B Vitamins and Methylation

Show Transcript

Hey, welcome everybody. Jerry with you here today.

I remember when my kids were young, they're 15 and 16 now, but  I remember when they were young and how much energy  it took to keep up with them.

And of course, as many of when my kids were real young, I was in my early thirties and that's when I was probably at one of my most unhealthy times of my life. But I just kept thinking how exhausting it was keeping up with those kids. And I'll be honest with you, that was a big impetus for me pursuing holistic health and learning anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology.

It's because I had all these issues

that I knew if I did not reverse them, or find a way

 to get to feeling better,

that'd be broke down old man.

For me, it was a real make or break moment. It was a, shit or get off the pot.

And I had a choice. I could either continue to make excuses every day as to why we shouldn't do this, or we shouldn't do that, or

Reasons why we couldn't go to the park, or reasons why I didn't have time to take him to the mall.

 Or I could get off my ass and find that energy that's been missing.

And one thing that really helped me, turn that ship around,

obviously besides diet and exercise, sleep, finding purpose in my life, besides all of that, I started supplementation. And I didn't just take any supplement that I could find. I read and researched, and I came up with about 10 supplements that I thought were no brainer supplements.

These were supplements that I thought, you don't need to go get a blood test to find out if you need them. Just assume you're low on them,

and take these 10 no brainers. One of the no brainer supplements was a B vitamin complex.

And in pretty short time, I started really noticing the effects of my diet and lifestyle and supplement regimen.

And it wasn't long, I'd say within a matter of a year or so, I honestly, legitimately could not remember a time in my adult life where I had this much energy, vitality, strength, spring in my legs, all of that. And what I know now was I was able to improve and enhance my methylation process. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

We're going to talk about the no brainer supplements, B vitamins, \ And we're going to talk about what methylation actually is.

Now it is my hope that once you understand what the methylation process is, and how important it is to your genetic potential,

you'll have a further understanding, maybe a broader view, a fuller picture, of the importance of managing your health in a holistic manner. Now a lot of people get nervous when they hear that word holistic, they start picturing tarot cards and

Dancing fairies and crystals and smoke. And while all of that can be part of anybody's holistic lifestyle, anything can be part of a holistic lifestyle. Living holistically, practicing holistic health.

They're all branding and marketing terms. Think about it. Everybody lives a holistic lifestyle. So if you drink beer every night, you holistically create tiredness in the morning. You holistically create an unhealthy gut biome. You're just doing that unintentionally. The difference between a holistic life and holistic health is you're being intentional about the actions that you take.

It's not about man buns and Tibetan singing bowls, chants and mantras.

Those are just tools to achieve a desired result within your holistic health plan.

Now we're going to talk specifically about specific things today, but this all just falls in line with the bigger plan. I encourage you not to look at this as a this for that type of recommendation

and think about this information and how you can use it to fit into your total body of health, your total body of wellness and energy.

As we're going to talk about today, B vitamins and other supplements can be really monumental in helping you optimize your methylation process. At the end of the day, there's nothing more important. And getting regular exercise,

managing your thoughts and your emotions so they don't exhaust you, they don't overwhelm you. Best way to do that is through purpose, getting regular exercise,

making sleep a priority

and taking the time to get introspective about your life. Those are the things that will balance your nervous system, optimize your digestion. I guess I forgot to throw in there, eat real food, optimize your digestion, create mental clarity, a sense of purpose and a sense of purpose brings wins.

It also brings losses and losses breed growth.

So all the no brainer supplements we're going to talk about today will aid in that. Please don't think that's a replacement for managing your pillars of health.

You got to find time to be happy, you got to make time to move, you got to take time to sleep and introspect, and you've got to eat real species specific food. Whole foods.

If it grows out of the ground, it's food. If it eats something that grows out of the ground, it's food. If it eats something that grows out of the ground, it's food. If it runs, swims, or flies, it's food. Comes in a box or a bag, it's not food.

All right, with that we'll get going, but before we do, just a quick word from our sponsor.

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Alright, with that we're gonna get started. First off, methylation. What is methylation?

Basically, the nerdy scientific explanation. of methylation. Basically, the scientific nerdy explanation of methylation is when one carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms are transferred from one substance to another.

This activates the receiving molecule or methylates it. And

basically you got these little signalers that attach to your DNA.

