Latest / Gladden Longevity Podcast / Unlocking the Secrets of Nutrigenomics - Episode 350

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Unlocking the Secrets of Nutrigenomics - Episode 350 · Gladden Longevity Podcast

0:00
You eat and things that you do can help turn genes on or off.
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So that is the neutrogenomic or that is the thing that you will never
0:07
be able to measure in other tests.
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So if you eat broccoli sprouts,
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it's gonna turn the the sulf sulfirophane that you get from broccoli sprouts when
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it digests will be helping to activate your oxidative stress systems,
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your antioxidant systems, and your detox systems.
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So little things like that that you can really be quite specific.
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Today I have the honor of talking with Annalise Smith.
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She works with an organization called 3X4 Genetics or 3x4 Genetics.
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She's a nutritionist by trade,
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but ~ has really kind of progressed into the genetic space.
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And we talk a lot about systems biology in this conversation,
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which I think is quite honestly the hottest topic in medicine at this point in time.
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And you're gonna see how this weaves itself into concepts around nutrition,
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hormone replacement. I think you're gonna find this
0:53
a really interesting conversation.
0:55
He went from
0:55
saving hearts as a cardiologist to rewriting the entire aging playbook.
1:01
Dr. Jeffrey Gladden believes 100 is the new 30,
1:04
and he's got the science to back it up.
1:06
This is the Gladden Longevity Podcast.
1:09
Thank you very much.
1:09
Welcome to the show, Annel. Yeah,
1:12
it's good to have you here. So let's talk a little bit about how you
1:17
got so involved with genetics.
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~ you've gone down a path with nutrition,
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some other things as I saw, and ~ what led you into this ~ area?
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So I yes, I'm trained as a a dietitian and I worked for many years with
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my patients in my private practice and found nutrigenomics quite early on,
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maybe already twenty years ago.
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I ~ I went to a talk and was quite interested and
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I found myself ~ just being able to go to more talks because I'm
1:53
I'm in South Africa. So there was a company who started out here and
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I just managed to learn a lot about it at the time.
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And working with the company. And in my practice,
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I found that that was a really interesting thing to follow because
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I as a nutritionist or as a dietitian,
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it was often really hard to tell if you're on the right path because
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you are trying to put the whole recipe together.
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And there's not too many tests that you can do to figure out,
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you know, you can obviously do blood levels and things,
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but in in nutrition you want to often be more preventative.
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So when I started working in genetics,
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it was really a place that I found it gave me more confidence to know what
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I want to look at, where vulnerabilities are and to to take it forward.
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So I started in those days just looking at new genomics and then as time went
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on learned more about it. And then about ten years ago started really digging into
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it. ~ and I think there was quite a big wave in neutrogenomics then and found myself
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Where I am today.
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Okay. Yeah. Our courses kinda parallel each other a little bit in that I think
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I got really involved with it in about two thousand fourteen,
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in terms of looking at it. I was I was impressed because ~ you know,
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one of the problems I think with diets in general is that they all start with
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the food instead of with the individual.
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And so understanding yeah,
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maybe it's a good food, but maybe not as good food for this person,
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right? So
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Being able to sort that out, I think,
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lets us some higher degrees around precision and and I think if you're listening
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to this, there are a million diets out there,
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and the real question is what's the one that fits you?
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~ and it's not it's not the easiest thing to figure out.
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~ you've got to really kind of understand your genetics and your gut biome,
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your gut, your digestive system,
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how you're digesting foods, whether you're digesting them appropriately.
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~
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Then you gotta understand the immune system and inflammation and things going
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on there, interactions with foods and and then ~ back to the genetics again
4:04
in terms of what nutrients you need and what quantities to make everything work
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well. So it's a it's actually a a complex field,
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even though ~ you know people tend to gloss over it and say,
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well, it's about macros or it's about you know this and that or whatever.
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~ it's really quite ~ quite interesting.
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So
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You're now working with ~ a neutrogenomic company,
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it looks like. and they're doing some interesting things,
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right? Three by four, ~ if I'm not mistaken.
4:36
Yeah.
4:37
That's correct. Three X three X four,
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like your ex girlfriend. Yes. Mm-hmm.
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Yeah. So tell us a little bit about that journey.
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How did you get associated with three X four or three by four or th whatever?
4:48
Yeah,
4:48
so it's quite interesting. So I ~ when at the time that I was really interested
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in genomics, there was nowhere to go.
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I just didn't know where to study,
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because you can study genetics,
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~ but new genomics was quite a new field.
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And getting that translation done,
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exactly what you were saying now,
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to finding out it's not just one SNP,
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right? It's not that there's a diagnosis.
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You wanna be looking at ~ con ~ groups of SNPs or gene variants,
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how do they influence metabolic pathways?
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How do these metabolic pathways influence each other?
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And so, like you said, it's it's actually can become quite complicated.
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And at that time, I was so interested,
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and I just knew I I just didn't know what I was doing.
