Actually, from what I understand, the intestines ALWAYS have a thin layer of mucous on them, by design, and the diatom shells are too small to make contact and irritate the epithelial cells of the intestinal lining.

Fats and sugars should be taken care of by the stomach and Small intestine. DE is regarded as a great way of cleaning the Large intestine. Never heard of anyone using DE to absorb excess fats and sugars, not that you should stop if it's helping you.

Many people that use DE use it more than occasionally, in fact daily. And most of them don't have candida. Personally, I think the DE is helping me b/c I spent many years using antacids, which helps undigested food matter to travel and litter the length of the digestive tract. Which over time... may explain why you hear stories of autopsies of people revealing they had X pounds of "meat" in their colon at time of death.

The one time I got cold it was psyllium and Bentonite together - not DE.