Genes, we all have them. They are a part of our individual build and control everything, from our eye and hair color, to how we metabolize different foods, to how well we detoxify chemicals, to how susceptible to cancer we are. However, some people have genes – the MTHFR gene, for example – which are not functioning optimally and can cause different health issues. Dr. Ben Lynch calls them ”dirty genes.” So, what are dirty genes? And how do they influence our health and cause fatigue?
This week, I am talking to Dr. Ben Lynch ND, who is a pioneer in the field of epigenetics and author of the book “Dirty Genes.” He will share his strategies on fixing “dirty genes” the right way, and why many people are trying to fix their “dirty genes” the wrong way and actually making their health problems worse in the process.
(Note: Also make sure to sign up for the Dirty Genes Summit. It’s 1005 free, but only from Jan 22nd-29th. You can get it all free by signing up HERE).
In this podcast, you’ll learn
- What dirty genes are and how they affect us
- Which fatal disease the MTHFR gene protects you from
- Why folic acid can be dangerous to your health
- The first step in supporting your MTHFR gene
- Why Dr. Lynch was approached by a manufacturer, asking him to remove articles about folic acid
- How your mitochondria protect and keep you alive
- Why the GST and GPX (detox) genes are important for your health
- Why trying to fix your dirty genes is counterproductive
- The right way to take supplements for health and energy
- The first step you need to take to successfully clean your dirty genes
Download or listen on iTunes
Listen outside of iTunes
Watch
Sign up for the Dirty Genes Summit HERE (It’s 100% Free – but only from Jan 22-29th).
How Your Genes Can Cause Fatigue, and How to Clean Up Your “Dirty Genes” – Transcript
Ari Whitten: Hey everyone, this is Ari Whitten and welcome back to the Energy Blueprint Podcast. I’m here today with Dr. Ben Lynch, with a conversation that I’m very, very excited to have.
So, Dr. Ben Lynch is a Naturopathic doctor and he’s really a pioneer in the field of something called Epigenetics, which is how our environment and our lifestyle controls the expression of our genes. We’ll get into a lot more details about that. And he’s also the author of the new book, Dirty Genes, which I have just read and is a phenomenal piece of work.
So welcome Dr. Lynch, it’s a pleasure to have you on.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Hey man, I appreciate the invite. Thanks, Ari.
How your genes are working
Ari Whitten: Yeah, so I want to start out with a bit of honesty on this point because this is something that I have … This whole field of genes is something that I often encounter. When I hear people speaking about it or writing about it, almost always I find myself not really agreeing with the paradigm and a lot of the information that they’re presenting. And there’s just there’s so much of this thinking out there on genes that’s like, “I have this gene and therefore I have this condition. Then in popular culture, we have someone shared these ideas like, “I have the obesity gene, or I have the gene for Alzheimer’s, I have this, I have that.”
There’s just so much misinformation and bad thinking in this area that I was actually a little bit hesitant to get into this material. I have to say that I am shockingly surprised to find that your book was the first piece of material I’ve read on the subject of genes and gene expression that I’m like, “Yes, this guy nailed it.” Like this is a beautiful piece of work. Really excited to have you on and really pleasantly surprised at your work, so awesome job.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, well I appreciate that and you’re right, your opening statement is … I’m very thankful that you started it this way because you’re right, it’s … Unfortunately, the vast amount of information that is out there is wrong, and it’s leading people down the path of fear, it’s leading people down the path that they have to take something in order to solve their problem which is a genetic problem.
Hey, this area is new and it’s growing fast and any time you’re in a new pioneering area, there’s going to be mistakes. X-ray was developed and we were x-raying people’s shoe size feet for the perfect fit for a shoe, right? That was… we learned that it was bad, and now we’ve got Wi-Fi and EMF all over us, so who knows how that happened.
But that aside, mthfr.net was a website that I created years ago in the mid-2000s and well mid-early, early 2000, I should say like 2005. I thought that MTHFR was a gene that was like, “Oh my God, I’ve got this too, and it explains all my symptoms in the past, and my kids have it now, and I was all scared.” I was working with patients and myself and my family and I noticed I got better but if I took a bunch of L-Methylfolate, it got worse. What made me better was changing my environment and getting rid of chemicals and eating more salad. That’s what got me better, and that’s what got my patients better.
So you’re right, it needs a paradigm shift.
Ari Whitten: Yeah, absolutely. With that in mind, I think to ground things in a big picture context, let’s go real basic. Like a lot of people really think about genes as my genes are my destiny and like I said if I have a gene for so and so that means I’m going to get this condition or that condition. Are genes our destiny or not?
