Unlocking Health: How Genetic Insights Empower Women’s Nutrition and Wellness Journeys in Midlife and Beyond

Have you ever wondered how your genes could hold the key to unlocking your best health? Join Heather Carey in this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories as she chats with Elwyn Robinson, the visionary founder of Genetic Insights. Elwyn’s personal health journey, marked by challenges and revelations, led him to explore the transformative power of genetic testing. Through Genetic Insights, individuals can easily upload their DNA data from ancestry services and gain invaluable insights into health risks, nutritional needs, and even personality traits.

Elwyn shares his own experience with genetic testing, revealing how it helped him uncover hidden health issues that traditional medical tests often missed. This conversation dives deep into the importance of understanding one’s genetic predispositions and how they can influence dietary needs, weight management, and overall wellness. With a focus on midlife health, they discuss how genetics intertwine with lifestyle choices, emphasizing personalized recommendations based on genetic data.

Listeners will gain practical advice on interpreting genetic results and applying them to enhance their health. Elwyn highlights the potential impact of nutrients, hormones, and environmental factors on well-being, making this episode a treasure trove of nutrition advice. Whether you’re navigating menopause health or exploring the Mediterranean diet insights, this episode is packed with healthy eating tips that can empower your menopause and nourish your body.

As a culinary nutritionist, Heather brings her expertise to the table, guiding women through the often confusing world of nutrition and health. Together, they tackle weight loss myths, explore personal food journeys, and discuss mindful eating practices that resonate with women 40+. You’ll discover how to embrace healthy lifestyle choices and overcome food confusion, all while celebrating the beauty of food culture and identity.

This episode is not just about genetic insights; it’s about empowering women to take charge of their health and well-being. Tune in for an inspiring discussion that blends real food stories with nutritionist insights, helping you navigate your personal nutrition journey with confidence. Let’s break the cycle of dieting and embrace joyful eating, all while fostering a community of support and empowerment.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how you can leverage genetic insights to transform your health and embrace a sustainable, nourishing lifestyle. Join us for a conversation that could change the way you think about food, health, and your unique body!

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. Hi everybody and welcome back to Real Food Stories. So today I have Elwyn Robinson with me, who is the founder of Genetic Insights, which is an easy to use direct to consumer platform that allows people to upload their raw DNA data from any ancestry service like ancestry.com. You can get access to then over 350 reports with insights on health risks, nutritional requirements, allergies and intolerances, sensitivities, and even personality traits. These reports are extremely accurate and include personalized recommendations unique to your DNA. So Elwynn, I am really curious to talk about this genetic testing. I know that it’s become extremely popular now and I did ancestry DNA and I did my DNA testing then through You’re a company. So I want to just first hear how you got into the field of genetics and health and how it’s influenced you.

Speaker #1
Yeah, thank you. Lovely to be on this podcast. Well, I was into health kind of my whole life because both my parents are into it. My mother did detox programs and stuff in the 80s. and my father had an organic food store back in the early 80s when it was very unusual. But long story short, after, you know, a lot of ups and downs, in my 30s, I started to, like, have my own health practice and business. And I was, you know, selling herbs and stuff like that. I had a couple of online courses. I had a book. And I was really doing great for a long time. Until I hit the age of 39 and then suddenly I developed, or I thought I was doing great, I guess that’s the caveat, until the age of 39 and I hit some significant problems. I developed this constant pain, which I didn’t understand in my digestive area, and I had all the usual medical checks and no one could work out what was going on. again long story short after trying a lot of different practitioners of all types various types of mainstream medical doctors alternative medical doctors alternative practitioners of all kinds because when there’s a pain you never quite know what it is so chiropractors and acupuncturists and craniosacral therapists and you know on and on and on um no one was really able to help me and this pain would get worse when they ate so i was eating less and less and you know affected my digestive system and I’d always been tall and underweight. I was always being, you know, obviously six foot three and maybe 140 pounds. So I was always, you know, considered to be quite thin and no matter how many calories I, I could never gain weight. But, with this issue, I got down to, 120 pounds. I was really, really, I wouldn’t maybe go as far as emaciated, but pretty close to it. And along with that came feeling really terrible. I couldn’t sleep. I had constant, you know, severe anxiety issues. I felt cold all the time. My energy was abysmal. And it basically just could barely work for a long time. It was really not a good situation to be in. And again, long story short, eventually, after, you know, trying so many things and doing so many tests and not really getting anywhere in functional medicine practitioners and this, that and the other, I came across this service. of it. said if you’ve ever done a genetic testing before um which i had uh back in 2013 this is 2020 um then you can upload that information and get all this information about your health straight away and that was very appealing to me because i tried all these tests and you know you have to get your blood drawn and it’s very expensive and you have to wait for weeks usually for results for these functional tests and i was like great okay let’s see if it has anything useful to say So I uploaded my data from 23andMe. And I was blown away. First of all, how much it was able to tell me about myself. It was almost like going to a psychic in terms of, you know, just the amount of things that it knew about me. But what was really amazing to me is that it actually… was able to help me understand what was wrong with me that nothing else was able to. And I’d say there’s two or three different factors, depending on how you look at it, that it helped me uncover. And the fact that I had all these problems now, but when I did that 23andMe test back in 2013, I didn’t have any of these health problems. So if only I’d have known this information back then, I could have prevented it because it doesn’t just tell you a risk of having things. It also gives recommendations for actually preventing them or reducing the risk of it manifesting. So yeah, we can go into what they were if you want, but it’s a long story again, so we might want to skip that. But because of that, I was able to do some testing, like actual testing to validate that these really were the issues that were going on for me. And as a result of that, I was able to resolve it. I still wouldn’t say my health is perfect because some of the issues I discovered were things that take a long time to resolve, unfortunately. But now my digestion is a lot better. I’m 180 pounds. I feel good. My energy is good. I don’t have anxiety anymore and all of that kind of stuff. And so I really credit that. And so because of that, I was like, this is so amazing. And this platform was very good. But there were two issues with it. First of all, it was very… expensive i felt for the average person and second of all it was extremely complicated and i’m someone who’s been immersed in this health world for 15 years at the time and still i felt it was pretty complex so i could only imagine what the end user like the average person who just wants to uh you know prove their health might think of it and so you know eventually i approached them and we you know we made an agreement where i was able to um utilize the same technology which has dozens of AI engineers, dozens of full-time scientists behind it. but just produce a simpler and more affordable version.

