December 1, 2022 • 26 mins
In this special episode of The Sessions, Renee teams up with 23andMe to explore her Viking ancestry and the unique DNA traits that make her one of a kind.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Have you ever thought about how incredibly complex I spit is.
It may only be water, but just aliva isn't simple.
That remaining one percent holds incredibly meaningful information that could
change everything. And I'm not just talking about your family
treat Hi. I'm Barrett to Day Thurston And on this
(00:23):
season of Spit and I Heart Radio podcast with twenty
three and Me, we explore how DNA isn't just about ancestry,
it can also be key to understanding your health. What's up, yo,
Welcome back. When Renee Paquette isn't backstage interview on the
Grapplers of All Elite Wrestling, she's busy hosting her podcast,
(00:46):
The Sessions with Renee Paquette. Each week, Renee presents unscripted
and uncensored interviews with the biggest names and combat sports today.
She's channeling some of that same energy, but this time
she's going unscripted and censored with her twenty three and
Me reports. If Renee wasn't busy enough already, she's also
a new mom. Alongside taking care of her daughter and
(01:08):
balancing a hectic work schedule, taking care of her physical
and mental health are also at the top of her
to do list. So to help Renee better understand her health,
she decided to take AYE and Me test. Today, she's
sharing what she learned from her reports and what she
plans to do with this new and valuable information. Renee
is blown away by the depth of information contained in
(01:29):
her reports. There's so much to learn from our genetics.
There were plenty of surprises with her ancestry, but also
incredible information regarding her sleep health, her predisposition for anxiety,
and her amount of Neanderthal DNA. But surprisingly, with all
that incredible info at her fingertips, she's probably most happy
(01:49):
with what her reports had to say about her sense
of smell and in particular, her ability to smell asparagus. Yeah,
she always thought she had a strong sense of smell
and hurts. Twenty three and Me reports just help confirm
what she likes to call her X Men superpower. There's
a whole lot more to unpack and Renee's reports, so
(02:09):
let's listen in Okay, guys, we're here talking twenty three
in me. I'm Renee Paquette. I am the host of
the Sessions podcast on the Volume podcast Network. UM you
can also see me as a personality a broadcaster, an
interviewer at all Elite Wrestling. But I am here today
(02:31):
doing a little debrief on twenty three of Me. My
producer extraordinary Amilio Sparks, is here with me. What we
discuss what exactly went down when finding out about my
ancestral roots while doing twenty three and Me. Honestly some
pretty fascinating stuff. So I feel like at this point
everyone kind of knows what twenty three and Me is.
(02:52):
We've seen it, we've heard about it, we've heard different
ads about it. Whatever I've now done it. I'm speaking
from a first hand experience. You get the kit to
your house, you get a little vile, You spit in it, which,
by the way, harder than it maybe seems like it is.
I don't know if I just run a dry mouth,
but it like took me a secon cause you can't
just like swish water in your mouth and spit that out.
(03:12):
It's got to be like authentic, true spit. You definitely
got to work up a lather in your mouth. Do
all of a sudden you get like dry mouth. You're like,
oh gosh, what's happening? Did you have spit performance anxiety?
I think I did I think I may have. Yes,
I think that's what happened. All of a sudden, I
was like, do I need a drink um? Anyways, if
(03:34):
that's the most difficult aspect of this, and so be it.
But do you fill up the spit cap, the thing
pops in, the medicine, the juice, the thing that makes
it all kind of be ready to ship off and
then you get your results. That's the best part is
getting the results. Who am I? Where do I come from?
What am I comprised of? Got my mom, I've got
(03:54):
my dad. I know what I'm working with with those two.
But it's the beyond that's interesting. Like, not only is
like it interesting for me, but I have a daughter.
I have a year and a half old daughter. And
this is not new information to humankind, but it's pretty
cool when you breed with another person and you're like,
(04:14):
what's this kid going to turn into? Is she him?
Is she me? What are we going to have? Right?
I always think the important thing too, because when she
does come of age, she's going to want to know
her genetic makeup and all the things that make you
and your husband you and your husband, and then in turn,
what does that make her. You know, the test is
(04:35):
the test is more about you, but it's the analytical
data that you can explain to her. So when she's
ready to take the test, she knows, Mom is this,
Dad is this, and here's their data to prove both. Well.
It's really a trippy too, because, like when you're pregnant,
you really start to go like down the family tree
(04:56):
of like what are the options? What do we have?
Like John has some redheads in his family. I was like,
am I gonna there's a chance I could have a
redheaded baby? That could happen? Nor is not a redhead.
She is like white, white, white hair. And the reasoning
for that is if we look at my ancestry breakdown
here Northern European, British and Irish in point six percent Scandinavian.
(05:20):
Maybe it's that Scandinavian side that's giving her that creamy
white skin and that white blonde hair. It's a nice look.
So you're just almost white across the board. I am white, white,
white brother. I am whole milk over here. But your
point Central Asian and five percent Eastern Asian who saw
(05:44):
that on the Bingo card, I didn't see that in
the bloodline did your mom know that you have had
some Asian ancestry. I've not spoken to my mom about this,
but I'm I can nearly bet that her Her answer
is no, I don't know where that comes from. I mean,
obviously this is like lines and lines of great great
(06:06):
great great great grandparents. Um, but that's really interesting. I
love that. How how really it's kind of interesting though,
because like the British stuff, the Scandinavian even it's I'm like,
I'm British, Irish for the European for the most part,
but like even that little bit of Scandinavians, like, Okay,
I'll take it. I like it. And do you know
(06:28):
that I have more Neandrethal d n A than forty
five per cent of other customers? You know? So what
we did was I I reached out to the good
folks at ME and they kind of broke it down
a little bit. So they said that everyone who's mostly
euro Asian genetic ancestry has somewhat about two percent of
(06:52):
that Neanderthal genome from like a distant Neanderthal. I'm like
in Cino man over here, baby, you're like Brendan Frasier.