Dr. Ben Lynch: No, no, the simple answer is no. I mean you buy a car and it’s brand new, and that car we can say it’s your genes. How you drive it is your Epigenetics, are you going to drive recklessly? Are you going to cut corners that are marked 20 miles an hour, are you going to go around 50? Are you going be driving with two feet? If you have got the gas and the brake going on at the same time?
I see that all the time with … Well not all the time, but I see that sometimes with people going along the freeway and their brake lights are on the whole time. It’s like, “Dude, really?” You’re the driver of your machinery, and we could do the car example, we could do the airplane, we could do the computer, we could do any type of machinery, it doesn’t matter.
The fact is, your genes are collecting input and that input comes from you and so you can determine. We have the keyboard in front of us, and we have 26 letters to choose from, and those 26 letters have written how many books in this world? Endless amounts. Our inputs for our own body are again just like the keys on a keyboard. We are in control of the input, now we have processors built into us to receive that input and some of our processors maybe faster than others, some might be slower, some might be PC, some might be Max, but overall we can put in antivirus stuff on PCs and not really worry about it on Max so much.
Some of us have to be more protected and more aware of the susceptible problems, and people know that PCs are susceptible to viruses. If people know that they have MTHFR, then hey, that’s great. You should know that you’re susceptible to having problems if you’re consuming Folic Acid processed foods, drinking alcohol, and not eating your salad.
Ari Whitten: Beautiful. I think this point deserves a bit more emphasis because for a long time, for decades we have this central dogma of biology, this idea that genes are programming everything and determining everything. What you’re saying is something that maybe people aren’t quite catching, but I think is really important, which is there’s also something that is influencing the genes, the way that genes are working. So it’s not just genes equal the way we look and our disease and this and that, but there’s we have all these lifestyle elements as well.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, you’re right, this deserves a lot of time to dive into and I’ve done whole conferences just on this topic itself. We need to understand that basically, genes do work, genes produce things, and usually, they’ll produce an enzyme and the enzyme in the body through various different shapes and binding things. Once that happens, an action will take place. If you get scared, then your body will sense that fear through your brain and that will trigger a flood of neurotransmitters and other chemicals. It’ll direct a bunch of blood to your muscles and so on but your detection of a fear or your thought of fear just stimulates a bunch of genes to turn on and say, “Okay guys, let’s get to work, and ladies, and let’s get this person out of here.”
Then after that fear is gone, then there are other genes that come in there and they’re the cleanup crew, and they’re processing these chemicals. Now if you eat a high-fat, or a high carb food and high sugar, then you have all these fuels coming in and you have a bunch of genes that work to process that.
If you’re sucking down a bunch of alcohol, you have genes to process that.
So everything that you’ve put in your body has to be dealt with somehow. There’s not like it doesn’t just go down our hole of our mouth and magically make us feel good, there’s a lot of work involved. We have to appreciate that our body is constantly working on our behalf and so we have to take the actions that support the machinery as well as we can.
I call it machinery and that is kind of an insult because it’s a beautiful thing that we will never fully understand, but I call it that because we understand that you have to change oils and filters and so on, and if you drive it hard and you don’t take … You’re going be mind-flooded and you are going to have issues.
Let me back up and share something that Bruce Lipton said. We have our cells and our cells have membranes around them, and on these cell membranes are the little receptors and antennas basically, and they’re receiving input. We’re giving those cells and cell receptors and cell signals data to collect.
Whether it’s vitamins we’re taking, whether it’s vitamins we’re not taking, whether it’s chemicals in the environments or pollution in the environment, they’re receiving these things and that’s telling them to do various functions. We don’t see this happening so we don’t really understand it, it’s all on the inside of us but we feel it with our symptoms when we do it wrong.
Ari Whitten: Beautiful and there’s a really big paradigm shift there for a lot of people because a lot of people are used to thinking about genes are like I’m born with this gene and therefore I have brown eyes, or this color of hair, or whatever. We think of genes in this very static way, and what you’re saying is genes are really dynamic and that we have all these hundreds of genes that are being expressed differently from minute to minute depending on what we’re doing and what information they’re getting. I think that’s a big paradigm shift a lot of people.
What dirty genes are and how they affect us
The title of your new book is called Dirty Genes, so what the heck are dirty genes? How do they affect us?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Well, if something gets … If you’re in your home and you’re there to clean it, things work out well. It looks good. Let’s say you go on vacation and just before you left on vacation you had your wooden table that your family dines at and you as well. You come back … Before you leave, that table was just spotless, and you come back after a couple of weeks and you come back and you take your finger and you go, and there’s dust all over it, it’s dirty. So what do you do? You wipe it clean. But it’s not that hard because you’ve been maintaining your table, and so you just come home and you clean it off.