Speaker #0
Okay, so it sounds like you had an amazing outcome with it. I mean, that you really discovered things that did not come up in regular testing with medical professionals. And then when you found out some of this genetic testing, you went and got it validated by like…

Speaker #1
Yeah, I’ll give one example if you like, which was… kind of the most crazy one i guess um so uh it said that i have an issue of detoxifying a heavy metal called lead that i’m not very good at it and we’d already tested other stuff like i’d seen a functional medicine practitioner who thought it was mycotoxins that were the issue which i think is quite a common diagnosis these days and that’s kind of like when you react to everything and nothing you know that was one of the other things i you know as a place where pretty much every food my body would have like this immune reaction to so That was one of the other reasons I was losing weight. It wasn’t only the pain. But no one had tested me for that. I don’t know a hair mineral analysis for that, but it hadn’t come up particularly high in that. And so I bit the bullet and decided to actually test it, to try it. And it also said that I had a tendency for certain nutrients that I had an increased need for them. Some of them things that people would be aware of, like calcium and vitamin K2, but some of them that I think most people wouldn’t think of, like specific amino acids, like tyrosine and lysine specifically. So I did a test that you’re probably aware of called the Neutroval from Genova Diagnostics, and that included all of those factors. It tested for the amino acids, the vitamins, minerals, and it tested for the four most common heavy metals. Well, the most shocking result was the lead. It was 27.5 micrograms per deciliter when the reference range was 0 to 3. And it’s at the level of 45 that the World Health Organization considers it an emergency, like you have to go to a hospital and get a chelation therapy. So then I went to my NHS GP, which we have over here. That’s like the nationalized healthcare. And I told them about this and I said, could this be the cause of all my symptoms? And, you know, because abdominal pain is certainly one of them, as you know, was all the rest of them. And he said, yeah, it could be. But, you know, we don’t trust any other testing other than our own. So I said, OK, so I had to wait. They did their own testing and they came back and said they didn’t have as fine a measurement. But, yeah, they said it was 20 something. So, you know, they kind of validated. And so I said, OK, so this could be the cause of all my symptoms. Yes. I said, what are we going to do about it? And they said, well, we have to remove the exposure. That’s the only thing you can really do with lead. So then my wife was tested, and my wife’s level was almost nothing. It was like one or something like that. And yet we were drinking the same water, breathing the same air, eating from the same cutlery, using the same herbs, using the same supplements. and and for over a decade and so it turned out that probably as i discovered later lead is has a half-life of about 20 years and your body stores lead in its bones because it mistakes it for calcium as well as the cells in general but especially the bones because that’s where calcium concentrates and so i probably had for decades this poison right in the core of my body in my skeleton which was constantly leaching into my bloodstream so it’s like a time-release poison capsule in the core of my body constantly leaching into my bloodstream And then the even crazier thing is. everything that is supposed to be good for you and healthy, like exercise and breathing practices and saunas and, you know, different herbs and supplements, all the rest, all of those are like NRF2 upregulators and things like that, that cause the release, the increase of that breakdown of toxicity into the bloodstream and actually make you feel worse, which is why, you know, all these things I was trying that people said is good for you would make me feel worse and worse and worse because it was causing more and more toxicity to be released. So That’s something I don’t think I would have ever discovered without that. As I said, no other practitioner had thought of it. A lead test usually is very unusual. Unless the person has had exposure working with it, then it might occur to the practitioner to do it. And as I said, I still don’t know how I had such high levels. And unfortunately, lead is pretty hard to deal with, as I’m sure you know. Like there are… Some things like EDTA and DMSA, which are reasonably effective, but they have a lot of side effects as well. You’ve got to be very careful with them. So right now it’s down to six, which is still above the reference range. It’s still not ideal, but it’s obviously a lot better than it was. And, you know, symptoms have decreased along with that. And, yes, you know, there was a couple of other things. I think even the amino acids were, you know, significant as well, like tyrosine because it’s the building block of thyroid hormone and it’s the building block of dopamine. And, you know, I think that was part of the reason as well, why I was feeling cold and having anxiety and all the rest of it is because it turned out I had hypothyroidism, which I think tyrosine depletion was a one of perhaps the causes of that along with, you know, genetic tendency. So yeah, it’s a couple of little examples there.

Speaker #0
Okay. So I have a question about that because I got my DNA tested through your site and But I, so when you, when it said like you have a higher likelihood for lead toxicity, is that in your DNA or were you just exposed to it? I mean, that’s, that’s where I think I got a little confused with, with some of the things that, you know, that came up for me and I’ll, and I’ll talk about that afterwards. But so were you exposed to lead? You must’ve been exposed to it. Yeah,

Speaker #1
you have to. You have to have been exposed, but there’s a genetic variant that means you’re not as good as breaking it down. There’s one of those for mold as well that’s quite well known. Two people could be living in a moldy house. One of them is definitely ill. One of them is totally fine. So that’s down to a few different genes. This applies to hormones. This applies to stress chemicals, neurotransmitters. Basically, every enzyme in the body will tend to have a speed. that it acts at. Some of them work quickly, some of them work slowly, some of them work in between. And obviously, that’s partly as a result of epigenetics, so lifestyle and environment and the nutrients that are available and all of that kind of stuff. But part of it is also the starting point that you have that’s based on your genes. So yes, I would have had to have been exposed to lead. But as I say, in the last at least 15 years, we couldn’t find any significant source of lead. So either the issue is exclusively that it was from very long ago, several decades ago or it could be that even a moderate amount built up to very toxic levels because I really was very bad at breaking it down, which would be genetic. And I expect it’s probably some combination of those two factors.