You know, you're just whizzing on the juice. What does
that even like really mean to have like more neandretholic?
Isn't that what we all come from? I'm just closer
(07:15):
to it in bloodline than most people are. I think
we all come from that. Yes, but let's see what
they say. So I guess from from how they broke
it down from me with all the science e text um,
with the email that I got, was that so if
RENA is about four hundred of the DNA variants we
test that are inherited from Neanderthals, most people have less
than four hundred variants, So we'll let you know that
(07:36):
your percentile is on the higher side than typical twenty
three and me users, I feel thrilled by this. I
am assault of the earth gal. This is why you
really are so like when you think of just like
all across the world. You have little bits and pieces
of that now. And the fun part about this stuff
(07:56):
is after you get this stuff now you can go
on a whole deep dive and do your googles. Then
you have these conversations with your mom and your dad
and be like, do you know any of this stuff?
And then they tell you what that stuff is so
when your kid is of age, you can be like,
you know, mom is like a special part of being
a Neanderthal. Okay, so we have some of those like
(08:18):
part of that information is laid out for us, just
like the my descent, where I'm from, etcetera. But you
also get your health predispositions and some of the traits. Now,
some of the ones that I saw from here that
I really wanted to focus on and talk about that
I think are really cool. This one's actually wrong, I
will say, But it said that I had a sixty
five percent chance of having stretch marks. So I'm actually
(08:41):
stretch mark list and so was my mom. So when
I got pregnant with Nora, I was the size of
a house. I had a huge belly, and I just
did not get stretch marks. Granted, I put like the
lotions on the lotions and the potions, and I worked
with it the best I could. But apparently that doesn't
really matter. You either get stretch marks or you don't,
which I had no idea, but I actually didn't get any,
(09:01):
and neither did my mom. So take that. I'm learning
so much about your body right now. Yeah, I mean,
buckle up, there's more but there's more um that I'm
I'm also likely to match a pitch so that I
can carry a tune. This is one that I would
happily check off that I think I can rock the
ship out of a song. You listen, you have musical
(09:24):
notes and from like the breakdown looad of the report gos,
if you hear a musical note, you can sing it back.
So like you being able to carry a tune is
knowing like like certain chords, So you might not know
what a G flat is, but you can hear it,
but you can hit it so you can match the
pitch vocally. That's really interesting that, like my genetics would
(09:47):
tell you that because I think my mom can like sing,
all right, I'm better for sure. But but it's the
ability to to hear somebody sing. You know. Let's just
say you like Jenny Lewis. So if Jenny Lewis is
singing in an octave that you're comfortable with, you like,
oh wait a minute, I think I can match that.
So yeah, us breaking it down in a layman's term,
(10:09):
I can carry a tune is yeah, you could sing.
But how it breaks down for this thing is is
that you hear the pitch and you know the octave.
You might not be classically trained to be like, oh
that's an a sharp, but you can hit it. That's
really interesting. How cool gosh? Here? I mean that's when
I read that, I was like, oh, that's really interesting
(10:31):
because I really have always felt like when I hear something,
I can kind of like I know, I can like
feel where I know where it's got to go. It's
a gift. I find it incredibly fascinating that they can
figure this out through your saliva and certain bio markers
within that. It's crazy to me that they could that
(10:54):
they can do this. It's really cool. They can even
whittle it right down to to kind of in and
around what time I wake up at, So my time
predictor of like my my rising for the day is
eight eighteen am. Now, in a perfect world, that would
be beautiful. I have a child, so usually it's a
little bit before that. UM. But yeah, that's it's really interesting.
(11:18):
I didn't know that we had like predispositions to um
two hours of wakefulness. I did not know this. What
would yours be? Oh my gosh, you're like l Vampiro
over here. Well, you sold me on this So now
I'm gonna get the test and I'm gonna do all
the necessary steps forward. I think I can easily spit
into this thing. I don't think i'll have don't get
(11:40):
dry mouth, No, I'm good on that. I won't have
a spit performance anxiety. You say that now, but I
don't know. Call a girl when it happens. We'll see.
There's a lot going on right now in my mouth,
so we'll see. But um, I think I would like
to know what my specific like makeup would be for
sleeping because I'm curious about that because sleep health is
a thing and I'm trying to get into and being
(12:01):
better at. So I'm I'm all in on the twenty
three and me. This is something that I found interesting.
They said, Renee, your generic results is associated with a
typical likelihood of being diagnosed with anxiety, and estimated sixty
two out of one people with genetic and other factors
like yours have been diagnosed with their anxiety by their twenties.
(12:25):
This is within what is considered typical, which can be
anywhere from fifty two to sixty out of a hundred people. So, like,
did you ever get diagnosed with anxiety by your early twenties.
Because you've mentioned on our program the Sessions, you can
download that Stitcher, Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcast
(12:46):
YouTube that sometimes you do you do suffer from anxiety now,
which is caused by or triggered by claustophobia. So now
did you have that in your in your twenties? It
not have that in my twenties. This was more of
a thirties renee kick in. Um. Yeah, you know, I
really was not an and like day to day I
(13:09):
would not classify myself as an anxious person. I mean,
like anybody, I think we all at one point or
another might have like little bouts of anxiety. I think
that's just like our human nature. But yeah, mine, mine
definitely gets like kicked into high gear if um yeah,
if it's a claustrophobic situation, an elevator hell no. Uh
sometimes like you know, being stuck in a car, being
(13:31):
in a plane, Like there's certain little things that can
trigger it. But also kind of a genetic thing. Because
my mom's really bad with it. I don't know when
hers kicked in. But it's funny because I used to
laugh at my mom because she was like so massively claustrophobic.
