MTHFR and Epigenetics: Functional Medicine Insights for Parents | Dr. Randy James - Brainy Moms

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Amy Moore (00:00):
Hi, smart moms and dads.
Welcome to another episode ofthe Brainy Moms podcast brought
to you today by LearningRx BrainTraining Centers.
I'm Dr.
Amy Moore here with SandyZamalis, and Sandy and I are
excited to bring you aconversation with our guest, Dr.
Randy James.
Dr.
James is a board certifiedfamily medicine physician and an

(00:22):
Institute for FunctionalMedicine certified practitioner.
His medical practice focuses onfinding the root cause of
illness, along with methods forprevention and healing, and he
specializes in assessing eachpatient's unique biochemistry,
their genetics and the socialcontext of their health and

(00:42):
wellness.
And we're going to talk to himtoday a little bit about what
functional medicine is, why weshould care.
But we also want to talk to hima little bit about the field of
epigenetics and how ourenvironment and lifestyles
interact with our genes to causerisk and illness.
Specifically, we do havequestions about testing for

(01:05):
genetic variances related toADHD and autism and other mental
health diagnoses and chronicillnesses.
We are going to touch on MTHFR,which is one of those genes
that we see all over socialmedia these days and, fun fact,
Dr.
James is my physician, so I amsuper excited that we're going

(01:27):
to have a conversation withsomeone who walks the chronic
illness journey with me.
So let's welcome Dr.
Randy James.

Dr. Randy James (01:38):
Thank you, Amy and Sandy Glad to be here.

Sandy Zamalis (01:41):
All right, so let's start off with your story.
How did you become a functionalmedicine physician?

So my dad is a doc, he's an MD, he's an
otolaryngologist, and I like toquote him.
At one point in my teens hesaid you know well, he didn't
say this, but this was theeffect of I was his worst
patient ever and I got all thestuff.
I got the ear tubes and thetonsils and the allergy shots

(02:09):
and everything, but I was still,and so I will quote him here.
He said why is my son always sosymptomatic but not really sick
?
And so I didn't have adiagnosis that I could do all of
the, the, whatever I was doing,but there was always the head
and neck symptoms.
So that was the 80s and it wasdefinitely not cool to do

(02:30):
anything alternative back then.
But that's where he startedthinking and then experimenting
on me, so to speak.
So from 15 to 25, I got well-er, mostly through lifestyle
changes, and by that point I'malready headed towards regular

(02:51):
medical school, but with an eyetowards a different approach.
It wasn't called functionalback then, right, like it was
called integrative or holisticor whatever.
It wasn't really calledanything.
So the 90s was kind of what Iwould say was the birth of
functional medicine.
That's where that term startedto be coming in.
I graduated medical school in98.

(03:12):
I was in the military.
I got told very quickly, stopall that weirdo stuff and just
color within the lines.
So for 10 years in the military, and that was fine with me
because we were overseas andnewly married and traveling a
lot Coming out of the military.
Then in 2007,.
And now I've started my family.

(03:34):
So the second flavor of what wasleading towards functional
medicine was kid number one.
And kid number three had somesignificant issues and I didn't
want to start them off onmedicines.
You know, medicines first,questions later.
So I remember coming home oneday and I told my wife, well, we
had done some extra labs, sortof outside the box labs, and I

(03:56):
like holy cap, like we've got tofigure this thing out.
That was a Saturday and thenext day was, I think, father's
day and it was ice cream day atchurch.
So here we go, day number one ofdeclaring war on my son's
metabolism and he can't have icecream.
And it's like, well, how do wedo this?

(04:16):
Well, you got to draw a line.
And so you know, screaming kidin church can't have ice cream,
screaming kid in church can'thave ice cream.
And that began.
You know, those 10 years ofhelping my own kids, helping
myself and trying to figure itout.
And then that led to me saying,well gosh, how do I help
patients?
Because we had transitionedfrom the military into normal

(04:40):
sort of insurance-based Americanmedicine.
And then several iterationslater of how do you run a
business trying to do that.
And then here we are.
So that's kind of my very highlevel 50,000 foot view of what
led to what we're doing now withfunctional medicine.

So talk a little bit for our listeners who don't
necessarily know what functionalmedicine is.
Talk a little bit about whatthat means and why we should
listen.

Oh yeah, Right Like, is it right or wrong?
Is this true?
And that's of course, and Iwould describe it as that's an
infinite question, because, atthe end of the day, no, you're
not going to figure out a humanbeing.
There's always going to bemystery, there's always going to
be pathology Nobody's perfect.
But, in contrast to a typicalAmerican medical system, where

(05:38):
the system is built very well ifthe problem is acute trauma or
acute infection, well, if theproblem is acute trauma or acute
infection, so if you get in acar wreck, call 911, right, we
got good stuff for that.
But when the problems or thepuzzle becomes more, how do I
feel?
What is energy?
And so then the question Iwould go to the patient and say

(06:00):
well, you tell me how you wantto function, what are your goals
?
Because functional medicine andthis is where I would have a
beef with most functionalmedicine doctors there is no
such thing as optimal, there isno such thing as optimizing
hormones, and there's no perfecthuman out there.

(06:21):
So what does optimal even mean?
So, through my lens, the wordfunction is well, how did God
design us to be?
What does that even mean?
So we quickly get into theologyand philosophy and a person's
own perception of their own,whatever they deem to be
dysfunctional.
So that's what I would say isthe main essence of functional

(06:45):
medicine.
But then you get into well,it's a systems-based biological
approach.
You know, everything is relatedto everything.
Every human is infinitelybiochemically unique.
So those are kind of thetextbook answers.
But I think it makes more sensefor people.

(07:05):
If they're asking the questionor they're thinking I don't feel
quite right, then I would askokay, describe that.
So that sounds like dysfunction.
Well, what is function?
Tell me about your fatiguewithout using the word energy.
Even Einstein Einstein couldnot define energy, so don't use

(07:26):
that word.
And then we quickly get intosomebody's life Like it.
Whatever the thing is isimpacting their, their marriage
or their family or their, their,their effort or their perceived
effort at work, or theirsuccess at work or grades or
those things.
So that's what I would callfunction.

So talk a little bit about what that means for
parents, right?
So, like, at what point would aparent say, okay, this
traditional approach to fixingwhat's broken is not fixing
what's broken.
Right, there's something elsehappening here, and so how would
they know it's time to looktowards functional medicine

(08:09):
through a functional medicinelens instead?

So when we approach it through that lens,
my answer tends to be builtaround classically perceived
pathologies Right, what's broken?
So I'm going to answer thatquestion.
But I'm going to begin with.
Gosh, in a perfect world, ifthere is a functional type of
doc or, let's say, parents, thatare thinking this way, then it

(08:44):
begins, you know, pre-pregnancy,right, like.
And it begins with gestation,like, how are you taking care of
mom in order to take care ofbaby?
And then, once that baby isborn and you know, nowadays
certainly the world has floppedback over to, yes, breastfeeding
is the best way.
Well, you know, when I I willask people you know whether
they're 10 or you know 50, wereyou breastfed?

