Ep.138 Unlocking DNA Secrets: Elwin Robinson on Genetic Testing, Personalized Health, and Wellness Strategies

Episode Transcript
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Michele Folan (00:04):
Health, wellness, fitness and everything in
between.
We're removing the taboo fromwhat really matters in midlife.
I'm your host, Michele Folan,and this is Asking for a Friend.
Today we're thrilled to welcomeElwin Robinson, founder of

(00:25):
Genetic Insights.
After facing severe healthchallenges that traditional and
alternative medicine couldn'tsolve, Elwin turned to genetic
testing, sparking arevolutionary approach to health
and wellness.
His company now empowersindividuals by providing
personalized genetic-basedhealth insights.
Elwin's passion lies inunlocking the secrets of our DNA

(00:47):
to improve our quality of life,making him a true pioneer in
the field of genetics andrejuvenation.
Elwyn Robinson, welcome toAsking for a Friend.

Elwin Robinson (00:58):
Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, it's really nice to see you, and I always
start off my conversations withyou adding in tidbits about
yourself, where you're from,where you went to school and
anything else you'd like toshare.

I was originally born in Holland to a Dutch
mother and an English father.
I grew up in England from theage of four.
Yeah, I don't know.
What else do you want to know?

Family.

Yes, both my parents were very unhealthy and
both my parents were intoalternative health, so that
really sparked my interest in it.
My mother had cancer severaltimes and tumors several more
times and she went theconventional route but also the
alternative route.
So my house was filled ofsupplements.
Our house was almost like likea library it's just full of

(01:48):
books and all kinds of books andalternative health stuff.
And then my dad was more of apractical guy, so at one point
he was a rural science teacher.
Another point he had an organicfarm.
Another point he was, uh, likean organic market stall.
This is back in the 80s, rightright when this was fairly
unusual.
So yeah, and he was abiochemist.
So you could say that health orlack of health, both of them

(02:10):
are a little bit in my DNA.

Well, that's super interesting because you
don't hear that very often.
Typically you hear people werenot trying to live really a
healthy lifestyle, trying tolive really a healthy lifestyle
back then.
So that is unusual.
But you have your own personalhealth story that I think drove
you to where you are today.

(02:32):
What was it that was going onwith you that propelled you into
action?

Well, like I said, I've always thought that I
didn't have very healthy genesbecause both my parents were
very unhealthy.
My mother died fairly young ofcancer and my dad he had, you
know, me, and he permanentlyretired as a teacher because of
it and uh.
But you know, with all thathealth stuff, I was a rebellious
person.
So I rebelled against that and,you know, did the normal stuff

(02:57):
that kit does of you know,partying and and whatnot.
And then in my late 20s Istarted to get ill as well, like
the early signs of ME.
So I was like, okay, I've gotto turn this around and stop
behaving this way.
And I was feeling better forquite a while.
And then I was also in thehealth industry.
You know I was doing talksaround the world and all that

(03:19):
kind of stuff and I thought Ihad it all figured out, michelle
, until I got to almost 40 yearsold and then suddenly I started
to suffer with a debilitatingpain condition that affected my
digestive system around my solarplexus on the right-hand side,
and all the kind of usual healthadvice that I thought would

(03:43):
prevent or treat something likethat didn't work and I went to
conventional medical doctorsseveral of them, you know,
public, then private paid forall kinds of tests.
None of those helped.
I went to functional medicine,nutritionists, naturopaths, all
those kind of people and Ilearned some interesting stuff

(04:06):
about myself along the way, butnone them helped and by this
time I was really struggling.
I had always been underweightand had some degree of digestive
issues.
That was the one like the baneof my existence.
Um, like, by far.
I just had food allergies.
So if I just ate a certain way,I was okay.
But I got to the point whereanything I ate would create this
severe stabbing pain andpainkillers did not work.
In fact they made it worse.

(04:27):
So normal painkillers didn'twork, which is not that unusual.
But normally then you putsomeone on opiate painkillers if
the normal ones don't work, butthose ones actually made the
pain significantly worse, whichis an unusual situation.

That is weird.

Maybe a mixed blessing, because it stopped me
getting addicted to them.
But yeah, I lost a lot ofweight.
I'm six foot three.
I got down to about 120 pounds.

Oh Lord, this is not through stopping myself
eating.

This was, you know, because it was so painful.
Every time I did eat and Iwould say I suffered from a lot
of things that result from, youknow, malnutrition.
So I was cold all the time.
I started to have severeanxiety.
I couldn't sleep.
I was extremely kind ofhypersensitive to both stress,
psychological stress, but alsojust substances, you know,

(05:11):
anything toxic in theenvironment I was reacting to
and I was in a bit of a sorrystate and so, you know, and I
couldn't work much.
So I really I tried everything,I went into a lot of other
avenues.
I thought, okay, well, maybeit's a more of a structural
issue, because it is, you know,around the rib cage.
And so I went to see peoplelike physical therapists,

(05:33):
chiropractors, craniosacraltherapists, osteopaths, all
those kind of people, and again,I learned lots of interesting
stuff, but nothing actuallyhelped.
And then I started to thinkmaybe this is all in in my head,
especially when, repeatedly,doctors would look at me as if
they thought it was all in myhead.
No one actually said that.
So I was like, okay, so Istarted to learn about the
placebo effect and the noceboeffect and I started to see a

(05:55):
normal therapist and I startedto do meditation every day and
all of that kind of stuff.
And again, all that was probablyvery beneficial, but none of it
actually worked for this issue.
In fact, a lot of time it madeit worse and I'd paid for a lot
of testing by then, both withdifferent practitioners and on
my own, and I just stumbledacross this thing that said,

(06:16):
have you ever done a genetictest before?
You can take your, your raw dna, your results from that and
upload it to this and it willgive you all kinds of insights
about your health based on yourgenetics.
And I was like you know, I'mgoing to try it.
So I tried it and for me it wasa revelation.
Unfortunately, it didn'timmediately tell me what was

(06:39):
wrong in my case, but it gave methe clues that I needed to
finally work out what was goingon and actually to resolve it.

So what were the clues?
What did you pick up from thistesting?

Yeah, a few things.
So first of all, I didn't know,because it's in that area and I
hadn't been able to finallythink.
But it's like is it theintestines?
Is it the liver?
Is it the gallbladder?
Is it none of those things?
Is it the ribs?
So, like helping me narrow down,and it said I have a very high
genetic risk top 99th percentilefor something called
cholestasis.
And so cholestasis is where thebile doesn't flow properly.

(07:10):
It becomes too thick and itgets stuck, and bile is a very
highly toxic substance and itcan be very corrosive if a lot
of toxicity builds up in it.
And so that was like a cluethat that might be where the
pain was localized.
And I've had a couple of peoplesay it looks like the
gallbladder before, but I'd hadso many opinions I didn't know
what was what.
And I also had a top 1% geneticrisk for cholecystitis, which

(07:34):
is an infection of thegallbladder.
But now when they tested me,they didn't find that.
But I was like, okay, seems tobe gallbladder-ish
gallbladder-related, seems to begallbladder-ish
gallbladder-related.
And then there were variousthings that also predisposed me
to that, like a geneticallyincreased need for choline.
Choline is one of the nutrientsthat your body should make
itself, but you need sufficientamounts in order to keep the
bile flowing.

(07:55):
And then so that was oneelement of it, and so I
eventually, through that,discovered that I had, like the
actual diagnosis of what I haveis called sphincter of OD
dysfunction.
It's basically this bile duct.
It goes into spasm and themainstream medical community
doesn't know why it happens, butthey know it happens and it's

(08:16):
agonizingly painful.
It happens far more in womenthan men.
Like 98% of the time it's women, which is no surprise, and they
didn't suspect it in my caseand they don't really know what
caused it.
It's something like IBS.
It's a syndrome.
They don't really understand it, but my understanding was that
the toxicity will, if it'ssufficient, it will cause that

(08:37):
muscle to go into spasm, whichthen means that the gallbladder
can't release.
This bile starts building up inthe gallbladder, so it starts
like inflating, like a balloon,building up pressure, and that's
what that very unique,unpleasant, uh pain okay, yeah,
wow, that's super interesting.

