MTHFR Is Not a Detox Gene. It’s a Mental Health Gene.
This genetic variation has been miscast as a detox problem when its biggest impact is on the neurotransmitters that control your mood, energy, and sleep.
Topics: mthfr, health, detox, mental, genetic, https, integrativeyou, gonna
Key takeaways from this episode
- :15 MTHFR: Not a Detox Doom Sentence
- :05 The Mental Health Connection
- :30 MTHFR's Impact on Neurotransmitters
- :45 B Vitamins, Folate, and Energy
- :10 MTHFR and Melatonin Production
Pull quotes
Patients come to me saying, 'I can't detox because of MTHFR.' And I'm like, yes, but we need to talk about your brain and your mood. That's the real conversation.
The irony of SSRIs is they deplete your B vitamins even more. So when you try to come off, you feel like a hot mess and believe you're so broken you need them for life.
Depression is the inability to mentally detox. The mind holds onto toxic baggage and past experiences just like the body holds onto physical toxins when it can't release them.
Transcript
Dr. Nicole (00:01)
What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Integrative U Radio. And we are going to be talking about the lovely topic of MTHFR. this is something that has been coming up a lot lately, and it's definitely something that we have has been an open dialogue in many years inside of the practice. But I think there's a lot of confusion around it. and it's funny because Nick was like,
What would you describe in a basic level of MTHFR? And I was like, Bunny, save that for the podcast.
Dr. Nick (00:37)
I like to keep things simple. I like I like to keep things simple, you know, the membrane. Explain explain it to a five year old.
Dr. Nicole (00:37)
So why don't we kick that off?
I think the the way that I've talked about MTHFR, well, let me backpedal really quick because the conversations that are happening is that people are they're having issues, they're then hearing that MTHFR might be the culprit, they're going and getting tested, and then they're being told, Well, now it's genetic, you're kind of doomed.
And it just is what it is. And you'll never detox properly. That's the main conversation that I've been hearing. you can't detox because you have MTHFR. And I'm just, I remember when the first time I heard that, and I was thinking in my head, I'm like, methylation in the body does way more than like way more than that. And but I guess it really comes down to what's being circulated on, you know, different social media platforms and and what doctors are honing in on.
And so I'm gonna preface with this. One, if you think you have MTHFR, if you know you have MTHFR in whatever combination, are you doomed that you are gonna have problems? Absolutely not. There are ways to work with this genetic SNP.
Through different supplementation lifestyle things that we're gonna talk about today. The other thing though that I think has been the reason why I studied MTHFR is because it is a major culprit in mental health. Major culprit in mental health. And so that's why I was almost confused when patients were coming to me and they're like, Yeah, my detox, I can't detox because of MTHFR. And I'm like, Yeah, but let's talk about your brain and your mood.
So the high level of it is MTHFR is a genetic SNP, they call it. It's a genetic change. This we have genetic expression that can vary person to person. And some of it is just giving us feedback on certain things that we should do more of or do less of. A perfect example with MTHFR is.
You don't have the abundance of B vitamins and folate that maybe someone else does, which is then gonna affect your energy. It's gonna affect your serotonin, your feel-good hormone. It's gonna affect your dopamine, which is another type of feel-good hormone. It's gonna affect your melatonin, which is allowing you to get to sleep and allowing your brain to detox. And it's also going to play a role in a very vital.
Compound that helps your liver with detoxification. So, yes, it will affect your liver's detoxification, but you have a lot of detox pathways genetically that are going on that are working, or I don't want to say working with. They're dictating how well your liver detoxes. So you might have MTHFR, but you might have a completely
Full functioning something called a cytochrome P450 pathway, which then that means that you're probably breaking even. You're probably detoxing fine. So again, guys, like this is not the end all be all I MTHFR, I can't detox. If you have MTHFR in specific combinations, what we need to be talking about is your brain, your your neurological health, your your mental health, because you might be walking around.
Feeling mentally like shit, beating yourself up that you don't feel right in your head. And then the unfortunate solution in our typical society is go on a medication. The irony of these medications, like SSRIs, they deplete your B vitamins even more. So you're really fucked when you try to come off of it. And what's sad about that is people try to come off of their because they want to use the
The SSRI, they want to use the antidepressant. They want to use it to like just feel a little better, to like get their life back, and then they want to come off of it. Then they try to come off of it, not knowing what the fuck the root cause was, and they're like a hot mess. And they're and then they go, my God, I'm so fucked up. I need to stay on these. Maybe I need to go on a stronger one. Maybe I need to actually go on two antidepressants. And your doctor is usually saying, Yeah, yeah.
