Genetics, Diet & Brain Health with Dr. Shay

In this episode, Dr. Zimmerman and Dr. Shay dive deep into how genetics intersect with diet, inflammation, and brain function—dispelling popular myths and reframing what it truly means to eat for your unique biology.

Key Takeaways:

• 🧬 Genetics are the foundation—but not the full picture: Your genes reveal propensities (not destinies) around carb tolerance, food sensitivities, inflammatory risk, and metabolism—but they must be paired with lifestyle and functional testing for meaningful change.
• 🍽️ Why one-size-fits-all diets fail: From keto to Mediterranean, the “best diet” depends on your genetic makeup, metabolic function, and even personal food reactions. Genetic testing helps tailor nutrition to your biology—so you stop guessing.
• 🧠 Functional testing + lifestyle coaching = results: Genetic data has long-term value, but it's not actionable without a strategy. Learn why integrating personalized coaching and functional labs (like gut or mitochondrial testing) helps cut through overwhelm and get real results.
• 🚨 Beware of ‘magic bullet’ health trends: Dr. Shay warns against oversimplified solutions—like methylation-only tests or internet-fueled biohacks—and emphasizes the importance of prioritizing gene categories like inflammation, vitamin D receptors, and detox pathways.

To Learn more about Dr. Shay

YouTube channel of interviews: https://www.youtube.com/tenpointwellness
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/sam.shay.792/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsamshay/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-sam-shay-dc-ifmcp-922133128/
Stand-Up Comedy for being on the Spectrum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auxjQWEGFCQ&list=PLbFucTSBmVzhaqaVIyIhDwRKYeiA2ZlEs&index=13

Transcript

Dr. Shay, welcome to the show, excited to have you here. Thanks, it's good to be here. I really look forward to talking to a fellow neuro nerd. We're kind of like a bit of a brain cowboys out there and it's just nice to chat with a colleague. correct yep you know always really you know cowboys kind of pushing the limits and and always exploring new frontiers often before others go there and and that's kind of what we're going to do today as well but we're doing it from a different side than the rehabilitative and we're going to be talking about brain health through the lens of genetics, diets and foods and things like that. So obviously one of the biggest things out there right now, and it's been really popular the past three to five years, it's what's the best diet? Okay. Yeah. So diet is of the – diet of all things is the most controversial topic I have found in health. And what I can say is that – Everyone and their mother has a different opinion every every couple of days. And what I would say is that you can now analyze your diet through a very specific lens of understanding the foundation is your genetics and that that's foundational. So are you genetically optimal for keto or paleo Mediterranean high carb or some shade of gray in between. And I'm ranking these in terms of people's individual genetic carb tolerance. And then then there's a genetic layer of what your genetic trigger foods are like are you genetically vulnerable to caffeine so some people can't process caffeine well like myself and we get what's called caffeine induced anxiety and depression or some people are genetically vulnerable to histamine intolerance or people are genetically vulnerable to alcohol are genetically vulnerable to um uh uh uh just food intolerant just food reactivity in general like they're just if someone's going to be reactive to food intolerances they have some people are have a generalized reactivity some people have a much sharper inflection curve some people are genetically vulnerable to lactose some people are genetically vulnerable to celiac disease which means they should avoid all gluten foods And then there's people who, so you've got the genetics of your carb tolerance, the genetic of your food triggers, and you've got genetics of your eating behavior. Some people genetically have a gene that, genetically have a gene that's redundancy. They don't feel full with normal amounts of food. And because fullness is a signal to the brain, not how much the stomach is stretched. And then there's other people who have genes that make them hypersensitive or not sensitive at all to the taste of bitter, which changes your eating behavior because people who are averse to bitter, they can eat up to about a hundred pounds fewer of healthy green bitter tasting vegetables a year. and people who don't mind the taste of bitter, they can have those healthier green bitter flavored vegetables, but they're also more prone to drinking alcohol and coffee, because they don't mind the very bitter flavors of straight coffee and many alcohols. So you've got this genetic layer, and then you've got a genetic layer around diet in terms of what's your optimal you know, what type of nutrients you're needing more than others. So if someone genetically is a hyper-inflammator, which I am, genetically, they're way more prone. I can just, I'll just get to the slides here to show what I'm talking about a hyper-inflammator. For those of you not watching, I'm just showing a slide of the top-fifteen most important genes for inflammation. People who are hyper-inflammatory, they have to live on a much more anti-inflammatory diet and take specific nutrients in higher doses in order to trigger what's called a nutrigenomic effect as opposed to nutritional effect where the like the classic example is fish oil where you give someone a gram of fish oil like that's nice it's just throwing widgets into the machinery but the research shows a minimum of two grams combined epa dha that will actually not just be widgets in the machinery but change the machinery nutrigenomic is you take a nutrient to change the genetic expression So when you give a higher amount of fish oil in this particular case, then the pro-inflammatory genes express less, and then the anti-inflammatory genes express more, so you get a net anti-inflammatory effect. But there's a dose curve there. So genes form the foundation of diet. And then the next layer is what's your metabolism? And do you have what's called metabolic metabolic