Turmeric

Candida albicans is the specific fungus responsible for vaginitis, the most common type of yeast infection. Yeast in the human body is present in moist areas like the vagina or mouth. Even healthy women between 20% and 50% will have yeast present in the vagina. Vaginitis is characterized by symptoms like extreme itchiness, vaginal irritation and discharge or burning sensation during intercourse or urination.

Yeast infections maybe caused due to pregnancy, impaired immune system, over use of antibiotics, uncontrolled diabetes or inadequate vaginal lubrication. Yeast infections caused by the Candida albicans fungus respond well to conventional treatments. Other Candida types on the other hand are often hard to treat and will require aggressive treatment.

How should you take Turmeric for Candida?

Turmeric has been long used in Eastern medicine as an anti-inflammatory. In fact the most-researched ingredient in turmeric is curcumin, which has been demonstrated to have similar anti-inflammatory properties to hydrocortisone. Research has also suggested that turmeric could be effective in treating Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and even arthritis.

However, today I am going to be focusing on turmeric’s role as an antifungal agent. Recent research has begun to show that turmeric can be effective both against Candida Albicans and the biofilms that it forms, so it could be a very useful addition to your anti-Candida program.

h2> How does Turmeric for Candida work?

Commercial antifungals tend to be associated with a large number of side effects, so researchers have been isolating and testing herbal remedies to find an alternative. Usually this research tends to be done in Asian or South American universities. You can’t patent a naturally-occurring compound like Curcumin, so research funding in Western universities is hard to find.

A Brazilian research team looked at the effectiveness of Curcumin against 23 strains of fungi, including Candida Albicans. They found that at a fairly low concentration, Curcumin was able to completely inhibit the growth of Candida Albicans (as well as lots of other fungal strains).

They also tested Curcumin using human cells. According to the researchers, “Curcumin was able to inhibit the adhesion to BEC [human cheek cells] of all the Candida species studied, being more potent than the commercial antifungal fluconazole.” In other words, Curcumin was more effective than Diflucan at preventing Candida from attaching to human cells.

Another study looked at how ascorbic acid (one form of vitamin C) could affect the antifungal properties of Curcumin. Ascorbic acid on its own has no significant antifungal properties, but the researchers found that it made Curcumin more effective. Remarkably, the Curcumin was 5-10 times more effective against Candida Albicans when it was used in the presence of ascorbic acid. Simply put, vitamin C supplements could make Curcumin even more effective against Candida