Episode 19: Candida and Parasite Cleansing

The content of this podcast has not been evaluated by Health Canada or the FDA. It is educational in nature and should not be taken as medical advice. Always consult a qualified medical professional to see if a diet, lifestyle change, or supplement is right for you. Any supplements mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please note that the opinions of the guests or hosts are their own and may not reflect those of Advanced Orthomolecular Research, Inc.

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Welcome to Supplementing Health, a podcast presented by Advanced Orthomolecular Research. We are all about applying evidenced-based and effective dietary lifestyle and natural health product strategies for your optimal health. In each episode, we will feature very engaging clinicians and experts from the world of functional and naturopathic medicine to help achieve our mission to empower people to lead their best lives naturally.

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Today’s episode of Supplementing Health is brought to you by AOR’s Probiotic-3, a revolutionary formula to support gut health. These three highly effective and clinically-supported probiotic strains help to reduce the growth of pathogenic bacteria while promoting the growth of beneficial bacterial. This formula also aids in supporting a healthy inflammatory and immune response while promoting detoxification. You can find this unique formula at your local retailers or at AOR.ca or AOR.us.

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[0:01:34] Cassy Price: Hello, and welcome back to Supplementing Health. I’m your host, Cassy Price, and today I am joined by Jass Stupak from Nourish with Jass. She joins us as a Certified Holistic Nutritionist from Kelowna, BC, and helps women beat the bloat for good. Welcome, Jass, and thank you for joining us.

[1:52] Jass Stupak: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.

[1:57] Cassy Price: Do you want to start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself, and what got you started on your journey in nutrition and health and wellness?

[2:05] Jass Stupak: Yeah. For sure. As you said Cassy, I am a Certified Nutritional Practitioner, and I actually just moved to Vancouver, so now I’m in Vancouver. We’ve been here for not even a month. I’m originally from Ontario. What got me started in my health journey was a few years – well, to be honest, most of my childhood, I suffered with really bad migraines and headaches. I was always put on antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication. My doctor would try to get me to take medication to put a band-aid on the issue.

[2:45] It did get to a point where it was super severe, and I was really freaked out about what was going on. I was constantly doing tests, and nothing was coming back. So, I started to do a lot of research and natural remedies. I was stunned at how much of a difference it really made. That’s what got me into nutrition.

[3:06] I ended up going to school for it, and I don’t really think with what I’m doing today, I don’t think it really came to me until I was finishing school because about three months into finishing school, I ended up getting the worst skin issues I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve always had perfectly clear skin up until that point. I was getting really abnormal digestive issue.

[3:31] My stomach always had this sharp pain in it, and it was because I had really bad food poisoning that year, and it was an issue that went on for about four months. I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on to the point to where I ended up getting tested for it, and it came back that it was a severe case of parasites from the food poisoning, and because I didn’t resolve it in that time, it kept getting worse and worse. It was a candida and parasite overgrowth.

[4:07] So, I started doing a parasite cleanse. Within three months, my skin was literally back to normal. My digestion was back to normal, and I think that was the moment when I realized that nutrition was so much more to me, and I wanted to not just help people feel better in their holistic journey, but to take people from the way I felt in that present moment to how I feel now. I had a whole new absolute respect and love for what I do right now. That’s a bit about myself and where I’m at right now.

[4:45] Cassy Price: Awesome. You mentioned candida overgrowth. Do you mind going into detail about that a little bit more for listeners that maybe have heard the word but aren’t sure of what it is?

[4:55] Jass Stupak: Yeah. I feel like candida is definitely something that isn’t talked about a lot – neither are parasitic infections. I feel like a lot of people are really into this, and it does take quite a bit of research to get people to understand it. Candida is an overgrowth of yeast in the body, and this is actually pretty normal and really important for the body because it creates inflammation around our organs to essentially protect them from anything else that could happen like disease, cancer, or any potential abnormalities.

[5:34] However, most of us who have candida, which is a high percentage, have it at a place where it’s a complete overgrowth and can cause a ton of different issues. This happens because of high-stress lifestyles, high sugar and dairy diets, medication, birth control, or antibiotic use. A lot of that stuff can help candida thrive because candida thrives in an acidic environment. For most of us in today’s society, we’re living high-stress lives and eating the standard American diet.

[6:11] Cassy Price: When you’re working with clients, what are some of the signs that trigger you to consider a candida cleanse for them?

[6:18] Jass Stupak: I would say there are quite a few signs. For anyone who is listening, you will probably think, “Oh, my gosh, I have all of these” because they’re super common. I want to say if you are listening to this and you’re thinking, “Maybe this is candida overgrowth, keep in mind that it also depends on everything else that’s going on your body and your lifestyle.