(09:06):
And the answer is always yes.
And then I say how long?
Oh, a month or two years, like.
Well, like, if breastfeeding isonly a month, then I wouldn't
call that breastfed.
And there's going to be aconsequence, and maybe that
consequence is now we're intothat pathological kind of well,
as a parent, what might we beseeing in young ones?

(09:28):
And so you know, and I'll goback a step further, was this a
C-section baby or was this avaginal delivery?
Because that makes a differenceand C-section babies are at
higher risk.
That doesn't mean they're goingto die when they're two, it
just means they're at higherrisk to maybe be for their
physiology to respond in adysfunctional way to normal

(09:50):
challenges of life.
So then in that infancy phaseto the parents I'd say, well,
are we, as an infant, meaningzero to one I would look for?
Is there any kind of, you know,colic, being a famous one?
Well, that's not normal.
And the babies don't just growout of it.
Like that's a really terriblething to say to a, you know, a

(10:13):
mom that can't sleep.
And now you've got a mad kid,24, seven, something is going on
there and I wouldn't just chalkit up to normal.
Or that's this kid, or they'regoing to grow out of it in the
infancy.
So zero to one.
I would also be very mindful ofskin, like yes, we'll be
tolerant of some cradle cap andsome milia, but that you know

(10:34):
that might be a little signalthat something's going on.
Another one, that when we'redoing that, like the famous
chappy rosy cheeks, you justlook at a kid and they look
cherubic or cherubic, whateverthat was.
They look like a cherub yeah,we don't say that word anymore,
but that's not nice, right, likethey should not look like that.
That's an inflammatory responseto something, and yet it.

(10:57):
Just when I walk around, youknow, I see people and I'm at a
restaurant, I see those things.
I learned a long time ago notto approach a mom and tell them
that they don't want me to tellthem that.

Excuse me, I'm a doctor and I just want to let
you know that your child's rosycheeks are not normal.

So moms have to have an ear to hear, right,
like they got to be open tosomething like that.
And then we go to the toddlerphase.
So two, three, four, you knowit's not normal to have an ear
infections.
Children are built with adeficiency of the pink stuff.
So how often what's going on?
Are they in daycare?

(11:40):
Those kinds of exposures?
There's nothing right or wrongor good or bad, we just think
through those things and toddler.
If there's constipation, if thechild's not sleeping, if there
has been ear infections ormultiple ear infections, those
are kind of the clues that I'dsay let's think more broadly
about this.
And then we go to theelementary years.

(12:03):
So in the elementary years, nowyou know we've got, whatever it
is these days, one out of 60kids with autism or whatever.
So we ask those questions andif we're seeing that early, we
do want to ask.
So we're not.
Today is not a vaccine question,but we ask the question of well
, are vaccines there and whatwas the timing and all of that?

(12:25):
And has there been apersonality change in the
elementary years?
Are they sleeping?
Do they wake up rested, or isthis kid hard to wake up?
Are they mouth breathing?
Do they snore.
Snoring is never normal, mouthbreathing is never.
These are pathologies.
All humans are on the spectrum.
All humans are neurodiverse, sowe give infinite mystery to the

(12:50):
variability there.
But if mom says no, no, thiskid something different and now
they're more this way, that's abig red flag Like let's be
aggressive down that pathwaylooking for.
And then it depends on whatthey're talking about, the kind
of labs or procedures or a brainmap or whatever that we want to
do.

(13:10):
But in the elementary years,that's when we really asked the
brain questions ADD, adhd, ocd,how's the sleep?
What's the sleep pattern?
Mommy, my tummy hurts.
Is that a theme?
Congestion and irritabilityMaybe they have the allergic
faces or the puffy eyes.
Oral, if they're snaggletooth orif teeth don't have or if the

(13:32):
dentist says there's not enoughroom on the oral side of things,
that's where we start to reallylook aggressively at the oral
window.
What is the mouth helliness?
If there's already caries orcavities in those early phases,
it's not because they're onbubble yum or mom doesn't know
how to brush their kids' teethor whatever it's likely.

(13:54):
What are they eating?
And they're probably mouthbreathing and then into the
adolescent, pre-adolescent.
And now we've got all theseneuroendocrine disruptors out
there.
We've got women starting theirmenstrual cycles at nine Like.
Those kinds of questions areare important to understand.
What's the pathway of thefunction that this body is on

(14:16):
and can we mitigate, can wenudge it one way or the other?
So that's a biggie is askingyoung women, you know, when did
the menstrual cycle start?
And, of course, and I'll askyou guys, if I ask a teenager
these days or a woman that'scycling, what's the percentage

(14:36):
of women, teenage women thesedays or well, women these days,
that have irregular cycles,cramping, pms or other sort of
body symptoms, breast tendernessor acne or something related to
their cycle?
What percentage of women sayyes?

Andre.

Yeah, most.
Right, it's the weirdos thatdon't have interesting
metabolism.
But it's the weirdos that don'thave interesting metabolism.
No, and so and so who is thefirst person that gives them
their first medicine?
Their mom, and they're highlyeducated, highly caring.

(15:17):
Oh, I just want my kid to makeit to school today.
And you know, whatever we gotto do something and I get it.
But you're not born with adeficiency of Motrin.
And then Motrin becomes Midol,and then Midol.
These days, and I don't knowwhat, the percentage is half
close to women in high school onbirth control.
And my wife, who works at apregnancy center, gets so

(15:39):
frustrated because these womendon't know why they're on birth
control.
They have not had that kind ofa conversation with their doc.
Moms don't even know why.
It's just well take a pill andyou'll be better.
So, yes, there is going to be awoman should know she's on her
cycle.
There's going to be anawareness of those kinds of
things.

(15:59):
But it ought not be painful, itought not be disruptive to life
with you know it's so heavy yougot to stay home or whatever.
It ought not change yourpersonality Like there.
It's not normal to have PMS.
That is abnormal.
If we look at just a commonsense evaluation of the data of

(16:23):
women over the past recordedhuman history.
Yes, there's menstrual cycles,but we in modern America we've
normalized the pathology and Ifeel so badly for young women
today and of course it's goingto breed anxiety and of course
it's going to have an impact onyour brain and how you approach.