Speaker #0
I’m curious, your parents, have they had any of these symptoms? I mean, you grew up in the house that they were in. Yeah,

Speaker #1
my mother died when I was 25 of cancer and she had it several times. She had severe health issues. they both had thyroid issues. My mother had her thyroid removed. She had cancer of the thyroid. My father had a goiter at one point. I lost touch with my father, so I can’t comment on how he is now. But yeah, you know, he had ME. So yeah, you know, he had severe health issues as well. I can’t say if they’re caused by lead or anything. Right,

Speaker #0
yeah, you can’t, right. You can’t prove that. But so that’s, well, that’s kind of interesting information. So I want to just then talk about this genetics. We can learn a lot about our genetics, right? But how important is learning about our genetics versus just our lifestyle? Because we can get tested for genes that show you might have a more propensity for being obese or weight gain or that you can’t break down certain nutrients. But what’s the importance? of that versus just living a healthy lifestyle. Because doesn’t it all, like a lot of things then just go back to, like you said, you know, like exercise, eating correctly, getting sleep, your stress, right? There’s like some commonalities. that it all goes back to. But let’s talk about just the importance of then genetics. So you must obviously think that genetics are hugely important.

Speaker #1
Based experience, but I can tell you philosophically, it’s not my inclination. I think philosophically people tend to be on one or the other side of the spectrum. Some people are very much in the philosophy of kind of fate, like everything is just the way it is. There’s nothing you can do about it. And they’re the kind of people who talk, you know, like. oh my father had heart disease my mother has these i’m probably gonna have heart disease like they just accept that the other end of the spectrum is kind of the personal development self-improvement kind of uh you know law of attraction manifestation kind of crowd who are like i am the captain of my own destiny i will create my own reality i will you know make my life what it what i want it to be and so each of those kind of camps will tend to be drawn to philosophy that kind of back up their perspective, right? So the fatalists, like fatalist philosophies, the kind of creative types will, you know, be attracted to kind of, whether it’s Bruce Lipton type of genetic, you know, or whether it’s Tony Robbins type of personal development, whatever, like they just, you know, that’s what they love. So I was definitely in that second camp. I totally believed in, you know, personal responsibility of your life sucks. It’s your own, you know, something that you’ve created for yourself. And my life did suck, obviously. So that’s why. I think I really shifted my life from it being very bad to good by that mentality. So I’m a big fan of that mentality. However, I feel part of my process of maturity, which I’m certain is still ongoing, was realizing that, yes, you can create your own destiny to a significant degree, but you do also have to be aware of the cards that you have been dealt for a couple of reasons. First of all, because if you… understand that you can mitigate a lot of the issues around it um so the lead one is a bit tricky because i don’t even know how i was exposed to but let’s pick the nutrient one because it’s a little bit simpler if i know that i have a increased need for niacin or lysine or vitamin k2 or whatever it might be having a deficiency of these nutrients is potentially extremely serious as you know. And yes, it is possible to get enough from diet. uh usually but it depends what it is i mean one for me for instance was choline so choline i was like raised vegetarian i was brought up vegetarian even when i started to eat animal foods i was only eating fish and so you know one of the issues i believe is that i ended up the actual thing that i had that caused the pain which i’m not sure if you’ve heard of it it’s called sphincter of oddy dysfunction which is pretty unusual and very unusual for men and it’s where the sphincter between the gallbladder and the duodenum is spasming and not releasing the bile properly. And part of the problem that causes that is the bile is too thick. So there’s a situation of cholestasis. Well, one of the things that can prevent cholestasis, and one of the key things that is needed to prevent cholestasis in the early stages is a sufficient amount of choline. Now, it’s actually quite hard to get enough choline from diet unless you’re eating a significant amount of egg yolks. or unless you’re eating liver, or unless you maybe see certain seeds, sunflower seeds, stuff like that. But it’s actually pretty tricky. And soy, I guess, soy is the other one. But what about if you have a variation in your gene, which I do, the PEMT gene, which means that your body is not very good at creating its own choline? because choline used to be classed as one of the B vitamins, and then they realized that your body can make its own, and so something can only be classed a vitamin if you can’t make your own. So they removed it as a vitamin. So yes, people can make their own choline, but it uses up a lot of methylation capacity, and more importantly, some people genetically are just not very good at it. So I feel like if I’d have had that information early on, I could have either eaten high choline foods, or I could have supplemented choline, and I could have prevented myself literally years of… agonizing pain because i can tell you i’ve spoken to it’s again it’s mainly women who have this issue sphincter of body dysfunction but i spoke to one woman she said it’s worse than the pain of childbirth and i i can’t refer to that but it was bad and the other thing about it is that uh painkillers don’t work on it like the NSAIDs do nothing and then uh the opiates actually make the pain significantly worse for some reason the mechanism is not quite understood but i believe if it’s related to prolactin, whatever. So… Just knowing that I had an increased need for choline and that I was actually doing the opposite, I was having a low choline diet, right, would have saved me so much. So that’s something where it would be very helpful to know that I had a specific tendency and I had a specific need. So, yeah, I hope that’s one example that shows like everyone, you know, if you’re really into health, you could say, oh, well, people should know that they need. choline anyway so you know fair enough but um what about if you need two to three times more than most people and it’s already very difficult to get from diet i’d say vitamin b1 is another example that it’s quite hard to even get the recommended daily intake of vitamin b1 from foods it’s not particularly easy there are most foods are not very high in it which is why 100 years ago the government mandated that all grains had to be fortified with vitamin b1 but then ironically a lot of people who try to be healthy like myself They avoid grains because grains are bad for them, right? And then you’re even more likely to end up with this vitamin B1 deficiency. So let’s say you’re trying to be healthy. You’re avoiding all grains. You’re not supplementing with B1. Okay, and then you have an elevated need for B1 because of some kind of genetic variation. Well, then you could be in a position where you have extreme issues with producing energy, which can have a knock-on effect on almost any system in the body. So, yeah. So that’s one aspect. It’s so you can prevent and resolve problems. And the other aspect, which I think is really profound and has been for me, which is a bit hard to explain to people, is the issue of compassion. So especially around like, this is more like a personality kind of thing. But for instance, I always felt very easily stressed and overwhelmed and like it was quite hard to calm down. And I was always really… admiring of and maybe jealous of people who no matter how stressful situations may be they always seem to take things in their stride like it was no big deal right and then um when i did this genetic testing i saw that i have a slow compt and compt is a gene it’s one of the main enzymes that breaks down the catecholamines the stress chemicals uh adrenaline noradrenaline and dopamine and uh The downside of breaking down the stress chemical slowly is that they build up and then they build up very high and then your body is not very good at breaking down. So basically, you’re not necessarily more likely to get stressed, but you’re definitely going to find it more difficult to calm down after you get stressed. And you can easily get overwhelmed. And that’s exactly the experience that I had. And so I was always jealous of that kind of resilient person. But when I learned about Compt, what I realized, and I… It turned out that I’m actually married to someone who’s the opposite of me. They’re fast calm to my wife. And she doesn’t have that issue. She can calm down easily. But she has a challenge with concentrating and focusing. And so, you know, dopamine is actually one of the catecholamines and dopamine helps you focus. And so it turns out that, you know, having that fast calm, yes, it means that you are more resilient to stress. but it also means you actually struggle to… focus and really even enjoy life unless you’re in a stressful situation. So it turns out that actually fast comped people are more adapted to thriving in a highly stressful environment and slow comped people are more adapted to thriving in a peaceful environment. And it’s not that I am better or she is worse or the other way around. It is simply that each of us is genetically adapted to thrive in a different type of environment. that’s a very important thing to know about yourself and to know about someone else. So you can kind of understand each other’s, um, you know, perspectives a lot more, you know, cause I’d be like, why did you seem to like create drama? Like, and, and now I understand this because she needs a certain amount of intensity to actually feel good. I’m like, and she’s like, why are you so boring? You know, why, why do you, because I need a certain amount of peace to feel good. Right. And so, and also there are things you can do to speed up and slow down comps, you know? back to your point of there are things you can do but yeah even though there are things you can do to optimize i think it’s really helpful to understand i have a certain set point someone else in my life has a different set point where i am is okay where they are is okay we can have compassion for each other we can understand that we’re different um you know carbs is another example of that some people do well on a high carb diet and even simple carbs are fine for them some people like my wife uh you know they have more hunter-gatherer dna and they do better in a low-carb diet and even complex carbs are not ideal for them and you know rather than arguing which is better it’s high carb better is low carb better you know let’s just accept that we’re all different and part of that is down to you know there are other reasons why high carbs may not be good for you because you have a candida infection because you have diabetes whatever it might be but there may also be a genetic component to it and i think that’s good to know yeah