Dirty Genes is the same concept. Dirty Genes is understanding that through our lifestyle, our diet, our mindset and the environment, our genes do work and they can get dirty, and if we know what tools to use, what rags to use and so on, and what cleaners, we can clean them up.
Basically, it’s all about how much work we give our genes, and if it’s the right work and which tools we provide them. I used to do landscape construction years ago and I loved it, and so if I’m trying to dig a hole or dig out a plant and I’m using a square spaded shovel, a square-ended shovel, I’m going to have a more difficult time, right? Because it’s hard to penetrate the soil very well, I need a round point.
If I’m trying to put in a Phillips screwdriver, those screws with a plus heads-on, that I’m training to use a flathead, it’s not going to work very well. You have to use the right tool for the job. In every job that is out there, you have to go at the right pace. The concept of Dirty Genes is basically simply saying that through your own choices, your genes can do work, and we are going to make choices, all of us, that make our genes dirty.
We’re going to have the bag of chips, we’re going to be walking down going for a walk with our significant other or our kids or our friends and we’re going to breathing car exhaust. That makes our genes dirty, so what do you do? Well, you jump in a sauna or you take some glutathione or go for a run and so on. That’s it, it’s a simple concept that we can keep our cleans oiled and well machined.
The difference between the two types of dirty genes
Ari Whitten: Got you. In the book, you talk about two different types of dirty genes, genes that are born dirty versus genes that are acting dirty. What’s the difference between those two?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Well, genes that are born dirty are … That’s a concept that I’m struggling with a little bit because the genes that I’ve talked about in Dirty Genes have been selected for many, many generations. When I called them born dirty, I mean that they can make you more susceptible to having symptoms. Meaning, for example, in our current day-to-day life, our ancestors lived a completely different life than we are today, right? Totally different. I’m talking 1,500 years ago, their life was totally different than ours, yet we still have their DNA for the most part. We’ve inherited their genes in this new environment that we live in with lights and computers and Wi-Fi and car exhaust and processed food. They didn’t have that.
If our genes are born dirty such as MTHFR, you have a polymorphism MTHFR, you are more susceptible to having symptoms than someone who does not have a slowed down MTHFR. But there are benefits to having these born dirty genes. Having MTHFR, there are benefits to that and it’s just not negative. There are benefits to having a dirty NOS3 gene that we’ve also talked about in the book, it’s really important for cardiovascular disease. Even if your genes are born dirty like NOS3, you have a problem in this gene and you’re born with that, you need to know this because you can take action and reduce your susceptibility to cardiovascular disease and neurotransmitter problems, neurological issues.
But I want people to understand that if you’re born dirty with these genes, you’re not locked into a problem, they’re just already born dirty. You bought a table that already had some scratches on it, it still functions, it works but it might not look as pretty and maybe your chair is wobbly, it’s not level.
So you just need to maybe stick a piece of paper on it to keep it from moving around. It’s slightly not perfect. Now, that’s born dirty, so you got these from your mom and dad. Now, your genes can become dirty whether they were born perfectly or not. You can buy a table perfectly brand-new and you can put it in an environment. And it can just get full of scratches and things, and the floor can be unlevel, and the kids can be spilling stuff on it and writing on it with pens and scratching it with their fingernails.
Same thing with your genes, so your genes it can do work, and if you’re giving your genes too much work to do, they are going to get fatigued, and they’re going to start crying for help, and that crying for help is your symptoms. Symptoms are not something that you push away and swallow a pill like Tylenol or antacids to say, “This symptom is irritating, I’m going on through my life.” It’s your genes are like, “Hey, yow, help.” They’re giving you insights to how to fix it, and Dirty Genes gives you those symptoms and then connect them to genes and I tell you what your genes are trying to tell you.
So then you can identify these things and say, “Oh, that’s why I’m addicted to these things, that’s why I’m more prone to depression, that’s why I’m more irritable and/or I can’t fall asleep at night.” You understand these on a biochemical level so then you can take your ”got dirty genes” and change your habits and your lifestyle and your environment.
Ari Whitten: Beautiful and you briefly glossed over something there that is really important and is actually one of the reasons that I’m a fan of your book. This is something that I really have not seen other people do, which is you listed out some of these most important genes, and then you listed out pros and cons or strengths and weaknesses that are associated with each one of these.