I want to back up real quick because I took it.
I made a little note here.
You said that your dad had me.
What does that stand for?

chronic fatigue syndrome is the more okay term
for it.
Okay, chronic fatigue.

Okay.
So I just wanted to ask that,just in case someone says what
was he talking about?
So, with this new knowledgethat you could do this DNA
testing, how did you jump intothis?
Because you've made a careerout of this now.

Yes, well, like I kind of skimmed over before, I
already had a supplement storefor a long time at this point,
selling herbs, actually mainlyfor quite a while, and nutrients
and stuff like that, and I wastotally in it.
This is what I'm saying.
I hadn't really emphasized this, but I was living a healthier
lifestyle than 99% of peoplebefore this happened.
I never drank alcohol, I neversmoked, I never took drugs, I

(09:44):
never had sugar, I never hadfast food, and when I say never,
I mean never.
I was always, you know, Iexercised every day, I did
breathing practice, I didregular yoga, like I was really
living this healthy lifestyle.
And yeah, you know, I tookherbs, I took supplements, I did
cleanses regularly, I didfasting all of that stuff you're
supposed to do in what I callmainstream alternative health

(10:04):
world.
That's supposed to keep youhealthy.
So I was really into all thatstuff and I taught it.
So I had a bit of an audiencealready.
But obviously, as soon as Istarted to get sick I'm not
teaching anything, I don't wantto be hypocritical, I've got my
own problem but when I startedto get better, that's the first
of all I test, let's see if I'ma fluke, let's see if this is

(10:27):
just a random chance.
So I got my wife to do it, Igot several more business
partners to do it, I got most ofmy employees to do it, I got
most of my trainers to do it,some family members to do it,
and so I'd seen, by this timeI'd gone through a couple of
dozen people and I was like justconsistently, uh, blown away at
how accurate it was, how howhelpful it was.

(10:47):
You know, I accrued a fewstories of other people who had
big turnarounds as a result ofit and I was like, huh, I and it
was great, but I found that Iactually needed to go through
people's results with them,otherwise they couldn't
understand it.
And because the the portal thatI was using is kind of
practitioner focused, I wouldsay, even though it wasn't
technically only forpractitioners most, a lot of

(11:10):
them are only for practitionersand the ones that aren't quite
difficult for normal people tounderstand.
So I approached them and I saidwould I be able to work with
you guys, license it, and soit'd be the same results, same
accuracy and all rest, but itwould be simpler for people to
go.
It's still not super simple, asyou've seen, but it is simpler
for the average person to gothrough and understand

(11:31):
themselves and this is the otherdistinction make it cheaper.
So I wanted to democratize it soanyone at least with a Western
world income could afford it.
And so there's an absurdovercharging, honestly, in this
industry I was just talkingabout a couple of days ago with
a couple of medical doctors.
Sometimes they pay hundreds orhundreds of dollars for like one

(11:53):
gene or one SNP, one marker,and I said to them look in our
system we have 200 million SNPsthat we analyze and we can give
you results on Like.
We provide so much informationbut, as I said, it was still
fairly expensive so I wanted itavailable.
So you know, with our system,jetikinsightsco, especially with
you know, I usually give out adiscount code when I go on

(12:17):
podcasts like this.
You know you can get access toeverything for under $150.
So it's a vast amount ofinformation, as you can see,
sometimes it may be too much,but if you know how to go
through it which hopefully we'lldo a little bit of in this
interview it's a vast amount ofinformation categorized in a way
that you know is manageable togo through it and it's extremely
affordable, and that was reallymy goal.

(12:38):
Like that, everyone would beable to use that.

So for what types of health issues do you think
most people are trying to findanswers for?
Do you have a sense?

Yeah, good question.
It's going to be chronic, notacute, right?
If someone starts to feel thatstabbing pain, like I had, the
first port of call should not begenetic results, it should be
going to a medical doctor.
It's only where practitionershave failed you or maybe you're
now managing it and you'retreating it, but you want to see
if there are some underlyingcauses, you can find an address

(13:09):
and stuff like that.
So I'd say all the chronicissues I would especially say in
my experience, the chronicissues that most practitioners
are not interested indiscovering the root causes.
For you know that's my realmission.
That was born during that timeis to and genetics is really
only a part of it is to helppeople identify and resolve the
root causes of chronic disease.

(13:29):
And in fact you know they areall there and identify seven
areas that you need to look at.
And so if someone comes to meand they don't have a specific
problem but they just want tolook through their genetics,
then that's often what I'll do.
I'll just look at the sevenpotential root causes of all
chronic disease and let's have alook and see what we can do
about those.

So this is like where you can get almost like a
personalized risk score.
Is that kind of what that is?

You can get many , many, many, many personalized
risk scores in our system.
Yeah, so some of them are moregeneral, like there's one just
for detoxification, there's onejust for heart health, or
there's one just for blood sugarbalance, or there's just one
just for hormones, but thenwithin that there'll also be one
report on every hormone and onereport on all the kind of
common permutations of bloodsugars, hypoglycemia or insulin

(14:19):
resistance or metabolic syndrome, whatever.
So many many different riskscores?
Yes, depending on what you'reinterested in.

And then are there wellness strategies
associated with those two.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

So when I go through them with people, I
often don't spend too much timelooking at this because they you
know people generally want likea meta zoomed out perspective
of what to focus on and stuff.
But what you know people haveaccess to is a membership portal
and then you can kind of justskim through and see, oh, I have
a higher risk of this or alower risk of this, and that can

(14:52):
be enough for a practitioneritself to say, okay, I could do
further testing on this, becausethere's a higher risk of this,
for instance.
But for an end user, a client,a patient, whatever, what I
strongly recommend is, when youfind an area that you're either
concerned about or maybe thatyou already have, is to actually
download the report and read it.
And the first part of thereport is just always the same.

(15:14):
It's just a generalintroduction to make sure people
understand it, and also, if youforward it to someone else,
they know what they're lookingat.
Then it gives you the score, butthat's only like one or two
pages, but then the majority ofthe report, which is all the
rest of it, is recommendations,and the recommendations are
based on your genetics andyou'll see there's like almost
every sentence in there hasscientific citations.

(15:35):
So this is something that youcan forward to you know a
medical professional and theymay still not.
Some of them only are intotheir own thing, right?
I've seen too many doctors whodon't care about the opinion of
other doctors, let alone geneticreports.
But if it's a reasonablyover-minded doctor and there are
plenty of them this is notpseudoscience, right, they can
look at it and they go okay.
So you know this is what it'sbased on.

(15:55):
Here are the scientificcitations.
So, anyway, for therecommendations, yeah, sometimes
there's only a few, sometimesthere's loads we Sometimes
there's only a few, sometimesthere's loads we limit it to 20
just so people don't feeloverwhelmed.
But it will say you know, intheir lifestyle, dietary and
supplement recommendations ofthings that can make a
difference based on the person'sgenetics.

Now, when we're going to take a quick break,
we'll be right back.
Yes, it is 2025, and I thinkI'm just about recovered from
the crazy holiday festivities.
I also have a wonderfulcoaching group up and going.
You know, every year seems toput people on the starting line
of a weight loss journey.
We've all been there.
What if, when you begin 2026,you aren't feeling compelled to

(16:44):
start over or recommit to lastyear's resolutions?
Can we adopt a truly healthylifestyle that is not only
effective but sustainable?
If you are open to pushingaside the quick fix mentality
for slow, steady and long-term,would you be interested you get
to eat all the food groups withyour own custom nutrition plan

(17:06):
and start to move your body toensure you are building lean
muscle, stability and longevity?
Let's get that metabolism firedup, because it is not too late
to feel great and be confidentand strong.
I have another group coachinground starting soon.
Are you ready?
Reach out via my email in theshow notes or DM me on social

(17:27):
media.
Welcome back to the showeveryone.
Now, when this comes up a loton my podcast allergies and food
intolerances.
This is something that I know.
You know if you have a littleGI issue or whatever, you're
automatically connected to somekind of a food issue.