(16:45):
You know the complexities ofteenagerism is complex enough
and then you throw this in thereand it just becomes a problem.
So you can tell we see a lot ofpeople that are on that side of
the hormone complexity and ofcourse the younger and

(17:06):
youngerness aspect of that is alittle bit of a mystery.
I mean, if you go back to 1850,what was the average age of
starting your menstrual cycle?
It was like 15.
And now it's 11 or 12.
So something is changing, youknow, and it's multifactorial

(17:26):
and we can debate forever aboutwhat's going on there, but
something.
And so I just want parents tohave the awareness that what
their culture tells them isnormal is not wellness.
It is normal like averagelypeople are overweight and
depressed and anxious and allthat stuff.

(17:47):
But let's not normalize it.
Let's give people theopportunity to know that you can
think differently about thatand it's not being a health nut
or a weirdo, I would say it's.

It's what medicine ought to be okay, so
what I'm hearing you say, then,is that maybe one of the reasons
why we hear so many doctorssaying, well, let's wait and see
, is because, as a culture and asociety, we have normalized

(18:24):
pathology, because it's soubiquitous?

Yes, and which makes sense.
Right, like the fish doesn'tsee the water that it's swimming
in.
Right, the old joke of the manasking the fish how the water
and the fish says what water,like they don't know anything
otherwise.
And I would say that's true ofmost especially, for, on the
woman's side, most women who areadults and now grandmothers

(18:56):
have also experienced this.
It is normal, but it ought notbe that way.
My hope is that it ought not bethat way.
My hope is that it ought not bethat way.
There is a better way.
Again, we can't moralize it andI don't want people to perceive
shame or wrongness in that way,but more opportunity that it's

(19:21):
not irrational to want to beabnormal, in that you're trying
to be well, but the tide of ourculture, or the flow of that
river, is so strong.
And to be quite honest with you, I would say the most difficult

(19:43):
patient we have is female, 16to 18.
Because in order to change thephysiology of her abnormal
metabolism, the social coin isway too expensive.

I'm sorry, I thought you were going to say
the most difficult patient wehave is 54 years old and her
name is Dr Amy.

Well, I should have asked you is there anything
off limits?

Right, no, there's nothing off limits,
we're very honest about ourstruggles with our listeners, so
they know all about ourchallenges.
Okay, so one quickclarification, and then I want
to move into something morespecific.
So what I'm hearing you say isthat periods are not supposed to

(20:34):
be painful.

I don't think it's there are.
So not all women have a painfulmenstrual cycle, and I would say
my wife is one, and so hereagain, the fish doesn't see the
water.
So she didn't know that all theother women were having all of
these things and at one pointshe was kind of surprised, not

(20:59):
offended, but I can't tell whenshe was on or off or whatever.
So she was like well, youshould be able to tell, and I'm
like well, it's a good thing.
Then I can't tell when she wason or off or whatever.
So she was like well, youshould be able to tell, and I'm
like well, it's a good thingthat I can't, and right, like,
because for most women wouldhave the experience that they
can tell and probably theirfamily can tell, and I know, I

(21:21):
don't think that that has beenthe norm for all women over all
time, until the modern culture,modern society, our exposure to
the amount of insulin, glucose,cortisol, the neuroendocrine
disruptor question, et cetera,et cetera, et cetera, has had

(21:44):
such an impact, a generationalimpact now, that in order to
push that flow back the otherway to where averagely, women
would have not painful periods,I don't know that we can ever
get there.
Were you shocked by that.

Sandy.

I'm one of those people that doesn't so for me,
you know.
I know other people strugglewith this issue.
I'm not one.
I have my own other litany ofthings that I struggle with, but
for that particular issue, no,I think what I keep thinking

(22:24):
while I'm listening to you, drJames, is that it's so hard to
find people that think like you,that really want to get down to
the root of the issue.
Because even if you know, thesethings come up like in my
family we struggle withautoimmune issues, my daughter
specifically juvenile rheumatoidarthritis, and that was a
really hard challenge to find aphysician who would help us get

(22:44):
to the gut piece of thatequation.
There was a lot of medicationsand things to try to calm things
down and you know I love that.
You're saying that it's anuanced.
It's a nuanced issue and youhave to look at it from as many
sides as possible and not justthink about it from a, you know,

(23:05):
put a bandaid on it or smack amedication on top of it, but
really think about the sleep andyou know what's happening and
all these other pieces, but tonot feel guilt about it, cause
I've had people say that before.
It's like oh, this is justanother way to mom shame, right,
like blame it all on the mom,that it happened in gestation or
whatever, um, or they didn'tbreastfeed or all those things.

(23:25):
But it's not about that.
It's about just understandinghow we're you know, how we're
created and how things arenaturally supposed to be, so
that we can better manifest that.

So I resonate with you so strongly because my
third son is also on theautoimmune spectrum and so I can
dad shame myself a whole lot.
And in our family and theinitial thing you said there is
it's hard to find somebody, andthat is the most.

(24:03):
If I'm somewhere that's not mycommunity, then the most common
question is well, how do I finda doctor that thinks that way?
And I know that that is thesort of the linchpin or the
bottleneck, and and so we'retrying to change it right, like
can, we is, and there is more ofa grassroots kind of awareness.
You've got Google.
Now there's, there's ways tospread that.

(24:24):
But along with google in myawareness comes a lot of
confusion, because now there'sinfinite things you can do and
somebody always wants to sellyou something.
So we have felt that too.
Uh, with a kid that's gotpathology and and then I'll wake
up one day and I'll feel thefeeling of, okay, I gotta, I

(24:45):
gotta fix this.
Well, now that kid is 14 and hehas his own opinions on
anything that I can suggest, andthey're usually opinions that
are opposite of mine.
So so now we're in that thenavigation of not only my sense

(25:07):
of maybe failure at not helpinghim as much as I and you know I
could have, should have, wouldhave, and his own sense of so.
My son has alopecia, so totalislike everything, alopecia so

(25:27):
totalis like everything.
And well, can you know for us tothink about going to middle
school in the 80s with alopecialike I?
I think it was more traumaticthen and probably more traumatic
for a girl.
These days, though, he's kindof a cool kid and different and
unique and so near as I can tellhe's not perceiving devastation
.
But still, how do we help ourkids without shaming ourselves,

(25:52):
without you know, with withoutshaming our kids, especially in
those middle teen years?
There's no pill for that andthere's no right diet for that.
There is no magic sleep powderfor that.
It is what you're sayinghopefully finding a partner in

(26:13):
the medical community that canwalk with you down that pathway,
and they are just very hard tofind.

Figure out what works for you, right, you're
saying too, is you know, we'reall biologically diverse, right?
Like we're all you know, whatworks for one person may not
work for another, because itdepends on what's causing, like
the inflammation or what yourgenetic markers are, what your
blood type is.

So many factors factors, it's just infinite.
You know All right.

I love that you said that, because I think
that's a great segue, sandy,into really what we want to talk
about today.
I want you to talk about MTHFRas a genetic variation on a

(27:13):
theme and what that means for usand should we care.

