Candida, or candida albicans is a natural yeast that lives and grows in your gut. It is a single-celled yeast, which is essentially a type of fungus, and it is merely one type of the several hundred different species of microorganisms residing in the gut. Generally, the presence of these microorganisms poses no threat to our health, but when an overgrowth of Candida occurs, a serious condition known as candidiasis can result.

Symptoms to Watch For

Unfortunately, there are a wide range of symptoms that can accompany the presence of candidiasis, which makes it somewhat difficult to diagnose. Should you notice any of these symptoms, particularly if you are suffering from most or all of them, consult your physician for a thorough examination. It is never a good idea to try to diagnose yourself.

• Abdominal bloating
• Chronic fatigue or muscle weakness
• Depression
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Joint pain
• Lower abdominal pain
• Thrush
• Urinary tract infection

Candida is most commonly diagnosed in women, but men are also at risk, so everyone should be aware of just how serious a condition candida overgrowth can be.

One of the reasons this condition has become so prevalent in modern society is because of the overabundance of refined carbohydrates and sugars in our diets. Why is this such a problem?

When we eat sugar-laden foods the Candida in our guts ferments, which produces carbon dioxide. This results in bloating, gas, and general abdominal discomfort. In addition, alcohol and other chemicals are produced that irritate the lining of your gut. The ultimate result of this chain of events is either diarrhea or constipation.

It is important to note that Candida can spread throughout your body and is not simply limited to your gut. As Candida spreads through your body it begins to produce increasingly large amounts of toxic byproducts. These byproducts have a terrible effect on the body, causing a variety of mental and physical symptoms.

Natural Remedies

If you have Candida (or suspect that you do) there are some positive steps you can take to help control and eventually eliminate this serious health problem. One of the first things you should do is start reducing your carbohydrate and sugar intake. For many people this is not an easy thing to do, so it may require a gradual tapering off from many of the foods or beverages that you are accustomed to consuming.

Do not feel discouraged if you need to take a more gradual approach to changing your diet. The reality is that gradual changes generally tend to stay with us over the long run, while sudden diet and lifestyle changes only make us feel deprived, and usually wind up failing.

You should try to eliminate dairy products and foods containing yeast, as these products will only serve to aggravate your condition. So, what should you eat? The best things you can add to your diet are salads, fresh vegetables (but not starchy ones), fish, chicken, and red meat. When at all possible choose organic foods so that you can avoid consuming the antibiotics that are added to some foods, particularly meats.

Another thing you should do is take some nutritional supplements that are designed to help people who are suffering from Candida overgrowth. Grapefruit seed extract, aloe vera juice, acidophilus, and milk thistle are excellent supplements to take for eliminating this problem. You should also try to drink lots of water every day to help remove the built up toxins from your body.

When we are looking for relief remedies for a medical condition many in the community turn to their medical practitioner to help them find a remedy for their problem. In this they make the assumption that their doctor is the best person to advise them as to what can make them better. As a result of this belief most expect that any drug prescribed by their doctor will be effective, but is this the case?

That very much depends on what you mean by effective. As a health researcher I have been looking at this question for more than a year. Most people I ask expect a prescribed drug to be 90-100% effective, otherwise why would the doctor prescribe it? Doctors become very uncomfortable when I give these figures as they know that few drugs are that effective. They do understand that a high belief is likely to improve the outcome for the patient, but they also recognize that that is not what it necessarily all about. I have often heard them say, “Patients have unrealistic expectations of what drugs can do.”

There are a number of issues here. The first is the matter of evidence. The second is the matter of who is allowed to say what the evidence is and how this impacts on what can be offered to people who want to improve their health.

While this is obviously a very large topic I would like to draw out just a couple of points.

I accept that most medical practitioners mean well and care for their patients. However most medical practitioners, their employers and the pharmaceutical companies make enormous profits out of people who are ill. Whenever billions of dollars are at stake then we have to recognize the moral hazard that exists. It is just too easy to turn a blind eye to the lack of good outcomes and worse, the level and severity of side effects to say nothing of the effect of the cost on the patient’s wallet.

