It's a myth, AND if they truly went to the doctor, and the doctor said that without checking PUBMED or even the internets...then encourage them to get a new doctor, NOT someone who uses supersticious ignorance as their modus operendi....
We get this every few months...here is the info I have posted, from working in medical education and having access to pubmed....heck you can find this info even on google....
you can't get one strain of a yeast infection from another strain of yeast...
The Yeast we brew with is
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
The strain of yeast in Thrush and yeast infections is
Candida in it's many strains...None of them even remotely related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
The Doctor is making a medical diagnose based on his own ignorance, and not even bothering to look things up in books, or even PUBMED, which would have given him/her information quite the contrary to what he/she diagnosed...and that is a pretty scary thought.
Yeasts of the Candida genus are another group of opportunistic pathogens which causes oral and V@ginall infections in humans, known as Candidiasis. Candida is commonly found as a commensal yeast in the mucus membranes of humans and other warm-blooded animals. However, sometimes these same strains can become pathogenic. Here the yeast cells sprout a hyphal outgrowth, which locally penetrates the mucosal membrane, causing irritation and shedding of the tissues.[47] The pathogenic yeasts of candidiasis in probable descending order of virulence for humans are: C. albicans, C. tropicalis, C. stellatoidea, C. glabrata, C. krusei, C. parapsilosis, C. guilliermondii, C. viswanathii, C. lusitaniae and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa.[48] Candida glabrata is the second most common Candida pathogen after C. albicans, causing infections of the urogenital tract, and of the bloodstream (Candidemia).[49]
That has nothing to do with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is used in brewing AND bread making...Did he suggest theynot eat bread?
From one of 5 sites I looked up Thrush on, all said the same thing....(
Episodes are best managed with an appropriate antifungal medication - diet usually has little impact on this type of problem. The yeast that is used for baking and beer making (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) has nothing to do with the yeast that causes yeast infections (Candida albicans). The two have no more in common than a house cat would have with a tiger - they`re both cats, but their ability to do harm is very different.
Now unless they drank that beer made from that womans pu##Y yeast that was advertised awhile back, and it wasn't pasturized, caused it is coming from the same mentality as believes you can go blind from it....
If we could get yeast infections from Homebrew (or any beer at all) then there wouldn't be a hobby such as this...
There is only some slight evidence that
cancer patients on heavy chemotherapy, or who recently have had catheters, or have had IV's or transfusions or can get something similar to candida from drinking beer (all beer not just homebrew) or from eating bread...but it is extrememly rare, and the evidence has been mostly anecdotal.....And THAT strain of yeast is S. boulardii which has only been used in one of two really rare brewing situation...and it's NOT a strain we use in Homebrewing...
Like I said, we get these threads every now and then, I have done a lot of data collectiong to put this myth to bed....
Homebrewing is scary enough to a lot of people (people think you can go blind from it- which is a holdoveer from Moonshining and distilling NOT homebrewing and wine making) that we need to nip this in the bud whereever possible...
I'll agree with adamjab, they got it from somewhere else...if they want to blame homebrewing...It wasn't the beer that did it, but what they did with the bottle to each other that would have spread it..and only if one of the people had it to begin with...
I've worked in medical education for 2o years on and off, if that were the case, I would have come upon the info at some point, especially since I work with a Biochemists abd Pharmacoligists who use S. cerevisiae in their research (It turns out many of those researchers are into homebrewing as well).... If the doc believes some inane nonsense like that you need to get a second opinion, or find a new doctor.