barbed wire wrapping your genes where someone can have someone someone can have a They can be genetically ideally suited for more towards a keto diet, but they have a problem metabolically with their gallbladder, their pancreatic, lipases, their carnitine shuttle, or their ability for the mitochondria to burn fat. So genetically, they do better with higher fat, but metabolically, they can't digest, process, absorb, or utilize it. So you know what the sound of these people are because they say, I tried every diet, nothing works. It's because they're in a constant conflict. So with these people, you have to figure out their genetic foundation, but then you have to do the functional tests like advanced gut testing, mitochondrial testing, et cetera, to see where they metabolically damaged. But you first prioritize defanging the metabolic barbed wire. So you do one set of protocols to deal with the problem with fat metabolism. then you'll have to switch when that's dealt with over to their genetic ideal diet. So there's, you can actually have to put someone on two completely separate diets depending on what issue they're dealing with. And the reverse is also true for someone who's genetically a high carb, more prone to high carb, but if they have a candida infection, if you feed them high carbs and that serves their genetics, but it's be counterproductive because it's gonna make the candida blue. So you're gonna have this same conflict where they're genetically predisposed to one thing, but it, it metabolically, they've got barbed wire. That's gonna do the opposite. So you gotta give them an anti Candida diet and situation and nutrients and protocol first. And then when that's cleared, then you can switch them back to their genetically ideal diet. So then above that, there's people's personal preferences around diet, whether there was whether the culture they're raised in, the religion they're raised in, you know, the texture, smells, whatever kind of emotional imprinting that different foods had on them at different parts of their life, both positive and negative. Then you have the problem of access, like not everyone lives within a farmer's market distance to an organic farmer's market all year round. And there's things like food deserts and people travel and people go out to eat. And so and there's access is an issue. And then the final priority that people look at with their diet is their relationship to the bigger picture, like how what they their perception of how they eat affects their politics, their economics and the environment. Now, you notice I said their perceptions. how their food affects the earth, the environment and economics. I am not going to sit here and lecture one way or the other on any of those three topics. It's just acknowledging that people's perceptions or one or more of those three things can vastly influence their diet choices and whether they're right or wrong is immaterial. It's just that to acknowledge that people will make dietary decisions based on the bigger picture and my my approach to diet is that people should get their genetics tested first that's the foundation then make sure you've got no metabolic barbed wire uh interrupting your genetics and then you figure out the rest of your concerns on top of that yep so when we're you know we're looking at these genetics right so I think about you know I come from a big family my wife has a fairly big family are these things where you're like, oh, well, you know what? You would test everyone in the family and they should all be tested. Or it's like, oh, you know what? If we do one, that should be enough of a snippet, right? Snapshot to kind of use to kind of get an idea of where the others are. Like, is that something that people should consider? Or is it like, honestly, there's even going to be variability even within siblings. And so you need to get the testing. So there's variability. If you can unshare the screen, it'll help me think on this a bit more clearly. So the entire premise of sexual recombination of DNA is to be ahead of the curve of parasitism. The entire reason sex evolved was to avoid parasites destroying the entire species. And what I mean by that is when you have, we think of this in terms of monocropping. If you have a monocrop of the same duplicate plants going on for miles and miles and miles, square miles and whatever, A single optimized fungus, parasite, virus, whatever, can just propagate through and wipe everything out in the blink of an eye, effectively. Even if it's a season, it's dead. It's over. It's gone. So the way that more complex organisms stay ahead of... When I say parasites, it's just an umbrella term for a microorganism that's taking over. Now, technically, a parasite... versus the virus versus a bacteria we can get, though they're not technically, but it's just an easy term to use. Yep, you don't want everyone going on parasite cleanses. Yeah, that's not what I'm saying. Yeah, exactly. A virus can do it. It doesn't need to be an air quotes parasite. But as an umbrella term, an umbrella term for the lay public, Sex evolved to avoid parasitical destruction of the species because a single optimized parasite can wipe out clones across the entire thing and we're gone. The trade-off is that we give up half of our DNA for each progeny. The entire goal of evolutionary biology is to put our genes as far down the lineage as possible. And that has to be balanced against parasitical intrusion. So at best, you can put half as far into the future as you can with one progeny. So you have multiple progeny and therefore your genes are spread out across one generation. And then they will then recombine with other people's genes in order to help stay ahead of the parasite curve. So that's leading back to your question is, can we just test one person in the family and extrapolate from there? So you can extrapolate fifty percent from there statistically and across one generation in either direction, either up to the side to your sibling, up above your parents or down below your kids. You've only fifty percent and it could be a different fifty percent. know yeah and yeah and would you correlate it with the other siblings right like because you've got some families they're all skinny you got some they're all considered normal weight all