Yeah, I do enjoy talking about genetics and
I hate it talking aboutgenetics, and I hate it because
it it.
Well, let's start at the 50 000foot view, like what you know,
the genome and what it is andall of that.
And so here, a good analogy isthat you know, we cracked the

(27:39):
code, so to speak, of the humangenome, and in 2001, whatever it
was.
So we are 25 years later.
That's, in the science world,that's an eternity.
How many genetic drugs are outthere?
How many major breakthroughshave there been?
Barely any.
Why is that so?

(28:01):
It's like one day when my son,at you know, age four or five,
said, hey, dad, I know how a carworks.
I'm like, oh, how's it work?
And he's like you push thatpedal down there with your foot
and it goes.
And he's totally true.
And I'm like, oh, let me showyou something.
And I take him around, I popthe head and I show him the

(28:22):
engine.
He's like, yeah, whatever youpush this pedal, that's what
makes the car go.
And he's completely correct.
So we pop the hood on the humangenome and we said, whoa, no
idea how this stuff works Likethis.
You know, they thought theywere going to see the code for

(28:43):
diabetes, the code for cancer,the code for whatever, but the
reality is that all humans canget diabetes, all humans can get
cancer.
So all it did was create more,not confusion, but complexity.
So here we are, 25 years later,and then you've got guys like
Ben whatever his name was thatdid the.

(29:04):
MTHFR stuff, and so then we kindof have flopped over to maybe
an over-reading of oh, I'm MTHFR, so therefore my depression or
my whatever symptom is is, well,I'm MTHFR.
I'm like, wow, okay, that's nottotally true.

(29:34):
And so, to help people thinkabout it, I am going to use a
genetic reality that we're allfamiliar with, called what is
the tone of your skin.

I don't want to offend you guys, but as far as I
can tell, you are Caucasianfemales.

That would be correct.
Okay, I thought I was going toget a rosy cheek analysis.

We look terrific today I'm going to ask
you what you've been eating.
So the tone of your skin is agenetic predestination.
You know, it doesn't matterwhat you eat, it doesn't matter
whatever.
But as a Caucasian person, bydefinition you have an increased
risk of skin cancer.
So there's a medical truestatement based on averages

(30:13):
compared to average brown, youare at more risk, right, fair?
But have you ever walked aroundsaying, oh, I am pre-skin
cancer, I'm going to get cancer,I am Caucasian.
Therefore, I have to think aboutskin cancer every day, all the
time, and what most people willdo is they'll say you know what?
I'm going to wear a hat, I'mgoing to put on some sunscreen,

(30:36):
I'm going to wear some clothes,I'm going to create a habit, a
lifestyle that is appropriate tothe genes that I now understand
, have an impact on my futurewell-being in my life, and we
would call that wisdom.
Okay, what about MTHFR?
And this is a?

(30:56):
Or what about epigenetics?
So epi means above, so it'skind of like what is surrounding
the genome and technically it'sabout well, how does the
twisted up ladder of the geneyou know, how does it fold in on
itself and unfold and all ofthat.
But people don't want to walkaround thinking about that.

(31:20):
They can think about well, whatam I bathing my genes in?
What kind of food, what kind ofsleep, what kind of environment
?
Do I love my job or hate my job?
All of those things.
That is the epi.
And then these days, we nowhave these subsets because we do
have enough knowledge to saywell, this MTHFR thing and how

(31:41):
people methylate and whatmethylation is, seems to be
related to some of the thingsthat we care about.
So we check everybody.
I think that ought to be aversion of primary care, and the
two that I think we have enoughdata on would be NTHFR and the
APOE, and then there's probablyanother 20 that we could argue.

(32:03):
You know, maybe we should knowthe COM, the comp or the, you
know whatever.
And then you've got the genetichobbyist, and I would call it a
high.
They want to know everything.
And but at at the end of adiscussion of genome, my
frustration.
So in 2019, before COVID, so in2019, before COVID, we did

(32:24):
everybody's almost full genome.
So that's a cost, and theproblem is you can't interpret.
Or if you try to interpret,you're going to wind up with a
lot of bottles of supplements,and that's it that drove me
insane.
It just became this conduit tobuy these supplements, to buy

(33:01):
these supplements, and theycalled it precision.
The day you know, you go throughone of those things and it says
, oh, you need more quercetin orPQQ or these weird whatevers.
But people don't take their PQQand say, wow, I'm more kind and
gentle.
I think my wife thinks I'm abetter husband.
The things that you care aboutare so distantly related that it

(33:28):
did not seem like it wasfunctional to do a practice that
way, at least through my lens.
So these two with methylationand APOE, I think they are
related enough to the thingsthat you do every day that we
can kind of say, okay, here's,you know, if you're this kind of
genetic variant or that variant, it's not.

(33:51):
We don't say the word mutationanymore, it's a variance, and we
don't say good or bad, any morethan Caucasian skin is good or
bad or whatever.
Caucasian skin would be a deepchallenge if you're born in the
Sahara.
But if you're born in Norway,you probably don't think twice
about it, like you don't evenwear sunscreen.
So the same thing if you areMTHFR, whatever variant, and you

(34:15):
are going to live like anaverage American, you're
probably inviting somecomplications down the road.
The epi part of that if youdon't.
Well, so to be simplistic aboutit, what we tend to say is well
, let's go one step.
So methylation is a subset ofthe biochemistry of
detoxification, so that big, wecould say, which is a subset of

(34:41):
this thing called metabolism.
And metabolism is what yourbody does to just not die Every
day.
You gotta breathe, you gottadrink some water, you got to eat
some food, you got to sleep.
This is all metabolism.
Underneath metabolism would bethe biochemistry of
detoxification, which I hatethat word because it really
doesn't mean anything.
Every breath you take is toxinsand you got to breathe out and

(35:03):
if you stop that you'll be deadat about three, four minutes.
But in between breath in andbreath out is a few billion
molecules of detoxifying andoxygenation and all that.
And so a subset of that ismethylation.
And there's hydroxylation andsulfation and all that.
Nobody talks about thosebecause we don't have a real

(35:23):
nice neat, you know geneticwhatever, because there's lots
of genes.
Even with mthfr it's you know30 genes.
It's not just the main two thatpeople talk about.
So so there's that complexityto remember.
So we're in the relative detoxand then underneath detox is

(35:43):
methylation and and we haveunder-methylators and
over-methylators and you aregenetically predisposed not
predestined, but predisposed todo detoxification a little bit
more efficiently or a little bitless efficiently.
Well, you can imagine, ifsomebody is less efficient,

(36:06):
problems tend to happen.
I am one of those variants, notquite as unique as Amy, but
still I'm on the spectrum ofmore variable, and I didn't
learn this until 50.
Right, like we didn't learnthis until 50, right, like we

(36:26):
didn't know these things.
And so then I see the red flagson and in me there was the
hyperhobocystinemia.
So that's a consequence of thatinefficiency.
But you don't feel it?
Well, some of me when I was 10and my frustrations that my dad
was saying well, why is this kidsymptomatic by definition, had

(36:50):
to be related to that.
Because I was born with a needto be epi, or environmented, not
in the typical American way,but in a different way.
My mama loved me, but she fedme Froot Loops and then we got
healthy and it was Cheerios andfor 30 more years.

