."

The stomach, back, head, and leg aches that are often attributed to candida are not, in Aajonus's view, actually symptoms of candida. He was explicit about this in correspondence with the parent of a child diagnosed with candida. Those aches are symptoms of toxins stored in those tissues and of poor bacteria and enzyme activity. Candida is a symptom and a cure, not the cause of those broader systemic aches.

One of the primary modern causes of fungal and candida proliferation, beyond dietary carbohydrate accumulation, is antibiotic use. Aajonus pointed out that conditions like athlete's foot, jock itch, and widespread yeast infections did not exist before penicillin and antibiotics entered common use. He stated that they are absent or extremely rare in Asia except among people who have been given antibiotics.

Antibiotics, including penicillin, are themselves molds. When they are processed into pharmaceutical drugs, they are sterilized, which means the living mold is killed, but the mold residue is introduced into the body where it acts as a chemical toxin. Because the body cannot use dead mold to do biological work, and because antibiotics also kill the bacteria the body needs for normal digestion and cellular reconstruction, the result is a disruption of the entire biological cleaning hierarchy. The body then has to produce more fungal activity of its own to manage the accumulating damage.

Aajonus found that most penicillin stores in the joints, especially of the hands and feet. When people experience fungal conditions where skin itches and peels away, it is most often the body throwing off antibiotics or other medications that mold or cause mold within the body. Women who take antibiotics while pregnant or nursing put their offspring at high risk of anemia, leukemia, malformation of cartilage, weak joints, and other bone problems.

He described a formula he created primarily to get rid of fungus from vaccines and from antibiotics, including penicillin, because "they do" cause these conditions. The lime juice formula described below serves this specific anti-antibiotic fungal purpose in addition to its general use for mitigating candida symptoms.

Aajonus was specific that candida is not a cause of disease. It is not contagious. Because candida is an internal fungus feeding on tissue that has already been damaged, it cannot pass from one person to another. Internal yeast infections are not transmissible. He stated flatly: "But in yeast infections, if they're internal, cannot pass on."

Candida is not something that honey feeds. Raw unheated honey does not provide substrate for candida to grow on. In fact, he stated that 99 percent of bacteria cannot live in honey and that "you put a yeast in it, it just goes dormant, absolutely freezes." He made clear that this applies only to raw honey. Cooked honey has had its enzyme and insulin-like activity destroyed, and yeast can feed on cooked honey.

The reason some people feel that honey worsens candida is explained by an indirect mechanism: honey improves protein assimilation, which means more sugar byproducts are released from tissues for elimination, and those byproducts feed yeast in the skin as they exit. This makes it feel like the honey is worsening candida when in fact it is accelerating the removal of candida-relevant waste.

Aajonus addressed the common belief that candida patients should avoid all sugars including honey. He rejected this position entirely. Raw unheated honey does not act as a sugar in the body in the conventional sense. He described honey as containing an insulin-like substance that means only about 10 percent of the honey a person eats ends up as sugar available to cause problems. When honey is heated above 93 degrees Fahrenheit, this insulin-like substance begins to degrade. By 100 degrees it is largely gone. By 105 degrees honey becomes "a radical sugar." Below 93 degrees, honey actually helps detoxify the yeasts that are candida, assisting in their exit from the body rather than feeding them.

He also noted that advanced glycation end products from honey are minimal compared to those from other carbohydrate sources, though he acknowledged this mechanism was not fully understood. When honey is consumed with sufficient fat, including raw cream and egg yolks, the protective fatty context prevents any problematic interaction with candida.

Raw unpasteurized apple cider vinegar is one of Aajonus's recommended tools for people with candida. He used it specifically to alkalinize the body in hyperactive people and those who have stored a great deal of acidity, which includes most candida cases. He rejected the common candida protocol instruction to avoid all vinegar, attributing that restriction to the fact that conventional protocols use pasteurized vinegar, which is "a problem." Raw apple cider vinegar, by contrast, operates on the principle of "like attracts like," going in and helping to eat up and dissolve the stagnant pockets and pools of damaged material that candida feeds on.

He described raw apple cider vinegar as an old healing remedy, noting the Bragg tradition of apple cider vinegar with honey and water as a recognized approach. In his framework, the alkalinizing action of raw apple cider vinegar soothes tissues, helps reverse the toxic acid accumulation, and supports the candida process rather than working against it.

