Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin. You get either get it by being in direct sunlight, or through foods and vitamins. This essential vitamin is responsible for hundreds of functions in the body and is one of the 24 essential micro-nutrients for human life, yet most of human population is deficient. If we go back to ancestral times, most our days were spend out hunting and gathering food, exposed to the sun's rays. Now, we work in offices, wear sunscreen, and have no direct sunlight. 

Common signs of vitamin D deficiency: Depression, Anxiety, Seasonal depression, weight gain, brain fog, bone loss, muscle weakness, exhaustion, high blood pressure, decreased endurance.Just to name a few.  

If you are feeling generally run down and exhausted, look into supplementation, it may bring you back to life. This is one of those "easy" fixes, don’t pass it up. 

Fortunately, there is a relatively easy fix if you can't pack up your bags, drop your kid at grandmas and move to Hawaii. A high-quality vitamin D supplement in the right dosage will do the trick. If you don’t know your levels, I recommend you get a simple blood test to see your levels. If they are not optimum, start supplementing with 2000IU per 20Lbs of body weight. Depending on how you are feeling you may need to increase or decrease your dosage. 

If you find you are very low, consult a doctor to get a 50,000+IU injection to bring your levels up, and follow up with supplementation.  

For Health and Genetic consulting contact kristin@modernthriving.com

 

COMT gene mutation, and what you can do about it. 

Managing your anxiety and depression through up regulating your genes.

As we are getting geared more towards personalize nutrition, getting our genetics sequenced helps streamline the process. Through certain sites you can pay a fee to get your genetics sequenced, and then upload your data into third party businesses to evaluate your genetic risk factors, gene mutations, and personalized diets & workouts. 

The COMT gene is what we are focusing on today. This gene is in control of metabolizing your stress hormones (Epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, adrenaline) and estrogen. When people do not have mutation, a stressful event occurs, you get a rush of your stress hormones, and after the stressful event passes your body metabolizes the stress hormones and your body returns back to homeostasis. When you either have a double or single gene mutation, your body see that’s stressful events, it reacts by increasing your stress hormones, and then once the stressful event is over, it has a hard time metabolizing the hormones, and your body is left in a still-highly-stressed state. If several events happen in a row, your body will build up enough hormones to have an anxiety attack, or a mental break down. 

COMT gene mutation is associated with anxiety, depression, and a host of other mental illnesses. Also, women with this gene mutation tend to be estrogen dominate, causing your hormones to be out of balance which leads to more problems within itself. It's important to understand that your body rarely converts back to homeostasis, and you are not able to handle average stressful events in your life. 

Good news is this gene mutation (whether it be a double or single mutation) is completely manageable. Nutraceuticals can extremely useful over a western medicine approach of SSRIs. 

The important: 

DIM

Start with 100mg first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. DIM is promoted as a weight loss drug, but many bodybuilders incorporated it in because it uses a different pathway to metabolize estrogens. It is often prescribed to reduce PMS symptoms and for women with estrogen dominance.  

Calcium D Glucarate

 This along with DIM helps metabolize estrogen and also helps in level 2 liver support. Regardless of your mutations, this is a crucial supplement for detox in every day lives of Americans.

Adenosyl or Hydroxy b12

 1 capsule anytime of the day. Be sure that the B complex you get is not methylated. People who have the COMT mutation has issues with the methyl donors in a methylated B complex. A good option for this is pure encapsulations B complex. It works both well for the COMT mutation and the MTHFR mutation.

Magnesium Taurate/Glycinate

Two both favorable forms of magnesium. Because of the poor soil quality in the United States, everyone is deficient in this essential mineral. Glycinate is bonded to a amino acid glycine which should be taken at night for sleep, and Taurate in the morning. Both help calms your neurotransmitters down. This is an absolute must. 400mg morning and night. Magnesium is crucial for the stress response in the body.

*People who have the COMT gene mutation are referred to being the canary in the coal mine, sensitive to everything. Getting a food intolerance test, or doing an elimination diet is essential. Keeping foods that cause an inflammation response in the body will help keep the stress hormones low.

COMT are OVER-methylators. Suuplements such as SAMe, tyrosine, and methyl B’s can not be tolerated. If you do find yourself over methylated, taking niacin will mop up the extra methyls in the body. Common signs of over methylation is: exhaustion, quick to angry, depression, paranoia, racing thoughts, highs hit with chronic lows.