This is a big, another big paradigm shift for a lot of people because again you hear so many people saying, “Oh, I have let’s say dirty MTHFR gene, therefore that’s bad and I have increased susceptibility or propensity for this symptom and that symptom and this disease and that disease, and this is a bad gene and I’m just I have bad luck.”
What you wrote in your book is basically that with each one of these genes, there might be, or gene SNPs, there might be increased susceptibility to certain symptoms, and then also … It also is associated with certain strengths.
I think a big missing piece of the puzzle that a lot of people are really leaving out is that I think there’s a lot of people looking at this in a very myopic way of so-and-so increases the risk for so-and-so, therefore it’s bad and we got to get rid of it. I think, especially, as we get into a lot of the genetic engineering type of stuff, I think that we are going to find …
This is just my personal opinion, I’m curious if you agree. But I think we’re going to find a lot of unexpected consequences when we start manipulating these genes. And realize that by cutting out something that we thought was bad it might actually increase the risk for other diseases that we were unaware of. But anyway, I just love that you laid that out in that way.
The strengths and weaknesses of MTHFR
To get specific, maybe we can dive into some of these specific gene SNPs and talk about some of the strengths and weaknesses associated with I guess we’ll start with MTHFR.
Dr. Ben Lynch: For sure, yeah, I’m glad you pulled that out too because you’re right, I do … We just briefly touched on it here, and then in the book, we expand on it more. This is something that I started thinking about probably in the last couple of years and thinking, “Well, all right.” Because I’ve been doing this for a long time, and it was only the last years I was thinking, “Okay, well why is there such variety? Why is there such … Why are so many people born this?” Because we have natural selection, so Natural selection has been working for a long time, if you believe in it, and I do. There has to be some evolutionary benefit to having these things, so what are they? If you look at MTHFR, the individuals who had MTHFR survived malaria back in the day.
We don’t have malaria here really in our environments, right, so when you live in certain areas, there is still malaria in certain areas so that is an issue. But for most of us, we have now removed … We have the MTHFR gene but we’re no longer living in malaria-infested areas, and we have processed food and so on.
But anyway, if you lived in an area that had malaria and you had MTHFR, you survived. You’re thinking, “Okay, well, that’s weird, why is that? Well, first you have to understand folate metabolism and that gets complicated but in short, there are two really main forms of folate. There is L-Methylfolate, which is the type of folate your MTHFR gene makes.
That goes on to do something in your body called methylation, which helps process your Homocysteine and so on and a bunch of other things. But I don’t want to … I explained it in the book really simply and I don’t want to confuse people here. So that’s L-Methylfolate.
The dangers of folic acid
Then there’s another form called Folinic acid and Folinic acid works on repairing your DNA and helping produce your blood cells, and your platelets, and your white blood cells, your red blood cells, and your energy, and your ATP, and your GTP, and it helps repair your DNA as it’s damaged. So very important and very few people talk about Folinic acid.
If you have MTHFR, that’s born dirty, meaning it works more slowly because we attribute slow as being bad, and my MTHFR gene works about 30% compared to the person who has no MTHFR polymorphism. My MTHFR gene is working at 30% capacity. That’s pretty bad, right?
But that allows me to have more Folinic acid because MTHFR is at the very bottom of the biochemical pathway, so if somebody’s MTHFR’s working really quickly, they’re making a bunch of L-Methylfolate and the Folinic acid levels are staying lower. But if I have MTHFR, my Folinic acids could be higher and I could have more DNA repair, making more blood cells, making more immune cells and so on. So there’s a definite benefit.
Ari Whitten: Those things that you just mentioned are going into translate into maybe for example if DNA repair is increased, it might translate into decreased susceptibility to maybe certain kinds of cancer.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Boom. Yeah, exactly and another one is this is something I researched a bit, but I couldn’t really find a true connection. When we’re out in the sun, our skin will burn, or we’ll tan and as we are out in the sun, the sun will damage and burn our skin.
We know that that’s why we get skin cancer, but we have Folinic acid to the rescue to help prevent us from … To help repair that damage skin. If you are out … And we also have skin tan to preserve Folate so we will darken our skin, our body will do it for us, it will darken our skin to preserve the Folate in our blood which is pretty cool.
Ari Whitten: Yeah, very cool. What are some of the strengths and I guess the … Well, let’s talk about some the weaknesses of the MTHFR not having have the most optimal SNP.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, so if you have MTHFR like I do and it slowed down significantly, then what happens is we have a propensity to having our Homocysteine levels creep up. And that happens because the job of MTHFR is to produce something called L-Methylfolate, and that’s the type of Folate that is in our blood and it should be in our … 80% or more of our blood levels of Folate it should be L-Methylfolate. So that is what we want to have in our blood, that type of Folate, and our MTHFR gene makes that for us.