These little sensors or activators receive a molecule, they do something magic with it, and they signal something to your DNA. That signal to the DNA tells the DNA what you, what genetics to express within you. So if you're familiar with epigenetics,

this is epigenetics. If you're not familiar with epigenetics is the expression of your genetic potential. So we all, for disease, it's your environment that decides which of those genetics you express part of your environment is your thought process. Your emotional management process and your direct actions and behaviors.

So if I give the signal to my body that we are in an environment where we don't have to move, food is easily sourced, safety and security are there without question,

and consequently you move less,

you're sending a signal to your body, an environmental epigenetic signal to your body to downregulate metabolism,

downregulate ambitious goal setting behavior. And you start expressing your genetic potential for obesity and disease.

So we hear all the time about the fat gene, or the athletic gene.

But at the end of the day, even if you have a fat gene, you've got to express the genetic potential for that fat gene. If you've got an athletic gene, you've got to express the genetic potential for that athletic gene. In other words, you've got to work to maintain whatever state you're in. That's epigenetics.

So methylation, without proper methylation,

cellular health is going to be compromised. And you are not going to express your genetic potential to be the best you possibly can.

That's why getting old isn't just an act of God that happens to us, it's unavoidable. We choose how we get old. We manifest the genetic expression of our aging process.

And while we might think that starts in our genes, guys, it starts in your mind. What is it you believe? What is it you believe is possible about you? What is it you believe is possible about the aging process? What is it you believe about your ability to be healthy and fit your whole life?

So obviously, as we mentioned earlier, living a holistic, healthy lifestyle is going to optimize your methylation process. You should only consider supplementation after you've got the basic lifestyle habits in play.

So that being said Being in a toxic environment, whether it be at work or in a relationship situation, creating a toxic environment in your head, always focusing on the negative, refusing to set goals, and if we don't set goals, we don't have wins in life, we don't have wins in life, we feel sad for eating garbage food,

not moving, we are expressing our genetic potential for obesity and disease.

So some clear signs that you are suffering from poor methylation,

could develop a lot of food intolerances, a lot of allergic reactions to things, fatigue. Or energy swings, energy imbalances, mood imbalances, and mood swings.

Maybe memory loss,

brain fog, and of course any disease that you have is going to impair your methylation process. And all that boils down to a thing we call allostatic load. Guys, allostatic load is A fancy way of saying your body is working this hard to maintain balance within you. Allostasis is the process in which our body uses to maintain balance. That's the detoxification process, that's regeneration during sleep, that's the digestion, assimilation of food and shuttling mitochondria can use it as energy. All of that

is part of the Allostatic process. Now, anything that we add to the body, that causes the body To have to perform a task to compensate for the introduction of that habit, behavior, or substance to our body. That's gonna add to our allostatic load and this is why I go so hard in the pain against prescription drugs They're touted as medicine.

They're touted as cures But if you're taking them you're taking them because you already have a condition whether it be symptomatic or whether it be full blown disease But you're already under allostatic load. You're already compromising your body's methylation process. You're going to add a prescription drug to it You're adding a foreign substance.

I don't give a shit if they call it medicine or not You're adding a foreign substance that was created by man in a lab to your body. That's gonna add to your allostatic load. So while it might relieve symptoms for a short period of time, at the end of the day, it's just going to aid in the disease creation process.

That's why it's very important. If you get on a prescription drug, you might need the prescription drug. per the doctor's definition of what a need is, but you might need the prescription drug to get you out of symptoms so that you can effectively heal yourself. When you get a prescription, that is not your cure.

That is not your, okay, I've taken care of this problem. That is a message. That is a wake up call. I need to figure out what caused this and as soon as I can get off of these prescription drugs.

Sorry, rant over.

The lower it is, the more open that process is. In other words, the less bogged down it is by excess work that you're putting on it, the better your methylation is going to be. This ties into our telomere health, which I'll do a show on that later, but it's all about cellular health at the DNA level.

So those are all symptoms of undermethylation. You can also experience overmethylation in rare cases, rare instances.

Some symptoms of overmethylation can include anxiety and panic, depression, hyperactivity, and behavioral issues. More allergies and sensitivities and

imbalances in your histamines.

And if we're getting a lot of histamines, guys, we're obviously creating an autoimmune situation there where we're not recognizing what is our body and what is foreign. So it's real important that we get that taken care of. But whether it's over or under methylation, if your methylation isn't on point, there is an extreme imbalance in the body.

Think about it. Your body has decided something is more important than the methylation process. The way our body works, it's survival first and then it's thriving last. If your body has said something is more important to my survival than the methylation process, than expressing genetic potential to thrive,

that's not a minor issue.