[6:42] Some of the most common symptoms that I hear in practice and trigger me to think that a candida cleanse is necessary would be brain fog, skin abnormalities like eczema, especially on the face and especially if it’s coming out of nowhere. Tinea is so common these days. We have been getting so many requests from clients wanting to work with me because of Tinea on their bodies. That’s a really common one, as well as fatigue, headaches, severe sugar cravings. The one, I would say, that would be the most common is yeast infections in women. If you are someone who is prone to yeast infections, I would highly suggest looking into a candida cleanse.

[7:34] Cassy Price: Do you often see parasites and candida go hand-in-hand, or do you treat them as separate instances?

[7:42] Jass Stupak: Yeah, absolutely. For any of my clients who have a potential parasite and candida issue at the same time, I’ll do a parasite cleanse because they do work similarly, and if you ever think that parasites and candida are the issues, and you’re not sure which one it is, it’s always good to do a parasite cleanse because they are super similar. But, parasite cleanses can actually kill candida in the process.

[8:13] For those who have done a parasite cleanse, once you’ve done the parasite cleanse, you typically end up having candida just because of the residue after going through that intense cleanse. So, it’s important to keep in mind if you’re doing a parasite cleanse, it will take you some time to finish off with a candida cleanse as well as you want to make sure you do a gut-healing protocol after that to heal the gut after doing these cleanses.

[8:44] Cassy Price: How long does usually cleansing that, either parasite or candida – is there a certain amount of time that most people should be prepared to go through a cleanse for?

[8:55] Jass Stupak: I would say it definitely depends on each person and what symptoms you’re having and how long you’ve had it and how much effort you can put into the cleanse. The cleanse is super intense, so I always say that if you are going to go into it, just make sure you’re in a really good state and that you’re not too stressed out at work, or you don’t have too many lifestyle changes going on because it is going to be quite intensive.

[9:20] I would say parasite cleaning, you want to give yourself at least two months because they are definitely a lot harder to get rid of. Then, with the candida cleanse, I would say four to six weeks is usually enough for the average person.

[9:39] Cassy Price: What are some of the keys to a successful cleanse that you would recommend for people?

[9:43] Jass Stupak: I would say there are quite a few. The first one being, honestly, reducing stress as much as possible. Candida and parasites actually thrive in a stressed environment, and I can say this just from experience, my symptoms got ten times worse when I was finishing up school, and in the most stress I’d been that year, I noticed that my symptoms were so much worse.

[10:12] Being in a place where you can put yourself first, reduce stress as much as possible, and look at this cleanse as something that you get to do versus you having to do. I think that this cleanse is so transformative to so many people. A lot of my clients who have done the cleanse, most of them are now practicing it yearly because it makes you feel so good. Just during a cleanse, after the cleanse – it sounds weird to say, but it’s so lifechanging.

[10:44] I would say, reducing stress is number one. Meal prepping your food is something that I highly recommend. I think it’s so hard to do this cleanse if you’re not meal prepping and planning ahead. With the cleanse, what you want to do is have a really low-sugar diet. Any artificial, natural, as well as any sugars in the diet, white, brown, even maple syrup and honey, trying to keep those as low as possible.

[11:18] Taking dairy out as well as gluten and lots of fungus-forming foods: mushrooms, cashews, pine nuts, and peanuts. That leaves you with a lot of time to figure out what you can eat. It’s important to meal-prep, so you’re ready to take out food from the fridge and be able to make a meal from there.

[11:46] A lot of the foods that I have during my cleanses are sweet potatoes, good sources of protein like eggs, chicken, lentils, and then lots and lots of greens. Meal prepping is so important. Another one that I would say is hydration. Hydration is so important because when you’re doing a cleanse, not only are you taking out bacteria and infection out of the body, you’re also taking out a lot of vitamins and minerals out of the body, so it’s important to hydrate, but also take vitamins and minerals that are going to remineralize the body.

[12:23] Personally, something that is always on my protocol for myself and my clients is AOR’s Advanced B complex^® because it helps to rehydrate and remineralize the body. The last one, I would say, is letting people around you know that you’re doing this cleanse so that if you are going out there where you may not be able to eat everything that’s out there. I think accountability is so important. Even for myself, I see a nutritionist for candida and parasite cleansing because that accountability is so crucial to me because it is a cleanse that, again, you have to put a lot of time into to make it successful.

[13:10] Cassy Price: Once you’ve finished your cleanse, do you suggest a maintenance diet at all, or go back to normal, for lack of a better term?