Now, we all know Folic acid and we think that if we take a supplement with Folic acid or eat a food that’s enriched with Folic acid, we’re doing ourselves a favor, well you’re not. Because folic acid is 10 steps from becoming L-Methylfolate. So if you have MTHFR, folic acid is like total garbage for you, so it shouldn’t be consumed. That is one problem is Folic acid is everywhere and pervasive in the environment, and I strongly believe that no one should be eating folic acid because it’s not just the MTHFR gene that’s a problem, it’s all the other Folate genes too.
Folic acid during pregnancy
Ari Whitten: Just to digress on that point for a second, I’m curious what your thoughts are on pregnancy in particular where so many doctors are of this opinion that you need to supplement with folic acid.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. My next book is going to be on preconception and prenatal care.
Ari Whitten: Oh cool.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Here I am talking about that Folic acid is bad in every single … Wait a minute, that’s important for Neural Tube Defects and Spina Bifida and so on. Yeah, your folate is important for pregnancy and breastfeeding and so on. There’s a difference between Folic acid being synthetic and manmade versus folate being what’s found in nature. When you’re pregnant, I want you consuming Folate, I want you consuming your leafy green vegetables, organic or home homegrown without chemicals preferably.
Then if you’re not doing that as well or you need more nutritional support, then you find a prenatal that has both L-methylfolate to supporting methylation and Folinic acid to support your blood cells and your platelets, and so on.
Yeah, very good point, but yeah, so you just look for a prenatal that has both forms of active Folate which are L-methylfolate and Folic acid. If it has Folic acid in it, you don’t pick it up, it’s not used.
Ari Whitten: Yeah, well, I have to say I’m excited for you to write that book. I think it’s much needed because there’s so much misinformation about that. There are so many millions of people being prescribed Folic acid supplements every day. I know, I have a son who’s just a little over one year old now, and when my wife was pregnant and we were going to the doctor on the first appointments, he said take this prenatal supplement of Folic acid, it’s really important.
Even for me, been studying this field all the time, I still had this little piece of doubt in my mind, “Well maybe I don’t know enough about pregnancy in particular, and maybe they’re right, maybe we should supplement with this.” But eventually, I actually made the decision, “No, you’re not going to take that, what we’re going to do instead is we’re going to make sure that you’re eating tons of Folate in your diet on a daily basis.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Well done, well done. Glad to hear that.
Ari Whitten: How many millions of people are not knowledgeable enough to make a decision like that?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Billions, billions, and that it needs to change, and the paradigm is shifting and I will say that I spent a pretty amount of money to do it, but I bought folicacid.com.
Ari Whitten: Oh, nice.
Dr. Ben Lynch: I did it because I want people to be getting the truth, and I also bought-
Ari Whitten: Well done. That was a smart move, yeah that’s awesome.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, and I also have neuraltubedefect.com, so I’m putting this whole thing together because people Google Folic acid all the time. So I’m going to be getting the real education, I’ve got all the science there and all the citations and I have the clinical evidence to back it up too. There are many, many women who have been switched over to these active Folates and their recurrent miscarriages have stopped, and they have carried a healthy baby to term and enjoying their being a mother with a beautiful baby and growing up to be a successful person.
It’s so cool, I mean it happens all the time now with our prenatal and it’s very powerful. As a father of three boys, when my first son was born, that’s when I realized that life meant something.
Before, life was fun and enjoyable, but it didn’t really mean anything, right? As soon as you hold your son or your daughter in your arms like, “Wow, now I’ve got a reason to live.” This is important, so I want everybody to experience that without stress or anxiety.
How to address challenges with MTHFR
Ari Whitten: Beautiful, well I’m super excited for you to produce more work on that and get the word out, I think that’s really important. Getting back to some of these genes, I guess sticking with MTHFR, what are some of the practical steps that someone can take to help address that issue?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, this goes across to all genes, but we’ll be specific to MTHFR here. If you’re overworked, you get tired and stressed out and you don’t perform as well and you start making mistakes, same with your genes, and it’s that simple. You don’t want to overwork your genes that are dirty, and you want to help them out, you want to lend a hand. It’s your choices that are doing that.
First off, you stop taking Folic acid, period, you just don’t do it. If you get some in your diet or you want to eat your energy bar or you go out to a restaurant, don’t freak out, it’s fine, but don’t intentionally buy something that’s with Folic acid in it and don’t intentionally buy food with flowers and so on, cut those out. If you get some Folic acid, it’s okay, don’t worry about it. It’s all over the place.