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So I I thought I needed more help.
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And I found ~ Dr.
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Yeel Joffi, who at the time was testing it.
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She was building the genetic test,
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and we decided to start a clinic together in Cape Town to have people come
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to us who wanted to know more about.
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their genetics and we started there.
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And as time went on, we we realized that we ~ the test we were using
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was just a list of SNPs for us and we were doing a lot of other things with it.
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And so 3X4 was born out of really frustration as clinicians
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to see what you know, sort of we were building spreadsheets and putting SNPs into
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pathways. so we really used a systems biology approach.
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And so that's where the test started.
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And I've so I'm just a founding member.
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Yeah, got it. So you've touched on a couple of really important things here.
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I think, you know, a lot of people have had their genetics tested
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and the reports they get back are basically with SNPs,
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SNP, ~ little S or plural.
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~ it's a single nucleotide ~ polymorphism,
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essentially. And so it's basically the way we think about it
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is it's the configuration of the gene.
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It was kind of you inherited half of it from mom and half of it from dad.
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don't necessarily know which half came from where,
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but it can predispose you to you know,
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either tolerate a food or be intolerant of food,
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or ~ need a food or need a nutrient.
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~ need less of that nutrient or need a very specific kind of nutrient,
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~ depending on the configuration of each of those SNP.
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So to your point, when we started all this,
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it was looking at each individual SNP and trying to make
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~ sense of those and then kind of in our minds weave those together into
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an integrated plan. You introduced a second idea which we're incredibly enamored
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with here, which is a systems biology approach to longevity,
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is how we're looking at it, through really the five different circles that
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we look at, life energy, psycho spiritual space,
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~ longevity itself, the hallmarks of aging,
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health, of course, all the
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organ systems and subsystems and then performance,
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which is, you know, being fast,
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agile, strong, et cetera. And then the environments where we reside
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in and integrating all of those into sort of the ecosystem for the individual.
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And of course a piece of that is genetics filters across all those circles.
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~ how you handle toxins in the environment,
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~ what kind of athleticism you're you're best at,
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things like that, ~ certain health predispositions.
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dispositions, predispositions around managing ~ some of the hallmarks of aging,
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like mitochondrial function or oxidative stress or inflammation or things like this.
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And then Life Energy has SNPs that are incorporated there too,
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with anxiety, depression, ~ things like that,
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how you handle those things. ~ so it becomes rapidly very complex when you're
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looking at ~ you know, hundreds of SNPs ~ and you're integrating them across
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in at least our world, five different circles,
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and then ~ looking for what I call the elegant solution where
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you basically are looking for what's the what's the minimum impact
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or what's the minimal ~ input that we can have to get the optimal output,
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right? Because it's easy if you just line up all the SNPs to end up with
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a hundred pills and that's not necessarily or or a hundred recommendations.
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Is that not s not necessarily what a person can actually implement.
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So
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The systems biology approach I really think is the future of medicine.
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~ and instead of slicing everybody up into their,
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you know, composite organs, if you will,
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~ we can look at them as an entire system.
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So I really applaud the fact that you're that you're doing this.
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The way we're doing it is with AI.
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I'm curious how you're doing it on your side.
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It may be a lot of clinical expertise and,
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you know, limiting the field of view to where you can actually manage that
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and do things or I'm not sure what you're up to,
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but
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Maybe you can explain that to us.
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Yes. So that has changed quite rapidly,
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hasn't it? So I guess what we have done up to now is build those gene variants into,
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like I said, pathways. So we start upstream.
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So we're looking at cellular functions which you've mentioned,
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which would be sort of things like oxidative stress,
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inflammation, methylation, ~ so how these genes influence those cellular processes.
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And it's really important to be able to look at genetics to to
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see where your vulnerabilities are in those processes.
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So like you said, if you want to
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start figuring out where you want to start,
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which would be your ~ like you say,
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your minimal for your maximum output.
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That is often of always a good place to start.
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And then moving into how the systems speak to each other.
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So ~ if we think about what my favorite topic at the moment
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is the neuroendocrine axis is where you think about it's not just that
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the hormones are declining, for instance,
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as you're aging, it's also what's happening on a neurological basis.
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So how do these
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The manufacture, the transmission,
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and ~ even the breakdown of those neurochemicals are influenced by genetics.
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And so when you know how that's happening,
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you know how it's going to influence all your HBA and HBG and H B
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~ T access accesses. So that's a really great idea to to know where your
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vulnerabilities are and to start there and then like you say,
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instead of having
10:59
Otherwise everything looks important,
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doesn't it? Because there's so many ideas out there.
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So you want to know for that individual where would be the best place
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for you to start. If it's let's say I want to influence the synthesis
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of this neurochemical because I can see that the dopamine is
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low and that's influencing the ~ you know,
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sort of ability to have or you might have too much cortisol because
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I'm just using as one example.
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So it really helps you build that puzzle and not waiting for things to show
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up in labs.