(37:15):
The missing piece for mostpeople down that methylation
pathway is this crazy supplement.
Everybody hates taking it.
I'm so sorry, but it's calledgreen vegetable, so we don't
live in a culture that I likethat, in even families that do

(37:35):
pretty good, I say, well, whatif we compared you to the little
boy in okinawa or somewhereelse and we don't know, like if
I had been exposed to morespinach when I was two, would I
have less of a consequence at 50?
That's where the science ends.
So methylation, it's about 40%of people to a varying degree,

(37:59):
of whatever the variants are.
And then if you're way overthere, then we'd say, well then,
yeah, learn how to eat the kindto create the environment, eat
the kind of things that enhancemethylation as opposed to
unenhance.
And we have supplements that wecan use and we have markers
that we can look at to help.

(38:20):
You know, are you on a bettertrack or are you off track?
And so that's the idea ofincreasing the chances of better
function according to theperson, infusing that with the
science that we know andinfusing that also with the

(38:42):
genetics that you now know aboutyourself, using that also with
the genetics that you now knowabout yourself.

So is that a good overview?
Yeah, absolutely so.
Let's talk about theassociation between MTHFR
variants and some mental healthdiagnoses, and do you believe
that that information is power?
Do we want to know?
Does it help you explain to aparent?

(39:10):
Well, first of all, let me backup.
So if you read recentmeta-analyses, so collections of
multiple studies that have beendone, there is a statistically
significant association betweenMTHFR 677 and ADHD, autism,
schizophrenia, bipolar disorderand major depression.

(39:32):
Did I say major depression?
Anyway, that's one of them.
Okay, so let's say that youhave one of those diagnoses.
Is it helpful to know that thatcould be a possible contributor
?
Or we care and would you doanything differently?

well, no, I agree that it is very helpful to
know very well, very enough tospend the money to buy the data
and to have the data.
Yes, and of course you know, doyou go through 23?
Well, whatever other geneticthing is out there, buy it on

(40:14):
your own and that kind of thing.
If you run it through Quest andLabCorp, your cost is about 85
bucks per and of course you canspend thousands on that.
For MTHFR, I like what you justsaid.
There is evidence that suggeststhat if you have these variants
you are at more risk for thesethings and especially the

(40:36):
manifestation of what I justsaid about methylation and detox
as it now impacts your brainand that brain-body connection.
Yes, I agree that that is apiece of the puzzle of why we
see more of those things todayin younger people.
Not that I mean that thegenetics haven't changed, but

(41:00):
our environment has changed.
And so back again to and I knowI'm being oversimplistic by
saying vegetables or whateverbut the well, infinite
complexity of B-complex vitaminsand methylation and all of the
interplay of whatever that is.
And that's where I'd go to amom or go to myself and, in the

(41:23):
nicest, non-shamingest waypossible, say you can't expect
that the infinite complexity ofa four-year-old brain is going
to be helped by Doritos or bywhatever right Like.
And nor are we out to becomePharisees about.
You know, Nazis and you have toeat this kind of food.

(41:43):
But you're you right, we don'thave to go to a mom these days
and say, oh, you should reallythink about SPF 30 on that
fair-skinned child.
I mean, it makes common sense.
I think it should make commonsense that Doritos and Froot
Loops and Cheerios ought not beon the table.

(42:05):
But we live in a culture wherethe water, the flow of that, is
so strong and we live in aculture where the awareness of
the spectrum disorders is sowell, it feels so medical and it
feels so out of my control andit feels so bad luck and it

(42:28):
feels so all of these kinds ofthings.
And we need that.
We need the government to comein and make it free and we need
to.
You know, we need to getresources in there.
And yes, OK, we can debateabout that forever too.
But I would say, well, what youcan do is be aware of
methylation genetics and thosekind of things.
And if you're a, if you're a677 homozygous, then that parent

(42:53):
then knows well, yeah, this kid, the doritos are bad, but in
this kid is really, really bad,and just knowing that I do think
it helps.
Like some people say, oh, Idon't want to know that because
then it, you know it freaks meout and I'm going to that bad
things are going to happen.
And I'd say, well, does itfreak you out that you know

(43:16):
you're a Caucasian, Like it'sjust, or you know that it's just
data that you can respond to,to give yourself a better chance
to be as well or as functionalas you want to be.

OK, so I love that and I'll even share that.
So one of one of our kids ishomozygous 677.
And so we may.
I am too.
But you know, we made theconscious decision that we were
going to only eat organic foodsbecause we did not want to have
to worry about whether or notthose pesticides were going to

(43:48):
hang around in our bodies,because we had that decreased
ability to methylate or detoxthose right, and so it was a
decision that I was able to make.
That I would not have madebecause it is a little bit more
expensive not a lot, a littlebit more expensive to eat all

(44:08):
organic, but I probably wouldn'thave even thought of that 15
years ago.

That's a great example.
And even there, where thecomplexity of here we are 15
years later and your son is whatthey are, they're not perfect,
they could be better, they couldbe worse, and you actually
don't get to know how much of apositive impact was 15 years of

(44:36):
organic versus not.
You will never know.
And that here is not that rightword.
Be because people always say,well, how do I know if if it's
going to make a difference ornot?
I'm like you don't know ifyou're going to die in a car
wreck tomorrow, like you don'tget to know what the future

(44:58):
holds.
But does that mean you shouldonly eat doritos because you
might die in a firework tomorrow?
Like, of course, not Right.
So down that pathway.
That's a great example.
And even if somebody isfinancially challenged, I'd say,
well, there's the clean 15 andthe dirty dozen.
Like there are things that youcan do that increase your sense

(45:18):
of captaincy and agency in yourown life and in the life of your
kids, in your own life and inthe life of your kids.
If you don't do them or thinkabout them, then by definition
you're placing your hope in aninsurance company, in big pharma
, in the government or somebodyelse that's going to take care
of, whatever the issue is.
And again, if you get in a carwreck, the system works really

(45:41):
well, but it does not work wellwhen it comes to the spectrum
disorders and all of thesethings that are becoming the
major problem.
Well, there already are majorissues in our culture.

Yeah, and I think that right, we don't know if
we're going to get in a caraccident or not, but every time
we get in a car we take thatrisk, and so we mitigate that
risk by wearing a seatbelt.
Right.
And so if we've identified arisk like being homozygous MTHFR
, why would we not want tomitigate that risk, even though

(46:18):
we don't necessarily we don'thave a pre-post metric, you know
, for everything that we do tomitigate risks, why would we not
, as parents, want that for ourchildren and for ourselves?