For someone with active candida, Aajonus recommended cutting out fruit entirely. His statement was direct: "For somebody with candida, I say just forget fruit." The reasoning is that yeasts feed on sugars, and fruit provides sugar in a form that, while less damaging than cooked starch sugar, still provides substrate for yeast to feed on and keeps the cycle active. He extended this to people who exhibit allergies to sweets: "Cut out the fruit. Don't need it."

He placed this recommendation in the context of the body's minimum carbohydrate requirement, which he put at 5 percent. He stated that a human being needs only 5 percent carbohydrates to function, specifically in the citric acid cycle that burns fat as fuel, with an additional 15 percent protein as pyruvate to support that process. The major nutrient the human body needs is fat, not carbohydrate, and candida patients in particular should move toward a fat-dominant diet with minimal carbohydrate input so they stop feeding the yeast while it completes its cleaning work.

Aajonus generally recommended that people with active candida minimize milk, though he did not suggest eliminating it completely. For someone with significant candida, regular cold raw milk could be problematic, with his advice being to favor more fermented forms such as kefir or yogurt. The fermentation process breaks down the milk sugars that would otherwise provide substrate for yeast, and the bacteria involved in making kefir and yogurt are acidophilus, bulgarus, and other beneficial organisms that support the body's own bacterial cleaning work.

Cold raw milk on its own, for someone whose body is producing yeast to deal with unprocessed carbohydrate compounds, could provoke a yeast response. The yeast produced in this context, as he described it, "is not as good as a lactobacillus," meaning the body's improvised response to the milk's sugars is less efficient than proper bacterial predigestion through fermentation.

For someone with candida who had eggs and cream, he indicated that two ounces of raw cream with three eggs provides sufficient fat to prevent any problematic honey interaction, making that combination safe for candida patients.

For a person with active candida, Aajonus recommended a high egg intake. In one consultation he specified approximately eight eggs per day for a person dealing with candida. The reasoning fits within his broader framework of using fat and protein to support tissue rebuilding and to bind with and neutralize the toxic materials that candida is processing.

For the swelling and soreness in the joints that results from candida activity, Aajonus recommended drinking the freshly juiced raw juice of one yam once every four days. Yam juice should be consumed within 10 minutes of juicing. The mechanism he described was that yam juice contains hormonal precursors that help produce hormones reducing the swelling and soreness in joints associated with candida. Combined with daily consumption of his Drink for Moisturizing and Lubrication (made with only 1 to 3 teaspoons of fresh raw lemon juice), this protocol addresses the joint and tissue dryness that is both a cause and symptom of the candida cycle.

Because Aajonus wanted candida to complete its cycle rather than be suppressed, his topical recommendations were focused on mitigation of discomfort rather than elimination of the yeast. The goal was to allow the yeast to do its work while making the itching, dryness, and skin disturbance tolerable enough to get through the day.

For external itching from yeast coming through the skin, he recommended putting butter on the affected areas or applying his Primal Facial Body Care Cream (described on page 145 of his recipe book). Coconut cream applied topically to the labial area, feet, or any area of fungal exit was also recommended. These applications keep the skin moisturized and prevent the worst of the dryness caused by fungal waste byproducts passing through.

A topical cream mixture he described for skin toxin elimination consisted of three and a half ounces of raw cream blended with one tablespoon of fresh-juiced ginger for approximately ten seconds. If the cream is thick, it will whip into a whipped cream consistency and can be applied like a cosmetic cream. If not thick, it will not whip but remains effective. This cream was recommended for anyone experiencing the drying and itching of candida exiting through the skin, with the note that "honey does not create an environment for candida. Honey helps detoxify the yeasts that are candida."

When candida symptoms were too severe to tolerate, Aajonus provided a specific formula for temporary reduction of rampant candida. He was clear that this formula should not be used to eliminate candida entirely because the fungal cleaning work is beneficial and necessary, but in cases of extreme itching or overwhelming symptoms it could be used to bring the activity down to a manageable level.

The formula: blend 4 tablespoons fresh lime juice, 1 to 2 tablespoons unheated honey, and 1 to 2 tablespoons raw unpasteurized apple cider vinegar together, add that mixture to 4 ounces of naturally sparkling water, and drink 2 ounces every 4 hours. He specified this should be done for no more than a limited period (the source indicates a maximum duration though the exact text is cut off). The frequency of use should be reduced from daily to once or twice a week maximum as symptoms settle.