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or even in symptoms that you can work in that manner to to support
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the individual early on.
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Yeah, I think that's right. And then ~ in our world there's another layer
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of complexity probably in yours as well,
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where we're actually measuring hormone metabolites and breakdown products
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and things like that. And what we found is that ~ just because you have
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a genetic pathway for a hormone doesn't always mean that the levels reflect that.
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~ in other words, there's there are other things in in play,
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right? So it it can become ~ a very complicated
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~ sort of rainforest of things that are all interfacing and interacting with each
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other that ultimately produce the final output.
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~ so it's a it's a really, really cool space.
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I'm so excited that with the advent of AI,
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we finally have enough sort of compute power to actually start to
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~ bring this forward in a in a meaningful way for people.
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So
12:30
Yeah, so I I was thinking while I was answering you,
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what was your question? You wanted to know about AI.
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So yes, so we we obviously started off building those things and now with AI,
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we can generate recommendations for people that you know,
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because obviously if you work like I work in this field all day,
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every day, so I can look at somebody's gene variance and I can come up with a plan,
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but for most we want people to be able to have access to
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it through many practitioners who's gonna be using it.
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And we are obviously supporting them in that.
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But what we're doing with AI now is we helping to support practitioners
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to when they see the result that they will have ~ you know,
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use a lot of this resources that we've built ~ together with AI to then come
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up with a type of a plan, but not it's obviously not computer generated.
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They say this is because they still have the patient in front of them.
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So we can input what what is are the type of things that you want to do,
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what is the patient's environment,
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where do they come from?
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what are their genes and come up with the type of plan and then obviously assess
13:31
it to see if it it will work for them.
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So yes, AI is so we're not just throwing it out there,
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but we are building great systems to to be able to do that.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it's critical.
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I think what's interesting is I think finally people are gonna get
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the health care that they always intuitively wanted.
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But ~ because we've ~ deconstructed medicine so deeply into
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all these different subcomponents,
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organ systems basically, it's been very hard ~ to put it back together.
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and certainly we've learned a ton by breaking it all apart,
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right? And but now I think
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We're at a point in history where we can actually start to take all
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the parts and put them back together into a unified field ~ kind
14:17
of theory or approach ~ that again enables the person to thrive
14:23
and to have ultimately to have confidence that they know they're getting what they
14:26
need, ~ and not doing stuff that they don't need.
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Right. So I I think it's the most exciting time in medicine ever,
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quite honestly.
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Exactly. And I think that what you also describing is the patient having the buy-in,
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because if they if you can pinpoint what your lowest hanging fruit
14:45
are initially and you're starting to get good results early on,
14:49
they will also be more confident in in carrying
14:54
on with that trajectory. And we have found so much that people when
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you engage with them, obviously through many w ways in personalization,
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adding genetics as well.
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That the bind from the patient is also so much better.
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That's right. Yeah, that's right.
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I think it's ~ and one s you know,
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in one sense, and this isn't completely true,
15:18
but in one sense we're we've moved ~ beyond or in addition to kind
15:24
of the population based studies of what works or doesn't work,
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right? Because you know, it may or may not work for you.
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Just because it worked in the population at seventy six percent,
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I mean
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Well, is it gonna work for me?
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That's the real question everybody's asking,
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right? So now with the amount of data that's available,
15:43
~ and and there's data also being developed inside
15:50
practices where you can sort of make interventions and see what's working
15:54
and not working. So in working with practices that are using the AI,
15:59
you continue to iterate and refine for that individual.
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~ it becomes an incredibly powerful tool.
16:06
So
16:07
Yes, exactly. So you obviously just comp documenting things that
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you were maybe bad at documenting before because you were so busy and there
16:17
was so much going on. So that's y exactly.
16:20
So you're ~ able to put those things together and AI can then start picking
16:24
up things that you might have not been able to do just because you don't have
16:30
the the power, the great power.
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Yeah yeah. The yeah, the brain power or the bandwidth,
16:37
~ to be able to to look at it all simultaneously,
16:41
right? I think that's kind of the beauty of it.
16:43
I think mm we can ~
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We're pretty good at posing the questions,
16:50
~ but AI can even be helpful there in terms of refining questions.
16:54
~ and we're pretty good at actually putting the pieces together.
16:58
But what I'm impressed with is AI's ability to continue to enhance those conclusions
17:05
or ~ in some cases challenge portions of the of the conclusions,
17:09
but in many cases ~ enhance the conclusions,
17:13
right? ~ and that to me is very exciting.
17:16
So mm.
17:18
Yes. But you still have to be there to see if that conclusion is make sense.
17:25
So you still need people like like ~ like you and me to know,
17:31
okay, that was that's what they said about that gonna
17:34
Yeah.
17:35
be.
17:37
Yeah, no, that's right. the AI's not perfect,
17:40
right, at this point in time for sure.
17:41
And so ~ you know, clinical judgment superimposed and then obviously
17:46
~ client feedback in terms of what's working,
17:49
not working, ~ is super important and I I think that will continue
17:55
to be p important. So what are you what are you most excited about now?
