The Yeast Connection: women at risk: an interview with Elizabeth Crook and Carolyn Dean, M.D., and N.D

Nutrition Health Review, Winter, 2003

Q. What are some common misdiagnoses of yeast-related illnesses?

A. The ones that first pop into my mind are mental health conditions. I think that when people feel sick all over and cannot get better and their blood work looks normal, they may well be told that "it's all in their head."

In the Yeast Connection, we talk about yeast-related illnesses; these are illnesses that are related to yeast overgrowth. We don't say "this is a yeast illness, as opposed to that."

Q. When was the first Yeast Connection published?

A. In 1984.

Q. What has changed since then?

A. I think that a number of things have changed. There has been a huge shift in individuals seeing themselves as active participants and partners with their health care professional. People do not have a notion that there is a silver bullet out there, and they understand that health is more complex than that and that it is more about diet. There has been a huge shift in the past 20 years with diets. When my father (Yeast Connection author William G. Crook, M.D.) wrote the Yeast Connection Cookbook 10 years ago, it was important to give people some sense of how to think about food and how the food they take into their body is going to make them feel.

I think that we are more knowledgeable and open about the increasing emphasis on the integration of our emotions with our physical wellbeing. I think that people now understand this relationship better.

I think that one of the shifts that we see, support, and promote is that individuals have their own feelings and intuitions about their bodies. We are coming to respect that, we hope. Intuition has been disrespected by mainstream medicine, and we have been told that the person with the answer is somebody out there in a white coat. Again, I think people are saying that they have a sense of what is wrong.

Elizabeth Crook is the daughter of William G. Crook, M.D., the author of the first Yeast Connection and Women's Health, and a pioneer in the field of candida yeasts. Ms. Crook currently works on behalf of women's health issues as a consultant to physicians, nurse practitioners, nutritionists, and other health care professionals.

Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. is medical advisor on Yeast Connection and Women's Health. She is the author of two other medical books.