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Optimizing Genetics
VDR – A Missing Piece in Your Hashimoto Journey
My last post was about MTHFR. If these letters are new to you or you think I just called you an insult, please go back and review before proceeding.
Letters like MTHFR, COMT, MTRR, and today’s topic of VDR have to do with your DNA code. Genetically, the human race is virtually identical. You can take a female from Sri Lanka, mate her with a dude from Alaska, and they will produce a gorgeous baby with all the right parts and capacities for that human to become a world leader someday.
The goofy letters I listed above fall into the category of what makes us unique. MTHFR is used in how we process folic acid. MTRR is used on how we process B12. COMT has roles in breaking down neurotransmitters like dopamine and epinephrine. Regardless of your stance on creation and/or evolution, the one point of agreement is that today’s modern human has been around for 10,000 years. This means your DNA code has been unchanged from classic hunter-gatherer type populations.
What has changed immensely is our environment. That’s why this has the greatest factor on your overall health expression. With that same DNA code being passed from generation to generation for 10,000 years, there’s potential that the basic blue print over time can have a typo here and there or even a little fading at times.
It’s these ‘typos’ that may create challenges the more your environment is compromised in your eating, movement, thought, social, and spiritual patterns. They are called SNPs (snips). Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms.
One I want to highlight today is the VDR.
Vitamin D Receptor
MTHFR Myopia
If you happened upon this post with interest in how MTHFR can cause near sightedness, you’ll be sadly disappointed. You’re probably looking for affirmation that the cause of all your problems stem from a MTHFR dysfunction. Instead, I hope to provide information for those practitioners and general population people that learn just enough about MTHFR to become dangerous…and careless…and myopic.
For those that are still hung up on the letters MTHFR and wondering if I just insulted you, let me explain. Actually, let me give you the meaning of life. Ready? Life is like our favorite food. You need ingredients and directions to create a finished product.
Substrate + Enzyme/Co-Factors = Product.
Substrates are your basic ingredients. These are your lifestyle choices, circumstances, perceptions, nutrition levels, social influences, movement patterns, and all the variables in life. This accounts for 98% of your health outcomes (finished product).
The enzymes are coded for in your DNA. This is your recipe guide. It’s the constant in the equation, it doesn’t change. There can be tweaks here and there but any typos in that recipe can most often be corrected for by changing your spices, heating, altitude, etc (i.e. co-factors).
The product is you and your health expression. You have an amazing recipe and access to ingredients to live a life your ancestors only dreamed about.
The better your ingredients, the better the product. This life recipe has stood the test of time but because it’s a copy from your great-great-great grandmother x 10,000 years, some of the print may be a bit faded or maybe even contain some typos? You’ve seen plenty of those in my posts. Depending on your surrounding environment, you may get caught up on those typos and decide you don’t want to read any further. You’re disgusted by my ineptness of editing and disregard anything I’ve ever said because I used the wrong version of affect versus effect.
For the majority of you, it’s no big deal, you’re kind and forgiving and will send a sweet email directing me to a correction that needs attention. I appreciate those.
Typos
This ‘typo’ is a simplistic way of looking at MTHFR. In essence there’s a deviation in the code from your DNA and it may or may not affect you…or is that effect? I’ll never understand that one.
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.
TSH Chase
I think I’ve fielded more thyroid questions and concerns this past week from patients than ever before. The running theme among them is that they are fed up with their doctor playing what I call the ‘TSH Chase.’
I also think one of the laziest healthcare practices is diagnosing and trying to manage someone’s thyroid condition just with a TSH score. If you don’t have a thyroid problem, or don’t think you have one, the rest of this probably doesn’t pertain to you and may be a bit boring. If you feel like crap and have been told your thyroid is fine due to a ‘normal’ TSH score, then you may want to consider to keep reading.
Long story short, your thyroid is involved in basically every system in the body. And as a result of that involvement, is the canary in the coal mine. It’s very sensitive to dysfunctions in other systems in the body. You can’t affect one system without affecting every system. The minute your doctor tries to compartmentalize your internal systems is the minute you need to find someone else that looks at the body as a whole.
Did you know that your lipids (cholesterol, Triglycerides, etc) creeping up could indicate that your thyroid is imbalanced?
Did you know that digestive difficulties could be a sign your thyroid is dysfunctional?
Did you know thyroid hormones probably have more input into the brain and nervous system development of a fetus than just getting enough folic acid?
Did you know that women with miscarriages often have a misdiagnosed thyroid condition?
The thyroid is not just for metabolism function. Therefore I feel it needs a thorough analysis on lab work, opposed to the lazy way out of just testing a TSH score and calling it good. This would be like assessing your entire car’s function by just checking tire pressure.
Here’s the thing, let’s say your TSH is abnormal. Yes, it could be an abnormal thyroid. It could also be an abnormal pituitary. It could be an abnormal hypothalamus. It could be an abnormal conversion problem. It could be inflammation interfering with function. It could be an insulin resistance problem not allowing for proper receptor binding. It could be an auto-immune problem. It could be a sedentary living problem. It could be an autonomic imbalance problem. It could be an adrenal imbalance. It could be a DNA receptor problem. It could be a globulin problem. It could be a toxicity problem. It could be a methylation problem. It could be a nutrient deficiency problem. It could be an estrogen problem. It could be a Vagus nerve/upper cervical spine problem. Anything else?
Do you see how ridiculous it is to just test for TSH and chase the TSH value with Synthroid? Or just supplement with uber amounts of iodine and call it good?
What specific thyroid tests do I like to see on lab work? These are just to get the baseline.
TSH
Free and Total T4
Free and Total T3
T3 Uptake
Reverse T3
TPO (Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies)
TgAb (Thyroglobulin Antibodies)
Sex Hormone Binding Globulin
Diurnal Cortisol
CRP
A1C
Remember you can’t separate one system from every other system. These thyroid values are going to have to be put into context along with other factors that analyze the 5 pillars of illness: Autonomic Imbalance, Adrenal Dysfunction, Immune Imbalance, Insulin Resistance, and Inflammation.
It’s also more than just having them tested but interpreted from a functional perspective. The ‘normal’ lab values seen on lab work labels you, along with 95% of the population, as healthy. You’re telling me that 9 out of every 10 friends you have is healthy? Just look at your friend’s Facebook statuses. You probably can’t find 3 out of 10.
Stop settling for the standard healthcare model of throwing you on Synthroid for the rest of your life to satisfy the TSH chase. You want a different outcome? Let’s do it. You know how to find me.
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.