That's exactly what you need to do.
Dr. Nick (05:24)
And you should be on it for life.
Dr. Nicole (05:27)
Sad though is you believe that you need to be on it for life because you feel so fucking bad. You feel mentally like, am I okay? Like, am I crazy? Like, why am I crying? Why am I raging? Why, you know, and there is an absolute foundational reason that is fixable, workable. It's not that I have MDHR and that is like the end of the story. That is not how it works at all.
I'm gonna just say it now because I don't wanna forget this point, because we actually just had this situation recently with a client. So you might be listening to this and you might literally be on like full scripts or Amazon trying to order your methylated B vitamins as you're listening to this.
Back back up, back up. Because depending on what type of combination or what type of MTHR you have, which again we're gonna talk about, you could easily have a bad reaction to taking certain types of methylated vitamins, B vitamins, folate, because your body is like, what the fuck are these? I've never had them.
Because you you have the genetic mutation or the you have the type of NTHR that means like you have your your methylation only works by 20%. And if it only works by 20% your whole life, and then you go and take these potent vitamins, your body, your brain, your liver is like, what is happening? And you can feel actually really bad. So just like slow your roll, guys. We're gonna we're gonna help guide you through this.
Dr. Nick (07:10)
What's interesting how you broke it down in in my take, the man brain, of MTHFR on a physical layer, you know, there's the traditional detox aspect, but then there's the other aspect that's huge, which is more of a nervous system component. And with that nervous system, a big part of that is leading to d depression. Which, if you think about it, depressions
Dr. Nicole (07:36)
Yes.
Dr. Nick (07:39)
Always connected with an inability to detox. And I say that on a physical side because the more shit you have in your body, whether that's chemicals, toxins, infections, you're gonna feel worse, both physically and mentally. But on the more psychological aspect of things, it's like depression is the inability to mentally detox.
So that you're you're constantly holding around baggage, experiences, moments that that you've been a victim to. And and those quote unquote bad things that happen to us are the same thing as the body holding on to toxins, infections, etc., because it can't release it. So the body can't detox, but the mind's doing the exact same thing. And this is what I love about.
Dr. Nicole (08:10)
Living in the past.
Mm-hmm.
But it's the same idea.
It's tox that's what I always say to people. I'm like, you have physical parasites in your body, how many parasite people do you have in your life? You have toxins in your body, how many toxic thoughts and beliefs do you have in your mind slash in your body?
Dr. Nick (08:36)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and that and that's my favorite part of of how I look at the body and how I get to work with people is that it's always just the exact same concept. You know, it's like I'll look at blood work and I'll be able to tell, you know, what imbalances are happening in somebody's life or what has happened, what they're holding on to, what they haven't actually been able to process and get back into balance and use to be empowered. And when it comes to, you know, the mind
Dr. Nicole (09:15)
No.
Dr. Nick (09:20)
I also want to say that it's not just about balancing out the past issues, quote unquote, to set us free. That's a huge component of it. But the other part is you have to live a life that's fulfilled. And fulfilling means that you wake up and you're doing things that are inspiring. You're in an environment that's inspiring, uplifting. And that comes back, and we've talked about many, many times, but living a a life that's
actually serving what's most important to you, your highest values. And when you're doing that, you're most efficient, you're most productive. You're getting the most return on your investment, your time, your energy, everything. So it's it's on the mental side, it's really those two big buckets that if you're living a life that's not authentic and not inspiring, guess what? Your your genes are the foundation of who you are.
Dr. Nicole (09:51)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Well, damn.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (10:17)
And that's going to be the expression, the start of the process to really show us how well is your mind functioning, because the mind actually dictates how the body reacts, how the body expresses itself.
