Are Mushrooms & Fermented Products a ‘No-No’ for Fungal Infections?

Video Transcript:

Our next Ask the Doctor question comes from one of our viewers. They say, “Hello, Dr. Melissa. I have a burning question. Doing extensive research, I heard one integrative doctor, Amy Myers, strongly suggest to stay away from fermented food/supplements if you have a fungal infection. Is that right? I’m subscribed to a whole bunch of Organixx fermented supplements, and I love them. Should I continue using them while fighting with the ringworm I got from a feral kitten we adopted recently? Thanks.”

So, this is a fantastic question, and I’m excited to clear up the inconsistencies of information, as well as clear up what we know clinically through scientific research and studies on mushrooms.

So, the first thing I want to clarify is we have two topics. We have fermented supplements, fermented food – the fermentation process is separate from mushrooms specifically. And so, one of the things I want to kind of clear up is a common question that I hear from patients, who are adamant, like, “I can’t take X, Y, and Z functional mushroom,” or, “I can’t take this fermented food, because so-and-so said,” or, “I read that fermented foods and/or mushrooms can cause candida overgrowth.”

So, to clear that up, that is absolutely false information. We do know there are some cross-reactions between mushrooms and fungal infections in the body. But overall, there’s no sort of clinical research that shows that a fermented food and/or a mushroom that is either in raw form that you grab at your grocery store and put on your salads or eating in assorted foods or consuming in a supplement form, liquid or powdered form, will contribute to a candida overgrowth.

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Fermented Foods Support Immunity & Provide Greater Bioavailability

So, what I want to clarify is that fermented foods are going to help support your immune process. And one of the things that I really love about Organixx and our supplementation fermentation process is that we will ferment a lot of our supplementation in a very powerful adaptogenic dense liquid that is part of that fermentation process. So, it actually gives greater strength and potency to the bioavailability of the supplement form, but also enhances the stress balancing. It enhances immune response and actually helps your body beyond just that key target area that we’re focusing on.

Address Gut Health & Its Impact on Immunity

So, when it comes to fermented foods, I have to say one of the things that we’re looking at with any type of fungal infection or immune disabling, either we are seeing a weakness in the immune system, maybe a dysregulation of the immune system, or a heightened immune response, (i.e. autoimmunity), we need to zero in on the gut. And so when we talk about the gut, the gut is all about your microbiome – the degree of healthy bacteria in your gut that can help calibrate your immune response, your mental health, can help balance out your hormones. There’s an assortment of things that our microbes, the little bacteria, will do in our body. And they will signal to make certain hormones, to have certain chemical reactions occur. And they support a healthy immune state.

So, when we’re talking about adding in a fermented supplement, like many of the Organixx supplements you’re taking, what I want to recommend is to continue to take them, because that fermentation process, especially in the adaptogenic-rich liquid, you are going to get a huge immune boost. And so the immune factor with the fermentation process and the bioavailability actually is going to really support your immune system, so that you can eradicate the ringworm, or you can eradicate and recalibrate the body’s candida reaction.

Internally & Topically Treating a Fungal Infection

Now, when it comes to a fungal infection, I always recommend internally supporting your system, bolstering and supporting a very dense, rich microbiota, as well as topically supporting your skin microbiome. So one of the things that we’re dealing with, when we have an infection, let’s say ringworm or even candida that might be presenting on the skin, is we want to look at addressing both the internal microbiome in your gut and also your skin microbiome.

So, your skin microbiome can be supported by topical probiotics. I mean, honestly, it’s not anything crazy to apply just clean, plain, probiotic-dense yogurt. You can also apply things like aloe vera. Apple cider vinegar is really good. That’s a fermented process that will recalibrate your skin microbiome, as well as also adding immune-boosting colloidal silver. There are gels of colloidal silver that you can apply on the skin.

And so, there are multiple ways to use both internal resources and topical resources to combat yeast infections of the scalp or the skin or folds of the body. I also recommend using the Magi-Complexx oil that has three really powerful antioxidants. There’s a lot of good skin healing nutrition and antiviral, antimicrobial properties, as well as antifungal properties, in those three oils that could be really helpful.

So definitely, act accordingly, in terms of taking the right actions with ringworm. You don’t want it to get out of hand. And just know that there are a lot of different ways that we can combat it internally and externally, so we bolster up your immune system so that it can expel the ringworm infection.

Keep Taking Your Fermented Supplements & Mushrooms

So, I hope that’s helpful. And just know that fermented foods and supplements with fermentation are very powerful, as are mushrooms. So, mushrooms are definitely not something that we want to shy away from. The mushroom kingdom is so vast that there are so many wonderful benefits from consuming the fruiting bodies of mushrooms that also help to support the recalibration and the balancing of our immune system, so that we’re more apt to fight the unhealthy fungal infections or unhealthy bacterial imbalances that can arise in our body for an assortment of reasons.

So, I hope that’s helpful. And I want to continue to encourage you to keep taking the fermented supplements here at Organixx. There are so many wonderful benefits. And I’m excited to answer any other questions you might have. So, thanks for asking the doctor today.

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