The Folic Acid Trap

Raise your hand if you are a woman. Raise your hand again if you are a woman that is pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or have already had a child. Raise your hand if you have ever even been to the doctor’s office for a physical. If you raised your hand, I am sure your doctor has talked to you about the essential vitamin folic acid, after all, it prevents cancer, birth defects such as spina bifida, and helps lead a healthy lifestyle.

Trusting within your doctor, you stopped at a grocery store and picked up “folic acid” because after all, that’s what they told you to do. Unfortunately, that “vitamin” you picked up, does nearly nothing at all for you.

Folic Acid is a SYNTHESIZED version on vitamin B9. It came popular on the seen in 1998 when the FDA required b9 be inserted into enriched products such as bread, pasta, flour and cereals to prevent vitamin deficiencies. Companies now had to add this vitamin out of pocket to all products. Companies quickly realized that they could use synthetic B9 for a fraction of the cost of the real stuff. Thus, Folic acid was born.

 *Folic Acid is not very bio-compatible, it takes a long to convert into B9 the body can use, leaving rest of the folic acid in the blood stream causing high folate blood serum, and overwhelms the liver.

FOLATE is the real B9, bio-compatible and perfect for the human body. It helps with DNA formation and Cell division. (Important for those trying to conceive, or pregnant) Good news is, eating a healthy diet rich in leafy greens, liver and avocados lead to a healthy folate level. Pregnant women should be aiming for 600 mcg a day, that can be taken with a folate supplement.

Go through your cabinet, check your prenatals, multi-vitamin or B-complex. If it lists “folic acid” do yourself a favor and throw it out.

What genes does it affect? MTHFR.

MTHFR is a common genetic mutation affecting 60% of the population. Its commonly known for its essential need for bio-compatible B9, Folate. People carrying the MTHFR gene mutation should be taking an ACTIVE methyl-folate B9.

Cleansing. We have all heard of it. Nutrional companies prize themselves with over priced products promising to clear toxins out of your body, when in reality, it just leaves you with stomach cramps and on the toilet. Truth is our bodies are designed to flush toxins out of our bodies on their own through the liver in kidneys. So what's the deal? Why should we care about cleansing if our bodies do it themselves? Well, in the modern-day world we are constantly eating, breathing, and applying chemicals to our skin making it nearly impossible for our organs to keep up the detox process. The type of cleansing I am talking about is cellular cleansing, the only type that is beneficial. One of the best clean-up methods the body has is called autophagy. 

"Autophagy is a normal physiological process in the body that deals with destruction of cells in the body. It maintains homeostasis or normal functioning by protein degradation and turnover of the destroyed cell organelles for new cell formation. " 

Auto, meaning self, and phagy, meaning eating. That’s right, self-eating. It's not as terrible as it sounds I promise. Autopaghy is activated naturally over night when you are naturally repairing. Sometimes this overnight process isn't enough to keep up with the toxins. One of the best thing you can do to speed up autopaghy is to extend your overnight fast into the next day. Approximately 16 hours. By extending your fast your body doesn’t have any incoming calories and starts searching and breaking down damaged cells for energy. An example of a 16 hour intermittent fast is stop eating at 6pm, and have your first meal at 10am the next day. 

Fasting induced autopaghy has a list of benefits but has recently been found to be considered the fountain of youth. By replacing old, damaged cells with new cells you appear younger, with less sags, wrinkles, and deep lines. If you can see the physical changes, imagine what its doing to your organs. Cleansing and replacing poor functions cells, with high preforming new cells can you make not only look younger but feel younger. 

To find more information on fasting, refer to Dr. Jason Fung's "The complete guide to fasting" 

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

Why keto isn't always the magic bullet 

A ketogenic diet is one of the most popular in the diet trends, and it has good reasons to be there. It has significant health benefits including, controlled appetite, more weight-loss, mental clarity, anti-inflammatory, and metabolic flexibility. It also has studies showing it can treat, if not reserve, type 2 diabetes. You won't be depleting yourself, but instead enjoying high fat foods such as bacon, avocado, and eggs. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it's not. Keto is a wonderful tool to keep in your wellness belt, but not all people strive on keto. Although, I believe everyone should cycle a couple weeks of strict keto a year to improve metabolic flexibility, sometimes it's not the right fit for long term. 

FTO Gene

 If you have the FTO gene mutation, you might be one that does not thrive on keto. When you eat high amounts on saturated with this gene, your insulin spikes, resulting in being stored in fat. All though this isn't a total loss, most people thrive on a keto diet high in polyunsaturated fats.  

APOE4 gene

 Typically, when you go keto, your cholesterol drops, blood pressure resumes to normal, and your general well-being skyrockets. Although, with this gene mutation, the opposite happens, your cholesterol & blood pressure shoot through the roof, and you just kind of feel icky.  

Females

 It seems like we all know a guy that lives in ketosis 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and swears by it. But women are a little different. Since we have a rotating hormonal clock (men's are constant), females needing more carbs then men. Going on a strict keto diet can lead to losing your period, hair loss, and loss of sleep cycles. All hope is not lost, there are some tips and tricks to still get the health benefits of keto, but without the nasty side effects. Every night you can have a sweet potato, or do a carb refeed every couple days as needed. 

For a free consult 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

Welcome to the land of the two new popular diet trends, except these two have valid science behind both unlikely are current Americanized diet. This is 101, beginning to understand both diets can help you guide through the world of diets, and what one may be right for you. There are more spin offs of these diets that going into more restriction, or times of eating. But these are just the basics, not a narrow focus.