How supplements are made with ”bad folic acid”
Ari Whitten: It’s common in multivitamin supplements, is it not-
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah.
Ari Whitten: … multi-standard multivitamins?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, it’s standard in most multivitamins, it’s standard in your drinks, it’s in your food, it’s in your cereal, it’s anything that has grains in it, most energy bars. Also, the wary that if it says Folate on the label, you need to contact the manufacturer and say what type of Folate is it. The FDA is actually cracking down on this and they’re requiring manufacturers to specify if it’s Folate or Folic acid, and everybody was really negative about this, and I wrote a long blog post about it, and somebody told me to delete it.
The manufacturer told me to delete it because I was going to irritate the FDA, and I was like, “No, I’m actually in support of what the FDA is doing.” Because when you look on a supplement bottle … Let’s see if I have one here, I don’t think I do. I don’t. But let me just, yeah, so this for example. Can you see the parentheses there?
Ari Whitten: It’s a little blurry, I don’t know if the camera can focus? For milk thistle extract, no?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Is there around Betaine or trimethylglycine?
Ari Whitten: Oh yes, for Betaine anhydrous trimethylglycine.
Ben Lynch: Yeah, you see the parentheses with trimethylglycine?
Ari Whitten: Yes.
Dr. Ben Lynch: So what you want to do, when it says Folate because it says protein anhydrous, right? You take protein anhydrous and then there are parentheses after that that says trimethylglycine. If it says folate and it has parentheses and it will say as Folic acid, or it will say as Quatrefolic or it will say calcium Folate. You want to read what’s inside those parentheses. If it just says Folate, you’re on the phone with manufacturing saying, “What is this?” If they say, “Oh, it’s naturally the right Folate.” You say, “you got to get me a statement analysis, you got to dive deeper.” If they don’t, if they … Their companies are lying because now I’ve blown the horn on Folic acid so much that they’re nervous and they just will tell you it’s natural Folate but it’s not.
Ari Whitten: Is it reasonable to assume that if a supplement company is not specifying that it’s a particular type of L-Methylfolate or that it is probably Folic acid?
Dr. Ben Lynch: I would say nine times out of 10 it will be Synthetic Folic acid if it just says Folate. You’re probably right, there’s probably like 9.9 times out of 10 that it’s synthetic folic acid because the companies that are utilizing the good folates are going to tell you. Yeah, they are going to tell you.
Ari Whitten: Yeah, that’s how I figured, if the company’s going to the trouble to use one of those substances, they’re probably going to advertise it.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah and let me tell you one other thing too about this, so before I continue on your question which is great, folic acid is like five bucks a kilo for a manufacturer to purchase. So $5 for two pounds to buy Folic acid to use in a bunch of supplement tests, that’s super cheap. Now L-methylfolate is like $12,000 a kilo, so when you say that, “Oh, this supplement’s too expensive or so on, you need to understand that the quality of ingredients … You get what you pay for, and five bucks for folic acid for two pounds, or $12,000 for L-methylfolate for two pounds, and the only difference between Folic acid and L-methylfolate is a methyl group.
But when 80% of your blood levels of folate are supposed to methylated with a methyl group, that’s what you want. You just put that little methyl group on your folate, if you don’t get what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it, it’s very easy to read in the book. Believe me, my writer and I got many arguments, she’s like, “Ben, I don’t understand, I don’t get it, what are you talking about?”
Ari Whitten: No, I have to agree on that point, you did a great job of simplifying a lot of complex material.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, thank you, and I thank her a lot for that too because anytime I wrote something, because I would write the chapters and send it to her and she’d just get on the phone and is like, “I don’t get this.” She goes mad at me and she goes, “What are you talking about?” So it was great. The basic tips for MTHFR are to, again, stop synthetic folates, number two is try to reduce your alcohol intake because alcohol really disturbs your methylation and can increase your Homocysteine and the basic lifestyle stuff. Everything you already know.
Stress will increase the usage of your folate and your Vitamin B12 but it sucks it up like a vacuum. It just takes your nutrients and goes along with your [inaudible] and even others. So… reduce your stress, reduce your sleeping, and you are like, “Yada, yada, yada, okay, I get it.” But there are genes which predispose you to stress, and there are genes that predispose you to sleeping poorly and falling asleep with difficulty or staying asleep. I get that people who are in this are sick and tired of hearing eat better, sleep better, and exercise and reduce your stress.