My mom cannot wear a turtleneck without freaking out. Like
it's it's actually quite comical, not for her, but for
(13:54):
anybody else around. It is like literally one time we
got in a cab and John was like, oh my god,
can you handle being at the very bad back of
this cab. We had to pull over because she freaked out.
She couldn't handle it. But anyways, I used to always
find that like quite amusing and then lo and behold.
I call my mom one day, I'm like, Mom, Mike,
I gotta get off this plane. I'm freaking out. She
was like, ha, welcome to my world. Um so yeah,
(14:16):
I guess it was some kind of a predetermined situation
I would find myself and it's not fun. I want
to talk about the Bunyan's. I want to talk about
the Bunyans. But then I also seen that Rene, your
genetic results are also associated with a typical likelihood of
developing asthma, and estimated of people with the genetics and
other factors like yours have developed asthma by their twenties.
(14:38):
This is based on data from female from twenty three
research participants of European descent so you're in that twenty three,
which is a typical range. They say, I feel like
when I was younger, and I don't even know if
this is true, but I feel like my mom had
me convinced that maybe I had ad asthma. I had
I had an inhaler for a minute, but I think
I was just maybe sick for a period of time.
(15:00):
I don't think I had asthma. And the kind of
same same now. I'm I got like huge lungs on me.
I'm like a silver back gorilla over here. I got
big old lungs. It's because you're you're able to just
speak without taking a breath. My my rib cage is huge,
huge rib cage, massive massive. You got to see the
rib cage on this person I know and can match
(15:22):
match a pitch effortlessly. You have the lungs of Pavarotti. Um. Okay.
So the bunyan one I find really interesting because I
John makes fun of me, my husband, he makes fun
of me for this all the time. But I had
bunyan surgery when I was about eighteen, so I supposed
to I actually bunyans on both my feet, but I
(15:44):
according to twenty three and me, I have a likelihood
to not develop bunyans, but I actually have them on
both feet so bad that I had surgery on one
of them. They actually want to do surgery on both.
I didn't find the surgery to be that bad, but
everyone told me that it's like this hillacious surgery. So
I was like, I don't want to do both and
be like out. And I developed them because I played
(16:05):
so many sports growing up, so my feet were always
in skates. I was doing gymnastics, I was doing dance,
I was doing a bunch of different things and my
feet got jacked up. Um, so I I extra didn't
want to be out even longer than that by doing
both surgeries. I really wish I did now because my
one that I didn't do surgery on is calling me
up on the phone. It's not good. You always make
the joke about like your your wicked feet. So does
(16:26):
like the so does the does the bus? Does the
bunyan get you more action? Uh? There's got to There's
got to be a market for it. People like a
hard work and foot. This is not a cushioned foot.
This foot is put in work and effort and it's
it's earned. Its scars, that's for sure. Oh that's funny. Um.
(16:49):
I'm one of the people whose p would not smell
like asparagus. I didn't. I thought everyone's piece smells like asparagus.
My piece smells like asparagus the second I ingest it. Well.
The the report is your ability to smell versus the
p itself smelling. Oh, I got a nose like a bloodhound.
(17:10):
I smell every thing. The ability to smell asparagus in
your in is your ability because of your nose, not
because your tinkle smells like a vegetable. Got it? Can
I tell you this? Last night, I go to bed
ahead of John. I'm falling asleep, like something stinks in
our room? What is? And he makes fun of me
(17:32):
all the time. He's always like, it stinks, that stinks,
that smells like He makes fun of me because I'm
constantly saying things stink. So I text him because I'm
up in bed and I didn't want to walk act
and something like can you come upstairs for a minute.
He comes, like sauntering upstairs. Ago, your shoes are in
this bedroom and they just woke me up because I
can smell them, like my nose smells everything you cannot
(17:53):
sneak something past these nostrils. I smell at all, all
of it, which is troublesome considering I have a bulldog
who just like draw bombs all day long. See, So
it's your ability to smell which is cool. So you
can you can really flush out some some interesting stuff.
I feel like my sense of smell is like my
super lame like X Men trait. That's what I would be.
(18:13):
I'd be the superhero that smells everything like I. I
could be like a carbon monoxide detector or something. I
smell everything. Since you mentioned being an athlete, I'm looking
at muscle composition on your twenty three and me and
it says, Renee, your genetic muscle composition is common in
elite power athletes. It is true. We I mean, we
(18:37):
have so many different athletes on the sessions which you
can listen to all the places that Amelia rattle off earlier.
We've got all these different athletes on all the time.
And it's funny because I'm currently not an athlete. I
am a broadcaster. I work in the sports space. However,
so when I hearken back to like the good old
days of when I was kicking ass and taking names.
And you know, whether I was running track and field,
(18:58):
playing ringette, I was doing high John, if I was changing,
I did everything. I was pretty good at it. I
guess I was like kind of cut out for and
I build muscle really fast. Studies have found that almost
all elite power athletes, including sprinters, throwers, and jumpers, have
a specific genetic variant in gene related to muscle composition.
(19:18):
You have the same genetic variant as these elite athletes.
That's me. I told you I was not playing. I
can jump very high and I can run very fast.