Now, if you suspect you have over or under methylation, you can definitely go to a doctor. I'd recommend a naturopath, if you can find one.

But it's my firm belief that's a waste of time and energy. If you know that your lifestyle is out of whack, out of balance, you know that there's adjustments that can be made there. Best case scenario, you're going to show up to that doctor and they're just going to say, Hey, you need to make some lifestyle changes, come back in a little bit.

Worst case scenario, you go to a doctor and they don't mention the lifestyle changes. They put you on some prescriptions or some sort of herbal protocol that doesn't address the root cause. And you're just going to be dealing with this problem later on down the road.

Another reason why methylation is so important is if you think about it, it's almost like a switchboard in the body.

So they have a direct influence on your genetics and what you express.

And so when you are living a good lifestyle, a nice, healthy lifestyle that your body enjoys and you're not overburdening it with allostatic load, then you can optimize your methylation. You can optimize your genetic potential. And so when you are doing that, when you are filing in all cylinders, your body's going to be properly detoxified.

Your body's going to be properly detoxifying itself. You don't have to go through herbal cleanses and five day fasts and all these rigorous detoxification protocols. Your body naturally detoxes. Even if you've lived backwards and sideways for years and years, once you stop living that way and you start living in a way that's more friendly to your allostatic load, your body begins a detox process right away.

It's always pushing towards balance. It's always looking to regulate itself. You're going to have better hormone regulation, neurotransmitter production. You're going to start experiencing less autoimmune symptoms because your histamine balance is going to be more on point. Obviously, energy within the cells.

Genetic expression and production of DNA and organ health are all going to be major up swings that you're going to experience when you balance your allostatic load and improve your methylation process. Healthy glands and organs make everything in life so much better.

Alright, so that's a brief overview of methylation and why it's important.

We're going to talk a little bit about the role of B vitamins in that methylation process.

So as we mentioned earlier, methylation is a, it's a biochemical process. And

When these reactions occur within the cell,

it produces a molecule called S adenosylmethionine, SAMe for short.

Now SAMe gets involved in transferring the methyl groups to a wide range of molecules, including DNA, RNA, proteins, and other metabolites.

There's a team of enzymes that tightly regulate the methylation cycle, including B vitamins, B6, 12, and 2.

Without these nutrients, it's very difficult to produce SAMe and break down homocysteine into other chemicals your body needs.

aNd utilize the methylation process to get proper genetic potential and cellular health and energy.

Now, the production of SAMe is reliant on 5 MTHF. I call it the motherfucker, only because that's what I think when I see the MTHF.

But this is an active B vitamin, it's known as methylfolate. Without this, SAMe will not be turned on.

But without the SAMe

And enough of the 5 MTHF,

methylation is very difficult and a lot of important molecules just cannot be efficiently produced. Now if you're going to supplement, I'd recommend that you're supplementing with active folate as opposed to folic acid. A lot of people have intolerances to folic acid. They cause a lot of issues with people.

And from what I've seen, people tend to do better with folate. active folate as opposed to folic acid.

But B vitamins, active folate, living a good holistic lifestyle, not overtaxing your allostatic load is going to be best for you in being able to convert folate to 5 MTHF.

So B vitamins, the role of B vitamins in this entire process. So we're gonna start out with vitamin B2.

B2, known as riboflavin, it's required to convert folate to its active form.

So we go from folate to active folate, which helps in the conversion. of 5MTHF. B6, required to produce methionine, necessary for creating SAMe. It's involved in developing glutathione, an important antioxidant. That's another show, that's another topic, but glutathione is very important.

If you're taking glutathione currently, Awesome. If you're not, I recommend you get on it. Maybe some NAC, which is a precursor to glutathione.

So we got B2, which is required to convert folate to its active form. We got B6, which is required to produce methionine,

which you need to create SAMe. Without SAMe, we are not methylating. If we're not methylating, we're compromising our genetic potential intercellular health. Now we got B12.

B12 converts homocysteine to methionine.

Now there are multiple different kinds of B vitamins, B12 vitamins,

but the B vitamin in the form of methylcobalamin

provides the methyl group, so that might be a good one to start with for you.

So that's a brief overview of the B, we're going to dig a little deeper here.

B vitamins are involved in multiple different metabolic pathways, brain function, energy production, blood sugar regulation, metabolic health.

Helps regulate your nervous system. We take a look at what's killing Americans right now. It's metabolic diseases, right?