17:59
What are you working on now? ~ what's the latest for you?
18:04
So ~ I mean we obviously know that we are just at the tip of the iceberg where
18:09
it comes to genetics and there's so much more that we can I mean,
18:13
and part of it is is maybe affordability.
18:15
So we are for f like for us, we're using a ~ a array,
18:19
so an access ~ the ability to do a test for many people has become cheaper.
18:23
But you do want to eventually maybe map the whole the the g you know,
18:28
so the whole genome.
18:30
And go and look at things that we haven't done before.
18:32
So I mean that's obviously in the future.
18:34
We we're not there yet because it's like really ~ having too much data
18:40
and not really know what we're gonna do with it.
18:41
So that's the future. But for now,
18:43
we want to build out ~ obviously more of from from a company point of view,
18:50
we definitely want to build out pathways,
18:51
make it a bigger test and and look at more information.
18:55
But
18:57
The main thing is maybe what you what you were talking about now is is bringing
19:00
in a way for people to not look at it and go,
19:03
that's very interesting and put it down and and carry on with their lives,
19:07
or not being able to carry on with the information beyond what their practitioner
19:11
is telling them, but actually being able to use it in their everyday life,
19:16
where they'd be able to sort of,
19:18
you know, if they wanna something happens,
19:22
I'm I'm tired to be able to look at my genes and say,
19:25
what are the
19:26
best things I can do if I have an injury or if I'm having a pregnancy
19:29
or something that there's a way to always interact with your gene.
19:33
So that's really what we are working on is to have for people to have everyday steps
19:37
they can take that's unique to them and then when they need more help that they
19:42
be able to go to to somebody who can support them in a more advanced way.
19:47
Yeah. Do you have ~ do you have examples,
19:52
any case examples you'd like to share with the audience?
19:55
So we we've been speaking a little bit abstractly,
19:57
but maybe making a little more ~ concrete.
20:01
Of course, I maybe maybe if I because I used the neuroendocrine axis earlier
20:07
as a example. So ~ I've had an example of ~ a case where
20:13
~ s a patient ca well, that's a patient that we were trying to look after,
20:18
so it was a a male ~ in his sort of maybe l early fifties starting to lose
20:25
a bit of resilience, you know,
20:26
nothing was wrong, you know, he was
20:28
Just feeling a bit more tired,
20:29
not sleeping so well, the weight getting up,
20:31
libido but down. He went to get some blood tests done and his testosterone was low,
20:37
had a bit of cholesterol going on,
20:39
but that was it. So then he went and had
20:45
he was given testosterone. So no wait,
20:47
he was first given what's the other one?
20:52
~ chlomed? The
20:54
Lom it, vomit.
20:55
yes.
20:56
He was giving chlomate that and chlomophene,
20:58
thank you. ~ that didn't really help.
21:00
And then he w was treated later with testosterone.
21:03
And of course, his testosterone levels went up in the blood because he was given it,
21:07
but he still didn't feel that it was making a difference to ~ you know,
21:13
sort of what he was. He was still not his energy wasn't great,
21:16
he wasn't tired, so was still tired.
21:18
So we went and looked at his genetics,
21:20
and the three top things that we found with him was number one,
21:23
he had
21:24
A lot of oxidative stress going on.
21:26
So that was so the way the test works is it will give you it it reads the genes,
21:31
it's it's grouped in pathways,
21:33
and then we can see where the most genetic vulnerability is for lack
21:36
of a better word. So we sort of score it.
21:39
So he had a lot of genes that influenced oxidative stress,
21:43
so that was high. He also had genes that influenced how his his estrogen regulation,
21:49
so his hormone regulation was specifically in terms of estrogen clearance.
21:53
And I also must mention, besides the testosterone,
21:56
he was also given DIM, which helps,
21:59
you know, which is often given to help to regulate ~ estrogen in men.
22:03
And then he was yeah. And then he was the other pathway
22:07
was his neurochemical pathway.
22:10
So what we those were really high.
22:12
So what we think what happened is he the ~ testosterone,
22:17
because the clearance wasn't great in terms of his hormone pathway,
22:20
so the ability to clear those big
22:23
~ you know, sort of breaking down the ~ hormones and also then when he it
22:29
got to his t est estrogen pathway to clear it was quite s poor.
22:33
So those waste products from the hormone b balance pathway was heaping up.
22:37
So that was maybe causing more oxidative stress,
22:40
which could have by itself reduced his testosterone.
22:44
The other thing was his
22:45
Just inter let me just interject for a quick sec.
22:47
So as you're listening to this,
22:50
~ you know, testosterone replacement ~ is incredibly common.
22:55
Maybe one of the you know, along with estrogen,
22:57
progesterone for women, testosterone for men now has become incredibly common.
23:02
The the interesting thing though is that ~ you know,
23:07
men need estrogen, just like women need testosterone to be fully balanced.