About your athletic endurance and says with most elite power
athletes who have been studied have this genetic variant that
allows them to produce I can't even pronounce that word
twenty three and me, but it's a protein in the
(19:41):
muscle that so so pretty much like you are. You
are a above average because of this like specifics so cool.
Differences in genetic markers used in this report may only
explain about two or three percent of the difference and
muscle performance between different people. In elite athletes who work
(20:02):
intensely to reach upper limits of their potential, That two
or three percent may mean something different, whether it's qualifying
for the Olympics and you're just missing to cut. But
for the rest of us, the choices that we make
and how we train will far outweigh our contribution than
our genetic marker. As a result, it's really interesting. I
mentioned my daughter Nora at the very beginning of this,
(20:24):
and as she's coming into her own she's walking, she's
starting to pick up the speed, She's developed a little
power shuffle. She is hall and asked this kid, But
I look at her and I'm like, is she going
to have that same kind of like athleticism that I have?
And what sport is she going to gravitate towards? Like
I can't wait to see what she does with this
(20:44):
little bod when now I've combined with another I'm not
a super human, but John is kind of a superhuman.
My husband is a professional wrestler. What is our child
going to be? Well, you're also downplaying professional wrestler. He
is a multi time world heavyweight champion in the world
of professional wrestling, and he's also as big as a house.
(21:06):
Your Your husband is very He's in very good shape.
He has a background in catch wrestling and jiu jitsu.
So he's a very very strong man as well. And
what we have to do now is we have to
get John to spit into a cup so we can
see his results, and then maybe we do something later
on on our program the sessions. You can download that
wherever you get podcasts and see what the results are,
(21:29):
and then we can combine those things and then when
Nora is ready to play a sport now you know, like, hey,
maybe the kid can get a little something from column
and column by maybe she could be a relay race runner,
or a high jumper or a pull vaulter like Alicia Newman.
Big shout us to Alicia Newman. You can download that
(21:49):
episode right now. Um. So this is what I found interesting.
Because you are a dog person, Renee, you are a
genetic result is associated with a typical likelihood of developing
a dog allergy, and estimated six percent of people with
your genetics and other factors like yours have developed a
dog allergy by their forties. Is based on data from
(22:12):
females from twenty three research with participants of your opinian
ESSENSI right now you are I didn't know it could
kick in that. Oh yeah, so you're in the six percentile,
which is the typical range right now, and this is
an estimate currently based on the data that has been
updated at this time. Oh my goodness, that's really sad news.
I mean it's I you know, both of my dogs
(22:33):
shed a ton. But hey, if I've gotten to my forties,
oh god, I'm actually getting kind of close. So let's
see what happens. Buckle up. That would suck. It even
talks about near sidedness, their seasonal allergies, there's lactose intolerant tests.
What is your favorite fact that you learned while scamming
through my results and you're like, wow, that's interesting. I
(22:56):
think you would probably have to be that you are
I present Korean. I think that is I think that
is incredible because if you were too google Renee Paquette,
she is as white as snow to see that. I
think that's incredibly cool because now there's this entire history
to be learned about a culture that now you are
(23:17):
a part of, and to learn that is fascinating to me.
So would that means that I would have like potentially
like a Korean great great great great grandfather or grandmother
or something. Possibly? Yes, I think it's interesting to to
now to go back and learn where you come from,
(23:38):
who you are, and what that is. Let's see. So, um,
it's called the Hollow group. This is shares DNA with
Viking warriors as well. Basically, don't mess with me. I'm
Neanderthal Viking. I've got this athletic gene that will kick
your ass. I've got it all. You get this from
(23:58):
your mom. Fathers cannot asked this DNA to their offsprings.
The Viking I get from my mom. Wow, how crazy
is that? I actually buy that. My mom's pretty fiery.
I could see her doing well in a Viking situation.
She's small, but she's mighty. You have Viking warrior ancestry,
so it's like you have a small piece of mitochondrial
(24:19):
DNA that was passed down from mothers to their children.
So your great great great great great grand nanny might
have been this badass Viking warrior babe. Hell yes she was.
Oh my god, I can picture her, this blonde hair,
just blowing in the wind, just taking taking hose out.
I allowed to swear on this podcast is not our
(24:40):
podcast or guests. We're good. But the cool part is
now you have all this research right, you can go
back and you can always check your twenty three portal
and if there is something that you want to investigate
and deep dive into and you find other family members
on there. We know that part, but that was really
cool when I kind of have a little brief glance
(25:01):
and I was like, oh my god, these cousins that
are like really close in like bloodlines. It's cool. I
advise anybody to go and take a three and it's fun.
It is fun. If nothing else, it's just like fun, Like, yeah,
it's cool to like, if you want to connect with
family members, you want to find people that you are
related to. Of course that prospect is out there and
(25:24):
that's really cool. But just knowing who you are, where
you come from, what all is living in your body
and how it got there, and you know medically things
that you could be predispositioned towards. So really really cool stuff.
I highly recommend it. I'm really happy that I did it,
and um, there's just so much information there, so I'm
(25:44):
just going to continue to sift through it, learn more
about myself, try to convince my husband to do one, um,
so that we can kind of compare notes since what
we're really working with but yeah, really a great time.
Highly suggested. Thank you guys for hanging out with me
and Amelia learning a little bit more about out about
my body and what what what I bring to the
table as a human being. So thank you Spit, Thank
(26:05):
you three and me Neanderthal out and that's it On
another Dope show. Did this episode inspire you to take
a closer look at your health history, your genetic makeup?
Who new DNA could reveal so much about our past
while also holding the keys to certain health insights that
may impact our future. I continue to be inspired by
(26:27):
these stories, and I hope you do as well. Catch
you next time. Listen to Spit, an original podcast from
I Heart Radio and twenty three in the on the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
your podcast.