(17:49):
How accurate are these tests inpinpointing the culprit for
those types of things?

The genetic tests.
Well, very, but sometimes in asurprising way.
So I'll give myself as anexample.
So, remember, I said like Ialways had digestive issues and
I always had food allergies toall these foods I reacted to.
Well, I was very surprised whenI looked at my genetic results
that it said I didn't have anyallergies or intolerances other
than, I think, gluten.

(18:15):
That was the only one, and Iwas like huh.
But at the time, remember, Itold you a few years ago I was
reacting to almost every food.
It would give me stabbing pain.
So I thought, well, that soundslike not accurate.
But then I actually did an IgGand IgE test for myself and also
for my wife and the resultscame back and it was hilarious.

(18:35):
She can pretty much eatanything without having many
major issues.
And her test said she had allthese really strong food
allergies, like 100 out of 100,and loads of categories of food.
Me, I didn't get anything morethan 10 out of 100 in any food.
So I was like huh, and so itturned out in that case that it
was correct, like, yes, I hadreactions to lots of different
foods, but it wasn't an immunereaction and of course there are

(18:58):
other reasons why people couldhave reactions when they're
eating foods, and one of them isthat it's food for various
organisms, right?
So people have SIBO, they haveSIFO small intestine, bacterial
or fungal overgrowth, and so ifyou have those things which I
did, then there are all kinds offoods which can create a

(19:18):
reaction in you which is notnecessarily an allergy and
intolerance.
So that's an example of youknow where it helped me narrow
down that in fact it wasn't anallergy or an intolerance, but
that's kind of more unusual.
What I see more commonly ispeople who have allergies to
things and it does show up intheir genetics and sometimes
they don't realize.
And it's really helpful.

(19:39):
And you know, we give reportson all the common stuff like
eggs, gluten, dairy, whatever,but we also give it on things
that people don't think aboutvery often, like histamine
intolerance, salicylatesensitivity, oxalate sensitivity
, mycotoxin sensitivity, andthese are things that are kind
of not allergies.
Most of what I just listedthere.

(20:00):
It's more that your body has anissue breaking that thing down,
but kind of functionally it'sit's the same as an allergy,
like you get reaction every timeyou eat them, kind of thing.
And yeah, that can be, you know, often is very, very helpful
information for people to know,and especially because often,
like salicylate is a common one,like almost every food that
contains salicylate is healthyand stuff that a health guru is

(20:20):
probably telling you to eat.
But then I had one client whowas like taking aspirin every
day because, uh, one health gurusaid it was a good idea, and
then he was having black seedoil every day because another
health guru said it was a goodidea.
And I was like these things arenot innately necessarily bad.
I mean even salicylate.
Salicylic acid is, you know,something that naturally exists
in plants, which is the point Iwas making.

(20:41):
One teaspoon of black cumin oilactually has the same amount of
salicylic acid, uh, aspirin, asa baby aspirin.
So, like there are certainnatural foods which are actually
really really high in this aswell.
People with oxalate sensitivityit's amazing.
I'm like you know what?
You'll be fine, just don't havethe highest oxalate foods.
Don't have, like, spinach,chocolate, tea, you know, those

(21:04):
are like the most high andthey're like, oh, I eat all
those every day, every meal, ofcourse, and then they try not
eating them and they feel, youknow, they do feel better.

So, yeah, yeah, the spinach one, yeah, and it's.
And then you you'd look at thebone health and how oscillates
can inhibit your bone health andit's like anyway, yeah, it's a
big thing.

You know, I had a client who had kidney stones
and you know oscillatesensitivity.
I'm like you really need totake this seriously.
This is why you're gettingkidney stones.

Exactly.
Yeah, I know, it's just all thestuff you find out, you know.
And speaking of that, we canall go through life and have
issues and blame our badgenetics, and I know we can't
outrun a bad diet, but whatabout bad genetics?
How much do we blame ourgenetics for our weight and some

(21:56):
of those things?

I mean, I slightly disagree with you.
I know it's not common, butsome people can outrun a bad
diet.
There are some people in their80s who just eat fast food, junk
food, and they have more energyand never had a health issue.
And it does happen.
And if you ask them, they'llusually say I've got good genes
and there's some truth to that.
But yeah, I hear what you'resaying.
It's funny to hear someone whodoes what I do maybe say this,

(22:21):
but I agree that the influenceof genetics is overblown in
modern day science, for instance.
You just said you know, you saidit's about weight.
So we're in an obesity epidemic, right, both in my country and
in your country.
Your country is a betterexample because you guys didn't
have, you know, like rationingor whatever, like we did 100
years ago.
So 100 years ago, I think, theobesity rate in your country is

(22:44):
less than 1%.
Now it's over 50%.
It's terrible.
So that can't be only geneticsand it can't be primarily
genetics.
There's something going onthere, especially like 100 years
ago.
You know, the average person inthe US was eating about 3000
calories.
A decent amount of that wascoming from sugar, like maybe
10-20%.

(23:04):
A decent amount of that wascoming from saturated fat, maybe
20, even 30%, and yet there wasno obesity epidemic.
And also, people weren'texercising that much even 100
years ago.
They tend to have more activejobs, but you know, no one was
jogging or whatever.
So what is it?
And I would say, yeah,absolutely.
It's poisons in the environmentand our food and stuff like

(23:25):
that.
It's a whole separateconversation, maybe, but what I
will say also is this I've comeacross people again and again
who are really really trying todo all the right things like I
was saying I was, but in thiscase to lose weight, who really
struggle, and there is a geneticcomponent to it that, once we
discover it, it makes a hugedifference.

(23:45):
I, I've been like you know, alow thyroid function, for
instance, like not so low thatthe modern medical establishment
considers it diagnosable, butsuboptimal thyroid function will
absolutely mean that yourmetabolism is slower and that
less calories will cause you togain weight.
That is a factor.

(24:05):
There are all kinds of factors,uh, like carbohydrate metabolism
.
Some people don't do very wellwith high levels of
carbohydrates and so knowingthat and there's, there's a
strong genetic component to that, so knowing that about yourself
can guide you as to you knowwhat macronutrients to have.
I've seen people who there'sjust specific uh nutrients that
they have a genetic need to havemore of like I could think of

(24:28):
one woman who is happy for me toshare a story who needed more
uh, iron and b12 genetically.
She then tested it and showedthat her iron b12 is low not
super uncommon in women anyway,but it was, you know and then
she increased it and she lostabout 40 pounds in weight.
Oh my gosh, just from doingthat.
Wow, and why would that be?
Well, again, metabolism isdependent on a lot of things,

(24:49):
not just thyroid, and obviouslyyou need sufficient mild anemia
that hadn't been picked up.
So you need enough iron and B12to transport oxygen to the
mitochondria in your cells forthe metabolism to work correctly
, and if that's not the case,then the metabolism can be slow
and a person just can't loseweight.
And that's a handful I can talkabout.

(25:11):
There's at least a dozen geneticfactors that I commonly check.
Insulin resistance is anotherone, and then people have a
tendency to that.
This goes back to how much isgenes and how much is um
lifestyle, and I've never seen aclean, perfect genetic profile
meaning every single person Ilook at.
There's loads of things they'rehigh risk at, there's loads of

(25:31):
potential problems that theyhave, and so the crucial
distinction is the healthierperson's.
The crucial distinction is thehealthier a person's lifestyle
and diet and all the rest of itfor them.
And there is variation in that,as we gave a couple of examples
of the less they will express.
All their high-risk things,right Right, are poisoned.