that are overweight and you've got some where it's a blend and it's like you've got a couple siblings who are overweight you've got others that are completely normal weight well that would that then I would look at other when I would then look at our specific clusters of genes particularly like inflammatory genes Because some things will be the same across, if you do have what's called a red dot, which is called a homozygous, for the nerds, called a homozygous, whether for the lab nerds or the Scrabble nerds, homozygous variants. Variant's a great Scrabble word. It's got a V, it's got an R, it's got a T, it's a beautiful word. I think it's even seven letters, you get the fifty points, whatever. If you've got two parents that have each two bad copies of a specific gene, so they're both red dots and air quotes, you're going to get a guaranteed red dot in the next generation of all siblings. That's just going to happen. Interesting stuff happens when you've got one parent that's a yellow dot or both parents are yellow dot or one parent is a green, the other parents are red. If one parent's are green, one's are red, you got a guaranteed yellow dot in the next generation with no exceptions. If you've got one yellow and one red, you're either going to get uh a red or a yellow in the next generation you're not going to get a green and if you got two yellows you can get fifty percent of the chance you're gonna get a yellow you're gonna get twenty five percent red twenty five percent green so you can have completely you you can have two siblings be completely different if both parents are yellow based on the statistical differences the twenty five percent that one child will be all green twenty five percent will be a red fifty percent will be yellow so this is how you can get some real differences. And really, some genes are much more significant than others, which is the major criticism I have of the other genetics tests, is that here you run your genes, and they all apparently come back of equal import. That is simply not true. That is simply not true. I did three podcasts in retaliation against Gary Brekka's appearance on Joe Rogan back in December of twenty three, where he said, all you need are these five genes from the methylation pathway. And I was like when I was listening to I was like screaming into my podcaster. I was so upset. Like, what are you doing? Like, this is wrong. and then you know when I get angry I do the the thing a normal rational human being is I make a powerpoint and I I went and you know gathered all the research and I showed that methylation is downstream from inflammation I showed that methylation is at best at best bi-directional with in terms of its influence on scavenging free radical damage in the mitochondria. But usually it's those three main genes in the mitochondria that scavenge free radicals actually influence methylation and vitamin D receptors and liver detox. So if you've got some people that are hyper inflammatory, they're going to retain not more caloric weight, but they'll retain more water weight. And then there's genetically you can you can break down people into three basic weight types, inflammatory weight gainers, toxic weight gainers and caloric weight gainers. And people can be combinations of these things. So people who are genetically more prone to inflammation. they will retain more water. And you see this with CrossFit enthusiasts who work out a bunch and they don't look cut. They look kind of ruddy and you can't see the definition of their muscles, but there's like this watery layer over their muscles. And you're like, what's going on? It's because if you overexercise and you cross this invisible line of your inflammatory threshold, you will become net pro-inflammatory from too much exercise as opposed to net anti-inflammatory. And the reason why you retain water is because inflammatory chemicals are damaging to your cells and tissues. So your body will retain water within the interstitia, which is a fancy way of saying the water between the cells, to dilute inflammatory chemicals from bombarding and smashing into the walls of your cells. And so the solution to pollution is dilution. So you're retaining water to buy your kidneys and liver time to flush out the inflammation. And there's a couple easy at-home tests people can do, which is if someone's, like I have friends of mine who vastly overexercise and I told them, you're over-exercising, and then finally ran their genetics test, proved to them they were over-inflammers, and then I kind of cornered them and said like, look, please tell me a time when you stopped working out for a week, whether you were injured or traveling or whatever, And then you came back to the gym a week later and you were not only looking better, but you were stronger than when you had left off. In theory, you should be weaker after a week, but you're actually stronger. And I get the same kind of silent sheepish pause. And then comes the quiet admission that, yeah, that happens, whether it's vacation or an injury or whatever. And and it's proving that they're overexercising. The other test people can do is I call the muffin test. So the muffin test is you eat half a muffin and you gain, you know, anywhere from one to four pounds within a twenty four hour period. Now, unless that muffin was last year's regifted Christmas fruitcake, it didn't weigh one to four pounds. So why did you gain one to four pounds is because all of the pro-inflammatory chemicals and sugars and preservatives and colorings and whatever junk is in that muffin triggered a massive inflammatory response that went full body because your intestines, inflammation in the intestines can trigger inflammation across the whole body. You begin to retain water. And that's what the one to four pounds weight gain is. It ain't the muffin. It's the inflammation triggered by the muffin. And if you gain that much weight that quickly from half a muffin, congratulations, you're very likely genetically a pro in flamer. And it can prove this also, like it's not about calories. Like my father, who I, like he's a dual, he's got like two samurai swords. He's a dual doctorate wielding this dual two degrees like samurai swords against any recommendations from his son, finally convinced him to try one day to go keto just