23:11
They just need it in different relative amounts.
23:14
And genetically, some men will take their testosterone and turn it into estrogen.
23:20
All estrogen comes from testosterone,
23:22
quite honestly, through the biochemical pathways.
23:24
~ but some men will aromatize the testosterone and make significantly more estrogen
23:30
than other men will. Yes. Right.
23:32
And so if you're taking ~ a fairly high dose of testosterone,
23:37
looking at boosting your testosterone level,
23:39
and yet you're converting a fair amount of it into estrogen.
23:43
And you can see this in your genetics.
23:45
You can also see it in tests that look at the metabolites of the testosterone,
23:49
the estrogen, and then the estrogen metabolites.
23:51
~ you can get an idea that just shooting for testosterone levels of a certain,
23:57
you know, level, let's call it either total testosterone or free testosterone.
24:02
If you're not looking at estrogen and its metabolites,
24:05
you can actually be really overloading the estrogen ~ pathways because.
24:12
You can end up with too much estrogen,
24:14
which can have sort of feminizing effects for j for a man.
24:18
~ you can also overload the detox pathways,
24:21
which are responsible for breaking down the estrogen through the two,
24:25
four, and sixteen hydroxy pathways,
24:27
and then you have to be able to methylate it out of the two hydroxy
24:30
and the other ones to get rid of it.
24:31
So it's complicated. ~ and I think one of the great disservices that is done
24:37
to men in general and to women also,
24:40
~ we see this.
24:42
Is that they're put on hormones and they're testing the blood levels
24:45
or the saliva levels, but nobody's really looking at the metabolites
24:49
or the relative ~ ratio of how much of this they're converting to that,
24:54
which again is found in the genetics.
24:56
So it becomes a little bit more of a complex issue.
24:59
And if you've been, you know, using hormone replacement and not getting
25:03
the results that you're after,
25:04
I think the solution for you is to deconstruct the whole pathway.
25:09
~ both genetically and then also to test for those metabolites
25:14
and actually see what's going on.
25:16
Because you can, you know, she was talking about diendomethane dim as a
25:20
way to kind of maneuver estrogen metabolites out of unsafe pathways that
25:25
can predispose to breast cancer or prostate cancer and down safer pathways.
25:29
And of course if you don't methylate well,
25:31
then you've got to it boost methylation to get rid of even the good metabolites.
25:35
So it's I want you to understand and it's just as you
25:39
May not be able to hold all that in your in your minds as you're hearing this,
25:42
but it is a complex thing to replace testosterone.
25:47
It is a complex thing to replace estrogen and progesterone,
25:50
right? And DHEA and other things that are commonly used.
25:53
It is a complex equation. ~ it's not just looking at the blood levels.
25:58
And you can expose yourself to significant risk of cancer,
26:02
either prostate, breast cancer,
26:04
endometrial cancer, et cetera,
26:05
if you're not.
26:07
looking at this from a systems approach where you're looking at
26:10
all the different pieces and doing it from the genetics up through
26:14
~ the biochemical ~ levels of these different hormones and their metabolites.
26:19
So I think I just want to make that point because I think
26:23
you know hormone replacement is probably probably one of the earliest forms
26:27
of quote unquote functional slash longevity medicine when people realized that they
26:32
could feel better if they if they had hormones put back in.
26:36
~ and what we've discovered also is that growth hormone is very important.
26:39
~ not too much and not too little,
26:41
but being able to boost growth hormone,
26:44
we don't really give growth hormone,
26:45
but ~ it's it's really the balance of all those hormones:
26:51
growth hormone, IgF1, testosterone,
26:53
estrogen, progesterone, DHEA, the metabolites,
26:57
when you get that all dialed in,
26:59
people can feel remarkable. I mean,
27:01
you can feel amazing. You can have
27:03
you know, bone density and muscle strength and a clear brain and,
27:06
you know, lots of energy and things like that.
27:09
But if you're doing hormone replacement therapy and you're not getting where
27:13
you want to go, chances are it hasn't been looked at thoroughly enough
27:17
to actually understand how to make it work for you.
27:20
So I'll just point that out.
27:23
Yeah, exactly. So that one size was all isn't it?
27:25
Because you've putting it in one side and then it has to go through
27:28
all these pathways and then coming out the other side.
27:31
So for this guy specifically, what you described there,
27:34
he had in his estrogen pathway the ability to conjugate
27:40
or to bind those estrogen metabolites to make them a water solution secrete.
27:45
That was those enzymes were he actually had some deletions there.
27:49
So those enzymes some of those enzymes were obviously
27:52
making a big difference there.
27:54
So those metabolites were heaping and obviously putting more and more
27:57
in was ~ overloading the system.
28:01
And then because those toxins hang around and they cause more oxide of stress,
28:06
which causes damage. So that in itself was causing inflammation.
28:10
So it was just not clearing. It's like not clearing the bathtub,
28:13
like we often say, easily. So that was happening.