They’re tired of hearing these but what I do is I say, “Hey, these are the genes which really help you calm down or these are the genes which predispose you to stressors, and this is why you’re so susceptible to stress may be compared to someone else, and this is how you fix it.” I will be flippant a bit about saying, “Yeah, you got to do what your grandma told you but at the same time I’ll give you evidence and tools to make you understand of how to correct these things.”
The GST and GPX genes
Ari Whitten: Yeah, I love that. There’s a handful of other genes that we could talk about but I’d rather just take one other one and go deep in it, which is GST and GPX, which I guess are technically two different gene variants that are similar and connected.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yes, you’re absolutely right and so I’ll tell you that the book was they’re pushing me to call the book, The Seven Deadly Genes, that’s what they wanted to call it.
Ari Whitten: That’s very biblical.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, oh God, and I fought and I fought and they fought back and I fought and they fought back and because-
Ari Whitten: That’s a catchy title, I have to admit.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, but is it empowering? No, it’s scary and I finally won out obviously, but I bring that point up because I talk about the super seven, these are the Super Seven genes, and GPX and GST, they’re really two, so there’s really eight. But I didn’t want to call it the Super Eight, it didn’t sound good.
To let you know that GST and GPX they have to do with glutathione, and glutathione is a big fancy word for being your body’s number one antioxidant.
You know Vitamin C, you know Vitamin E, you might know Resveratrol and these other things, but glutathione is really the big kahuna, that’s what you want and have plenty of.
If you don’t have plenty of glutathione in your blood, you’re in trouble. You’re going to get gray hair faster, you’re going to get chemical sensitivity, you’re not going to have energy, you’re going to have asthma, you’re going to have extra induced to asthma, you’re going to be super sensitive to smells and perfumes. You’re going to have breathing difficulties and besides just asthma, and you’re going to get a build up of heavy metals and other compounds in your blood, which are going to predispose you to cancer.
How MHTFR and GST/GPX genes are working together to improve your health
For example, arsenic is pervasive in our environment, it’s everywhere, and it’s in our water, it’s in our food, it’s in the soils, and we’re consuming it on a daily basis, unfortunately. And arsenic the way it comes out of the body is through methylation, which MTHFR genes supports and also glutathione, you need both. If your MTHFR gene is dirty, and your GST/GPX genes are dirty, your arsenic levels are climbing and as a result, you’re going to get dumber and you’re going to have no energy. These two genes are really, really important because you’re exposed to arsenic all day long.
I just tested my arsenic levels years ago when I was doing landscape construction and my arsenic levels were high, really high because I was cutting treated lumber all the time, and so I was inhaling and had arsenic all over my hands. It’s gone now from treating and reduce over these days. Yeah, so glutathione is really important and I’ll let you ask another question.
The strengths of GST and GPX
Ari Whitten: I take to follow up on that what I was talking about earlier as far as how you laid out the strengths and weaknesses, I found this fascinating what you talked about with GST and GPX. The strengths you said are immediate awareness of potentially harmful chemicals before they have the chance to make you really sick, and also improved response to chemotherapy. I’m also curious if you think it might improve response to other chemicals beyond chemotherapy, maybe other supplements and things like that? If people are just, their bodies, are just more sensitive to the effects of various kinds of chemicals?
As one example, a lot of different phytochemicals need to kind of be detoxified through some of these same pathways, and I’m wondering if maybe you take something like Curcumin if somebody is not quite as fast of a detoxifier with glutathione, maybe the Curcumin might have longer lasting effects or the person might be more sensitive to the effects, is that a reasonable line of speculation?
Dr. Ben Lynch: I like where you’re going with this, and some of what you said is right on and the example of Curcumin, Curcumin will slow the CRMT gene down. Whether or not it slows the glutathione genes down, I’m not sure. But Curcumin is definitely it’s a catechol, catechol in Curcumin.
It’s I’m recollecting this, I’m pretty sure I’m correct. But I don’t know if it has any impact on glutathione, it probably does, I mean it’s a strong compound. Maybe it stimulates nerve too, again, I don’t know. But it could stimulate Nrf2 which then supports glutathione. Do you know if it stimulates Nrf2 or not?
Ari Whitten: Curcumin?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah.
Ari Whitten: Yeah, it does.
Ben Lynch: Okay, well then if Curcumin does stimulate Nrf2, then it does, you’re right, then it does, that would speed up glutathione production and secretion. Curcumin would actually increase the production of glutathione or at least the usage of glutathione in your body via Nrf2.