[13:19] Jass Stupak:  I would say it’s so important to finish your cleanse. Then, what you can do is reintroduce foods back into your diet one at a time. For example, when you finish the cleanse, you can bring in, let’s say, quinoa for the first three days and see how your body feels. Always starting with a small amount, so about a quarter of a cup if you want to measure it. I don’t think you really need to, but starting small just in case. You don’t want to get a reaction from it, but I would definitely say trying an elimination diet would be best as well as – as I mentioned before, too, it’s so important to do a gut healing protocol after, which looks like reducing lots of sugars, dairy, and gluten to make sure you can heal that leaky gut and bring your body back to balance.

[14:16] Cassy Price: Do you often find food sensitivities go hand-in-hand with a candida overgrowth, or is the elimination more for supporting that gut health afterward?

[14:28] Jass Stupak: Good question and this is actually a cool realization. First off, I think post-cleanse, helping to heal and nurture your gut. I think it’s important to keep those high-sensitive foods out of the diet for a little bit, but what I often say to people is, if you are going to get an allergy test done, and you think it may be candida or parasites, I recommend doing a candida and parasite cleanse before getting an allergy or a sensitivity test done because most of the time, all of the foods that you are supposed to take out of the diet during the cleanse will come up as sensitive. It’s really interesting when you do it after the cleanse, and you can see that a lot of those foods have now been removed from that sensitivity statement.

[15:22] Cassy Price: Oh, very interesting. Switching gears just a little bit here, for parasites, I know you mentioned you had gotten yours from food poisoning. I’ve heard a lot of people get it from traveling, as well. Are there certain triggers or certain situations that you recommend your patients be aware of a possible parasite and do a protocol even if they’re not experiencing symptoms?

[15:48] Jass Stupak: Are you asking for like possible causes, maybe?

[15:54] Cassy Price: Yeah.

[15:56] Jass Stupak: I would say definitely if you’re traveling, it’s so important to at least take a probiotic with you, as well as digestive bitters or enzymes. I find that most of the time, my clients will come to me saying, with the statement that they went traveling and now they’re feeling really ill. With travel, be super careful when you’re out and traveling. Try to be mindful of what you’re eating.

[16:25] That also goes with if you’re going to restaurants, I always recommend clients or anybody to take digestive bitters or digestive enzymes with you and have it before your meal. I don’t think we realize how common parasites really are, and the easiest way to get them is from eating at a restaurant, and it’s actually from the lettuce in the restaurant. We don’t know if they’re washing it. So, taking enzymes before meals when you’re eating out is important, especially for meals that you’re not used to or if you’re eating some kind of protein at dinner, and you’re not typically used to having that kind of protein.

[17:07] Tap water is also something you want to be super cautious of. I recommend getting a filtration system like reverse osmosis or a Berkey filter to decrease the chances of getting parasites because they are not easy to get rid of.

[17:27] Also, another one that I think may or may not surprise people, but our pets. Our pets, if you sleep with your pets, you’re always cuddling with them. They actually host a lot of parasites because they’re outside, they’re playing in the dirt, or whatever it is. So, we want to be mindful of that and maybe make a rule where you don’t sleep with your pets in bed.

[17:54] Cassy Price: Great. Thank you. Are there certain parasites that are more common than others that people should be aware of when selecting a parasite cleanse?

[18:06] Jass Stupak: Yeah, I would say there are more common parasites. The small microscopic ones are so much more common than ones that you would typically get from like a traveling experience. I do think that most of us probably are hosting parasites, and it’s important to do this cleanse once a year as an average maintenance.

[18:36] I would say if you’re looking for a parasite cleanse, and you don’t know which parasites may be the issue, I would start with honing in on the diet because the diet is the number one thing that is actually going to help starve those parasites. Parasites live and thrive in an acidic environment, and we really want to change that and create a more alkaline environment. So, eating lots of vegetables, lots of greens, superfoods, good quality proteins, and healthy fats, reducing sugar, dairy, gluten, vinegars, except for apple cider vinegar.

[19:21] If you are listening to this and you are wondering or thinking that parasites may be the issue or candida, I would start to work on the diet because I can promise that the diet will work wonders in comparison to just doing supplements. So, focusing on diet, for sure, and then supplements, I would say like really good options, which would be garlic pills, ginger pills, black walnut capsules are also great for parasite cleanses.

[19:57] Cassy Price: Wonderful. Thank you. This has been super informative. I didn’t actually realize so much of that information about parasites, so that’s great to hear. Thank you for joining us today. We’ve really appreciated having you come on and share your knowledge and your experiences that you’ve had. Now, if listeners want to get ahold of you directly, how would they go about doing that?

[20:19] Jass Stupak: They can check me out on Instagram. It’s @nourishwithjass. I also have a website, NourishwithJass.com. If you wanted to send me an email if you have any questions about anything that I mentioned, it is hello@nourishwithjass.com. I’m always open to discussing this further.

[20:43] Cassy Price: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jass. It’s been a pleasure to have you on with us.

[20:47] Jass Stupak: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this.

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