And that's right.
So our age group, like you,remember when you were going off
to college you didn't wear aseatbelt.
I did Right, like and somehowwe did change the flow of
society and now you feelabsolutely naked if you don't
have the seatbelt on.
Like and our kids they actuallyobey right Like teenagers they

(46:55):
put their seatbelt on.
I remember back to the 80ssaying I'm never going to wear a
seatbelt and whatever.
Like, how does that happen?
So I have a a sense of hope.
You know, in our society thatin smoking is another example of
well, you know it went fromsuper common to not.

(47:17):
And it's these kinds of thingsand the work that you guys are
doing to increase the awarenessand, uh and I'd love that word
the captaincy, the agency thatyou are the one that's most in
control of your own wellnessdestiny.
And again, without shaming,without blaming, without all of

(47:38):
that, but if you don't takeresponsibility, you are giving
it away to the government or tosomebody and hoping for the best
.
And I always joke and I say,look, medicare doesn't care.
All right, like yeah, at leastthey don't care about what you
care.
You care about your functionand your child's function,

(47:58):
according to your scale of whatsuccess and function is not what
Blue Cross says it ought to be,or your boss or your mom, or
you know culture.
That shift and I think we're I,I really think we're coming
into it that there is moregrassroots awareness of these
things and and using mthfr askind of one point of departure

(48:24):
for it, here's a way to thinkbroadly about those things, in a
way that it increased mom Amy'ssense of confidence in the
future well-being of her son,and that's a good thing, sure.

So can you talk just briefly about some of those
things like pesticides that wemight want to minimize exposure
to if we have a child with anMTHFR variant that is a higher

(49:02):
risk?
Yeah, like smoking andpesticides.

Well.

Lead and.

All of them and I'm one of them, and so, again,
this has been a thinkingprocess.
I also have a family, andthey're not me, and you have to
navigate all of these things andnobody has infinite money and
infinite resources and infinitetime.
So for me, the threading ofthat needle, and so our family,

(49:39):
and the general recommendationright Like if we don't go to
specifics for specific peoplewith specific things, and we say
generally, like and that'swhere I stumble like I think all
people over all times shouldminimize their smoking and their
Doritos and glyphosate andeverything.
Right Like that.
Now we're into politics and whycan Germany outlaw this stuff

(50:02):
and why are we doing it?
And I don't know.
So now we're talking to uniqueindividuals who are making their
own shopping choices and and so, um, yes to the best.
Well, first I would say eachvegetables, and when it comes to

(50:23):
vegetables, I would say, onthat, clean 15 and dirty dozen
or whatever, but lean as organicas you possibly can.
And that then becomes like wehave and you and I have talked
about this, but half of my plateis always green Like that was a
thing that I could do to say,yep, yes, organic, get the

(50:46):
glyphosate off.
Thankfully I didn't have toworry about smoking and some of
the other biggies.
I live in Colorado.
I live at 8,000 feet, we don'thave a lot of pollution, so
there's that In my world I don'thave to trouble myself with.
I don't buy an air filter Likesome people, like if you live in
a city I'd have an air filterand those kind of things.

(51:07):
I filter the water.
Which one?
We'll debate forever about allof that stuff, but we finally
landed on one.
We do lean organic andglyphosate, I think is a big
deal and it's a big problem, andyou can test for it and your
Cheerios right.
And we don't eat Cheerios.

(51:28):
And I challenged a person theother day I said because they
were not aware of this.
I was like you need to walkdown that middle aisle of the
grocery store on the bright,colorful, interesting, aimed at
children aisle, and look at whatis the front of the box of
Cheerios brag about.
It is emblazoned yes, with theAmerican Heart Association stamp

(51:54):
of approval.
That's criminal, that's justcriminal.
And it's Cheerios and that'sone of the healthy ones, right?
So we live in this confusingworld, in somebody that's
listening to this is overwhelmed, like oh my gosh, the
overwhelming feeling of I've gotto change everything and

(52:15):
whatever.
And I'd say, well, maybe Startwith step number one.
It might be for me it wasCheerios, you remember Denver.
Might be, for me it wasCheerios, you remember Denver.
So Denver was an old partnerand smoking, drinking, hard
charging, you know, military guy, heart attack at 36, alright,

(52:38):
and he told the story and thefirst healthiest thing he did
was he switched from a 12 packof Pepsi a day to a 12 pack of
Gatorade.
Not a great move.
That was step number one and ittook, you know, decades of
refinement and engagement andall of that.

(52:58):
So your standard can beperfection, the heavy metal
question, land mercury, thosekind of things.
And so that's where, down themeat pathway, I would say our
mantra is eat happy animals.
A happy cow is a cow that onlyeats grass.

(53:19):
Leave it alone, let it be a cow.
Happy chickens only eatwhatever chickens eat, mostly
bugs, but not soy and glutenproducts or molasses, sugar and
corn, which is what we finishthose things with, and we live

(53:40):
in this industrialized world.
So, to simplify it, if you eathappy animals and so wild caught
, grass fed, grass finished, allthose kinds of things, cost
goes up a little bit.
Sure, manage that the best youcan.
That, I think, is the best way,because you know the organic
question when it comes to meatsis a little bit more complex.

(54:02):
I think there's probably morevalue on the grass fedto-edgrass
finish, because the cow'ssystem actually, you know, pulls
off some of that glyphosate ifit's not completely organic.
So there's a purification or aprocessing there.

So Unless the cow has MTHFR 6, 7, and W, that's
right, that's double variantright.

Now I think that's an interesting question
If we go to Colorado State uphere and say, hey, what's the
impact on cows over the last 50years?
But I just don't think that youknow, their big money source is
still big government, bigpharma, big whatever.
So they're not asking thosequestions.
So it's left to brainy moms tohelp other brainy moms who ask

(54:55):
those brainy questions, not withan eye towards perfection, but
with we always say improve.
But we always say improve.
You can become a little bitbetter on your own standards of
function.
Yes, we have science, we havedoctors, we have whatever that's

(55:15):
going to help us to thinkthrough those things.
And yes, if I need surgery, Idon't want to be awake, I want
to trust the system to do thosethings.
But after that surgery or inorder to prevent that surgery,
it is metabolism.
There's just no way to getaround.
It is your diet, it is the epi,it is your sleep, it's your

(55:39):
relationship with your spouse,it's your relationship with your
work.
It's all of those things iswhat is going into either better
function or dysfunction.
And you or we people, we get tobe the main influencers in our
own well-being.
Can't change your skin tone.

(56:00):
You don't get to become, youknow, a different color of skin.
You don't get to change yourNTHFR, but you get to determine
how you nurture those genes.