Speaker #0
i mean as as you’re explaining this yeah it is all great to know that your wife and you have these different genetic tendencies and so you can better understand each other. And then there’s just life, right? I mean, then we’re like hit with like, you know, life and circumstances and everything. And so it, I. I think I asked my question is how important is the genetics? I mean, do you feel like, is it your feeling that everyone should?

Speaker #1
How about 40%? If you want a quantity.

Speaker #0
Okay.

Speaker #1
It’s not as important as, you know, life and lifestyle and all the rest of it, but it is significant. And, you know, as you’ve probably seen in the reports, we often give a percentage. We’ll say 20% of this is based on your genetics, 40%, 50%. Usually it is about 40% to 60%. but Sometimes it’s significantly less. So how about 40 as an average? It’s 40% important.

Speaker #0
So it’s good information. I mean, and especially if you’re one of those people who likes to know information about yourself and that it sounds like it’s good to help you understand where you might be coming from, right? So I did a couple of your tests. There’s a lot of information in the…

Speaker #1
testing and i appreciated that but it’s like wow you can learn a lot and then i started to get a little bit overwhelmed with like the amount of information but i wanted to just to say like our system is way simpler than the one that was based off and you’re still saying that right so it goes to show my point about the original one we gave you access to the limitless so you have access i think it said 350 in my bio but it’s actually over 500 reports now so yeah it is a huge amount of information. We often recommend people to go just through category by category. And a lot of people just get by one category. So if you want to lose weight, you just get the weight loss category. If you want to know what nutrients you might need more of, you just get the nutrient category, you know, et cetera. Rather than, as you said, getting all of the categories, all 20 categories, which is a lot.

Speaker #0
Yeah, it’s definitely a lot. But I am one of those people who likes information. I mean, I like to look at these reports and everything. But a couple of them, you know, so. What am I doing? I mean, you’re explaining it now better with your story, but I know that there was one category, like the pain category. Is that what it’s called? Is it just pain? Okay. So I have a history of back pain. I’ve had two back surgeries in my life. There’s definitely, I think, a genetic component. My mother’s had back surgery. My grandmother’s had back surgery. There’s surgeries, back-related surgeries all over my mother’s side of the family. So what am I supposed to do with that information? You know, like, what do I do? And then I think also what the recommendations were in there were to take things like pregnenolone, which is a hormone, which I, where am I getting that? Or willow bark. And do you know what I’m saying? Like, what am I, what am I, so I know that maybe that I have a genetic tendency for back pain.

Speaker #1
Okay. So you, so you, you did, you had a more likely in the back pain report.

Speaker #0
I did. Yes.

Speaker #1
Okay.

Speaker #0
Yeah. So it was confirmation. That’s great news, you know, but, but, but now what, you know, that I think that’s where I’m, I think just in general, I wanted to, you know, ask you, you get all of this information and, you know, like you said, with your wife, you can under, you know, there’s understanding of, of how things work. And then how do I apply it in my life?