(26:00):
And there was a poisoningaspect to my health issue as
well, which I uh, which I didn'tgo into, but let's say, you
know, they're poisoned by modern, sad diet, the, the, whatever
some people, it'll mean thatthey gain weight and can't gain
weight.
In my case it meant I lostweight and couldn't put on
weight.
Uh, you know, for some peopleit all manifests as depression.
For some people it manifests askidney stones.
For some people it allmanifests as kidney stones.
For some people it willmanifest in, I won't go on, but
all kinds of different issues.

(26:22):
And so the genetics just tellsus when we're suboptimal, when
we're not at our best, wheredoes it show up for you?
And weight is one area thatcommonly shows up, because there
are numerous mechanisms thatcan make that happen.

So we talked a lot about food and lifestyle.
But what about environmentalfactors?
Do you ever pick stuff up likethat yeah, it could be things in
the air or that kind of.
Give me an example A hundredpercent.

Well, I'll give the example then.
That was my the other big pieceof the puzzle for me.
So the symptoms I had wouldindicate some kind of toxicity
as well.
At the time A lot ofpractitioners said that you know
, one of them, for instance,really thought it was mycotoxins
, which is mold toxins, but thatwasn't significant and I'd
already done a hair mineralstest and I'd already done a

(27:12):
heavy metals urinary test andnone of them had come up with
anything.
So every practitioner, andeveryone I've spoken to since,
on podcasts like this as well,agrees with this.
At that point no one wouldbother testing for heavy metals.
Once all that had come back, butI looked at my genetic insights
reports and it said that mybody is not very good at
detoxifying mercury and lead.
So because of that I actually,and because I was desperate, I

(27:35):
paid for a blood test of each ofthose, which is really very
expensive compared to the otheroptions, and it came back a
super, super high levels of lead.
The reference range, meaning97% of people, are zero to three
.
Mine was 27.
And the level which you shouldbe hospitalized is 45.
So I don't know, I can onlyguess, but the level where I was

(27:57):
extremely unhealthy and goingto the emergency room frequently
and then not being able to findanything wrong with me.
I might well have been at thatlevel, but anyway, that's
speculation.
I knew that a year later, whenI started to feel a bit better,
it was 27, which is stillridiculously high.
I go to the medical doctor and Isay could this be the cause of
all my symptoms?
Because, as well as everythingelse, unexplained abdominal pain

(28:17):
is a classic, you know, topfive symptom of lead poisoning.
And he said, yeah, could be.
And I said, okay, well, whatare we going to do about this?
And he said, well, we willretest you in a year.
That was all they could thinkof to do.
So that's, you know, mainstreammedicine.
So, yeah, that's anenvironmental toxin.
We never got to the bottom ofthat.
My wife, my wife, you know, atthe time we've been together for

(28:40):
over 10 years, you know, drunkroughly the same water.
You know, eating the same foodroughly.
You even use the same herbs andsupplements, eating off the
same plates, breathed in thesame paint fumes, what you know,
all the common things for leadand hers was one.
So, and you know, I looked intoit and it.
You know, your body stores leadin the bones, and the half-life

(29:03):
of lead in the bones is 20years.
All I can suspect is that I hadit in there actually a very
long time, probably my wholeadult life at least, which you
know would explain why I alwayshad some of those symptoms like
digestive issues, and that'ssomething I never would have
discovered without the geneticssuggesting it.
And so, yeah, that's an exampleof environmental poisons.

So I'm going to tell the listeners here.
So the first time Elwin and Ispoke, it was in July and I went
ahead and signed up for genetictesting because I was having a
lot of gastrointestinal issues.
I still kind of am, so I don'twant to share too much

(29:43):
information but anyway, and so Ithought it would be really
helpful and kind of a cool wayfor Elwin to be able to
highlight the science and kindof what he found in my genetic
test, and not just for GI butanything else that kind of
popped up that I should be awareof.
So you have access to my testnow and I'm kind of curious what

(30:06):
you found.

Okay.
So bear in mind, you know, it'susually a minimum of 60 minutes
going through there.
We won't, you know, do all ofthat time, so we'll just be
scratching the surface, right,giving people a little taste,
right.

He's scrolling.

Yeah, just trying to share my screen so I
have a third screen now.
So, yeah, so this is what itlooks like in a nutshell.
What we're looking at right nowis the allergies and
intolerances section, as youasked about that.
I just pulled that up and so,yeah, if someone has
gastrointestinal issues, thatwould be one of the things that

(30:43):
I would check.
I would see if there could be auh, you know, immune system
reactivity component to it, andso, as I said, there always be
some reds like higher riskthings up here, and so you don't
have a huge amount, like we cansee.
I don't see a tendency forgluten intolerance or any of

(31:06):
those kinds of things, but thereare a few things here.
The things that really jumpsout at me is the high level of
eosinophils.
Is that something you ever hadtested, like in a white blood
cell count blood test, and hadconfirmed?

Is that connected to eczema?

Yeah, well, yes, yes, okay well.
So normally if you do a fullblood count so red blood cell
count and white blood cell countit will be one of the standard
markers that's on there.
So if you ask your doctor, youprobably had it before.
So, yeah, raised eosinophilsare correlated with allergies.
The other reason why they'reraised is in response to

(31:40):
parasites.
So quite commonly when I seepeople with this, they have had
a history of allergies in theirlife and often in their family.
And just to kind of back thatup, there's also a higher risk
for allergies in general, ahigher risk for food
intolerances in general.
And so, yeah, I would expectthat, and so I would encourage

(32:02):
that person to do furthertesting.
I'm a big fan of further testing.
Sometimes I encourage people tomake changes based on what's in
here, but most of the time,just like I said with that
example I just gave of the lead,I would want to actually
confirm the testing beforeacting upon it.
Okay, so I would do a test foreosinophils and I would do a
test for IgE and see if this isactually something that's going

(32:23):
on.
And then, of course, the secondquestion what do you actually
do about it?
You'll have somerecommendations in there.
Whatever practitioners you workwith will, you know, have their
own recommendations, but thatit gives you, like I said
earlier, a clue right, somethingto focus on that may well be a
significant factor in whateverit is you're experiencing.

What is IgE?

Immunoglobulin E .
So there's IgG.
Immunoglobulin G is the typethat generally causes
intolerances, which is wherepeople have a reaction to things
, but often it's kind of delayedand it's hard to work it out.
Ige is the more immediatereaction, so that's where,

(33:03):
within a few minutes ofbreathing something in or eating
something or whatever, at themost you'll kind of feel it and
it tends to be a much strongerresponse.
So what you have here is atendency for allergies, not
intolerances.
According to this, there's asensitivity to milk protein.
Casein is the only other thing,but there's not a huge amount
of them.
Part of the thing you know.
One of the things I look at isjust to see how many you have as

(33:25):
well.
Like you have about eight highrisk factors here.
When I see people who are justriddled with allergic issues,
then usually they're more.
Like you know 10 or 20.
So I wouldn't, all things beingequal, I wouldn't expect you to
have a super strong issue, butit would be worth investigating
and seeing if it's related toyour digestive issues.
Okay, um, the other thing isyou, you seem to be familiar

(33:46):
with oxalates, so you you know.
The only other thing that Iwould pick up on is that you do
have a high tendency for oxalatesensitivity and so in a case
like that you can test for it.
But it's not like super easy toget or helpful.
The easiest thing to me usuallyis just to try two to three
weeks with zero oxalates, seehow you feel.