Dr. Nicole (10:30)
That's exactly the point, like as you were talking, that I want to make for everyone, because this is a really, really important point. Is that there are many times in our practice that we have seen two people that have the same type of MTHFR genetic SNP mutation expression. And one might have depression and the other one doesn't. One might have issues with detox and the other one doesn't. So
If it was just black and white, that if you have MTHFR in this combination, then you know you have depression, or you have issues with sleep, or you have issues with detox. It's not that black and white because of what you are describing. Your genes will express differently, your DNA will express differently depending on the level of consciousness, the level of clarity, the level of
Just your perception of life in general. So your mind and the state or non-state of stress that you are in plays a significant role on the expression of your genes, which plays a role in how you express health or if you express disease. So let's get very, very clear on that.
Dr. Nick (11:48)
Yeah, I mean
I look at it just your your DNA is the foundation, I mean produces proteins, amino acids, the building blocks of how everything in your body is built upon. So it's like the information that's sending out as a printer that's actually making your organ systems, etcetera. And that information has to come from somewhere. People don't like think how simple this is. Where's the DNA getting its information? From the mind.
Dr. Nicole (12:09)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (12:19)
So if the mind's imbalanced and it's holding on to past traumas or it's not actually living an inspiring life congruent to it itself, that information is going to feed the printer, the DNA, that's going to make a healthy organ system or a dysfunctional organ system. And this isn't a bad thing and it's not no judgment. It's just a feedback mechanism. This is life is just one big feedback loop. So when we can understand how it works, we c
Dr. Nicole (12:37)
Mm-hmm.
I'm just realizing my garbage
can is sitting in the back
Dr. Nick (12:51)
It kind of looks like a flower pot too. I keep I keep looking at I keep being distracted of the creepy woman behind you your left shoulder. I know, but I don't. I don't. but life is just a one big feedback. So it's feedback of, you know, we can do this testing, which is great. It's information. It's not information to say that we're fucked, it's information saying
Dr. Nicole (12:54)
Okay, well that's good. For those of you on YouTube.
Hey, I like I like her.
Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (13:18)
Okay, well this is a feedback because the information to these genes are just telling me where my mind's either in balance or out of balance. Then I can great do work on balancing my mind out, making sure that I'm actually authentic in who I am and I'm not living a life of injected valleys of what other people think I'm supposed to be and do and have and look and fucking keep up with the Joneses next door, etc. Blow my fucking brains out. sorry.
Dr. Nicole (13:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
You you're spiraling.
You're spiraling. Okay, I'm gonna brush back on track. Okay, okay. Yes.
Dr. Nick (13:50)
But at the same time, but at the same time, energy is bi-directional. So you can
work on the mental side to change the expression of the genes, which change the expression of the body, but you can also work on taking specific methylated B vitamins, et cetera, doing support on the body to give what you say. People who go on SSRIs just feel a little bit better. So take some things to feel a little bit better, some supplements to feel a little bit better. But guess what?
Dr. Nicole (14:00)
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (14:18)
There's going to be another reaction if you're actually not working on the causation of that effect for being broken in the first place.
Dr. Nicole (14:27)
Well, you essentially went in the exact direction that I want it to go. So I'm gonna talk about this, which is really important when it comes to the simultaneous healing. And then for those of you guys that are like, okay, get to the point of the solutions, I am going to screen share something for you. So for those of you on, you know, listening to us via podcast, you could always head over to YouTube and check this out. So the visu the visual is just gonna be easier because when I'm talking about
Heterozygous and homozygous and this and that. It's a little hard to follow. visuals help. So, anyway, what you just said is really, really important. And one of the things that we really take interest in is what is the starting place for you? But we're going to work with both dynamics. We are going to help with the healing of the
Mental, emotional, experiential aspects of why this MTHFR is affecting you so badly. And we are going to work with the physical aspects of you know the vitamins that you need, the B vitamins or the liver support, etc. But which one comes first for you? For someone who is so bottomed out mentally and they're they're in depression because they have a very specific MTHFR that is
allowing it it's not allowing them to have pretty much any methylation B vitamins in their system. So they have no serotonin and no dopamine and no melatonin. Okay, so a person like that, sometimes you need to give them proper nutritional supplemental support to get their brain working, get their brain and their neurons firing a bit better.
Get them to actually produce more of these neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. And then they're actually in a better place to start doing the mental and emotional work, which is the other side of the spectrum that is always there. It's not some people have it, some people don't. It all works together. And then there are some people that there's such a specific trigger or event, and that needs to be worked on.