28:16
So when we went and then said let's look at supporting that oxide of stress because
28:22
We can easily do that through diet and lifestyle.
28:25
What he was also trying to do,
28:26
he was exercising more and more because he was trying to lose weight,
28:29
also ~ contributing to his oxide of stress.
28:32
So we looked at that. We looked at what he was doing around there.
28:35
And the other thing was his neurochemical balance where the ~ the
28:40
~ that was also, I mean, I'm not gonna go into all the details,
28:43
but because of imbalances in those levels,
28:46
it was also driving his HBR axis,
28:49
which is his ~
28:50
stress access, so the the cortisol was building up.
28:55
He was also quite a s in a stressful job,
28:57
like a lot of people at that, you know,
28:59
and so that stress. So so then going back to say how can we
29:03
~ regulate your neurochemical balance,
29:07
we need to look at dopamine regulation,
29:09
serotonin regulation, again, not through medication drugs,
29:13
but really through how when are you exercising,
29:15
what are you eating? So then we could balance that.
29:18
And because we balance that, it also helped
29:20
to balance the testosterone in a way because we know that HPG axis is going
29:26
to be influencing that. So just bringing things a little bit into balance
29:29
and not just hammering the the hormones,
29:32
like you say, and seeing how what we can do to support it.
29:36
Yeah, if you're listening to this,
29:37
it may sound a little confusing,
29:38
but essentially what she's saying is that your brain also has a big impact
29:42
on your hormones and how much stress you're under has a big impact.
29:46
This hypothalamic pituitary axis,
29:48
hypothalamic pituitary, gonad axis.
29:50
~ the stress that we carry in our nervous system will have a big impact
29:56
on the adrenal glands and also on gonadal function and thyroid function
30:01
and things like that. So ~ in many respects,
30:04
a lot of it
30:05
always comes back to helping people understand how to mitigate stress.
30:11
And there's a lot that goes into that.
30:13
We do a lot of that here in terms of walking people through the life energy circle
30:18
and looking for at the psychospiritual space we call it to figure
30:21
out where's the stress coming from.
30:23
You know, we've all experienced traumas and so that's a piece of it.
30:27
And then ~ you know there's really this kind of
30:30
tryout of we do what we do in order to feel safe,
30:33
in order to feel acceptable, and in order to to be lovable,
30:36
right? And so if you if you look at it that way,
30:40
it's like, okay, well what am I doing here in order if this didn't happen
30:43
I wouldn't be lovable or I I won't be safe or these kinds of things,
30:48
right? So you can start to actually get to some of the
30:52
the underlying constructs that we carry mentally that predispose us to stress.
30:57
And
30:59
Managing stress is not about managing stress.
31:01
For me, it's about rebuilding the constructs that are generating the stress,
31:05
right? And replacing those with ~ what shall I say,
31:10
more durable and maybe more healthy and more substantial constructs that
31:16
that are allow us to feel safe,
31:19
allow us to feel loved, ~ allow us to feel connected.
31:22
and when you have that, then you can go through life ~
31:29
unencumbered by past traumas, you can go through life knowing that you're lovable,
31:33
knowing that you're loved, knowing that you're safe.
31:35
And at that point, it's like, okay,
31:37
well, now we're just we're here to have fun.
31:40
So let's let's have fun, as opposed to,
31:42
my gosh, if this doesn't happen,
31:44
my world is going to crater, right?
31:46
~ which is a really kind of a terrible way to live,
31:49
but it happens for a lot of people.
31:50
We get attached to an outcome.
31:51
And if the outcome's not
31:53
forthcoming in the way that we anticipated it,
31:55
then that leads to stress. And why does it lead to stress?
31:58
Because we don't feel safe. Why don't we feel safe?
32:00
Because that outcome we were required by us in order to feel safe.
32:03
So if it's not coming, then we don't feel safe.
32:06
Well that's that's a losing proposition because there's always going
32:10
to be an outcome that doesn't show up and there's always going to
32:12
be another outcome after that one does show up.
32:14
So then it's like, well that's you know that's a that's a treadmill I want
32:18
to get off. So how do we get off that treadmill?
32:20
Well, now you're coming back to okay,
32:22
well, where where do you ultimately have safety?
32:23
Where do you ultimately feel loved?
32:25
Once you can give yourself that and figure that out,
32:28
then the point of my little monologue here is that it has a massive impact
32:33
not only on your hormonal system or your gut health,
32:36
but it actually has a massive impact on the aging process itself.
32:40
Every hallmark of aging is positively impacted by decreasing stress in the system.
32:45
Yeah. And even if you go in for stem cells or exosomes or whatever else,
32:49
you will get a much better response if you feel safe and you're
32:52
in a very parasympathetic sort of zen state than if you go in stress.
32:56
The body can't heal when it's stressed.
32:58
So and and even if you get hormone replacement,
33:01
if you're stressed, it's not going to work as well because the stress
33:04
is overriding things, right? So again,
33:07
a lot of this is comes down to you know,
33:10
what's going on in our nervous system.