Speaker #1
Okay. Yeah. So without actually seeing yours, you know, I can kind of more speculate rather than like advising as if I were consulting you. But.

Speaker #0
So you said there’s a couple of recommendations. Just to answer those questions, pregnenolone is sold as a supplement. It doesn’t require a prescription or anything like that. Pregnenolone is the master hormone building block of all hormones. There is a lot of research to show that it is very safe, even at high levels. A lot of it, in women especially, turns into progesterone. Progesterone is a very powerful anti-inflammatory. So I suspect that would be the reason why that was recommended. White willow bark contains naturally salicylic acid, which is aspirin. I would say of all the things that actually are effective to reduce pain, salicylic acid is by far the safest and most desirable because it actually has a bunch of other benefits to it which are significant. Obviously, with pure aspirin, there are still potentially issues, but like with the stomach. But if you have white willow bark, because it’s the natural, unextracted form, that would be a safer form of that. So, you know, that would be an example. Wintergreen is another thing that’s high in salicylic acid that you can apply externally. So if you’re, you know, you’re worried about the effect on the stomach because you have a tendency for, you know, ulcers or anything like that, then that would be another way of getting salicylic acid to the back. But yeah, what do you do with it? Okay, so first of all, you know from a very practical point of view you can apply some of the recommendations and see if they help right you just listed a couple of them there we generally recommend people consider the top few either obviously these are something that are ideal unless you really are an expert and this stuff to run by someone who is an expert you know so know that you know you already are an expert but for many people It’d be something that they might want to check with their doctor.

Speaker #1
But I’m not an expert in supplements. I mean, I’m not an expert in supplements. So when I see something like pregnenolone as a recommendation, that gives me pause because pregnenolone is a hormone and I’m not just going to go into Whole Foods and buy pregnenolone and take it without having a medical doctor, I think, oversee my hormones. The thing with like DHEA, that came up a lot for me too. And a couple of these says that I’m low in DHEA.

Speaker #0
Yeah. So yeah, an ideal would be to go to either an open-minded medical doctor or maybe a functional medicine doctor who understands these things in depth. I agree, especially with DHEA, it is better to test. So when it’s recommending DHEA, it’s not saying blindly go and take DHEA. Just like when I… had the tendency for high lead, it’s not saying automatically just go and buy some chelation agents. The first thing to do would be to test to validate to see if it’s actually accurate. So with DHEA, I would definitely recommend test your blood levels of DHEA. But if you do have a high ratio of cortisol to DHEA, which is quite common with people, especially as they get older, especially as they’re unhealthy, that corresponds with a lot of different negative health outcomes. There is a lot of evidence showing that the higher the ratio of cortisol to DHEA in the blood, then the more likely you are to have all kinds of diseases, the more likely you are to die earlier. So at that point, you may go, okay, well, I have a tendency for low DHEA. I actually have low DHEA. I’m reading about it, and I’m finding it’s not good to have low DHEA. Let me work with someone to increase my DHEA. and I might want to do that through some non-taking dhea method maybe i want to support the you know the enzymes that allow me to produce more of my own dhea you know there are lifestyle things you can do because a high ratio of course is also dhea just indicates someone who’s stressed generally you know so there’s other things you can obviously do but maybe especially you have a genetic tendency to have low dhea if you do then uh then it makes sense to supplement it pregnant alone i would say is a little bit safer usually it’s sold in like 25 or 50 milligram doses and there’s a lot of research showing you can even take one 2000 milligrams it doesn’t have any kind of significant negative effects um and you can do your own research obviously to validate that everyone can but you know the best thing to do is exactly the same thing as as as i just said right to actually go and and check with a practitioner um so these are starting points i mean i’ll give you an example this is probably the most common thing i come across i’m allowed to tell this story because this is a friend of mine a business partner um he’s someone who’s super not into health. He loves business and marketing and stuff like that. But he was really, really struggling. He was saying, I wake up and the alarm goes and I just can’t drag myself out of bed. And I can’t get to sleep. I’m feeling anxiety and all this kind of stuff. And I was like. to me this sounds totally like a thyroid issue but maybe i i seem to everyone i meet since i have a viral issue maybe i’m projecting so i said you know what have you ever done uh ancestry he said yes i said okay and oh the other thing is because he’s so busy and not into health trying to persuade him to go to see a doctor was like almost impossible so he just wouldn’t do it it’s certainly not like an alternative kind of doctor anyway so i said okay so we went we did his genetic insights he came up as having a high genetic tendency for underactive thyroid um Sometimes in our reports, we just give like a binary, like high, low risk. But with some of them, if we can, we actually give a percentage score. So we give like a percentile score. So for him, he was 99th percentile likely to have underactive thyroid. So he’s in the top 1% of people most likely to have that issue. So when he saw that, that was enough to convince him to go to a medical doctor to actually test it. and he thought his issue was low testosterone that’s why he was so low in energy and depressed and stuff and i was like yeah maybe but i think this thyroid thing is more important so anyway he went to the doctor he tested both uh it turned out he was right too he had very low testosterone but he had hyperthyroidism and he had hashimoto’s which is an autoimmune condition this is a very serious thing if he had not addressed that he could have been you know in a very bad place within a year or two of you to carry on ignoring it. So again, I’m not recommending that people do our thing and then start taking hormones as a result of it. As I say, pregnant alone, it’s so safe that, you know, someone could take a small dose, in my opinion. And that is why it’s sold as a supplement, by the way. You know, if it were dangerous like testosterone or thyroid or whatever, it would be prescription only, as those things are. But that turned things around for him. to get that thyroid that he actually needed. He also started taking low dose naltrexone to help to reduce the autoimmunity function and he was able to function again and go back to work and feel good. And he got himself a little bit testosterone as well, I think on TRT, because that was supportive. And the doctor deigned that to be necessary too. That was not genetic. I would say that was because of the massive amount of stress that he’d been going through as someone trying to struggle to work 60 hour weeks, despite having you know severe hypothyroidism and hashimoto so i’d say that was more of an effect than the cause but whatever so you know yeah this is not saying to answer your question our recommendation i tell that story most commonly on podcast festival because i have permission to but second of all because it’s like this is not saying get the report and take a serious medical action without supervision this is saying get the report and if it says you have a high risk for a medical condition or a medical need then go and test that that that’s the next step go and test it yourself if you absolutely refuse to see a doctor or preferably go to a practitioner and have them test it for you um and then you know you can make an informed decision from then onwards but it’s kind of pointing the direction because as you know testing for every single test of what might be wrong with you when you have nebulous symptoms like low energy fatigue you know anxiety depression weight gain i mean God, how many different things could that be? You know, like there could be so many different things. And so knowing to narrow it down, okay, so it might be this nutrient, or it might be this hormone, or, you know, it might be this specific allergen or whatever it might be. Like it really helps to narrow it down, which then means you can actually save a lot of money on testing compared to how much you’d have to spend to just test everything that it could be.