If you need help with your genetics, or have any questions. Contact Kristin@modernthriving.com

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I’m going to take a safe bet and say most of the people in the United States have Nutritional deficiencies. Simply put, we are not eating the right foods to provide optimized micro-nutrients, and even if we were eating a perfect diet, the soil (or hyperponic-chamber) our food is grown in is not exactly “nutrient rich”

I highly recommend supplementing with a high quality multi-vitamin and fish oil for the average American, but when it comes to taking a SSRI*(Select serotonin Reuptake inhibitors, aka one class of an anti-depressant/anxiety) there are several supplements you should consider to optimize your health. SSRIs inhibit the inactivation of serotonin by blocking it’s re-uptake by presynaptic nerve cell endings. That is a bunch of medical jargon for, regulates the serotonin in your body. Among regulating your serotonin it also robs you blind of essential nutrients crucial to human function. Most people in fact, think their SSRI is not working, and need to take more, or completely get off it; leaving them still depressed and now nutrient deficient.

*Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

·         Citalopram (Celexa)

·         Escitalopram (Lexapro, Cipralex)

·         Paroxetine (Paxil, Seroxat)

·         Fluoxetine (Prozac)

·         Fluvoxamine (Luvox)

·         Sertraline (Zoloft, Lustral)

 

Before I get into a complete lists of “must-haves” let’s talk about a little anti-oxidant called Glutathione. Well, it’s not really little. It’s the master antioxidant in each cell of your body, and essential for detoxification of heavy metals and many other things. The big problem is that SSRIs deplete you of this. Now the reason there isn’t a whole page dedicated to “just taking a pill of glutathione”. In fact there is a study that shows that oral glutathione doesn’t even make it past your stomach. BUT, for the purpose of this blog, I’m not going to tell you to go take this pill, but instead recommend precursor Glutathione supplements which will be listed in my “must-haves for surviving SSRIs” below.

High Quality Multi-vitamin: Okay people, this one are kind of a “gimmie” but I have to list it because people will not realize the importance of having a good quality multi. A good quality multi is NOT found at your local convince stores. Most of the vitamins, especially Multis that you find at your convenient store are NOT BIOAVALIBLE, which means your body can’t use them, which means you just got some nice expensive pee!

NAC, N-acetyl Cysteine: Load up on this stuff! Just kidding, 2 capsules of 600mg a day is perfect. NAC is a superb liver support, and one of the many things that supports healthy regulation of that fancy antioxidant, Glutathione. Also, if you are feeling a cold coming on start taking this immediately; it also is given to patients in the ER for acetaminophen (Tylenol) over-dose.

Vitamin C, D: I’m grouping these two together. First and foremost, everyone should be on high doses of Vitamin D, and adequate Vitamin C for health and vitality. Everyone is vitamin D deficient; even people in sunny Florida are vitamin D deficient, take vitamin D. Or, if you are like me, get your Vitamin D levels tested and supplement accordingly. If you are taking glutathione as a supplement, you should be taking 3 times more vitamin C to complement.  Vitamin C doesn’t just protect against cold, but it helps your body make collagen.

Omega 3 fish oils: once again, quality matters. The fat in fish oil is very unstable and typically rancid by the time it hits the shelves of super markets. I personally take a Omega 3 fish oil that has small doses of glutathione in it. There is that word again, Glutathione, it’s important if you haven’t gotten the memo.

CoQ10, CoenzymeQ10: is a powerful anti-oxidant, it helps your cells in a catabolic reaction to produce energy.  Plus, it’s good for other stuff too, like your heart and blood vessels.

Vitamin B complex: Before you go all hi-ho and jump on anti-depressants, you may want to try a B complex first. Yes, it’s that important for health and most “depressed” people are deficient in it.

The truth about depression. I firmly believe that depression is not a diagnoses, it’s a symptom. If you begin taking an anti-depressants you are just putting a giant, really scary, brain altering, Band-Aid on a problem, not fixing it. Before making the leap into pharmaceutical land, I highly recommend getting a comprehensive blood test done, checking your thyroid level (Free t3, Free T4, and TSH), testosterone, and vitamins. Most of the time you can see where you are deficient and supplement accordingly, thus, eliminating your depression/anxiety.

**For all supplements I recommend going to your local “health food” store and talk about your concerns for quality, and bioavailability