For example chemotherapy only adds just over 2% to the average 5-year survival rate of people with cancer with horrendous side effects for the vast majority of patients. Breast cancer patients have an average life span of 20 years and a 78-85% 5-year survival rate in Australia but chemotherapy only contributes 1.5% to that survival rate. A range of cancers for which chemo is prescribed add NO additional survivors. It is time that these figures became well known. Chemotherapy drugs are not the cancer remedies most of us have come to believe.

Statins, a drug prescribed to lower cholesterol levels also has very low rates of effectiveness. When I searched dozens of the top medical journal papers looking at the cholesterol issues, and buried right down into the data (ignoring the positive titles, introductions and discussions), I was gobsmacked. Firstly, the drugs had no improvement in death rates for women or the elderly. And secondly for men the number needed to treat to save one life was 250 for five years on the drugs. 1250 years of drug taking with many suffering side effects to save one life?

As a third example, the package insert of the H1N1 monovalent vaccine says [Section 12.1 Mechanism of Action] “the administration of the flu vaccine has not been correlated with protection from influenza illness”. This is amazing in its audacity. Here we have the government promoted drive for mass vaccination and its own covering paperwork says that there is no evidence that it offers protection.

These examples are just a few showing the moral hazard from profit making - pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors and government are all involved.

So what does this mean to us as individuals? If you have an expectation of 90-100% efficacy for a drug prescribed then you need to tell the doctor - you are paying for their time and the drugs, after all. If you are asked to go on long term medication then you might like to ask for evidence in writing that the drug does come up to standard. When my own doctor tried to scare me into taking a particular medication and provided me with the scientific papers I discovered they didn’t say what the drug companies and doctor said they did. When I discussed the results with her she was quite perplexed.

Perhaps one way to think of it is that if the relief remedies being offered are bio-identical to what the body produces or is a nutrient normally found in foods known to be good for you then you can be reasonably comfortable in taking it. However if it is a pharmaceutical drug, then exercise caution and demand to see the “rigorous scientific evidence sufficient to substantiate the claims.” You want the actual medical journal papers, not the government guidelines. Even if you can’t make much sense out of the paper, it makes your doctor think several times before making unrealistic claims.

You may be wondering why do anyone need to bother getting any certifications for medical assistant if it is not compulsory? If you still have this type of thinking, you need to amend your thoughts as it is not the right way of thinking. In today’s society, stiff competitions increased in the job market for most of the industry. Therefore it is very important to seek for any additional credits which can help to enhance your market value.

Obtaining certification means gaining the professional edge over the peers and competitors in any given program or profession with greater prestige and greater job security. Let us sit back and table out what are the benefits of owning CMA certification.

a. Medical assisting knowledge offer many fantastic job opportunities as the skill sets for allied health care is highly sought for now with the advancement in health care industry.

b. CMA Certificate is a national certification recognized by all Industry around the world. One can expect for a great job with bright prospect with competitive wages and significant remunerations.

c. With the CMA credentials, you are at a higher ‘rank’ above the rest of the candidates with an exceptional broad of knowledge in the specified field. It also showed that you are serious about this profession and determined to learn more and excel in it.

d. One gets to gain the satisfaction from working as a medical assistant, knowing that you are helping others with your medical advice and opinions, which had brought hope and positive changes to the patients’ and their life.

e. Having granted with the CMA certification helps you to advance faster for a higher rated position, such as to be an office manager, medical center supervisor, clinical specialist and even as the tutor for junior medical assistant to advance in their profession.

f. CMA credentials represents a renowned certification from the American Association of Medical Assistants ( AAMA ) which is widely recognized for its world quality standard, and many employers preferred their medical assistants to be CMAs because of the gold standard of this credential.

g. CMA consistently keeping its world-wide CMA qualifiers with the latest coverage of medical assisting articles on medical assisting issues and latest trends with detailed analysis on different aspects of medical assisting profession and its future growth prospective as well as all its related news and activities in this field.

Obviously there are lots of pro in obtaining the CMA credential if you are really serious about this career of yours and wish to get the best out of this credentials as great facilitating factor to move your career upwards.