Speaker #1
Well, I’m definitely going to get my DHEA tested. I’m going to ask my doctor to do that. And now, because I’m curious, because it did show up. I didn’t look at all of the information, but it did show up in a couple of the categories. So I’m definitely- And that’s a smart way of doing it.

Speaker #0
If you see it once, then it’s like, but if you see it again and again and again, you’re noticing a pattern, then it is definitely worth it. Yeah.

Speaker #1
I think something you said before, it’s a little like going to see a psychic. You know, that like, there’s like, you get these things, you’re like, oh, I have a tendency towards, I think a couple things, like I had a tendency towards high cholesterol and some other, like, just these like blood markers and which I do not have. I have never, like my cholesterol has notoriously been always like very good. And so, but it is like seeing, like kind of going to the psychic, like, is it going to happen? Is it good? They know something that I don’t know that’s going to, you know, so it is just a lot of information. So I think my next question is when I see recommendations that say like take royal jelly, this is the DHEA. That’s for me to royal jelly, ashwagandha and something called shilajit.

Speaker #0
Shilajit, yep.

Speaker #1
Shilajit, I’ve never heard of that before. Who am I supposed to go to? Like, I have all this information. Do you have consultations after you get all of this genetic testing done?

Speaker #0
Yeah, I’m not, you know, a doctor or anything like that. But what I am able to do is go through people’s results and just help to kind of pass what to start with and what to focus on. We do also at Genetic Insights, we work with a medical doctor who is both a traditional medical doctor and a functional medicine doctor. So they understand, you know, both perspectives. So if a person, if it looks like the person needs to work with a medical doctor, then I usually would then refer them on to her. So, you know, we have that process in place for people who want support, further support from us rather than going off and, you know, doing things on their own. In terms of things you just mentioned, I mean, royal jelly, shilajit, and ashwagandha, these are all supplements that you can get yourself. Royal jelly, I’m not quite sure that would be there, but ashwagandha is like a very effective thing at balancing hormones and reducing cortisol specifically. That’s often what it is used for. And it’s, you know, Ayurvedic herb whose use goes back, I believe, thousands of years, very safe in moderate doses that it’s usually sold in. So that’s something that people could just try. Well, see,

Speaker #1
that’s the thing right there. See, I have my own feeling about just taking supplements. I mean, I know the industry here, at least in the United States, is very unregulated. I mean, you could walk into any health food store and buy anything. And without… anyone overseeing it you know so herbs and other supplements can be can be you know you take too much you take it they can be toxic how do you feel about like eating curries or like chilies and stuff like that i

Speaker #0
feel fine about that i mean that’s food okay so i know that but i mean i know it’s i know like garlic is a way more toxic powerful and potentially dangerous herb than ashwagandha by far for instance uh you know it has like antibiotic like effects um it can imbalance the hemispheres of the brain it’s quite you know it has quite a high level of files which can move heavy metals so to me the line between food and supplement and drugs is quite arbitrary it just depends on where the line is you know there’s a lot of chinese herbs for instance which we go oh dangerous but they just add it to soups and stews like it’s you know like it’s nothing no big deal goji berries or something that became like a superfood, but, you know, we’re… traditionally be classed as a herb so i would say as someone who has got quite deep into that it really depends yeah there are some supplements that are so powerful that really they should be classed as drugs but there are also some supplements that are so safe that they’re actually safe for the most foods so it really depends which they are as opposed to them

Speaker #1
all being in a certain category well so yeah i understand i understand what you’re saying i mean there are some vitamins that you you don’t want to overdo right yeah not soluble vitamins and you And I understand what you’re saying.

Speaker #0
Vitamin A and D can be really dangerous. Vitamin B12, you can have a thousand times recommended daily amount and it’s no big deal whatsoever.

Speaker #1
So you and I know this, right? But a lot of people don’t know that. And so that’s, I think, where I feel some caution around just if like one of my clients went to go get genetic testing and they saw these recommendations and they just went to the store and started buying. some of the supplements that there needs to be some guidance with what you’re taking.