(34:07):
Then reintroduce a really highoxalate meal, see how you feel,
just the classic kind of um,stop and then reintroduce to see
if you actually have an issueof oxalate, because of course
this is only a genetic tendency,it's not a certainty right,
okay I wanted to just focus onsome of the positive stuff as
well, actually before we go intothe next like high risk thing.
So I'm surprised I shouldn't besurprised how often I see this

(34:29):
in people who interview me forpodcasts, like yeah, so he's
pointing to verbal ability yeah,higher, higher.
You can see here where, um,there's like a small section
that's green and a much largersection that's gray.
That means it's not 50-50.
That doesn't mean you're eitherhigher or normal, or higher or
lower.
That means most people are justnormal and then a few people

(34:49):
are higher and you know you'rein that category of a few people
who are higher.
So that's not a surprise andthat's great.
I'm just kind of skimmingthrough.
You talked about longevity.
So I don't know if you've everdone a telomere length test, but
if you have, it says you have agenetic tendency to have higher
telomere length.

(35:10):
So that's interesting.
That's one of the markers thatis often assessed to gauge
someone's longevity.
Whenever I see this one, I meannot just this factor.
There's a few factors, but if Ihadn't have met you yet I would
have.
I just had one of these theother day as well.
Some people have geneticfactors where I do think to
myself.
I'd be very surprised ifthey're overweight and you're
one of those people who havethose genetics, or at least you

(35:31):
know, let's say, significantlyoverweight.
I guess most people are notperfectly happy with their body
shape, but you know the person.
You have a genetics where I'dsay I'd be surprised if you're
obese.
And so again, I see that's veryaccurate from my anecdotal
experience.
And so again, I do think thereis a genetic part of it and so

(35:52):
one of the factors obviouslythat causes people to and I'm
not saying it's the only one Iabsolutely believe that thyroid
and insulin, all these thingsare relevant, but one of them is
some people have a genetictendency to overeat and then
it's harder to obviously not beoverweight and you don't have
that.
I don't know if you'd say that'saccurate.
And then, speaking of longevity, I don't usually focus on one
gene at a time because there areso many and I prefer, like the

(36:13):
other reports that are, moreoverviews.
But you know, I would justhighlight this one.
Cert1 is one that you oftenhear about in the longevity
anti-aging community, and soyou've actually got higher
activity of that.
So that's another indication oflongevity.
It says oh yeah, that wasanother one.
You have a tendency to enjoybeing more physically active.

(36:34):
Is that accurate?

Yeah, that would be very accurate.
Okay, I think my husband wouldcall me a fart in a frying pan.

I'm not sure, what that means, but busy right,
active.

Oh, it's just, that's one of those American
things that we say Okay.

So again, yeah, I'll be surprised if you're
obese, right Like.
You have those genetics ofsomeone who you know would be
fit.

I did see in there too, that I'm less likely
to have a shrimp allergy, whichI'm glad to see too.

Excellent.
Yeah, a lot of these are reallyobscure, like things you might
not even heard of, so I kind ofskipped through a lot of them.
You know, sign of high musclemass.
So again, that doesn't meanyou're necessarily going to look
like Arnold Schwarzenegger, butit just means that you know a
greater ratio of muscle to fat,which again would indicate, you
know, a slimmer person in thecase of a woman and this one's a

(37:27):
really nice one, michelle.
And again, I don't see thisactually that often with podcast
hosts, but I can see it's avery good quality and just in
general.
So high levels of oxytocin.
So oxytocin is called the lovehormone, but I would say it's
really like the connectionhormone and it also allows the
person to feel fulfilled.
So a lot of people, especiallypeople in the public world, they

(37:50):
kind of have like a strongaddictive tendency and it's kind
of comes from a feeling ofemptiness inside themselves and
that correlates to low oxytocinand it's saying you don't have
that.
In fact you're the opposite.
So, rather than you being ablack hole of need, even if it's
subtly unconsciously, you arethe opposite.
You are actually a giver.
You make other people aroundyou feel loved and appreciated

(38:15):
and stuff like that.

Well, that's nice .
I like that, Elwin.

You probably.
I would guess you're not aloner.
You have a strong communityaround you of people.

I do yes.

And that's quite unusual.
I think I saw a statistic theaverage amount of friends a
person has is 0.8 or something,which means more than 50% of the
or close friends, rather morethan 50% of the population, has
no close friends.
So again, there's all kinds ofreasons for that, but oxytocin
is one of them.

Yeah, and there's so much data out there.
You look at the blue zones andthe importance of community and
having good people around you.
It's one of those things that Ithink we need to be more aware
of.

A hundred percent, and you're a perfect
person to teach that, becauseyou'll be able to embody it very
well.

I talk about it all the time.

Okay, there you go, even the podcast, right,
yeah, the name of the podcast.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
So you can see there's agenetic basis for that, which is
nice, obviously, on one hand.
So there's always adouble-edged sword.
If there's a genetic basis forsomething, on one hand it means
it's something that isdefinitely there, you can take
for granted.
The other hand, it does meanyou kind of don't deserve credit
for it.

Yeah, I know right, Just the way I'm made.

And it goes both ways.
It's the same with problems,right?
If you have a problem like, say, an allergy, and there is an
energetic basis for it, the badnews you could say is oh you
know, maybe it's not accurate, Idon't know.
But the good news is well, it'scurable.
Because, honestly, if you havean allergy and there is a
genetic basis for it, it meansthat you can get the symptoms

(39:47):
significantly better.
But you're probably never goingto be 100% allergy free because
it's just built into you,Whereas if you don't have an
energetic basis for it, it ispossible to have a full recovery
.
So there's kind of adouble-edged sword in both cases
.

Yeah, okay, I see that.

So you said GI health.
So I guess the natural nextthing we can look at would be
digestive health.
And so, for anyone who doessign up, I strongly recommend
for you to do the way I'm doingit here most of the time, which
is basically just to look at onecategory at a time as opposed
to try and look at the wholething, because otherwise you're
scrolling through hundreds ofreports all in like a random
order.
So, yeah, I'd stronglyrecommend, uh, looking at

(40:22):
category of time.
So, first of all, even before Ilook at anything you know
specific, I just kind of take itall in and just see how many
high risk things there are here,and you know you have a fair
few.
So there is definitely apossibility that, um, any of
your gi issues could just besimply GI issues.
What I mean by that is, forinstance, some people come to me

(40:42):
with gastrointestinal issues.
They don't really have agenetic basis to have it, but
then I look at their emotionalwell-being and I see that they
have a tendency for extremelyhigh stress and nervous system
dysregulation and stuff likethat.
I'm like, okay, yes, you have adigestive issue, but what you
really have is a nervous systemissue and it's just showing up
in your digestive system, ifthat makes sense.
Oh, yeah, totally makes sense,but in your case I can see that

(41:06):
there are some basis for it.
So we already talked about thefood allergies and so, yeah, I
would do a basic food allergytest, like we talked about, and
a complete blood panel,something that a normal doctor
would do anyway just to see ifyou have those higher
eosinophils which could be likethe root cause.
If I look at you do also and Iskipped over this because this

(41:27):
was also in allergies andintolerances you do also have a
high risk for gut inflammationand you have a high risk for
gastrointestinal infection, ahigher risk for peptic ulcers,
higher risk for C diff infection, specifically more likely to
have flatulence.
I won't ask you about that, butsomething to consider.

(41:48):
Oh, great that there could be agenetic basis More likely to
have acid reflux.
So I'm noticing a bit of apattern.

Okay, he skipped over hemorrhoids, but I saw that
too.

Yeah, that's okay.

My listeners know I share a lot anyway, so it's
okay.

Okay, I'm more likely to have low stomach acid.
So now I'm thinking huh, so Isee a few different things which
are intestine-related and I seea few different things that are
stomach related specifically,and so those would be the two
areas that I would be checkingfirst, as opposed to gallbladder
, pancreas I guess, which wouldbe other areas, and liver.

(42:28):
So I'm not seeing those.
I'm seeing more, okay, stomach,and I'm seeing intestines, and
so you know, I'd be guessingsymptoms might be more like
burping and acid reflux andstuff like that.
Is there any?

validity to that?
No, okay, no, that hasn'treally been an issue, but that's
interesting.

Or the other end .