to experiment. And he said he can have as much coconut oil, chicken, and broccoli, and salt as he wanted. And I was there. I saw him eat. He had calories. But he gave up his toasted high-gluten bread and toasted cheese and other things he would just munch on during the day. And the very next morning, he reported back that he lost four pounds. And this is a man who weighs himself every day. In one day, he had calories. Just to make that very clear, he had plenty of calories, but he dropped four pounds of water weight from the inflammation of just not eating the pro-inflammatory foods. So that would be an example of inflammatory weight gain. You can put histamine in that category as well. You can put water retention from not being able to process salt genetically and so on. Yeah, you know, and there's, you know, there'd be... some argument against some of that because it's like oh you know what the toast and everything's not good for them what do you see with those who you're like you know they're like look I'm eating healthy right they're they're they're eating vegetables they're eating protein they're getting good fat they don't do carbs they don't do the other stuff but yet they put on weight or or they just stall out and they can't lose the weight that they're trying to lose like you know it's Is this another genetic thing we're seeing? You know, and if so. It could be. So I've identified seventeen separate genetic clusters that involve weight, but there's plenty of non genetic clusters that that's the metabolic layer. We're talking about metabolic. You can have a thyroid problem. Yeah, that that would create weight loss resistance, you could have someone that's, you could have someone that's just simply, they're, they're, they're exercising in a way that they're either under exercise, they may think they're exercising enough, but they're not, or they're, they're exercising plenty, but it's too much, and they're triggering the water retention. So there's people who who have struggled to lose weight, you know, they may have, um, they may have massive cortisol dysregulation and there, or they may have estrogen dominance and the estrogen dominance of course is related to genetics because if someone has a problem with say the GSTP one gene and they, they, they have a snip there where they can't, they can't properly, you know, attach glutathione to estrogen and detox it. Then they have this accrual of estrogen in their body. And if you have too much estrogen in your body, you reposition body fat to your chest and, or to your, You know, the rest of your body is your thighs and whatnot. And or you can have a gut bacteria issue where you're spinning up your your your gut bacteria are not letting you finish the final exit pathway of estrogen. And they're just grabbing the detoxed estrogen as it floats by, grabbing it for their own duplication and, you know, pooping and, you know, sending it back into the bloodstream. And the liver is like, what are you doing? I just detoxed you. What are you doing back here? Yeah. So there can be multiple issues. And that's why there's that layering, like genetics is a foundation, but it does not, it can be, genetics can be wrapped by barbed wire. Like there's plenty of metabolic issues that require functional testing that you cannot rely on genetics alone. And this is coming from a guy who's a genetics geek. I'd say genetics is a foundation. It is not a magic bullet. Not at all. It's foundational. That's it. Yeah, and let's, you know, I want to dissect this a little bit more, you know, because you mentioned Gary Brekka. I also don't have a lot of love for the stuff being talked about there. You know, we've got all this stuff with TwentyThreeMe. We know there's a variety of different genetic tests out there, and people take it, and they're like, oh, well, this is like... Deterministic or what advice and guidance is there for people to actually be able to get the testing or to get the advice that matters and not the things that became the latest TikTok, Facebook, YouTube trend? Because a lot of the things out there, they're super trendy. And that's about it. I agree with you. So there's a couple big picture concepts that people can walk away with that are extremely practical. Number one, beware of magic bulletism in general. So magic bulletism can take the form of here's your magic MLM goji berries you need to snort up your left nostril to help you with all of your mitochondrial needs. then there's the competing nostril mlm goji berry juice that you got to watch out for for their magic bulletism um and magic bulletism can also be like it's all about hormones or it's all about toxicity or it's all about mitochondria or it's all about meditation or it's all about high intensity interval training no it's all about jogging or it's all about whenever you hear one thing to the exclusion of another to exclusion everything else uh be be cautious doesn't mean that thing didn't work for that person It's just the thing that happened to be the thing that helped them the most at that time that they were aware enough to conclude that it did help them. So beware of magic bulletism, that genes are vitally important, but they're not all equally important, and that genes are in a hierarchy, and that the most important genes as it relates to health The ones that, number one, deal with vitamin D absorption, the vitamin D receptors, because your vitamin D receptors control up to three to five percent of your human genome, which most of that is not related to bone density. Most of it's related to controlling inflammation and immune system. Then you have the genes of inflammation. Then you have the genes of free radical scavenging in the mitochondria. For the nerds out there, it's MNSOD, GPX-one, and catalase, if you want to dig into that. Then you've got the most important genes for phase one, phase two liver detox. Then it's methylation. And it's not just the five genes Gary Brekker mentioned. There's actually about a dozen and a half genes directly involved with methylation, not to mention the other ones that are indirectly involved. And then you're looking at the genes for cardiovascular circulation. Then you're looking at the genes for fat and energy metabolism. So the genes are in a hierarchy. The genes above control the genes