Speaker #0
Sure. Yeah. I mean, remember, we’re going to have two categories of people buying this. Some of them are people who will not go and see a doctor no matter what, and they are buying all kinds of supplements all the time based purely on marketing and what they see on sales pages and what they hear some random influencer say has some random benefit. So to me, this is way safer than that. Because first of all, every single thing we recommend, we give a huge amount of studies supporting their use. Second of all, we’re only recommending things to people if they have an actual, at least tendency, though of course we can’t guarantee it, for them to perhaps need it. So at least it’s not like picking things in the dark like a lot of people are doing. But yeah, my preference, of course, is they would come and see me, they would come and see a medical doctor, or they would come and see someone else who knows what they’re talking about. absolutely. But, uh sometimes we’re just you know we’re doing uh what’s the word uh it’s better than the alternative right and so and again the recommendations we are making we don’t recommend any drugs i don’t know if you noticed in there there is nothing in there that actually is dangerous um ever like dhea even though i would be cautious of it vitamin d3 even though i would be cautious with it etc they are classed as dietary supplements that you know people are free to buy without any uh without any restriction so right uh but yeah like um We haven’t finished this yet, but the last page in the reports, we’re in the process of setting up that there’ll be a next step section by me. And then it will provide a lot of resources where there’ll be like a video education on that particular topic. Unfortunately, it’s not finished yet, but it’s in process. It’s getting there now. And so the point of that will be that for people who can’t afford a consultation or don’t want a consultation in addition to the genetic reports, they can go and have kind of like a virtual. like equivalent of it where at least there is like uh like you said about the vitamins and minerals for instance you know the episode that is already filmed where you go through each one and say this is how much and this is how much you want to take and this is how much is safe and i would not recommend getting taking d3 at all unless you’ve tested for for it but b1 is pretty safe and you can have that you know and all that kind of stuff so yeah we do give that a further education but it’s not quite ready unfortunately but it should be okay okay well that’s good to No,

Speaker #1
I mean, because I think that is a… a necessary step because people can just go a little crazy and and buy supplements without you know if they see something on those genetic testing that says they’re deficient in something that you don’t want to just to go yeah

Speaker #0
just to clarify we we don’t say you’re deficient anything we say that genetically you have an increased need for it but you may still have more than enough because you may be getting more than enough you know so we’re saying you have an need for it. If you need it, here are the ways to get it. But we’re not saying that you actually need it. That is still ultimately down to testing. And that’s why one of my favorite things to recommend is the NutriVal when it comes to nutrients, because it basically tells you what you need of pretty much every vitamin, most of the minerals, and along with a bunch of other helpful information, all the fats, essential fats, all the amino acids. So that’s why I love that test and talk about it frequently and recommend it, because it’s like, again, for people who don’t want to see a practitioner who want to do their own. It’s giving quite a user-friendly breakdown of how much you actually need of each of those nutrients. But often the thing that, because that’s quite an expensive and difficult test, the thing that might motivate someone to do that in the first place is to tell them, look, you have a very elevated need for, I don’t know, magnesium or whatever, and you seem to have a lot of symptoms related to a lack of it, so why not do a test like that to see if you actually need it?

Speaker #1
Yeah, that’s good to know. I’ll link that in the show notes. So it’s Genova Diagnostics Duntreval, right?

Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Again, it’s a lot more expensive than ours and it’s a lot more of a hassle to do, which is why it can be difficult. But I definitely would recommend that for anyone who, as you said, is sick of guessing whether they need this supplement or that supplement. When it comes to all the nutrients, anyway, it’s a very helpful test.

Speaker #1
Yeah. Okay. I will definitely link that. So I want to ask one last question because I think for my listeners who are a lot of women in midlife going through menopause transition and everything. weight gain is a hot topic, you know, because all of a sudden body’s shifting, gaining like mystery weight. So I want to just ask about the genetic tendency, you know, towards losing weight and difficulty, because I know you have a category in there about weight loss, right? So could genetics factor in? Yeah,

Speaker #0
absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I don’t think it’s a huge mystery to say some people just have a tendency to be more higher weight. Some people have a tendency to be a lower weight. Some people have a tendency to be in the middle. That was one of the things when I first got my results, I thought they were inaccurate because literally I’ve been significantly underweight my whole life. And yet my genetic report came back saying that I had a tendency to be normal weight. And I was like, oh, that’s wrong. in and then of course once i started to actually resolve these digestive issues i’ve starting to be able to absorb nutrients properly again. And then I am a normal weight. I’m right in the middle. I’m exactly what, 22 or 23 in the BMI or whatever. So the genetics were right. There was just a specific situation that was causing me to not conform to my genetics. And of course, that could be true for you. You could be someone who does not have a genetic tendency to be overweight, but there is a lifestyle or whatever factor that’s causing you to be overweight. But there could be a genetic tendency. And it’s really, really helpful to know that. In terms of weight loss, another story that I’m allowed to tell, I had a client who did this, and she, as well as being… 40 50 pounds overweight she also had all the symptoms of ms and she thought she had ms she was uh the two things that she picked up on i mean we went through loads of stuff but the two things that she picked up and acted on is that she had an increased nutritional need for uh just iron and b12 and that’s all it is and she started taking those um and the ms went away and the weight just fell off her now as to exactly how that happened i can’t say for sure uh but my belief would be probably this thyroid function because um the thyroid requires a specific amount of iron for the thyroid hormone to actually get into the cells i think she was very low in iron she was very anemic and so because of that the thyroid function was way down um and so yeah the thyroid function is one of the things that you know potentially can lead to someone being overweight i think it’s the least focused on the most important factor for women there is another significant factor though and it’s um it’s the sex hormones. So as the ratio of hormones shifts from progesterone dominance, which is the ideal state, to estrogen dominance, estrogen is a very anabolic hormone, specifically it’s fat building up. If you tend to build up fat more around the hips and the butt, then that is more of a estrogen dominance issue. If you tend to build up fat more around the belly, That’s more of an insulin resistance issue. And so those are two of the reports that we also have in there. You know, we have a report on estrogen. We have a report on progesterone. We have a report on hypoglycemia, HbA1c, fasting glucose. So underactive thyroid. Metabolic rate is another one. Obviously, that’s related to the thyroid. But if you have a tendency for a slow metabolic rate, then that’s something that you can either accept or you can try and do certain things to speed it up. But at least, you know, it gives you a, oh, that is why. I can’t eat as much as the next person without gaining weight. You know, it’s potentially an explanation, right? You know, carbohydrates is the big thing. We just talked about that. A lot of people feel fantastic going on a ketogenic paleo diet and going very low carb, and it helps them lose a lot of weight. But some people feel horrific doing it. And, you know, it doesn’t help them at all. And it actually, because when you are in a ketogenic state, it raises cortisol and it raises noradrenaline significantly and suppresses thyroid function. And so for some people going on a ketogenic diet makes it worse and they might lose fat while they’re doing it, but they can’t. It’s not it’s not sustainable for them. And then as soon as they go back to eating carbs, they pass away back on. And overall, it was like a really unhelpful thing to do. So, again, knowing that fat is another one. One camp in the whole natural health world goes. oh, you should eat unsaturated fats, you should eat, you know, olive oil and avocado oil and stuff like that. The other one says, no, no, no, no, they help, they make you gain weight, you should have saturated fat, you should have coconut oil, you should have MCTs, you know, you should have butter, right, the whole bulletproof approach, stuff like that. Again, what I found is, it’s not about working out who’s right, it’s about working out what your genetics are. And that’s simply a matter of checking, right? And some people do great, I do better with saturated fat, but for This is Chrissy, my co-host on my podcast. She does better with monounsaturated fats. In both cases, that’s in our diet. Sorry, in our genetics. In both cases, we do better, again, with fat. Some people say a high-fat diet doesn’t make you put on fat. But some people, when they start to eat a lot of fat, they swell up immediately. So some people have a good response to fat. I do well with dietary fat. Some people have a poor response to it. It just makes them gain weight. So again, knowing that about yourself. So, yeah, I mean, that’s just a… you know and we have other stuff in there like a tendency to over we and sugar cravings and so there are a lot of different factors right that could lead to someone gaining weight and so yes we the reason there’s not just one report because we could just have one report your tendency to gain weight but that’s of limited use as you just said right but if you understand all the factors that could be related to it all the ones i just listed right and more then we can go oh what is it is it my thyroid is it insulin resistance is it i’m eating too many carbs is it i’m eating too much fat is it whatever, is it estrogen, etc. It helps you to narrow down and then you’re like, oh, I have a tendency towards that. And then, as you said, ideally, you don’t just start taking action on a bunch of stuff, you test it, you find out if it’s true. If it’s saying you have a tendency for a slow thyroid, is that true? If it’s saying you have a tendency for too much estrogen, is that true? If it’s saying you have a tendency for insulin resistance, is that true? But it helps you to narrow down what to focus on.