Have you ever thought about how incredibly complex I spit is.
It may only be water, but just aliva isn't simple.
That remaining one percent holds incredibly meaningful information that could
change everything. And I'm not just talking about your family
treat Hi. I'm Barrett to Day Thurston And on this
(00:23):
season of Spit and I Heart Radio podcast with twenty
three and Me, we explore how DNA isn't just about ancestry,
it can also be key to understanding your health. What's up, yo,
Welcome back. When Renee Paquette isn't backstage interview on the
Grapplers of All Elite Wrestling, she's busy hosting her podcast,
(00:46):
The Sessions with Renee Paquette. Each week, Renee presents unscripted
and uncensored interviews with the biggest names and combat sports today.
She's channeling some of that same energy, but this time
she's going unscripted and censored with her twenty three and
Me reports. If Renee wasn't busy enough already, she's also
a new mom. Alongside taking care of her daughter and
(01:08):
balancing a hectic work schedule, taking care of her physical
and mental health are also at the top of her
to do list. So to help Renee better understand her health,
she decided to take AYE and Me test. Today, she's
sharing what she learned from her reports and what she
plans to do with this new and valuable information. Renee
is blown away by the depth of information contained in
(01:29):
her reports. There's so much to learn from our genetics.
There were plenty of surprises with her ancestry, but also
incredible information regarding her sleep health, her predisposition for anxiety,
and her amount of Neanderthal DNA. But surprisingly, with all
that incredible info at her fingertips, she's probably most happy
(01:49):
with what her reports had to say about her sense
of smell and in particular, her ability to smell asparagus. Yeah,
she always thought she had a strong sense of smell
and hurts. Twenty three and Me reports just help confirm
what she likes to call her X Men superpower. There's
a whole lot more to unpack and Renee's reports, so
(02:09):
let's listen in Okay, guys, we're here talking twenty three
in me. I'm Renee Paquette. I am the host of
the Sessions podcast on the Volume podcast Network. UM you
can also see me as a personality a broadcaster, an
interviewer at all Elite Wrestling. But I am here today
(02:31):
doing a little debrief on twenty three of Me. My
producer extraordinary Amilio Sparks, is here with me. What we
discuss what exactly went down when finding out about my
ancestral roots while doing twenty three and Me. Honestly some
pretty fascinating stuff. So I feel like at this point
everyone kind of knows what twenty three and Me is.
(02:52):
We've seen it, we've heard about it, we've heard different
ads about it. Whatever I've now done it. I'm speaking
from a first hand experience. You get the kit to
your house, you get a little vile, You spit in it, which,
by the way, harder than it maybe seems like it is.
I don't know if I just run a dry mouth,
but it like took me a secon cause you can't
just like swish water in your mouth and spit that out.
(03:12):
It's got to be like authentic, true spit. You definitely
got to work up a lather in your mouth. Do
all of a sudden you get like dry mouth. You're like,
oh gosh, what's happening? Did you have spit performance anxiety?
I think I did I think I may have. Yes,
I think that's what happened. All of a sudden, I
was like, do I need a drink um? Anyways, if
(03:34):
that's the most difficult aspect of this, and so be it.
But do you fill up the spit cap, the thing
pops in, the medicine, the juice, the thing that makes
it all kind of be ready to ship off and
then you get your results. That's the best part is
getting the results. Who am I? Where do I come from?
What am I comprised of? Got my mom, I've got
(03:54):
my dad. I know what I'm working with with those two.
But it's the beyond that's interesting. Like, not only is
like it interesting for me, but I have a daughter.
I have a year and a half old daughter. And
this is not new information to humankind, but it's pretty
cool when you breed with another person and you're like,
(04:14):
what's this kid going to turn into? Is she him?
Is she me? What are we going to have? Right?
I always think the important thing too, because when she
does come of age, she's going to want to know
her genetic makeup and all the things that make you
and your husband you and your husband, and then in turn,
what does that make her. You know, the test is
(04:35):
the test is more about you, but it's the analytical
data that you can explain to her. So when she's
ready to take the test, she knows, Mom is this,
Dad is this, and here's their data to prove both. Well.
It's really a trippy too, because, like when you're pregnant,
you really start to go like down the family tree
(04:56):
of like what are the options? What do we have?
Like John has some redheads in his family. I was like,
am I gonna there's a chance I could have a
redheaded baby? That could happen? Nor is not a redhead.
She is like white, white, white hair. And the reasoning
for that is if we look at my ancestry breakdown
here Northern European, British and Irish in point six percent Scandinavian.
(05:20):
Maybe it's that Scandinavian side that's giving her that creamy
white skin and that white blonde hair. It's a nice look.
So you're just almost white across the board. I am white, white,
white brother. I am whole milk over here. But your
point Central Asian and five percent Eastern Asian who saw
(05:44):
that on the Bingo card, I didn't see that in
the bloodline did your mom know that you have had
some Asian ancestry. I've not spoken to my mom about this,
but I'm I can nearly bet that her Her answer
is no, I don't know where that comes from. I mean,
obviously this is like lines and lines of great great
(06:06):
great great great grandparents. Um, but that's really interesting. I
love that. How how really it's kind of interesting though,
because like the British stuff, the Scandinavian even it's I'm like,
I'm British, Irish for the European for the most part,
but like even that little bit of Scandinavians, like, Okay,
I'll take it. I like it. And do you know
(06:28):
that I have more Neandrethal d n A than forty
five per cent of other customers? You know? So what
we did was I I reached out to the good
folks at ME and they kind of broke it down
a little bit. So they said that everyone who's mostly
euro Asian genetic ancestry has somewhat about two percent of
(06:52):
that Neanderthal genome from like a distant Neanderthal. I'm like
in Cino man over here, baby, you're like Brendan Frasier.