But I think if we can cast a wide net over this, we can just say that we're suffering from a lack of vitality. We're suffering from a lack of true holistic health. Our cells are sick. Our blood is sick. Our bodies are sick.

And I do believe that the methylation process is a huge part of it. We age like shit here in America. We absolutely age like shit.

B vitamins, they help you, form red blood cells. Overall cell health, including growth and division. Production of very important molecules for happiness, like dopamine and serotonin. Converting your carbohydrates to energy. These are very important roles and these are Things that B vitamins are very much involved in.

Now if you can find methylated B vitamins, that's probably what you need to go with, in my opinion, anyway.

So methylated B vitamins are already bioavailable, they're already metabolically active, easily absorbed, easily assimilated and utilized by the body, because your body doesn't need to convert them from non methylated to methylated.

Particular if you suspect you have that MTHFR gene variant,

or genetic problem, methylated B vitamins might be. Your best option.

You should be able to go into any vitamin store and just ask the vitamin cleric for methyl B complex and they should be able to help you.

It's now is a good time in any to throw my disclaimer in there and that is before you begin any supplement protocol or regimen consult with your qualified medical, your health care professional. I use health care in air quotes here.

In case you didn't know, there's a huge difference between medical and health.

All right, guys, just as a quick recap, Methylation, the methylation process is critical to maintaining cellular health, cellular energy and expressing your genetic potential without proper methylation. You're just going to most likely express your genetic potential for exhaustion, disease and obesity because without proper methylation, your body's working really hard to maintain its.

homeostasis using allostatic load your metabolism is going to drop which means your energy is going to drop which means your activity is going to drop your sense of well being isn't going to quite be there so it's going to affect you more than just physically so methylation is very important it's critical without total body health you're going to have a hard time with methylation in particular if you're missing B vitamins

without proper methylation levels of B vitamins in your body, you're not going to produce that SAMe

without proper B vitamin levels. You're most likely going to be lacking in folate. Without folate, you can't create active 5 MTHF. Without 5 MTHF and without SAMe, your methylation process is going to suffer greatly.

So that's why I believe that methylated B vitamins fall in the no brainer category of supplementation.

They're very inexpensive, you're not going to hurt yourself by taking these B vitamins,

and there's just no reason, to live with low methylation function, this is something you can deal with for years if not decades, and it could be something that really could be alleviated rather simply, rather easily.

If nothing else, even if you're not living that holistic, healthy lifestyle, you're gonna make yourself feel better until you can maybe get the energy, the motivation, the mental clarity to form a good plan, or to find a good why for you to embark on a plan of optimizing your genetic potential.

As far as specific brands, I'm not here to push specific brands. I'm not affiliated with anybody,

and there's a multitude of different varieties out there. So if you can find anything that's based on whole foods, great. Any type of vitamin, if it's a whole food based vitamin, go with that, organic if you can.

But at the end of the day, go to a good, trusted local vitamin store or health food store, find the clerk, and ask them to help you find the best B vitamin complex. Methyl B vitamin complex that they have. Don't skimp on price when it comes to your supplements.

iF you can find a multivitamin that contains a good level of magnesium, Batein, choline, and zinc, those are also going to help you optimize your methylation process. So at the end of the day guys, what's really important about this message is that methylation is critical.

You can't be healthy and happy without it and without proper B vitamin levels, you're not gonna have proper methylation. And if you can connect some dots, just take a look at the prevalence of autoimmunity in our world right now. The prevalence of depression, anxiety, anger issues in our world right now.

The prevalence of metabolic diseases that are avoidable and reversible that are killing. Two thirds of Americans,

we can easily say that methylation imbalances and diseases are a major problem in this country. And the answer to it is living a balanced, holistically healthy lifestyle with proper supplementation.

Alright guys, I appreciate your time today. Thanks for tuning in and listening or watching.

Stay tuned as I

Make sure you follow or subscribe to this podcast. Share it with someone you think might need it. I will be doing more features on no brainer supplements as we move forward. Supplementation can get really expensive and that causes people to avoid it altogether or they over supplement or they just just randomly grab things off the shelf.

Okay. We're going to go over supplements that are no brainers in my opinion. And in other words, the cost benefit isn't even close. The benefit way out risk. weighs the risk and the cost. So these are just no brainer supplements. And I'm going to be covering those more as we move forward in this podcast series.

All right, guys, have a wonderful day. Peace, much love and live well.