Speaker #1
Yeah, and I think also that the bigger point is that diets, what you eat is very individual, right? And then it can go back to genetics because that just debunks then all diets in general. Like the keto diet is not good for everybody, right? The paleo diet is not good for everybody. Like you have to really…

Speaker #0
know what’s what’s right for you and what works for you and so it sounds like genetic testing would would give you that information and that’s great definitely a starting place oxytocin is one that almost no one talks about but oxytocin gives you the and this is more you know they talk about emotional eating being a big factor right and and like then immediately they go to psychology and stuff like that but if you a lot of people have a feeling like they have a hole inside of them that just can’t be filled but they try to and so they tend to have addictive personalities maybe it’s drugs maybe it’s you know all kinds of stuff but eating is kind of like the what i’d say the first addiction you know the primary addiction consumption and so if you have that feeling like you have a hole inside you no matter how much you take or how much you do it’s never full if you apply that particular psychology to food you’re almost definitely going to gain weight unless you have some severe digestive issue like I did. But the thing that actually makes you feel that way, my understanding, or the primary factor, is oxytocin. If you have low amounts of oxytocin, you will feel a feeling of emptiness. If you have high amounts of oxytocin, you have a feeling of satiety. So again, I’m not recommending anyone should go out and just buy oxytocin. In fact, you can’t without a prescription. But some doctors will, they call it off-label, prescribe oxytocin for people with addictive tendencies. And it’s absolutely true. if you use like an intranasal oxytocin, um, you’re much less likely to overeat you’re much less likely to take drugs you’re much much less likely to drink if you’re an alcoholic or whatever it might be and so again that’s a kind of novel therapy that’s not used very often should you try it maybe or maybe not but if you have a genetic tendency for low oxytocin that would give like um more of an indication that perhaps it’s something that you should try and if you don’t want to take something from a doctor then there are of course activities you can do to raise oxytocin maybe rather than going to the gym to lose weight You should be. uh spending time with friends and cuddling and playing with your pets and stuff like that because raising oxytocin naturally will naturally make you feel more satiated which will naturally reduce your chances of overeating so you know there’s so many clues in here about things that you may want to pursue like as you say every report could lead to like a massive shift in your whole life if you were to pursue it and um yeah that’s why we kind of have that sort by risk thing because yeah like we show all the highest risk things first because otherwise there would be probably too much to go through still.

Speaker #1
Yeah. Well, it is a lot of information. And if you are a person who likes all that information and then it’s genetic testing is definitely for you. And I think that it’s, you know, it sounds like you’re, you’re even progressing with your, how you have the reports and the information given and the recommendations and, and it sounds like it’s, it’s growing. industry rated and work in progress and getting more refined and and absolutely yeah no it’s it’s i think it’s going to become more and more the norm to get genetic tested to see where you where you fall into certain categories and ellen how can people get in touch with you if they want to pursue their own genetic testing uh yeah thank you you want to go to uh genetic insights.co and uh

Speaker #0
That will take you through to like the limitless option. And then we also have geneticinsights.co slash nutrition. That will be like the nutrients needs category that we’ve talked about most. And then my podcast as well, if you want to hear more from me about all this stuff. I have an episode on weight loss. I have several episodes on nutrients and all that stuff. I have the Rejuvenate podcast. It’s called with Elwynn Robinson on.

Speaker #1
all the major platforms including youtube great okay well i will link that all in the show notes so people can get in touch with you and i’m going to get back to you about my dhea test and tell you what what happened if it is actually really low because i’m i’m wildly curious to see if

Speaker #0
that’s if that’s something yeah please do me as the ratio of dhea to cortisol that’s especially interesting even if the dhea is mid-range if the cortisol is high you still might want to raise it

Speaker #1
Yeah. Okay. Good to know. All right. Thank you so much. And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.