You know, you're just whizzing on the juice. What does
that even like really mean to have like more neandretholic?
Isn't that what we all come from? I'm just closer
(07:15):
to it in bloodline than most people are. I think
we all come from that. Yes, but let's see what
they say. So I guess from from how they broke
it down from me with all the science e text um,
with the email that I got, was that so if
RENA is about four hundred of the DNA variants we
test that are inherited from Neanderthals, most people have less
than four hundred variants, So we'll let you know that
(07:36):
your percentile is on the higher side than typical twenty
three and me users, I feel thrilled by this. I
am assault of the earth gal. This is why you
really are so like when you think of just like
all across the world. You have little bits and pieces
of that now. And the fun part about this stuff
(07:56):
is after you get this stuff now you can go
on a whole deep dive and do your googles. Then
you have these conversations with your mom and your dad
and be like, do you know any of this stuff?
And then they tell you what that stuff is so
when your kid is of age, you can be like,
you know, mom is like a special part of being
a Neanderthal. Okay, so we have some of those like
(08:18):
part of that information is laid out for us, just
like the my descent, where I'm from, etcetera. But you
also get your health predispositions and some of the traits. Now,
some of the ones that I saw from here that
I really wanted to focus on and talk about that
I think are really cool. This one's actually wrong, I
will say, But it said that I had a sixty
five percent chance of having stretch marks. So I'm actually
(08:41):
stretch mark list and so was my mom. So when
I got pregnant with Nora, I was the size of
a house. I had a huge belly, and I just
did not get stretch marks. Granted, I put like the
lotions on the lotions and the potions, and I worked
with it the best I could. But apparently that doesn't
really matter. You either get stretch marks or you don't,
which I had no idea, but I actually didn't get any,
(09:01):
and neither did my mom. So take that. I'm learning
so much about your body right now. Yeah, I mean,
buckle up, there's more but there's more um that I'm
I'm also likely to match a pitch so that I
can carry a tune. This is one that I would
happily check off that I think I can rock the
ship out of a song. You listen, you have musical
(09:24):
notes and from like the breakdown looad of the report gos,
if you hear a musical note, you can sing it back.
So like you being able to carry a tune is
knowing like like certain chords, So you might not know
what a G flat is, but you can hear it,
but you can hit it so you can match the
pitch vocally. That's really interesting that, like my genetics would
(09:47):
tell you that because I think my mom can like sing,
all right, I'm better for sure. But but it's the
ability to to hear somebody sing. You know. Let's just
say you like Jenny Lewis. So if Jenny Lewis is
singing in an octave that you're comfortable with, you like,
oh wait a minute, I think I can match that.
So yeah, us breaking it down in a layman's term,
(10:09):
I can carry a tune is yeah, you could sing.
But how it breaks down for this thing is is
that you hear the pitch and you know the octave.
You might not be classically trained to be like, oh
that's an a sharp, but you can hit it. That's
really interesting. How cool gosh? Here? I mean that's when
I read that, I was like, oh, that's really interesting
(10:31):
because I really have always felt like when I hear something,
I can kind of like I know, I can like
feel where I know where it's got to go. It's
a gift. I find it incredibly fascinating that they can
figure this out through your saliva and certain bio markers
within that. It's crazy to me that they could that
(10:54):
they can do this. It's really cool. They can even
whittle it right down to to kind of in and
around what time I wake up at, So my time
predictor of like my my rising for the day is
eight eighteen am. Now, in a perfect world, that would
be beautiful. I have a child, so usually it's a
little bit before that. UM. But yeah, that's it's really interesting.
(11:18):
I didn't know that we had like predispositions to um
two hours of wakefulness. I did not know this. What
would yours be? Oh my gosh, you're like l Vampiro
over here. Well, you sold me on this So now
I'm gonna get the test and I'm gonna do all
the necessary steps forward. I think I can easily spit
into this thing. I don't think i'll have don't get
(11:40):
dry mouth, No, I'm good on that. I won't have
a spit performance anxiety. You say that now, but I
don't know. Call a girl when it happens. We'll see.
There's a lot going on right now in my mouth,
so we'll see. But um, I think I would like
to know what my specific like makeup would be for
sleeping because I'm curious about that because sleep health is
a thing and I'm trying to get into and being
(12:01):
better at. So I'm I'm all in on the twenty
three and me. This is something that I found interesting.
They said, Renee, your generic results is associated with a
typical likelihood of being diagnosed with anxiety, and estimated sixty
two out of one people with genetic and other factors
like yours have been diagnosed with their anxiety by their twenties.
(12:25):
This is within what is considered typical, which can be
anywhere from fifty two to sixty out of a hundred people. So, like,
did you ever get diagnosed with anxiety by your early twenties.
Because you've mentioned on our program the Sessions, you can
download that Stitcher, Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcast
(12:46):
YouTube that sometimes you do you do suffer from anxiety now,
which is caused by or triggered by claustophobia. So now
did you have that in your in your twenties? It
not have that in my twenties. This was more of
a thirties renee kick in. Um. Yeah, you know, I
really was not an and like day to day I
(13:09):
would not classify myself as an anxious person. I mean,
like anybody, I think we all at one point or
another might have like little bouts of anxiety. I think
that's just like our human nature. But yeah, mine, mine
definitely gets like kicked into high gear if um yeah,
if it's a claustrophobic situation, an elevator hell no. Uh
sometimes like you know, being stuck in a car, being
(13:31):
in a plane, Like there's certain little things that can
trigger it. But also kind of a genetic thing. Because
my mom's really bad with it. I don't know when
hers kicked in. But it's funny because I used to
laugh at my mom because she was like so massively claustrophobic.