To for them to even just be able to absorb the B vitamins or the things that they're taking. And so that's the more foundational. So this is really important when it comes to working with a skilled, knowledgeable practitioner that actually fucking listens to you because it's not about what you do, it's how you do it. We've said this a million times and a million webinars and a million podcasts. But yeah, B vitamins are great for someone with MTHFR.
You'll find out in a minute minute that they're not all created equal. but is that what you need first?
So th these are the important things. It's not that something doesn't work or something fucked you up. It's some it's that maybe it just wasn't the right time or it wasn't the right combination.
You have comments or you I'm good to do the screen share. Okay. all right, guys. For again, for those of you that are listening to us on podcast, I'm gonna going to be saying this actually out loud. but I want to of course this is not gonna let me screen share properly.
Dr. Nick (17:35)
You're crushing it.
Dr. Nicole (17:53)
Hmm.
Dr. Nick (17:53)
You can always put in the show notes.
Dr. Nicole (17:55)
Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes. That'll be the easiest thing. Okay, so this is for my dorky that like this, or they already have their actual MTHFR results. So there is a thing called heterozygous, which means that there is one mutation. There are two different genotype combinations we're looking at. We're looking at C677T and we're looking at A1298C. Some people have one mutation, aka it's the plus and the minus.
On the 677T, and then they have the same thing, one mutation on 1298 C. And that combination of heterozygous heterozygous means that you have a reduction in your methylation function by 60%. So it's methylation is only operating at 40% for you. That's a pretty intense combination for people. I find that most of those people can go ahead and take.
A methylated B vitamin complex, a quality one, fuck, don't buy anything on Amazon. They're literally like contaminated with poison and poop that has actually been reported. Anywho, you can also take just five MTHF, which is just folate. If you have a 60% reduction, you need the combination. You need B6, you need B12, you need B9, you need the folate. You need all of it. So usually, again, if you have that combination, you're okay.
If you are a person that has a double mutation on 677T or 1298C, that combination together doesn't so you have double negatives, it's called homozygous, on either 677T or 1298 C, you have like a 70, 80% reduction. That means your methylation has only been functioning at 20% your whole fucking life. So what that means is that
You are the person that might listen to this, go buy yourself some serotonin nutrients as one of the combos that we like. You might take your methylated B vitamin complex and you might feel weird as shit. You might feel weird. You might feel like jittery, like you drank 17 cups of coffee, you might feel like like almost like your brain is like miswiring, misfiring. and you might even feel a little bit nauseous and sick.
So for you, your methylation, like it, it's you have to, everyone is different. You either have to go low and slow, or you have to start with a compound called SANE in order to get a better foundation before you actually start taking these B vitamins. People that have that combination, a lot of times we start low and slow with more of the supplemental world, and we focus really heavy on the mental and emotional.
And then we start to kind of compound from there. So again, for those of you that are like, I've never had my MT MTHFR tested. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Don't worry about it. But know, again, if you listen to this and you go, what's the harm in just getting on a B vitamin complex? One, it has to be methylated. And two,
Dr. Nick (21:07)
Well, A if you've
if you tried it and you felt like shit, then you just know that you're probably that you know.
Dr. Nicole (21:15)
Yeah, that person. So again, SAMI is a better option, and then working your way into a B B vitamin later. Methylated, methylated, methylated. There's a huge difference. Folic acid is not folate. Folic acid that they give pregnant women is complete fucking garbage and actually does more damage than good. So those are little sidebars that I will throw in at this moment. Write that down. So
We're giving you obviously some tips. You know, you know, you're not really supposed to do your land of doctors on these podcasts, but whatever. Here we are, black sheet forever. But I want to recap overall, MTHFR is not a sentence that, you know, you're screwed, your detox pathways aren't gonna be compromised. Like I said before, if you have fully functioning detox pathways like your cytochrom P450, then
You're probably not even affected by the MTHFR from a detox perspective. You might be affected more in the mental neurological arena. Regardless, methylation is very, very important for your overall mental health, neurotransmitter production, like serotonin and dopamine. And it is important for just like your overall health and detox. So it is something to definitely support if needed.
But if you don't do the work that Dr. Nick was talking about, you will hit a plateau or you will come off of these vitamins and feel like shit again.