33:12
So yeah.
33:14
Yeah, and I mean that's how we put together,
33:16
isn't it? Because p w if we're stressed,
33:18
we're not supposed to be having babies.
33:20
So there's that that thing about suppressing the h the those hormone systems when
33:25
you're stressed and then that chronic stress.
33:27
So ~ and and what's also interesting is just also knowing things about yourself.
33:33
So I'm thinking where you were talking about getting stuck in a loop.
33:37
So when we think about brain plasticity and how we could also influence that that
33:42
pathway where
33:44
~ if we know that we can like if there's ~ a bit more information about
33:50
how your well I'm I'm obviously gonna talk about genetics,
33:53
but how your genetics would influence your ~ neuronal pathways,
33:57
your ~ brain derived neurotrophic factor,
33:59
which is a protein that helps with the plasticity of the brain.
34:02
I'm just using one example. So that also is something that you can do from your side
34:06
to support you can ~ because we know exercise,
34:10
some fasting, ~ having enough ~
34:13
of certain nutrients like omega threes can support that neurochemical
34:17
or those those neurotrophic factors.
34:19
So little things like that to say what is import gonna be a little
34:22
bit more important for me than the next person.
34:25
Yeah, I think that's right. I think,
34:27
you know, what she's really talking about here is if if optimizing
34:31
our nervous systems and kind of reprogramming the nervous system to go into
34:35
a a less stressed state and a more calm and relaxed ~ sort of zen state,
34:41
let's call call it, the genetics play into that.
34:44
So if you're actually doing things,
34:47
taking things and eating things that ~ predispose you to
34:53
allow those genetics to work in a favorable way,
34:55
you'll have a much easier time of getting to that Zen state.
34:59
You know, one of the things that we see ~ frequently is that people will come
35:03
in and they're drinking alcohol and I don't have anything against alcohol,
35:06
but we find that in certain people,
35:08
~ because of their genetics, it actually makes them much more anxious.
35:12
Not while they're drinking, but the next day,
35:15
right? They have kind of a rebound in terms of anxiety.
35:18
And then they drink again in the evening to
35:21
com soothe themselves, right? But then they wake up anxious again the next day.
35:25
So, you know, when you when you start to put together some of those patterns,
35:29
and that can happen with THC, that can happen with alcohol,
35:32
it can happen with other things,
35:33
~ you know, if you're really interested to optimize your nervous system and by,
35:40
you know, virtue of that, everything else in your body,
35:42
~ then you have to look at, am I taking things in that's actually sabotaging
35:48
the genetics that I have?
35:50
So it's making it even harder for me to really bring my nervous system into
35:55
a regulated state. Right. So that's a a good question for anybody that's listening
35:59
to this to ask themselves. Yeah.
36:02
Exactly, because it's like one of the genes we look at is called GABA.
36:05
It's the GABA receptors. So that's GABA is an amino acid that helps calm your brain.
36:10
And it's we've seen that or the in research they show that ~ when you have less GABA
36:15
receptors, you can actually when you drink alcohol,
36:18
you need to drink more ac alcohol to calm you.
36:21
So those people tend to drink more because to get that effect.
36:25
~
36:27
But then like you say, so then there's that vicious cycle of having
36:30
to drink more and more to get that effect and that anxiety that just perpetuates.
36:35
The other thing is that you could maybe get high histamine levels from drinking
36:40
alcohol, so the histamine is high and that causes anxiety because we know
36:44
it also makes you more anxious.
36:47
Yes. Yeah, champagne's the highest system we drink,
36:49
right? So Yes. Yes. Yeah, and it's it's really interesting.
36:54
You know, there's things like histamine,
36:56
sulfur, different people's genetics,
37:00
they're built in different ways.
37:01
And when it comes to food, this is why I say that the diet is never about the food,
37:07
it's really about the individual.
37:08
Because, you know, garlic may be great.
37:10
I mean, it may be great for your endothelium and your coronary arteries,
37:13
but it may be exactly wrong for you.
37:15
because, you know, it's activating anxiety or other things that you're unable
37:20
to manage. So yeah. This is why this systems approach is really is really
37:25
I think the whole is going to become the holy grail of of medicine,
37:28
quite honestly. So cool.
37:31
Yeah.
37:34
Yeah, so I think that to bring that home with nutrition is we want to when
37:38
we if we obviously lifestyle also have works like that where certain lifestyle
37:42
habits or factors can activate certain systems.
37:46
What we think about with nutrients,
37:48
if we know what nutrient specific nutrients we need to maybe help activate certain
37:53
enzymes, be of course we know maybe there's there's some genes that
37:58
our coding for enzymes has too slow,
38:00
but you can add some nutrients to help.
38:02
They work better, that's the one thing.
38:04
But we also know that y things that you eat and things that you do
38:08
can help turn genes on or off.