below. So vitamin D receptors and inflammation are the big ones. And methylation is downstream. It doesn't mean methylation is not important. Not at all. It's just downstream. The way I talk about methylation, think of methylation as the body's barcoding system. It's tagging, this thing goes there, this thing goes there, this thing goes there. I'm open to other metaphors. If you've got a better one, I am all for it. But that's the best one I can think of. It's the body's barcoding system. I'm actually curious to hear your thoughts on that. Does that seem accurate enough? Yeah, in areas. I mean, you know, it's almost like thumbs up or thumbs down on different stuff. Yeah, barcode. Like, yeah. It's the like button. Yeah, you hit a like button. We turn you on. We're going to methylate or we're not. Okay, great. That I like that even better. Um, so, so number one is so, so about the genes, there's a priority. So if you ever presented, oh my God, this is the most important gene. Okay. Where, but where in this rank order, where is it? That that's, that's another, that's a concept. The other thing is that you, there's a difference between genetics testing and functional testing. So genetics testing is not a, it is not deterministic. It's probabilistic. Your genes are about what are the probabilities of your things expressing. You are more likely to express this thing in general, but especially if you lock into a specific lifestyle change that is going to expose this particular gene. So the genes are probabilistic, not deterministic. And that you ideally you would do genetic testing alongside with Functional testing, now functional testing are things like checking stool, checking blood, checking urine, it's all these other functional tests like for mitochondria, hormones, gut health, et cetera. That's a thumbprint of what's happening now. Those are the functional tests. Genetics is where's your ideal lifestyle and then where are the fault lines that are at risk of showing up unless you shore them up. And so they have different windows into one's health and wellbeing and optimal performance and brain health, but they converge because what's happening on a functional level is interpreted through the genetic level. And the genetics, it's kind of this dialogue back and forth. So they're different and both very, very valuable windows. The last concept I would say is that, You want to work with practitioner that has a framework for understanding your lifestyle because genetics does not operate in a vacuum. It operates within the petri dish, the milieu, the terrain of how you live. And you want a practitioner that has a framework. I have something called the ten pillars of health. Some people have the triangle of health. Some people have the four pillars of this, the steps of this, the inverted hypotenuse of wellness. I don't care. Something. You want someone with an actual framework to look at your lifestyle, which is looking at your life from the outside in, combined with labs, both genetic and functional, to look at your chemistry from the inside out. You want both of those together. You want an outside-in model to look at your lifestyle, sleep habits, exercise, posture, toxic exposure, your morning and evening routines. Are you exposed to mold and other hidden infections? What's your stress levels like on a daily level? Unresolved traumas in the past you're still spinning on. Like that's lifestyle from the outside in. And then you want the labs looking for the inside out. And the two of those combined that's gonna give you a complete picture and you're not at risk of careening into magic bulletism because underneath all of that, you've got all the different lifestyle you're evaluating, all the genetics and all the functional all at once. And then what you can do is pick from the buffet of different magic bullets out there. A magic bullet is a tactic, not the strategy. People come to you saying this is the one thing. They're making the mistake that the tactic is the strategy. The strategy is having the big picture of lifestyle analysis, genetics analysis, plus functional testing analysis. That's the strategy. And you can redeem these various magic bullets as tactics to use within your individual needs on what was found in your lifestyle and lab analysis. And how do we... break this down you know because when you're talking about that I can just think about my average patient and they're just like that is overwhelming yeah they're they're they're they're like I've got all these different genetic tests and then I've got all these functional tests like that's a lot of information um and I know we briefly talked about it you know what's the hierarchy because you know personally I'm kind of anti a ton of labs up front especially you know those who just like we're going to test everything right they're doing stool testing they're doing urine heavy metal they're doing like you know next you know every patient walks in they're spending three grand on functional tests and it's just like look even if you find stuff in every test you can't address them all at once you know trying to create a little bit less overwhelm for these individuals and and really have that order of hierarchy of what matters most because you did you know we said genes aren't all created equal and we said vitamin d was kind of the the top of the pillar followed by inflammation so let's kind of break this down a little bit more where people are like okay that's If you want a hierarchy, that's easy. Number one is you want to... Lifestyle has a hierarchy in general. I can find an exception to all of it. If someone's dealing with severe Lyme and severe mold, that's going to take precedent. That's crippling them You got to focus there, but or if they're exposed to mold rather, or if someone just has not done any real, they're just not walking, they're just sitting at their computer all day like diet and that they're eating kind of fine, but they're not moving like the priority is not their diet. The party's going to move. So this is where having a model The whole point of having a model like for me, it's the ten pillars. It's not that all the ten pillars are the same value. It's when I evaluate someone, I then prioritize what pillar is the highest priority in exact order. So the ten pillars