My mom cannot wear a turtleneck without freaking out. Like
it's it's actually quite comical, not for her, but for
(13:54):
anybody else around. It is like literally one time we
got in a cab and John was like, oh my god,
can you handle being at the very bad back of
this cab. We had to pull over because she freaked out.
She couldn't handle it. But anyways, I used to always
find that like quite amusing and then lo and behold.
I call my mom one day, I'm like, Mom, Mike,
I gotta get off this plane. I'm freaking out. She
was like, ha, welcome to my world. Um so yeah,
(14:16):
I guess it was some kind of a predetermined situation
I would find myself and it's not fun. I want
to talk about the Bunyan's. I want to talk about
the Bunyans. But then I also seen that Rene, your
genetic results are also associated with a typical likelihood of
developing asthma, and estimated of people with the genetics and
other factors like yours have developed asthma by their twenties.
(14:38):
This is based on data from female from twenty three
research participants of European descent so you're in that twenty three,
which is a typical range. They say, I feel like
when I was younger, and I don't even know if
this is true, but I feel like my mom had
me convinced that maybe I had ad asthma. I had
I had an inhaler for a minute, but I think
I was just maybe sick for a period of time.
(15:00):
I don't think I had asthma. And the kind of
same same now. I'm I got like huge lungs on me.
I'm like a silver back gorilla over here. I got
big old lungs. It's because you're you're able to just
speak without taking a breath. My my rib cage is huge,
huge rib cage, massive massive. You got to see the
rib cage on this person I know and can match
(15:22):
match a pitch effortlessly. You have the lungs of Pavarotti. Um. Okay.
So the bunyan one I find really interesting because I
John makes fun of me, my husband, he makes fun
of me for this all the time. But I had
bunyan surgery when I was about eighteen, so I supposed
to I actually bunyans on both my feet, but I
(15:44):
according to twenty three and me, I have a likelihood
to not develop bunyans, but I actually have them on
both feet so bad that I had surgery on one
of them. They actually want to do surgery on both.
I didn't find the surgery to be that bad, but
everyone told me that it's like this hillacious surgery. So
I was like, I don't want to do both and
be like out. And I developed them because I played
(16:05):
so many sports growing up, so my feet were always
in skates. I was doing gymnastics, I was doing dance,
I was doing a bunch of different things and my
feet got jacked up. Um, so I I extra didn't
want to be out even longer than that by doing
both surgeries. I really wish I did now because my
one that I didn't do surgery on is calling me
up on the phone. It's not good. You always make
the joke about like your your wicked feet. So does
(16:26):
like the so does the does the bus? Does the
bunyan get you more action? Uh? There's got to There's
got to be a market for it. People like a
hard work and foot. This is not a cushioned foot.
This foot is put in work and effort and it's
it's earned. Its scars, that's for sure. Oh that's funny. Um.
(16:49):
I'm one of the people whose p would not smell
like asparagus. I didn't. I thought everyone's piece smells like asparagus.
My piece smells like asparagus the second I ingest it. Well.
The the report is your ability to smell versus the
p itself smelling. Oh, I got a nose like a bloodhound.
(17:10):
I smell every thing. The ability to smell asparagus in
your in is your ability because of your nose, not
because your tinkle smells like a vegetable. Got it? Can
I tell you this? Last night, I go to bed
ahead of John. I'm falling asleep, like something stinks in
our room? What is? And he makes fun of me
(17:32):
all the time. He's always like, it stinks, that stinks,
that smells like He makes fun of me because I'm
constantly saying things stink. So I text him because I'm
up in bed and I didn't want to walk act
and something like can you come upstairs for a minute.
He comes, like sauntering upstairs. Ago, your shoes are in
this bedroom and they just woke me up because I
can smell them, like my nose smells everything you cannot
(17:53):
sneak something past these nostrils. I smell at all, all
of it, which is troublesome considering I have a bulldog
who just like draw bombs all day long. See, So
it's your ability to smell which is cool. So you
can you can really flush out some some interesting stuff.
I feel like my sense of smell is like my
super lame like X Men trait. That's what I would be.
(18:13):
I'd be the superhero that smells everything like I. I
could be like a carbon monoxide detector or something. I
smell everything. Since you mentioned being an athlete, I'm looking
at muscle composition on your twenty three and me and
it says, Renee, your genetic muscle composition is common in
elite power athletes. It is true. We I mean, we
(18:37):
have so many different athletes on the sessions which you
can listen to all the places that Amelia rattle off earlier.
We've got all these different athletes on all the time.
And it's funny because I'm currently not an athlete. I
am a broadcaster. I work in the sports space. However,
so when I hearken back to like the good old
days of when I was kicking ass and taking names.
And you know, whether I was running track and field,
(18:58):
playing ringette, I was doing high John, if I was changing,
I did everything. I was pretty good at it. I
guess I was like kind of cut out for and
I build muscle really fast. Studies have found that almost
all elite power athletes, including sprinters, throwers, and jumpers, have
a specific genetic variant in gene related to muscle composition.
(19:18):
You have the same genetic variant as these elite athletes.
That's me. I told you I was not playing. I
can jump very high and I can run very fast.
About your athletic endurance and says with most elite power
athletes who have been studied have this genetic variant that
allows them to produce I can't even pronounce that word
twenty three and me, but it's a protein in the
(19:41):
muscle that so so pretty much like you are. You
are a above average because of this like specifics so cool.