So I did kind of my own stomach acid test by
taking hydrochloric acid when Iate to see if it would produce
heartburn.
And it did almost immediately,even at very low dose.
So I think I've pretty muchruled out the low stomach acid.

Okay, well, that's good and, of course, just
because you have a risk forsomething doesn't mean you'll
necessarily have it.
But you've already done thetest for it, which is excellent,
because that would be the nextthing I'd recommend.
No guarantee that you have it,but just to test for it.
And you know, if you want todouble check, you could also do
the sodium bicarb version right,where you have half a teaspoon

(43:28):
of sodium bicarb.

So baking soda, basically Okay.

Yes, yeah, first thing in the morning and see
how long it takes you to burp,and then it you know, if you
don't burp at all, it showsreally low stomach acid.
If you do, but it's later, itshows medium low stomach acid.
So basically you you want to.
Optimal stomach acid means youburp about three minutes.
So that's the test in anutshell.
This is a very common people canlook that up low stomach acid,

(43:52):
baking soda test and that willgive you the instructions for
that.
So again, that's almost freeand very easy to do and you
could just try that to confirm,because the btn hcl test is not
100 percent um reliable, becauseit is neither the test 100
percent reliable.
But uh, the problem with thebtn hcl one is if sometimes, if
you have low stomach acid, theuh, the valve, the sphincter

(44:17):
that um should stop acid comingback up, doesn't work very well,
and so then when you add insomething acidic like B10 and
HCL or even acidic foods, itgives a reflux symptom which
then makes you think that, oh,it's because I already have
plenty of acid or I have toomuch acid, but actually it's the
opposite.
So the actual issue is youdon't have enough stomach acid

(44:37):
to close that sphincter to stopthe acid reflux happening in the
first place.
So I'm not saying that's thecase with you, I'm saying it's
possible.
So doing like another test,like the sodium bicarbonate,
would be worth considering.

Oh, thank you for that.
What else are you seeing onthis test Now?
You got me really intrigued.

And of course that can be, you know.
So, if you have a tendency forgastrointestinal infection and
gastrointestinal inflammation,uh, and you have digestive
issues and you haven't told mewhat they are, but you know
another thing to consider wouldbe to actually do a like a gut
microbiome test, which isusually based on a stool sample.
It doesn't have to be superexpensive, um, if you go to you

(45:17):
know you can get top of the linetest, that's I don't know 400,
but you can also get like asimpler one, that's maybe 100
ish dollars and that will tellyou if you have dysbiosis, if
you have high levels of uh, someparticular not desirable
bacteria in your, in your stool,and then you know the other
gastrointestinal infection.
This is more I had is um sebo,which is where it's in the small

(45:38):
intestine, and that's a littlebit more difficult to test.
Usually there's like a gas testfor that, where you blow air
into tubes and send it off to alab, but there is like a device
that you can buy these days andconnect to your iPhone and kind
of just do your own test at home, and that's again about $150, I

(45:59):
think something like that.
So again, I'm not'm not sayingsolely for you, but if your
symptoms got bad enough andnothing else seemed to be
working, you know you do have aincreased genetic risk for SIBO,
uh, based on this, and so thatwould be something to perhaps
consider to see if that's what'sgoing on.
Okay, yeah, okay, and, of course, yeah, now it could also be
with the high risk for gutinflammation that you had that

(46:23):
at some point.
Maybe you've already resolvedit, but then your gut stayed
inflamed, and so that's why I dostrongly recommend to people
that they test and not justguess, because everything that,
even all the natural stuff thatthey recommend, like oregano oil
and grapes seed extract,grapefruit seed extract and
garlic and wormwood and all thatstuff, it's all toxic to some

(46:46):
degree and it kills the goodstuff, the good bacteria in you
as well, and so people take allthese things like willy-nilly
just because they have digestiveissues, but maybe you don't
have any dysbiosis or infection.
You just have inflammation,residual inflammation,
especially if you have a highgenetic tendency for it, which
you do, and so I think it's veryimportant to actually test to

(47:06):
see if you have these things, toknow then which way to go with
treatment, because if you justhave the inflammation, then you
would go in a differentdirection.
Right, you might go with moreprebiotic bacteria to feed the
good guys, you might go withprobiotics, you might go with
things that soothe the digestivelining, like glutamine and dgl
and slippery elm and and all ofthat kind of stuff and, uh, you

(47:26):
know, maybe cbd, maybe bpc 157,I mean there's all kinds of
things that you can do.
So, knowing which it is is it aninfectious thing, or is it an
immune system reaction thing,which is what inflammation is,
or is it both, in which case youhave to deal with the infection
thing first is important.
And, yeah, just based on yourgenetics, uh, and you probably
already know everything I'msaying, but just based on

(47:47):
genetics, I would investigateboth okay, yeah, I did.

I did do a stool stool test back in the
summertime to rule out c, diffand a couple things, but it it
all came up negative.

Was that one you did yourself or one that a
medical doctor did?

No, I went to a lab.

Well, yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to cheat.

I didn't do it myself.

Did you go to a normal mainstream doctor or did
you go to a functional doctor orsomeone who?

It was a mainstream doctor.

Yeah.
So the problem is they onlychecked for a handful of things.
I would not consider that to beruling it out.
It was a mainstream doctor,yeah.
So the problem is they onlychecked for a handful of things.
I would not consider that to beruling it out it was only three
things.
Yeah, okay, even less than ahandful then.
So yeah, I would do your owntest that actually tests a broad
spectrum of different things,that it could be or ideally even
go to maybe a functionalmedicine practitioner or
something like that who canorder a broad test.
Maybe something in your case Iwould say actually probably like

(48:41):
a gifx or a gi map, would bethe names of the tests which do
a really thorough kind of um, uh, checking every factor.
Because you know you do haveI'm just looking at this now you
have a fairly high risk for uh,ish, for ibd, but it's pretty
rare.
So odds on, you probably don'thave it.

(49:01):
To be honest, I'd give it lessthan 5%.
But just like getting likecalprotectin done, which is the
market they usually use toassess if you have it, just to
rule it out, to make sure thatyou don't have it would be worth
doing.
You know colonoscopies and stuffare highly invasive and
potentially you know you don'twant to do it unless you
absolutely have to, but you cando like a good quality.

(49:21):
You don't want to do it unlessyou absolutely have to, but you
can do like a good qualitycomprehensive stool test like a
GI effects or a GI map that willtell you.
You know, do I have leaky gut,do I have inflammatory bowel
disease?
Do I have malabsorption, do Ihave this, do I have that?
Like?
It really helps to narrow itdown.

Okay, let's do a couple more.

So yeah, absolutely so.
What other categories?
So do you want to look atnutrients maybe?

Yeah, let's look at nutrient needs.
That's right up my alleyawesome Okay.

So, first thing, you don't have a huge amount of
them that you have agenetically higher need for, so
that's good.
It means you're less likely todevelop those deficiencies over
time.
I often look at nutrient needsvery early.
It's right up my alley too,because I feel like you know
some of these building blockshave.
They're so important and when aperson is low in them it can
create so many problems.

(50:08):
And you know, I wish it hadbeen the case.
In my case it wasn't.
But I have seen again and againpeople where there's one
vitamin, one mineral and evensurprisingly commonly one amino
acid.
When they get it, their wholelife transforms.
It's just like because you'reonly as strong as your weakest
link and every one of thesenutrients is essential, and so
if you're low in the centralnutrient, uh, everything else

(50:30):
suffers, and so I I do thinkthis is one of my favorite
places to look.
So christy, for chromium, Iwouldn't.
I wouldn't pay too muchattention to that one personally
, uh, but increasingly forcoenzyme Q10, that's interesting
.
Probably not an issue with agenerally healthy person.
But of course, if you were totake statins or something on the

(50:50):
advice of your doctor, then Iwould test for coenzyme Q10,
because they're depleted bythings like statins anyway, and
if you have low energy ingeneral, then I would test for
coenzyme Q10.
Otherwise, you could take asupplement if you want, but it's
quite possibly not reallyneeded.
Iron I would pay attention to,especially as a woman my co-host

(51:13):
on my podcast, chrissy.
She has this tendency and she'sone of those people where, no
matter how much iron she takesor eats, her iron levels are
always low.
I do see that in people withthis genetic pattern.
So is iron something thatyou've tested?