is a model by which I can then figure out what's the top three pillars to look at and even what's the first pillar to look at. So it's having a practitioner that knows how to prioritize both in the lifestyle. In general, if people are looking at the top things in lifestyle to look at first, and I'll get to the labs in a second, the number one thing I would encourage people to look at is what's your morning and evening routine? Number one, what's your morning? What are the bookends of the day? Can you win the beginning and the end of your day? Because if you have a good solid morning and evening routine, what does that automatically protect? Your sleep, your breakfast, exercise, movement, calming down your sympathetic nervous system, hydration. Just morning and evening routine will cover so much right there. uh then um and then if when in doubt always look to optimizing your sleep and look at what are your movement habits do you over train or do you under move And some people over train and still under move. They're just doing power lifting and they're not walking. They're either standing still or lifting heavy weights, which is not a good idea. You need to, I make the distinction. Some people think of exercise as a four letter word. I think I call it movement instead. So there's interval training and then there's movement. And fastest way to improve someone's movement is to give them a pedometer and suddenly it's gamified. So you can prioritize your lifestyle. That way it's not overwhelming and you know what's the most important thing to focus on. Again, if you want to focus on something generically, morning and evening routine, I can say that without hesitation or doubt. In terms of labs, you've got genetics and functional. If someone's looking for a place to start that is on balance the most cost-effective high value test over time it's genetics because you do it once and the value of the data doesn't decay over time like a thyroid test a stool test a mitochondria test after like three six twelve months especially the value of that data just just catered craters so if people want to start somewhere I think people should start with genetics because that information is valid for life Now, does that mean it's the only information you need? Absolutely not. The first half of our discussion was sharing how it's an important piece. It's not the whole thing. So that's what I would say, is to prioritize. If people really wanted one place to start, it's generically, it's genetics. But if you're working with a practitioner and a practitioner's job is to help you prioritize, what is the appropriate next step for a lab? So for some people, like, It may not be genetics. It may actually be their guts a mess. Or I had a client this week, their priorities, their mitochondria, the priority is that we have to do a very thorough mitochondria test and throw in thyroid and anemia and kind of basic bloods because all of that relates back to the thyroid directly. in terms of oxygen delivery and whatnot to make the mitochondria work. Like, okay, we're going to focus on mitochondria first because that seems to be the most likely thing. We're going to work on that. And if we hit a plateau, then we can layer in another lab, whatever makes the most sense. For a lot of people, If you're you know, I say I say genetics generically is the place to start. And if you were to throw a dartboard, a dart at the board of all possible labs and you were to pick one lab that people should generically start again, this is super generic. I would say advanced gut testing. It's like an eighty twenty, eighty twenty, like eighty percent of the time, eighty percent of. some of people's issues can be relate can be not is can be related to some issue with dysbiosis, poor digestion, malabsorption, you know, beneficial bacteria deficiency, gut stuff. So it's, it's like, so what's the where people start, ideally, they have a practitioner, a guide that's going to help them prioritize. But if they were going to start somewhere genetically, it would be morning and evening routines, genetics, gut testing. If you were to pick one from lifestyle, one from genetics, and one from functional testing, that's where I would land. Yep. Yeah. For me, I always tell people, you know, there's the five foundations of health. How do you eat, sleep, stress, exercise and socialize? Everything beyond that. Right. It's it's it's nice. But if you're not doing that, you're not going to get the most out of the other test anyways. And then it almost sounds like when we talk about the genetics. let's say you get some red dots, right? Cause they're homozygous. You're then basically saying, okay, you're homozygous for these. And then you can almost use that as a way to say, here's the next testing. If we need to do it right. Like, okay, I check vitamin D on everyone anyways. So like vitamin D receptor, not as, you know, it's not necessarily going to change me testing it, but if you're seeing more inflammatory markers versus, um, glutathione detoxification gene issues, you may use that to say like, Oh, let's go here versus there. Well, let me, let me push, I'll push back a little bit on the vitamin D. So I'm talking about, I'm not talking about vitamin D synthesis. So there's, there's two tracks with vitamin D. There's about six major genes between the sunlight and vitamin D three ending up in your bloodstream. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the vitamin d receptors that get transport the vitamin d from the bloodstream into the cells themselves to then start doing their magic on the on the genes so if someone has uh someone says homozygous variants in their vdrs like me um what uh testing for vitamin d that the amount of vitamin d three I would want in someone's blood must be higher than for someone who's got green dots in their VDRs. So to me, the ranges of what's optimal in the vitamin D test matters based on their genetic probabilities. So someone who's got green dots in vitamin D, vitamin D receptors, means they can readily absorb vitamin D three from the blood. I'm less, I'm more comfortable with someone down near like the sixty nanograms per deciliter range. But if someone's got red dots, I want it to be like near the eighty nanograms per deciliter range because they need simply more vitamin D to have a higher probability there are more vitamin Ds around. to actually gland on what few receptors there are. Additionally, I would want to know that because there are precious few things to increase vitamin D receptor transcription into the surface of the cell's membranes. So things like sulforaphane and the absolute importance of avoiding smoking first, second and third hand and avoiding pollution because it's those things that suppress VDR expression. So the genes will point to what are very specific lifestyle and nutrient needs that they have that are different from the green dots and so that that's how at least for vitamin d receptors how I um I it actually does matter to me uh that they do have vitamin d what their vitamin d receptors are because that determines some of my lab ranges and what I'm looking for in their lifestyle Yeah. And that's good, you know, to really point out because I kind of tell people the same thing when we're looking at APOE or, you know, that increases the risk of Alzheimer's. I'm like, look, this isn't deterministic. It doesn't mean you'll get it, but it does mean that certain things you maybe need to do a little bit better. Correct. That is exactly it. That applies to the whole gambit of these types of genes we're talking about. Absolutely. And so... You know, and that's kind of what I wanted people to get from that. And I'm glad you clarified that because green doesn't mean you don't have inflammation. Green doesn't mean that your vitamin D levels are great. It just means, hey, there's not a propensity to it from a genetic only reason. But you can have green for your vitamin D receptors and self horrible vitamin D levels. Absolutely. So this is what I tell clients who come to me with very poor health and they have on balance incredible genes. Like I have gene envy when I see their genetics. And they come to me, they have excellent genes and their health is terrible. And I said, well, this is good news, bad news. So good news. You actually have really good genes, which means that your capacity to get better is much higher and much quicker than other people. The bad news is that your health is completely self-inflicted. You can't blame your parents on this one. Sorry. You cannot blame your parents on this one. Literally, they can't. So this is where even I've had plenty of people who have magnificent genes and they have terrible health. And I literally give them that speech. And it's like, this is all self-inflicted, which is also good news because now you have self-agency to get yourself out of this. And if you don't get yourself out of this, then a change in biochemistry will do nothing when a change in psychology is needed. So that's a big, deep kind of confronting statement. But some people, they just need to be shaken a little bit psychologically instead of drowning in victimology. And then they can start to get better. And there are people who have red dots galore, but their lifestyle is so dialed in They are way healthier than my average green dot adorned client. I have red dots in my blood pressure genes, and I don't have high blood pressure, but I have the propensity for it. But I live a lifestyle in a way that I won the crappy Gene Olympics. Up until about two, maybe three summers ago, I had the gold medal for the crappiest genes I've ever run on all the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people I've run them on until I was dethroned a couple summers ago. So now I'm a silver medalist. No one knows my name in the crappy gene Olympics. But what I'm sharing this is that I can have... a very healthy body despite terrible genetics. And look, I've got cancer, dementia, Alzheimer's, and stroke on both sides of my family within two generations. It's there. I have the cardiac problem, all these bad things. And I just have used genes and functional testing and lifestyle analysis to really dial in what is ideal for me. and I'm it's the genes are not deterministic in fact when I when I got my genetics test this is true when I got my genetics test back I looked at them and I burst into tears I was one I was so grateful that I had an explanation why I was so chronically sick my whole life And that I've been gassed my entire life, that I'm making it up, that I'm attention seeking and all this other stuff. It's like, no, I've been feeling awful my whole life. And then when I reflect back on how I was raised with the terrible food and the environment that I was in, of course, it manifested some really horrible things in my body physically. Then the other reason I was crying was because I finally had a pathway out. I'll give you one example, just one example. I was having, when I got my genetics test, I was in my thirties and I was having dilating joint pain, like an eight year old man. Yeah. And then I read my genetics report and I realized I was hyper inflammatory, crazy and pro-inflammatory. And then I changed my diet and I changed my nutrients. And that's when I learned about nutrigenomic testing. And as one example, I massively increased the dosage of my fish oil as one of the things I did to increase the shifting of my inflammatory genes. Within a couple months, all my joint pain went away. And because I was just hyperinflamed, my inflammation shows up for me as joint pain, as skin rashes, as irritability and anger, and as insomnia. So it's... I had not only an explanation as to why what happened, but the genes showed me the missing piece. Because I was doing functional testing. I was doing tons of functional testing. But I was missing this entire piece from the genetics on the concept of nutrigenomics and also what my optimal diet was. I was eating a perfect Mediterranean diet. And I mean perfect. I knew the names of my farmers and their chickens. I was perfect. But I was having these horrible gas issues. And my energy cycling was up and down. I was moody. And I realized genetically I have the second lowest carb tolerance you can have. I have the carb tolerance of the Inuit, Aborigine, Native American, Maori, and Pacific Islander. I have the second lowest carb. These are all cultures that did not grow up with agriculture. My family heritage is from northern Russia from generations ago. There's not a lot of crops grow up in the north. You know, so when I switched my diet to my