38:11
So that is the neutrigenomic or that is the thing that you will never
38:15
be able to measure in other tests.
38:16
So if you eat ~ broccoli sprouts,
38:19
it's gonna turn the the sulf sulfirophane that you get from broccoli sprouts when
38:23
it digests will be helping to activate your oxidative stress systems.
38:30
your antioxidant systems and your detox systems,
38:32
so little things like that that you can really be quite specific about.
38:37
Yeah, I would say that of every nutrient that I've looked at from
38:41
a nutrigenomic standpoint, ~ it's hard to beat sulforophane.
38:46
~ I mean vitamin vitamin D is massive,
38:49
right? Magnesium is massive. There's so many things that are massive.
38:52
But I think sulforophane ~ may be one of those things that most people
38:57
are not aware of. ~ and it you do find it in broccoli and br
39:00
and broccoli sprouts have ten times more than broccoli,
39:03
and broccoli seeds have ten times more than broccoli sprouts.
39:06
And then you can get supplements that ~ have sulforophane accompanied with
39:11
the enzyme that activates it, myranase called abmocol and abmocol extra,
39:15
which is a an interesting supplement.
39:17
But the point is that when you're taking high doses of sulforophane,
39:21
it's anti-cancer, it's anti-dementia,
39:24
it decreases detox, it decreases ~ you know,
39:28
lots of different gene expressions that you don't want to have.
39:32
~
39:33
So it's one of the go to things that we put almost everybody on.
39:37
~ is sulforophane, some fashion.
39:40
Yeah.
39:41
Yeah, I think we do too. I think we've got this,
39:45
~ everybody walks out with at least some sulfurifane and something else.
39:49
Right. Because it's got so many properties.
39:52
Yes.
39:53
That's
39:53
right. Yeah, it's pretty magical.
39:54
Well, cool. ~ so how do people find out more about about what you're doing?
40:00
You got a website and some other things you're still talking with patients
40:05
or or how so so tell us how people,
40:08
you know, expand on understanding what you're doing.
40:11
Yes, so the website is three x four genetics dot com.
40:15
So three x four genetics dot com.
40:18
And people can go on there to see ~ what we are about.
40:22
There's it's very informative the website.
40:24
We do have a discount code,
40:29
I hope can say that for your ~ listeners,
40:31
if ~ we we can share it afterwards.
40:34
So if they would like to go onto our landing page.
40:37
Yes I'll I'll share the
40:41
It is ~ let me quickly give it to you.
40:44
I'll
40:44
put it in the show notes as well,
40:46
but people
40:47
It's Gladden G L A D E N twenty.
40:53
Okay.
40:54
And they will get a twenty dollar discount of our test.
40:58
Okay, great. Perfect.
41:01
And we do actually have a landing page for that as well,
41:03
just to make it easier, which I'll show.
41:07
Great. Yeah, if you haven't done genetics,
41:10
I would really encourage you to do genetics.
41:13
And I think you want to do it in a a way that's looking at it through
41:16
a systems biology lens. ~ it's it's ~ and you know we we continue to learn more
41:23
and more about genetics and how the genes and the SNPs if you will,
41:30
are interplane with each other.
41:31
~ because they're typically there are some
41:36
You know, some mutations that are ~ strong enough to be definitive,
41:41
right? Like for sickle cell or for TASACs or cystic fibrosis or things like that,
41:46
right? It's a single a single polymorphism that ~ sets an entire health course.
41:51
But for most other things, it's it's a combination of twenty,
41:55
thirty, fifty genes that are all interplane with each other.
41:59
that in aggregate are moving you towards either greater or lesser susceptibility
42:04
for a particular thing like either dementia,
42:06
heart disease, you know, cancer,
42:07
some of these kinds of things.
42:08
So the only way to get at that is with a systems biology approach,
42:12
where you can start to see what is the interplay between all these different SNPs
42:16
and genes and what is my actual,
42:17
you know, real risk. And not to say that there aren't some isolated SNPs like BROCA
42:22
and Palo Two and things like that that that
42:26
you know, are associated with cancer,
42:28
those are important to understand as well.
42:29
But really a lot of this is polymorphic information,
42:33
meaning it's multiple SNPs that are colluding together or working together
42:38
to create a risk. So yeah, very important to look at it through that lens.
42:43
Thank you. Yes. And I think that ~ what also listeners must remember is that
42:48
w you only do it once. It's a very good investment.
42:50
You do it once, your genes don't change.
42:52
You can always go back to it, depending on what's happening
42:55
and so your environment's always changing,
42:57
you are changing, so those things change,
43:00
but your genes stay the same. So if you've done it once,
43:03
that is something you can always use in the future.
43:07
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well thank you so much,
43:10
and I it's been really a pleasure chatting with you.
43:13
You too, thank you very much. How do we live young for a lifetime?
43:16
How do we make 100 the new 30?
43:19
The answers are out there, and we're bringing them to you every episode.
43:23
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43:27
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43:31
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