KETO

Keto is a low carb high fat diet(LCHFD). When you consume low carbs and high fat your body switches from glucose to fat as energy through the use of Ketones. Ketones are produced by the breakdown of fat in the liver. Ketones burn cleaner than glucose and your brains preferred energy source. Imagine your metabolism is a wood burning fire, ketones are equivalent of a big timber log (producing a long period of heat), and glucose as kindling, (quick burn, low heart). Switching from a SAD (standard American diet) to a “keto” diet induces a very uncomfortable transition period called the “keto flu”. Since you’ve been a glucose burner for so long, when you deplete your body of glucose, your body needs to revamp its metabolic abilities to burn fat. During this time you have feel weak, dissy, and generally feeling like you got the flu! Come keto staples include: bacon, dairy products, oils, avocados, eggs, butter. Typically you are getting about 80% of your daily calories from fat, and the rest from proteins and carbs.

PALEO

Paleo, in my opinion, is more of a lifestyle then it is a diet. Paleo has been labeled the “cave man diet” but it is much more. Most people who wave the “hardcore paleo flag” live a lifestyle that is reflective of their ancient ancestors. Meaning they live as natural as possible, opting for plant based cleaners and beauty products, short/high intensity workouts i.e. crossfit. The diet includes organic grass fed meat, locally grown produce & high quality “clean” oils. Absolutely no grains, dairy products, or anything even remotely processed, it’s all about quality. Most paleo includes a moderate amount of carbs sourced from sweet potatoes, squash, and natural flour sources. Although you are eating more carbs, you are likely on this diet to dip in and out of ketosis through the week depending on what you eat.

If you asking what type of diet you should be following, I can tell you it’s personal choice. Some people do better on more moderate carbohydrates and some do better on less than 20g a day. Both diets reduce inflammation tremendously. (Inflammation needs its own blog post itself, but everything that is impacting your health negatively is from inflammation) either way eating a whole food diet will benefit your health and wellness.   Personally, I fly no flag. I incorporate the food quality and no dairy from paleo, and the higher fat lower carb from keto, with weekly carb refeeds to fuel my extensive time in the gym.

Dietary fat doesn’t make you fat, in fact, the fat on your body and the fat you consume should be considered two different things entirely. Fat is the only nutrient that does not raise your blood insulin levels, they are essential for survival, i.e. ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS, they provide satiety, regulate your hormones, allow vitamin A, D, E, and K to be absorbed, and needed for health and vitality. But in the 1950s an American physiologist who studied nutrition and exercise  named Ancel Keys started claiming that saturated fat cause heart disease, back then, the study sounded pretty convincing and thus “low-fat” craze of the begins.

Trans-Fat

Manufacturers of packaged foods jump on board as fast as they could remove all of our precious saturated fats out of their products. They started introducing unsaturated fats which are liquid at room temperature. Most of the time the products fat content were rancid or “unstable” by the time it hits the grocery store shelves. Companies that still had fat in their products figured out how to stabilize their fats for a long shelf life. They did this by a process called “hydrogenation”, pumping hydrogen into the molecule to become stable and solid at room temperature. Therefore creating one of the most terrible things you could put in your body, Trans-fat. Products like shortening, margarine, cake mixes, frosting's, pie dough, fast food, popcorn or anything that had fat in it before were replaced by highly processed GMO non-organic “stable” vegetable oils like corn, soybean oils; trans-fat. When word got out that these seemly healthy “vegetable oils” where supposed to be the cure all to Mr. keys theory of saturated fat causing heart disease, the exact opposite happened, Americans bad cholesterol LDL shot through the roof, along with raising your chance of heart disease, obesity, diabetes or a stroke. Scary stuff, right? Feel like you’ve been lied to your whole life yet?

Saturated Fat

Enough about the bad guys, let’s look at the good guys, Saturated fats the ones Mr. Keys damned to hell. Saturated fats are a chain of carbon atoms that have a single bond.  These guys are the most stable, solid at room temperate, and stand up to high heat cooking; they include your animal fats, butter, cheese, coconut and palm oil. Start cooking your veggies in butter, bacon fat, or Ghee. Try to also make sure all your animal fats are from grass-raised organic farms. Animals not from grass-fed organic farms are fed grains, hormones, and antibiotics store all of these in the fat, so you’d end up consuming fat and a bunch of other nasty things. No, there is no proof that saturated fat is PROVEN to cause heart disease, -insert facepalm here-, (noun, a gesture in which the palm is brought to ones face in disbelief)

Unsaturated Fat

Unsaturated fat, are liquid at room temperature, some of them good and some of them are bad. Remember when I told you liquid fats are unstable at room temperature, which is still accurate. So stay away from your oils at the grocery store most of them are unstable. If an unsaturated fat is solid at room temperature, those are the transfat, which we learned is no good. So what’s left? Your unsaturated fats from whole food sources, such as avocado, nuts, and fish, as a good rule of thumb, try to get your fat from whole food sources, and you should be in the clear.

Nice try Mr. Keys. Now we know that his study was based on loose evidence and we have managed to grow our obesity, diabetes, heart disease into a serious problem. Around the 90s, when the low-fat craze got serious, companies started to replace all fat in products with sugar. And our “problem” turned into an epidemic. But! That is a story for a different day.

If you have been low-fat for a long time, try slowly incorporating fat into your daily meals. Since you’ve been on the low-fat train for some time, it is likely that your body lost the enzymatic to process fat, eating too much of it could cause some serious tummy trouble! But don’t worry, the enzymes will start come back. If you already have some fat in your diet ADD MORE, you’ll thank me later.

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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