Yeah, that is a general test that my doctor does
, so we do a hematocrit andhemoglobin, and mine are always.

Okay, yeah, hemoglobin, I guess, is the main
one, but maybe ferritin as well, just to see how your reserves
are.

Yeah, ferritin, test yeah.

Yeah, that would be worth doing, just to make
sure that you aren't getting lowin your reserves.
That's the possibility withthis tendency.
The other ones increasingly forcopper, alanine, potassium
Honestly, just based on myexperience, none of these are
super pressing for most people.

(52:04):
The only other one I wouldpersonally focus on would be
potassium, and so this is reallyonly a problem in people either
with very restrictive diets orwith severe gastrointestinal
issues like frequent diarrhea,or people who are very
sympathetically dominated intheir nervous system, so meaning
people who are always stressed,because when you're always

(52:26):
stressed, your body holds on tosodium and excretes potassium.
People drink coffee all day.
It's the same kind of thing.
It really excretes thepotassium.
I've seen some people estimatethat 98% of people are deficient
in potassium.
Wow, so this is potentially anissue.
People with tachycardia,arrhythmia, all kinds of heart

(52:48):
issues I'm amazed at how oftenthose get resolved.
The person just starts havingpotassium.
People who sweat a lot, peoplewho exercise a lot it can
actually be a causative factorin digestive issues because it
can slow down peristalsis ifthere is a lack of potassium.
So if your digestive issues goalong with constipation as

(53:09):
opposed to diarrhea, then Iwould look at potassium.
Potassium is not easy to test,unfortunately.
A normal medical doctor testwill just tell you your blood
ranges and the blood alwayskeeps it within a tight range
unless there's a medicalemergency.
But you can get a red bloodcell potassium test that
actually tells you a cellularstorage of potassium.

(53:30):
I wouldn't, it's quiteexpensive.
I wouldn't bother with that.
I would just look at like thesigns of deficiency of potassium
and if you identify with atleast 80 of them, then consider
maybe either testing for them orjust trying to add it.
So the other thing that Isometimes recommend people who
have this is there's thisproduct called low salt
L-O-S-A-L-T, and so normal saltis just sodium chloride.

(53:54):
And then there's this stuffcalled low salt that you just
have on your dinner table, whichis two thirds potassium
chloride, one thirdthird sodiumchloride.
So I say when you salt yourfood or when you're cooking, as
well as putting in sodiumchloride, just put a bit of
potassium chloride in as well,just to keep it balanced.
And that's something that youcan do.
That's safe, cheap, doesn'treally have any downside, so

(54:17):
long as you have a moderateamount and just try it.
And if after a bowl you don'tfeel any difference, then don't
buy it again, but you know, it'ssomething that may make you
feel significantly better Okay,when someone has digestive
issues.
The other thing I like to lookat is detoxification, and yeah,
I did see okay.
So there's a few relevantthings here, a couple of
relevant things at least.
So the first is your body'sability to generally detox is

(54:42):
below average, which isobviously not great news.
Let me just have a look at whatdegree we're talking about on
Cirque.

Okay.

So this just means that if you had a normal
exposure to toxins by 21stcentury standards so if you ate
fast you know fast food andtoxic foods and you smoked and
you drank maybe most peopledon't smoke these days, but you
know you regularly drank alcoholand you regularly took drugs
and all that stuff that a lot ofpeople do your body would be

(55:11):
able to handle it less well.
So probably the fact you're inthis sphere means you aren't
doing that kind of stuff, and soI'm sure you're fine basically.
But it might be an expansiveeffect as to why you're not
doing that kind of stuff.
Right, because your body justcan't handle it as well as some
people.
And that's a good thing in manyways because it means that you

(55:32):
don't do that kind of thing.
It's a good thing as long asyou don't do that stuff.

Alcohol for sure.
That's something that I've hadto come to terms with is because
I can have two drinks and behung over for two days.
It's like the worst thing ever.
So I just I really manage thatvery closely.

Okay, that's good.
Yeah, that's, you know, relatedto some of this stuff like the
aldehyde and glutathione andstuff like that.
So, yeah, if that stuff doesn'twork as well, then your body
just doesn't handle poisons aswell.
And now, if you're healthy inyour lifestyle and the rest of
it, your body could still handlepoisons better than the average
person, potentially.
But if you have this geneticand someone else has a higher

(56:09):
ability to detox and you bothlive healthily, they're always
going to be better at handlingpoisons than you are.

unfortunately, this has been so interesting.

Let me just give you one more, because this can
be a root cause under activethyroid, this can absolutely be
a root cause of digestive issuesand, in fact, commonly is.
You may not think of it becauseyou're not obese, you're not
overweight, but this is one ofthe root cause issues that I
discovered for myself and mybusiness partner that we had
this genetic tendency for anunderactive thyroid, and for

(56:39):
both of us it made a hugedifference to identify that.
Now, the correct person toassess that for you, in my
opinion, is not a normalstandard medical doctor.
It's a medical doctor whospecializes in hormone
optimization.
So a medical doctor will oftenonly evaluate TSH, which is
thyroid stimulating hormone, andif it's not severely

(57:02):
significantly elevated, they'regoing to say that your thyroid
is hormone, and if it's notseverely significantly elevated,
they're going to say that yourthyroid is fine.
When they say fine, it meansthat it's not life threatening
and you could carry on for 30years and then it wouldn't kill
you, but it can still create alot of problems potentially, and
so for about 75, 80% of peoplewith underactive thyroid, they
become overweight, but it's notnecessarily going to be the case

(57:23):
.
For some people like myself andmy friend, it was actually the
other way around, and so commonsymptoms are digestive issues,
allergies, frequent respiratoryinfections, constipation, low

(57:49):
energy, hormonal dysregulation,low sex drive, depression this
is off the top of my head sojust basically a lack of energy
for all of what I call theluxury functions of the body.
So you know, things like theheart, the lungs, the muscles,
the survival parts of the brainstill work well, but often
detoxification, immune system,digestive system, memory, you
know, in terms of brain memory,mood, stuff, like that sex drive

(58:09):
, doesn't work as well, and so Iwould test it, and I would test
3T3, 3t4, as well as TSH, andthen you want those things to be
like optimal, not just likeokay yeah, and I I will say this
I did based on another podcastguest suggestion.

I did have them test, the other, the t3 and the
t4.
I know I'm not saying thatright, but and I get what you're
saying, because there are thelab values of what is normal
range and then there's likeoptimal, yes, and so I was in
the normal range, but I again Ican't speak to if I was at

(58:57):
optimal range.
So I will check, I will do adouble check on that.

Awesome, well, I can tell you, optimal for T3,
you want it right at the top ofthe reference range.
So I will check, I will do adouble check on that.
Awesome, well, I can tell you.
Optimal for T3, you want itright at the top of the
reference range For free T3, youwant it right at the top of the
reference range For TSH.
You want it close to the bottomof the reference range.
That's where you're going to bemore like optimal.
But yeah, there's loads of themin the US, people who specialize
in hormone optimization asopposed to just, you know,

(59:22):
fixing you if you're severelybroken.
And you know generally theyalso do like progesterone and
testosterone for men and allthat kind of stuff.
So those kind of doctors, theyget it and they'll support you
either with you know healthylifestyle things or, if
necessary, bioidentical.
You know hormones and that canhave a huge difference on
everything.
But it can solve digestiveissues, because a lot of

(59:43):
digestive issues are justbecause the motility is too slow
, because there is a lack ofmetabolic energy to keep it
moving and because the immunesystem is dysregulated, because
there is a lack of energy forthe immune system to properly
regulate itself, and so for alot of people digestive issues

(01:00:04):
and any kind of allergy issues,skin issues, all that kind of
stuff just goes away when theyhave the appropriate amount of
thyroid.