actual, it wasn't a quality of carb issue was a quantity of carb issue. My, my quinoa was like organic raised in the South Island, New Zealand picked by left-handed months on the last harvest moon, whatever it, it, it was a quantity issue. And within a week of changing my diet, the, the, the gas issues and the energy, the massive pitching up and down of energy just resolved because I was now eating blind from genetics. Yeah, and we've covered a lot today. And my takeaway, and you said it there as you started going into that part, when you were talking about seeing your results, you said something very, very key. was you said I saw my path out like so many people and I know you run into them probably all the time on the genetic testing just like how I do with certain labs and neurological testing is it's they see really bad results and they're like oh my gosh I'm so broken I'm never going to get fixed and I normally tell them like no it's actually good if you struggle with your neurological testing like I know how to fix that where it's harder is if you ace all that testing and you tell me you feel horrible because then I have to start saying like all right well you know now we've got to figure out what else is going on and and I really want people take that When you get your results, whether it's genetics or other things, if it's bad, that's okay. I mean, really, the only time it's really bad when you get those results, it's like, well, you've got stage four cancer, right? That's really bad. But outside of it, you're not there yet. You just have things that can be used as a roadmap. And if anything, it should kind of provide you hope. as long as you've got the right provider on your team who's helping to guide you along the way. Absolutely. People who receive, this is my, this is my criticism of the other genetics testing out there is that they just throw these hundreds of genetics variants at you. They all seem of equal importance and people get overwhelmed, confused and intimidated and ultimately careen into nihilistic fatalism. Like, Oh, it's a sea of red and yellow dots. I'm going to die on Tuesday at this rate past the Twinkies. And it's just, it's, it's, it's, I want people to view genetics as something that's empowering, not disempowering. And you hit on it exactly right, that people can have this massive emotional reaction to testing. And, you know, it's called bad news, good news. Well, the bad news is that you've got these results. The good news, here's the way to claw out of it. Correct. Yep. So we've covered a lot today and then we're coming to the end. Is there anything else you want to share or just one takeaway you really want people, because no one's going to remember everything we talked about. It feels like we never remember everything that we learn at seminars and other things. But if there's one thing you want people to truly remember from this, what is it? that if you want to invest in one test that's going to have the longest payout it would be genetics testing asterisk don't exclude actual coaching and supervision on your lifestyle and other functional tests. Like I would say like, like just, just prioritize genetics, but get coaching, have someone who does this for a living, make sure you're not wasting your time and money by helping you prioritize what lifestyle changes you need to make. And then what the next step functional in terms of functional testing you need. Okay. And I know we haven't really talked about it a lot. Um, but is there a preferred one or two companies or tests for this that you're like, Hey, I consider these the most valid because once again, right, we know there's plenty of tests out there. They're being sold all over the place. There's some, you only get through providers. There's others that are direct to consumers and they've got all these genetic markers. And we know a lot of them don't really mean a lot. So is there one where like, you know what, this is a solid you know one or two that this is a solid battery of genes that should be looked at that actually have more meaning not just things that It's just a bunch of data that ultimately doesn't mean anything because that's what happens. Are you asking me for the name of a genetics company or the name of the specific genes, like the top ten genes to look at? No company. So it's like, hey, this is one or two really good companies that you should look at. It's easy. The company I recommend is Fit Genes. F-I-T-G-E-N-E-S. Fit Genes. And full disclosure, I'm the person that's the distributor for Fitching's in the Western hemisphere. I've worked with this company for eight, nine years, and I've looked at the other genetics companies, and this is the only company that I know of that has actually prioritized the genes. and actually made it non-overwhelming. And they're the only ones that I'm aware of that actually do this unique carb tolerance test, which is not based on a green, yellow, red dot. It's actually based on copy number variation, which is the number of duplicates of the Amy-one gene as opposed to the version of the amy one gene the only company that does that to my knowledge I I've checked the other companies they don't do that the other companies claim that the amy one gene variant they just do it the variant this is that's one of the genes the amy one variant whether it's a green yellow red dot the difference between red yellow and green is very trivial it's the number of duplicates of the gene that actually matter it's like if your stomach if your intestines are the fort The number of cannons lining the fort is more important than does the cannon put out ninety bullets an hour versus a hundred bullets an hour. I'd rather have ten, ninety red cannons only put out ninety versus one green of a hundred. If the Visigoths are like the carbohydrates charging the gates, it's the number of cannons that matter. So this is a test that this is the only company that does both of those things. Now, the other companies out there, they can test for the variations of really important genes, but they don't prioritize them. More data is not better data. Better organized and prioritized data is better. And that's why I've gone with fit genes. All right. Well, it was great having you. And I hope everyone got a lot from this conversation today. Thank you.