There's a lot to argue with in this article, but good info here nonetheless:


http://iodine4health.com/disease/candida/eby_candida.htm


Iodine: The Candida Killer!

Eby G

"Perhaps the world's cheapest, most traditional, and best anti Candida agent is the simplest. It is iodine. Yes, I am describing the same Iodine found in "tincture of iodine" that your mother used to treat your cuts and scratches when you were a child. Because Big Pharma drug companies have re-educated us to believe that the fancy new (expensive) Antibiotics are better and safer than (dirt cheap) iodine, we have lost sight of the one truly miraculous and completely natural antiviral, Antibiotic and antifungal agent. Nothing is likely to beat Iodine in this regard. However, Big Pharma marketing has taught us that we shouldn't tolerate the deep, long lasting stain that Iodine causes when applied to our skin. Yes, iodine will stain your skin, but when used properly that stain can be of enormous value to you in your battle against Candida. Scientists say that if you apply a several-inch round stain of iodine to your skin, say to your belly, that if it disappears within 24-hours, you are iodine deficient. Well, I tried that and my iodine stain always disappeared within 6 to 12 hours, and I am clearly not iodine deficient. Marketing has also taught us that iodine in excess is dangerous, that it can mess up our thyroid. Physicians, especially surgeons, for many years world-wide disinfected multiple square-foot size areas of skin with iodine prior to major surgery, sometimes resulting in toxic overdoses of iodine. Excess iodine can also damage our thyroid function causing either reversible hypothyroidism or reversible hyperthyroidism. However, the benefits of proper use of small amounts of iodine are so enormous that iodine must never be neglected or discarded or disrespected, or we will pay dearly! And we are paying that price.

"How does one use iodine to battle Candida? If the Candida infection is intestinal, then we must treat the intestines either through the oral route or topically. That iodine is anti Candida is clear from this report. What I found works extremely well for me is to take 3 mg Prolamine Iodine tablets from Standard Processes with each meal and at bedtime for about 3 weeks, but never for longer than that.... I repeat! Never take 3 mg iodine tablets for longer than 3 weeks because that dosage for longer than 3 weeks can interfere with thyroid function. I could not find this product when I first started to research iodine, so I added a few drops of Strong Tincture of Iodine 7% to a full glass of water and that worked well too. Iodine can never be swallowed straight (it is poisonous straight) and it must always be highly diluted. The taste of a single drop will provide clear evidence of that! From what we have read about Candida Albicans becoming resistant to various antifungals after a single week of treatment, one could hypothesize that such would also be true for iodine. Thus, there would be no need to treat for more than a week. However, in this article, are the words "All Candida Albicans strains tested showed similar susceptibility to the medicaments tested." This suggests to me that Candida Albicans is totally responsive to iodine, and that even if mutations occur, such is irrelevant to efficacy of iodine. However, in me after 3 weeks of 12 mg of iodine per day, I noticed that my body temperature has fallen a full degree, suggesting mild hypothyroidism. Worse, as one might expect from this figure concerning hypothyroidism and low magnesium, I notice a strange low level Depression and malaise that just lingers and smolders, not evident to other people, but clearly evident to me. Time to get off of iodine and continue in the search for a perfect anti-fungal...."

"How about using iodine to treat other fungal infections? How about oral thrush? Well, scientists treating AIDS patients in Kenya, disappointed at the lack of efficacy and expense of antifungals (Contrimazole, Amphotericin B and Nyastatin) have turned to dirt-cheap two percent Povidine Iodine mouth washes (Betadine iodine) with astonishing success. Read the abstract here. All they did was gargle with it. How often is not stated, but it appears that they gargled for about 30 seconds whenever they noticed a return of mouth odor. Iodine is clearly their antifungal of choice, easily surpassing the efficacy of these expensive "FDA proven" anti-fungals. Here is a goggle.com link for "betadine gargle". Nearly all of these products warn "DO NOT SWALLOW". Too much iodine is toxic, so be careful. Here is a google search for "betadine" and "oral thrush". Bite the dust Nyastatin!

"Obviously, after waiting a few months from stopping anti-candida treatment with iodine, one can return to use of iodine, perhaps as a 3 mg tablet / day as an irregularly-taken food supplement. Please note that the RDA for iodine is 0.150 mg/day (150 micrograms/day), although I personally believe that higher doses of iodine can be very beneficial to some but not all people. No one knows why some people can not tolerate large (therapeutic) amounts of iodine, but I believe that it is because they are too magnesium deficient to handle it. I am daily reminded that the Okinawans who live to be 120 years old eat much kelp, which is high in iodine (10 to 20 mg iodine per day) and taurine, and they also get very large amounts of magnesium from their foods. Another effective anti-Candida treatment is to apply tincture of iodine to the skin so that it can be absorbed from the skin and not the intestines in an equivalent dosage. I calculated each drop of Humco Strong 7% Tincture of Iodine to release 1 mg of iodine when applied to the skin using its special applicator. I am amazed at how fast 10 drops of iodine disappears into my skin (about 6 hours), while it seems to stay for several days on other people's skin. I am not certain that the "24-hour" test is valid. I think that if there were no other treatment available for Candida infection, iodine would be a fully acceptable choice, if the thyroid remains unaffected. Since there are other treatments that should be tried first (unless one is truly desperate), and because one can overdose on iodine, I mention it last. Obviously, if Candida infection is topical, perhaps genital, iodine might be used directly to treat the infection, but some experimenting with strength would be necessary. Bright red groin area rashes are usually Candida Albicans infections, and they should be aggressively treated with topical iodine in my opinion. Tincture of iodine is too strong for application to genitalia without stinging and possibly burning, and one must dilute it with water, perhaps in a 1 to 10 or 100 ratio. The only use of iodine (Lugol's solution) to treat genital Candida that I found in the literature was in mares. Be careful! Repeated application may be necessary. A final thought. Have you noticed that use of Antibiotics causes Candida suprainfections? Have we made progress? Big Pharma thinks so. Check google for "iodine" and "candida".

"Ionic zinc is also antifungal, and dietary supplements of zinc can also be helpful in treating candida infections. According to this article, it works synergistically with iodine. How much zinc? ... Just don't take more zinc than will make you nauseous or more than one milligram per pound of body weight a day (2.2 mg/kg) for more than a month."