Love it.
So, dr James, we know you havea super busy practice that you
need to get back to, but wewould love it if you would come
back, have a part two to thisconversation, or even a part
three Once you go.
We're going to talk about youand then commentate on this.

Really, interesting information.
Thank you, and I'm happy to.
I think this is important andwe should be talking more about
it.
So thank you, guys, for thework that you're doing out there
and for the people that listento you and are impacted by that.
There is hope for we Americansthere is hope you're doing out
there and for the people thatlisten to you and are impacted

(56:52):
by that.
There is hope.
For we Americans, there is hope, all right, so I'm just going
to exit myself here.

Thank you guys for having me on.

Thanks for being with us, dr James.

Bye-bye.
Are you concerned about yourchild's reading or spelling
performance?
Are you worried your child'sreading curriculum isn't
thorough enough?
At LearningRx, we recognizethat most learning struggles
aren't the result of poorcurriculum or instruction.
Instead, learning struggles aretypically caused by having
cognitive skills that need to bestrengthened Skills like

(57:17):
auditory processing, visualprocessing, memory and
processing speed.
Learningrx one-on-one braintraining programs are designed
to target and strengthen theskills that we rely on for
reading, spelling, writing andlearning.
With experience training morethan 125,000 children and adults
already, we'd like to help youget your child on the path to a

(57:39):
brighter and more confidentfuture too.
Give LearningRx a call at866-BRAIN-01 or visit
LearningRxcom.
That's LearningRxcom.
There's so much informationthere, I just needed to absorb
it all in.

Yeah, I think I was doing the same thing.
Of course, these areconversations that you know he
and I have had previously too,because I am homozygous 677 on
the MTHFR SNP.
So these are things that I havebeen working on and concerned

(58:23):
about, you know, since about2000, I don't know 13, 14, when
we had our genome run.
We did the entire one for thewhole family and it's funny, I
was looking at some emailtraffic that I had with Dr James
from 2017, after he had takenmy genome and run it through

(58:44):
like an external interpretationprogram and sent me the big
37-page report and I typed backoh my gosh, I'm going to die a
slow, painful death.
You know you're at risk forthis and this and this and this.
And you know he quickly wroteback and said number one, you're

(59:05):
being dramatic.
And number two, you have tointerpret this more broadly than
that.
Right, like, yes, here arewhere your genetic variations
land, but that isn't aprescription for death.
Right, that isn't aprescription for death, right,

(59:29):
that's?
Hey, let's identify where youcan mitigate certain risks and
know that just because you havethat genetic predisposition
doesn't mean that switch isgoing to get flipped, right.
So I think that's the importantthing to say is like once we've
identified okay, you know, youhave a double variant in the
NTHFR gene, that does not meanthat you don't have any ability

(59:52):
to detox right.
It means that that wholeepigenetic component that he was
talking about means the moreburden you put on your body, the
harder it is then for that geneto function right.
So if you don't put the burdenon your body, then it isn't

(01:00:14):
necessarily going to carry thesame risk that if you overburden
it with pesticides, lead-basedpaint, unfiltered water, air
pollution, drugs and alcoholabuse, like all of the things
and so what you know.
I guess I could back up just alittle bit, because we didn't
even identify what MTHFR stoodfor.

Sandy Zamalis (01:00:34):
No, I was going to say for those, for someone
who's listening, who has neverheard of that particular gene
marker.
You know, we probably need tojust say what it is.

Dr. Amy Moore (01:00:44):
Yeah, so MTHFR stands for methylene
tetrahydrofolate enzyme, so itis the enzyme that's responsible
for the production of, or theprocessing of, l-methylfolate.
So you've heard of folic acid,right, which is a synthetic

(01:01:07):
version of folate.
So L-methylfolate is amethylated version, right, an
already broken down version, Ithink is the easiest way to say.
But that is responsible forthis entire system of being able
to help your DNA functionproperly, and so methylation is

(01:01:35):
responsible for detox.
It's responsible for productionand metabolism of a few of our
neurotransmitters, includingserotonin and dopamine, which is
probably why MTHFR isassociated with some of those
mental health diagnoses, right,because we know that serotonin

(01:01:59):
and dopamine are important andimplicated in ADHD and autism
depression.

We'll have to ask Dr James, but the only thing I
had ever really heard aboutMTHFR is that if you have that
genetic variance then it'sactually more difficult for your
body to like methylate.
I think is it the folate Like.
So all those enriched,everything we enrich our wheat
with right, the folic acid right.

It actually stops the process.
It blocks the pathway.
Yeah, but that's why it's akicker, because you know you
walk down those middle aisles ofthe grocery store and
everything is enriched Enrichedbread, enriched cereals all of
that, and so if you do have, so,first let me say that something

(01:02:48):
like 60% of the population hasat least one MTHL variant, and
so that having one variant isnot the issue.
You get one from each parent,right?
And so if you have a, he sayswe don't use the word mutation
anymore, but let's just use thatto make it easier to understand

(01:03:10):
, right?
So if you have one mutation outof two options, then there's
not much to worry about, right?
Like?
You lose about 10% function iswhat they think.
10% function is what they think.
But if you have a doublevariant or a double mutation for

(01:03:39):
lack of a better word, you knowthen that can reduce its
function, you know, down to 30%or 20%.
So then that's when it becomesa risk, that's when it becomes a
problem, and so it's sointeresting.
When the research on this firstcame out, you know around 2014,
2015, like I heard people saywell, I have MTHFR.
Well, yeah, we all do, but weall have the MTHFR gene, right?

(01:04:03):
So you need to take a step backand not be panicked at the
moment.
Right, it's okay.
Do you have the variant thatputs you at higher risk for
being able to detox pesticidesand toxins and all of the things
that we were talking about withhim.
So it is a conversation worthhaving with your physician, yeah

(01:04:26):
.

It's interesting for you guys to have put it in
that kind of space of thinkingof it as giving a parent or
yourself the ability to haveagency.
Because that's the problem,right, when you've been dealing
with autoimmune issues for yourwhole life, like you don't know
what it would be like to nothave dysfunction, right, you

(01:04:52):
don't know what that looks like.
So it is just a part of who youare.
So you know, if you think aboutthe agency piece of it, like if
I have this piece of knowledge,then I can make a different
choice and then over time itmight impact me for the better,
right, versus it just being thisoverwhelming, like you can eat

(01:05:13):
nothing but grass, no, don't eatgrass.
But, yeah, you know, because wetend to want to find the easy
path and that's the problem with, I think, a lot of this health
conversation is it's reallyoverwhelming.
The cooking and the buying andthe.

(01:05:33):
You know it's a little bit of atrial and error.
You know of what works, youknow what you can eat and what
you can't eat.
There's the whole glyphosatepiece and the organic piece, but
there's a.
Is it the phytotoxin?
I mean there's a wholephytotoxin, I think.
Argument on the on thevegetable side of things, like
which vegetables are better toeat.