Dr. Nick (22:47)
That's I guess the last thing that I was gonna say is that, you know, one of the questions that I've received is, well, do I have to take these methylated forms forever? And A, it kinda depends on, you know, what section you are. If you're only on the twenty percent, it'd probably be a beneficial thing for you. But, you know, like I say, genes are literally like Nicole's saying, there's splices, there's mutations in the genes. It's called epigenetics. So an epi
Dr. Nicole (23:00)
Your mutation.
Dr. Nick (23:17)
means above. So what's above genes, what's above the body, the mind. Body, mind, spirit. Makes perfect fucking sense when we actually stop and think about it. So what actually controls the genes is the mind. So if you do the mental work to balance out the past moments that were imbalanced, that were polarized, that were all bad or sometimes even all good, the fantasies that we hold on to that create our nightmares. So those both cause distress.
Dr. Nicole (23:22)
Might.
Dr. Nick (23:47)
And that distress is the signal that goes to the genes. So you balance those moments out of those belief systems out. That removes the causation. So the effect change. The splice can actually change, heal itself, quote unquote. It's not there's no healing, it's just cause and effect. And then the other side is just making sure that your lifestyle is congruent with who you are. You're not trying to be something you're not, because if you are.
Dr. Nicole (23:58)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (24:13)
There's gonna be one hell of a fucking feedback mechanism that's gonna make your life shitty until you literally feel enough pain to be able to see, I get it now. Like, this isn't me. Like we're here to live our lives, not somebody else's life. And it's gonna look different for everybody. And it just being able to take
Dr. Nicole (24:33)
People
have been brought up with the idea that like life is hard, life is a struggle, you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Like those types of phrases have been in a lot of people's lives. And I think that this has been a program to keep us thinking that, you know, we just need to accept a life that we don't really like that much. And we need to accept that we should be pleasing other people over pleasing ourselves, you know, being selfish versus selfless. It's just
It's so much fucking bullshit. And you know, for those of you that are here and you've been on this podcast for a long time, you're probably a black sheep. For those of you that are new, like we encourage you to be the black sheep and stop giving a fuck. I know that that's not easy, but one of the questions that's really, really key to everything we're talking about is, you know, what toxic situations are you in because you think you should be able to handle them or you think you need to handle them?
You know, that's a key question to ask yourself. If life feels real tough every day and like not fun and just hard, that's a feedback mechanism. And if you don't if you don't want to acknowledge that, then you're gonna stay exactly where you are. Like no one's gonna come and sprinkle fairy dust and all of a sudden things are great.
Dr. Nick (25:44)
And it's not
Well and it's not and I just I mean I know I know what you're saying, but some listeners might not. It's not saying that when you are aligned, life is easy. That's that's not it at all. It's that w when you're actually authentic in who you are, you you actually you're detached from pleasure or pain. Pleasure's gonna come, pain's gonna come, you can't escape both. Where there's always gonna be a problem, but what's the equal and opposite reaction of a problem? A solution.
Dr. Nicole (26:01)
No. well that's a good point.
Dr. Nick (26:21)
There's always a solution, there's always a problem. There's always a pleasure, there's always a pain. We live in a world of duality. That's the universe we live in. So we get both. If we're attached to only having one side, hence, like I said before, the fantasy, the fantasy creates the nightmare. So it's actually when we're inspired and we're just being who we are, like you said, you know, you could think about it, give no fucks. It's not that you don't give a fuck. It's just that it doesn't fucking bother you. Because
You know what you're doing is worth it because you're creating value for yourself. You're fulfilled. You don't it's whether it's pleasurable moment, yeah, you know. Awesome, great. But guess what? It's not gonna last forever. And there's gonna be a moment of fucking pain. Awesome. That's great. Let's use it. It's not gonna last forever. Boom. Move on. If we're stuck in that moment, that goes back to, I'm a victim from this moment.
Dr. Nicole (26:56)
Yeah. Yeah, it's your perception.
Dr. Nick (27:20)
This experience, which just shows us that we haven't figured out how to use it. And once we can, then we're empowered again. That power gets processed through the genome. Then we have mutations back to our full expression of who we are, a powerful individual.
Dr. Nicole (27:38)
Hundred percent. Hundred percent. All right guys, I'm gonna leave you with that. See ya on the next one.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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