Differences in genetic markers used in this report may only
explain about two or three percent of the difference and
muscle performance between different people. In elite athletes who work
(20:02):
intensely to reach upper limits of their potential, That two
or three percent may mean something different, whether it's qualifying
for the Olympics and you're just missing to cut. But
for the rest of us, the choices that we make
and how we train will far outweigh our contribution than
our genetic marker. As a result, it's really interesting. I
mentioned my daughter Nora at the very beginning of this,
(20:24):
and as she's coming into her own she's walking, she's
starting to pick up the speed, She's developed a little
power shuffle. She is hall and asked this kid, But
I look at her and I'm like, is she going
to have that same kind of like athleticism that I have?
And what sport is she going to gravitate towards? Like
I can't wait to see what she does with this
(20:44):
little bod when now I've combined with another I'm not
a super human, but John is kind of a superhuman.
My husband is a professional wrestler. What is our child
going to be? Well, you're also downplaying professional wrestler. He
is a multi time world heavyweight champion in the world
of professional wrestling, and he's also as big as a house.
(21:06):
Your Your husband is very He's in very good shape.
He has a background in catch wrestling and jiu jitsu.
So he's a very very strong man as well. And
what we have to do now is we have to
get John to spit into a cup so we can
see his results, and then maybe we do something later
on on our program the sessions. You can download that
wherever you get podcasts and see what the results are,
(21:29):
and then we can combine those things and then when
Nora is ready to play a sport now you know, like, hey,
maybe the kid can get a little something from column
and column by maybe she could be a relay race runner,
or a high jumper or a pull vaulter like Alicia Newman.
Big shout us to Alicia Newman. You can download that
(21:49):
episode right now. Um. So this is what I found interesting.
Because you are a dog person, Renee, you are a
genetic result is associated with a typical likelihood of developing
a dog allergy, and estimated six percent of people with
your genetics and other factors like yours have developed a
dog allergy by their forties. Is based on data from
(22:12):
females from twenty three research with participants of your opinian
ESSENSI right now you are I didn't know it could
kick in that. Oh yeah, so you're in the six percentile,
which is the typical range right now, and this is
an estimate currently based on the data that has been
updated at this time. Oh my goodness, that's really sad news.
I mean it's I you know, both of my dogs
(22:33):
shed a ton. But hey, if I've gotten to my forties,
oh god, I'm actually getting kind of close. So let's
see what happens. Buckle up. That would suck. It even
talks about near sidedness, their seasonal allergies, there's lactose intolerant tests.
What is your favorite fact that you learned while scamming
through my results and you're like, wow, that's interesting. I
(22:56):
think you would probably have to be that you are
I present Korean. I think that is I think that
is incredible because if you were too google Renee Paquette,
she is as white as snow to see that. I
think that's incredibly cool because now there's this entire history
to be learned about a culture that now you are
(23:17):
a part of, and to learn that is fascinating to me.
So would that means that I would have like potentially
like a Korean great great great great grandfather or grandmother
or something. Possibly? Yes, I think it's interesting to to
now to go back and learn where you come from,
(23:38):
who you are, and what that is. Let's see. So, um,
it's called the Hollow group. This is shares DNA with
Viking warriors as well. Basically, don't mess with me. I'm
Neanderthal Viking. I've got this athletic gene that will kick
your ass. I've got it all. You get this from
(23:58):
your mom. Fathers cannot asked this DNA to their offsprings.
The Viking I get from my mom. Wow, how crazy
is that? I actually buy that. My mom's pretty fiery.
I could see her doing well in a Viking situation.
She's small, but she's mighty. You have Viking warrior ancestry,
so it's like you have a small piece of mitochondrial
(24:19):
DNA that was passed down from mothers to their children.
So your great great great great great grand nanny might
have been this badass Viking warrior babe. Hell yes she was.
Oh my god, I can picture her, this blonde hair,
just blowing in the wind, just taking taking hose out.
I allowed to swear on this podcast is not our
(24:40):
podcast or guests. We're good. But the cool part is
now you have all this research right, you can go
back and you can always check your twenty three portal
and if there is something that you want to investigate
and deep dive into and you find other family members
on there. We know that part, but that was really
cool when I kind of have a little brief glance
(25:01):
and I was like, oh my god, these cousins that
are like really close in like bloodlines. It's cool. I
advise anybody to go and take a three and it's fun.
It is fun. If nothing else, it's just like fun, Like, yeah,
it's cool to like, if you want to connect with
family members, you want to find people that you are
related to. Of course that prospect is out there and
(25:24):
that's really cool. But just knowing who you are, where
you come from, what all is living in your body
and how it got there, and you know medically things
that you could be predispositioned towards. So really really cool stuff.
I highly recommend it. I'm really happy that I did it,
and um, there's just so much information there, so I'm
(25:44):
just going to continue to sift through it, learn more
about myself, try to convince my husband to do one, um,
so that we can kind of compare notes since what
we're really working with but yeah, really a great time.
Highly suggested. Thank you guys for hanging out with me
and Amelia learning a little bit more about out about
my body and what what what I bring to the
table as a human being. So thank you Spit, Thank
(26:05):
you three and me Neanderthal out and that's it On
another Dope show. Did this episode inspire you to take
a closer look at your health history, your genetic makeup?
Who new DNA could reveal so much about our past
while also holding the keys to certain health insights that
may impact our future. I continue to be inspired by
(26:27):
these stories, and I hope you do as well. Catch
you next time. Listen to Spit, an original podcast from
I Heart Radio and twenty three in the on the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
your podcast.
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