(01:05:55):
You know, you might havesomebody who really can't handle
any of the cabbages or thingsthat have like a like a high.
I think that phytotoxin that'sprobably the wrong word but
response where you get gassy andbloated and miserable when you
eat it.
But that's the nuanced part thatwe're all uniquely different
and so we almost need to journalit out.

(01:06:15):
We just need to pick one thingand think, okay, I'm going to
try you know, just doing thisfor a while and see if I feel
better.
And then try another thing,knowing that it's beneficial in
the long run, like if you'rechoosing to eat organic, that's
beneficial in the long run.
Even if it doesn't help youfeel better.
You don't just give up onorganic Right.

Right and he said that right Like you're not
necessarily going to know rightIs this helping.

You just know you're walking a better path and
then you try something else,because I know the supplement
conversation that getsoverwhelming too like well, and
there were lots of supplementcompanies that jumped on that
mthfr bandwagon, right.

They were like, oh, you've got this double
mutation, then you need to takethese supplements, right?

and so then you end up getting supplemented, you
know, to death and the cost isastronomical, and so Right, and
you have to be careful, becauseif you have sensitivities, like
some of them have gluten in themand you know all sorts of other
wonky things, it just itbecomes this you get stuck in
paralysis, analysis, paralysisof all the possible options, and

(01:07:25):
you have to actually live yourlife every day.
And I think that's where momsget stuck, honestly, unless it's
life or death, like you know.
If it wasn't that like we werehaving to make like really hard
decisions about my daughter'shealth, like we were having to
make a decision to put her on areally expensive drug that was
going to shut her liver andkidneys down, that's what made

(01:07:45):
me be like OK, we're going tochange everything.
You know, because we just kindof stayed on that train of you
know medication and you knowdoctors and just trying to calm
it down that way.
And it wasn't until we werekind of at this crossroads where
we had to make a huge, you know, from a parent perspective, the

(01:08:08):
guilt of that decision.
Like I just remember sitting inmy kitchen, both my husband and
I in tears, trying to figure out, like what are we going to do?
I don't feel comfortable goingthis direction, and my husband
was like well, I don't feelcomfortable going this direction
.
I was like, well, we got tofigure it, can we try it?
You know we had to come to likea compromise of what to do and

(01:08:29):
so for those kinds of situationsit's a little bit easier.
It's way harder when it'ssomething like ADHD.
You know, unless it's extreme,unless you're really having to
you know, have you're in mentalhealth crisis with your child,
you know ADHD can be somethingthat is just part of you and who
you are and you know we'regoing to manage it with

(01:08:49):
medication and we don'tnecessarily think about all
these other things.
Same can go with other mentalhealth diagnoses.
Just depends on where they areon that spectrum, how much
they're affecting your life,which is what Dr James was
saying.

Sure, but we also know that all of those
diagnoses wax and wane inseverity, right?
Just like every time we get ina car, we don't know how high
the risk is that day for gettingin an accident.
We just know the risk is there.
And so I'm just a firm believerthat once we've identified the

(01:09:24):
risk, then we need to doeverything that we can, to you
know, reduce the risk, tomitigate the risk, to lower the
temperature on the risk, and somaking half of your plate green
seems like a pretty no-brainerkind of choice, because they're

(01:09:49):
full of B vitamins, by the way.
So that's the issue.
So when you have a doublevariant, you do need B vitamins
and methylated folate in orderto reduce some of the risks that
having that variant can cause,for example, high homocysteine,

(01:10:12):
right, so it gets in the middleof being able to break down
homocysteine, that amino acidthat can build up in the blood
and damage the vessels, increasecardiovascular risk, increase
blood clotting risk, and so, oh,okay, well, there's a risk.
How can I mitigate it?
Oh, b vitamins can helpmitigate that risk.

(01:10:33):
I ought to eat food with Bvitamins, right?
Like those seem like choicesthat are low risk for big reward
.

I hear you in theory.
I just know someone's out theregoing, but it's disgusting or I
just can't do it.

And then.
So then you could look atsupplements.
Right, exactly Right, you couldtake the items.

I can't handle the texture of spinach cooked.
Then you could look atsupplements.
Right, exactly, you could takethe items I can't handle the
texture of spinach cooked Well.

can you handle other green vegetables?

I can.
I'm speaking for others.

Yeah, can you do spinach salad?
I like spinach salad, yes.

I like, yeah, I like, I like most greens.
Some of them don't like me,which is why I said you know,
you know, it really depends.
There are things I don't choosebecause they I don't feel good
when I eat them.
So I have to not eat them.
Yeah, so you have to kind of,like I said, journal your way
through it a little bit because,yes, in theory all of those

(01:11:40):
things are good and you shouldtry them and you should try them
.
But also, you know, you alsohave to pay attention to how it
makes you feel when you eat it.
You know, at this point you know, my daughter and I are very
much like a.
You know, nope, that's out, wecan't eat.
That it's just because thereaction is almost immediate.

(01:12:01):
We can feel it, but for somepeople it's not like that, it's
slower.
So then you can't alwayscorrelate it either, you know,
if you don't feel any effects.
You know my daughter can eatcorn.
When she was younger it wasfine.
I mean, we avoid it anyway nowfor other reasons, but when she
was younger it was fine and shewould get sick at night.

(01:12:21):
But as it got worse and worseand worse, now she can't eat it
at all, she gets immediatelyviolently ill immediately.
So you know, I think some ofthat stuff just changes over
time.
You just have to be watchful.

Yeah, all right.
Well, this has been a superinteresting conversation, don't
you think?

Oh, I guess I think that could have.
We could have talked about fora long time.
There's so many questions.
Yeah, well, I think we.
Just I guess I think that couldhave.
We could have talked about thatfor a long time.
There's so many questions.

Yeah, well, I think we just need to have Dr
James back, but we are out oftime for this episode, so we're
going to wrap it up.
We're super excited that Dr.
James joined us, and so if youwant to know more about him, you
can visit his website attruelifemedicine.
com.
That's Dr.
Randy James.

(01:13:08):
All right, moms.
Thank you so much for listeningtoday.
If you liked our show, we wouldlove it if you would follow us
on Instagram and Facebook at theBrainy Moms.
You can find our website atthebrainymomscom.
If you'd rather watch us, youcan go to our YouTube channel at
the Brainy Moms.
Well, that is all the smartstuff that we have for you today
.
We hope you feel a littlesmarter and we're going to catch

(01:13:39):
you next time.

All Episodes

MTHFR and Epigenetics: Functional Medicine Insights for Parents | Dr. Randy James

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}MTHFR and Epigenetics: Functional Medicine Insights for Parents | Dr. Randy James