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Optimizing Genetics
Methylation Madness
The term methylation is getting thrown around a lot. That’s good because the biochemical process of methylation does so much in your health outcomes and you should be familiar with it. Methylation is the 2nd most abundant chemical reaction that occurs each and every day inside you, right after oxidation-reduction reactions that produce your energy power house ATP.
So what is methylation? The literal answer is the addition of a methyl group (CH3) to an inactive compound to make it active. But what does that mean to you and your health plans? This simple process of adding a single carbon molecule has global effects for maintaining and acceleration many pathways including: neurotransmitters, hormones, detoxification, DNA synthesis, immune system activity, and joint health.
In short, methylation promotes health cells and regulates the expression of genes. One of the most well known genes that relies on methylation is MTHFR (Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase). In short, this gene helps the conversion in the pathway from folic acid to methyl tetrahydrofolate (the active form of folic acid). Without this ability, folic acid remains inactive and this can disrupt a number of reactions that should feed the nervous system. If the nervous system isn’t supported, this can have global consequences, especially for a fetus in early development. It’s this active form of folic acid that starts and creates a series of countless critical enzymatic reactions.
For example: Dr. Ben Lynch points out
Homophobia for Homocysteine
Homophobia is defined as a ‘dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people.’ I would rather you turn your attention to a dislike or prejudice of another word with the ‘homo’ prefix in it…Homocysteine. If you want to change your future health outcomes, I would encourage you to create homophobia for homocysteine.
I was delivering a recent workshop on the Thyroid and I was asked, “if you could only test for one value, what would it be?” This was difficult to answer as your lab values interconnect so much and to base anything on one value is lazy and ignorant. But to play the game with the audience member, I said I would test for homocysteine, not an analyte directly used to measure thyroid function.
Here’s why.
Homocysteine, when in a nice range of 4 – 8 umol/L is a good thing. This range is definitely tighter than what you see on a standard lab panel of 0 – 15 umol/L. Why do I like a tighter range? Because of what homocysteine indicates and contributes to when it’s elevated and I don’t want to wait until it’s outside the ‘normal’ ranges before action is taken.
Homocysteine is actually a middle step in the formation of the amino acid cysteine, which is a precursor of one of the most power antioxidants in your body in glutathione so to be low is a bad thing as well. Homocysteine is actually a good thing. But often times too much of a good thing has the opposite desired effects.
Homocysteine is one of those scenarios but takes it up a level too. Homocysteine has been called the single best indicator of your longevity and quality of life. It’s not just an indicator of many disease processes like cardio-vascular disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Auto-Immune disease, diabetes, Hypothyroid, Osteoporosis, liver disease, hormone imbalance, autism, and anemia, to name a few, but a massive contributor to them.
Immunity Boosters
Let’s face it, the things you’re supposed to do during the upcoming holiday season to keep your immunity boosters high, you’re probably not going to do. You’re not going to rest enough. You’re not going to avoid sugar and fancy coffee drinks. You’re not going to get sunshine. And you’re probably not going to exercise like you normally do.
What you’re most likely going to do is run for drugs or supplements because it’s easier to take a pill. I’m not mad at ya, it’s human nature. Since you’re most likely going to take something, here’s a list of supplements that I would recommend. Take some, take them all, take none, it’s up to you.
Just keep in mind that in life, you pay for convenience. Supplements are a convenience to life and building your health. Living in the 2000 teens, we rely on conveniences and gladly pay for them.
Vitamin D
This is the sunshine vitamin and really not a vitamin at all but more like a hormone. To truly be sufficient in Vitamin D, you need maximum skin exposure for accumulative 30 minutes per day. This rarely happens unless you’re on vacation. The next best thing is to supplement. The human genome has over 2700 binding sites for Vit D and being deficient in this nutrient, means you are deficient in life.
You should also get Vit D tested. The problem is that it gets interpreted poorly. On labs, you will see a normal value of 30-100 ng/ml. In reality, if your value is 31, you would be ‘normal.’ The 30 ng/ml cut off range is the lowest value for you to prevent rickets. Do more than prevent rickets. For healthy application, you should be north of 50 ng/ml.