Michele Folan (01:00:10):
All right.
Well, I'll do some doublechecking on that.
I do want to jump back intoyour business and make sure that
we cover off on a few things.
Elwin Right, so I know thatthere's been a little bit of
buzz out there in the industryabout privacy and, with

(01:00:30):
Blackstone having boughtAncestry, can you talk to the
listeners a little bit about howyou ensure clients' data is
being protected?

Elwin Robinson (01:00:42):
Yeah, absolutely .
We do all the standard stuff,which is your data is anonymized
everywhere other than withinour own system.
So, for instance, if you needto send Sliver off to a lab,
then they don't know it's you.
It's just based on the barcodethat you registered with our
system.
We do all the standard stuffthat, honestly, probably

(01:01:04):
everyone else does, as far asI'm aware, for security, but
what I will say that we dothat's unusual is so.
We have a lot of issues like.
I won't name them, but therewas a hack a couple of years ago
which I think freaked a lot ofpeople out, justifiably.
It basically comes down to thebig companies with large teams
of people, a lot of whom they'repaying minimum wage or close to

(01:01:27):
it, who really don't care verymuch, and so with our company,
we specifically make it so onlymyself and Jessica, who is the
head of operations and also anowner of the company, have
access to the back end.
It's kind of a bit annoyingbecause it means we can't hire a
customer service person toanswer any questions.
We have to do it all ourselves.
But we do it on purpose,because we do not want any risk

(01:01:51):
of any kind of data breach.
Unfortunately that's myunderstanding, including in the
famous case where it happened.
We guarantee we will never sell, you know of your data.
That's another thing.
Uh, and you know ancestrycommade that decision.
We're not the kind of companywho, honestly, probably
blackstone would even look at.
We're a small company and we're, you know, going to stay that

(01:02:13):
way.
Uh, we're not looking to do,you know, massive rapid growth
or whatever.
We're trying to reach aspecific, I guess, niche of of
people and, uh, so we will nevergrow to the point where that
changes, where we will havepeople who are not stakeholders
in the company, who genuinelycare, who have access to the
back end, even if you haveaccess to the back end.

(01:02:33):
So, like only Jessica and I do,as you experience for yourself,
there's only two ways for me tobe able to see your data.
The first is for me to ask youfor your password, which is what
I did with you, and the secondis that I can go in and reset
the password on the backend.
So that's the only way.
I can't just look at yourresults.

(01:02:53):
That's the only way I could isif I reset your password and
then I logged in with that resetpassword.
But if I do that you'll benotified that someone has reset
your password.
So there is no way for me orJessica or anyone else to see
your results without you knowingabout it and, as far as I know,
we're the only company who havethat system.
It's a bit annoying because itmeans there's like those issues,

(01:03:16):
but you know we do it that waybecause we consider privacy to
be you, to be the top priority.

Right, and then if you can also share how the
process works, so how they ordera DNA kit, can you go through
that real quick?

Yeah.
So if they go togeneticinsightsco, you see
there's two options.
It says do you need a DNA kit?
That's the crucial distinction.
And so if you've ever done anAncestry service before like we
just said Ancestrycom or 23andMeor whatever you probably don't
you can just contact thosecompanies and say please send me
my raw DNA and they will sendit to you.

(01:03:55):
Sometimes you can just log inand get it.
Sometimes you get to ask andthen, if you have that, all you
got to do is you sign up withour system, you tell it a couple
of basic information, like yourgender and your year of birth,
and you upload your data and youhave access to all of that
information.
Like we just went through, andwe only got to the tip of the
iceberg.
If you don't have that, ifyou've never done that before,

(01:04:20):
the process is a little bit morecomplex.
But the main thing is just alonger wait.
So if you have your own DNAdata, you can literally get your
results within a few hours,which is what was so compelling
to me.
I told my story about when Ifirst did it.
If you don't, you need to alsochoose the option where you add
the DNA kit.
So what will happen then is itwill get shipped to your door.
You take a.
Depending on what countryyou're in, it's a cheap cheek

(01:04:41):
swab or a saliva in a tube.
You send it back.
You register it with us beforeyou send it back.
So, again, it's sent off justwith a barcode.
There's not your name oranything like that on there, so
the lab never sees anythingabout you.
And then when your results areready, which can take four to
eight weeks I've actually seenit be quicker these days, but I
can't guarantee.
Can't guarantee it, so it's abit of a wait you get notified

(01:05:03):
via email.
Your results are ready.
Then you can log in and see allthe same stuff as we just
showed you.

Okay, yeah, actually, once I got the DNA
results, it was really quick.
So, you guys, that was amazing.
I was really impressed withthat.
You had a coupon code for thelisteners for the service.

Yes, yeah, absolutely so.
It's Friend25.
Yeah, for everyone who listensto the podcast, 25% off.

Yeah, so if anybody is interested, elwynn
has graciously offered a couponcode.
Offered a coupon code.
Use friend25 at checkout at thewebsite geneticsinsightsco, not
com, and you can get yourgenetic report, which to me is

(01:05:56):
really fascinating.
And this is kind of stuff thatI really want to know because I
want to be able to start honingin on some of the things that
have kind of been bothering me.
I do have kind of a personalquestion for you what is one of
your pillars of self-care?
What do you do for yourselfevery day?

Oh, there's so many.
At the moment.
I do a guided hypnotherapysession every day.
Oh, I do a lymphatic drainage.
That's the first thing I do inthe morning.
I'll talk about that one.
So I get up and for threeminutes I massage each of my
lymph glands and I do likeanother three minutes of shaking
and I get my lymph going andI'm really enjoying that at the
moment.

Okay, we've not had that one.
After how many shows I've done,we've not had anyone talk about
lymphatic drainage.
That's a good one.
Okay, thank you for that.
And then you also have apodcast.

Yes, yes, it's called the Rejuvenate Podcast.
It's less of a guest weoccasionally have guests but
it's more of a topic-basedpodcast.
So, if you're interested in mytake on weight loss, if you're
interested in my take onallergies, or you know all these
things, digestion, all thesethings we discussed today,
there's almost certainly anepisode where I do like a deep
dive on it.
And the whole podcast is basedon that seven pillar system that

(01:07:05):
I said earlier, identifying theseven root causes.
So for each issue, we'll lookat.
You know, if you have allergies, we'll look at, okay, what
nutritional deficiencies mightbe causing it, what genetic
issues might be causing it, whathormonal imbalances might be
causing it.
We go through all seven and welook at identifying and
resolving the root causes of,you know, whatever topic you're
interested in.

Perfect.

And it's called the Rejuvenate Podcast.
And yeah, if you look up myname, youtubecom slash Elwyn
Robinson, I think rumblecomslash Elwyn Robinson probably.
And then we're on Apple andSpotify and all that stuff as
well.

All right, I'll put all that in the show notes
and then they can find you atgeneticinsightsco and Elwyn
Robinson.
This was it was the longestpodcast I've ever done, but it
was so worth it and I hopeeverybody got something out of
this.
And if you are having someissues or you just want to try

(01:07:58):
to get some answers for somethings that traditional medicine
hasn't quite been able topinpoint yet, this is a great
place to start and you can usethe coupon code and give Genetic
Insights a try.
Thank you for being here, elwin.

Thank you so much.

Hey, thanks for tuning in.
Please rate and review the showwhere you listen to the podcast
.
And did you know that Askingfor a Friend is available now to
listen on YouTube?
You can subscribe to thepodcast there as well.
Your support is appreciated andit helps others find the show.
Thank you.

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Ep.138 Unlocking DNA Secrets: Elwin Robinson on Genetic Testing, Personalized Health, and Wellness Strategies

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