He also noted that metal kills yeast in a general sense, referencing experiments with metal solutions, but distinguished between different types of fungus: the yeasts associated with candida and sugar-damaged tissue are fundamentally different from the fungus found in athlete's foot, which tends to live in a metallic environment rather than a sugar-damaged one.

For vaginal yeast infections specifically, Aajonus described several douching options to eliminate discomfort without destroying the yeast infection. He was explicit that the douching soothed the symptoms and the itching but not the yeast infection itself, which was continuing its cleaning work.

Options for douching: Half a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar mixed into 4 ounces of water; or 4 ounces of plain raw kefir; or 3 ounces of the woman's own urine.

For rectal itching, which he identified as most often unidentified yeast cleaning the area, the recommendation was to soak a cotton or silk cloth in a mixture of equal portions of plain raw kefir and raw unpasteurized apple cider vinegar.

Beyond topical approaches, Aajonus recommended an internal formula for women with vaginal yeast infections. Drinking 2 to 3 raw eggs blended with 2 to 3 tablespoons unheated honey and half an unripe banana provides the vagina with a constant supply of healthy nutrients to build mucus that flushes and removes toxicity with the help of smaller colonies of yeast, which he noted also results in less itching. He recommended eating raw fish and/or raw fowl 3 to 4 times weekly alongside this to strengthen the tissues, replace destroyed nerve tissue and skin, and increase sensuality.

Aajonus described one case of a woman who had suffered vaginal yeast infections every time she had sex throughout her entire life. She had tried all of his standard remedies, which mitigated the infections but did not eliminate the post-sex pain. As a last resort she tried an Ayurvedic medical method: she drank her first urine of each day for several weeks. Within two weeks the recurring infections completely ceased.

When candida symptoms are extreme, Aajonus recommended eating half of a Nut Formula once daily in the afternoon for 3 days to help remove toxic adrenalin and insulin from the system. This directly addresses the excess adrenaline and insulin that creates the dry, lesion-prone tissue environment in which candida is required.

For the flu-like symptoms often associated with candida, including stomach aches, back aches, head aches, and leg aches, which Aajonus clarified are not actually symptoms of candida but of poor bacteria and enzyme activity and of toxins stored in those tissues, he recommended his Sport Formula, sipped at 4 ounces at a time, 5 times daily. He also recommended a 2-inch cube of semi-ripe pineapple to help with digestion and the removal of lactic acid buildups that cause soreness. Raw milk was recommended to soothe the entire body, with the note that it also promotes sleepiness that aids healing.

Environmental exposure to EMFs, WiFi, smart meters, and air pollution damages bacteria and enzyme activity, and Aajonus noted this could make candida symptoms worse by compromising the bacterial support that would otherwise handle much of the toxic load with less obvious symptoms. When enough bacteria and enzymes are present and functioning, detoxification, including candida activity, occurs "without notice, or at least with minimal notice."

He also noted that hot water bottles placed on the abdomen, around the waist, and around the area of the adrenal glands and solar plexus support the healing process for people dealing with candida and related systemic conditions.

Aajonus was explicit that candida resolution takes years, not months, even with strict dietary adherence. The shortest period he had seen for candida to be completely gone from the body was approximately 3 years and 8 months. The longest was approximately 6 years and 3 months. The typical period before symptoms were abated enough that a person could function without recurrence was 9 months to 1 year and 3 months. He noted that once he got patients stabilized on the diet, "the candida is never a problem again. Usually I can take care of that and they are never really bothered by the candida," though there might be "a little itching once in a while."

During the years of resolution, periodic dumping of acid and adrenaline toxicity from the system can cause nausea, irritability, and anxiety, giving patients the impression that everything has reverted to how it was before the dietary changes. He described these as temporary episodes within an overall trajectory of improvement.

Aajonus did not use probiotic formulas, supplements, or any added preparations to rebuild friendly bacteria in candida patients. His position was that introducing supplements throws "one thing one way and another thing the other way" and that the body, when given the right raw foods and fat, will rebuild its own bacterial populations appropriately without external supplementation.

For the related question of nutritional yeast as a food supplement, Aajonus did not endorse commercially available nutritional yeast. He described it as processed and very heated. He recalled that a company called Natureaid had previously made a raw yeast grown on the whey of milk that never exceeded approximately 92 degrees even in dehydration, which he considered exceptional and used extensively. He referred to it as "primary nutritional yeast" and described it as phenomenal. He noted this product was no longer available in its original form and that modern so-called nutritional yeast was a different, inferior product.

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