Ari Whitten: So we had these strengths and weaknesses, weaknesses would be these people would be hypersensitive to a lot of different environmental chemicals but the strength might be because they’re hypersensitive they might react and pull away from it and notice it sooner than someone else and be less likely to develop a toxicity from it. I just found that fascinating that there might be this kind of strength to this to maybe not having as effective of a glutathione production system.
Dr. Ben Lynch: That’s right, and you know it’s because I really wanted to think pros and cons to each one, and I had to rack my brain on some of these. Like the glutathione, one is like, “Okay, what in the heck would be the benefits?” When I was researching and I discovered the one saying that if you had these glutathione issues genetically, then yeah, you have an increased outcome from, excuse me, using chemotherapy. I was thinking, “Why is that?” Well, chemotherapy is a pro-oxidative treatment, it’s designed to oxidize and kill cells.
So if you have glutathione genes that are just working really cleanly and a strong antioxidant, then here you are getting a pro-oxidative therapy to try to kill these bad cells. Glutathione is just coming along and trying to defeat the purpose of the chemotherapy so that why having a glutathione problem for chemo is not good.
But on the flip side, if you are that person who is super sensitive to chemicals and if you have these glutathione genes you will be very likely that you will be, excuse me. If you’re not listening to your symptoms, you’re just going through life and dealing with your headaches with taking aspirin and you’re just fighting through it.
And you’re just feeling like crap, you’re drinking more caffeine to get your energy levels back up and you’re not avoiding the smells, then you’re going to be in a world of hurt because that glutathione levels are getting lower and lower and lower and it’s actually predisposing you to cancer.
There’s a bonus that gives more sense of the smells but it’s telling you, “Hey, move away please, you have symptoms and that means …” If you put your hand on a stove and you burn your finger you’re like ouch. So it’s to be if you’re walking down the street and you smell someone’s dryer sheets, I also want to go to their door and say, “Yo, this is bad and stop it.”
You’ve got to avoid the chemicals, again, you’ve got to listen to your body. Now it’s talked about all the time in the book, you’ve got to tune in and be aware of your symptoms. So if you tune into your symptoms, you’re going to learn what they mean from reading this book and you’ll be able to take action but it’s ultimately your decision.
How the Cell Danger Response and Glutathione are connected
Ari Whitten: Yeah, so one thing I’ve heard you talk about in the past which is one of my personal favorite subjects and something that a lot of my work is based on is the cell danger response and this idea of kind of mitochondria being overwhelmed by various kinds of stressors or toxins. I’m curious if this ties into the GST/GPX sort of what’s going on there if maybe the person’s cells don’t produce glutathione as effectively, maybe their mitochondria are more susceptible to being overwhelmed by the stressor of let’s say toxin. And then going into this cell danger response and shutting down energy production in the mitochondria.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Man, I love your questions and you’re very well read, and well researched, good man. Cell Danger Response is by far the best paper I’ve ever read in the scientific literature.
Ari Whitten: I think it’s one of the most important papers in the last like 50 years.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, it’s phenomenal and Bob, Dr. Robert Naviaux is also a phenomenal individual, he’s super humble, wicked smart. I talked with him all the time and he’s a phenomenal individual and author of the paper.
Ari Whitten: A quick side note, I actually I got introduced by a friend of mine, Dr. Maya Shetreat-Klein, I don’t know if you know her but she and Robert are close friends so she actually introduced me. He happens to be in San Diego where I live and so I got to go to his lab a few months ago and hang out with him for a few hours.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Awesome.
Ari Whitten: Which was awesome, so yeah, he is an absolutely brilliant guy and he’s a super, super nice guy, super smart guy.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, super smart, I mean he makes me feel absolutely … Non-intentionally but I’m just listening to him and just like wow.
Ari Whitten: Yeah, I know the feeling.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, so but basically the Cell danger response is your body’s ability to sense danger whatever it is, a chemical in the air, an infection, a stressor, and your body will go into protective mode and will shift the whole system immediately. What senses that is your mitochondria and your mitochondria will produce your energy. So here you are your cells are producing energy like crazy and then there’s an insult, there’s an infection, or there’s a chemical.
And the Cell Danger response will shift that, so you’re not producing energy anymore as much, you’re still doing some otherwise you’re dead. But it’s taking some of that oxygen and it’s moving it instead of burning it to ATP, it’s burning it, it’s using it to make pearl oxygen like hydroxyl groups or superoxide.
You’re absolutely right, individuals who have a GST or a GPX, they will have lower levels of glutathione and during that Cell Danger Response when the body is taking that oxygen and making pro-oxidants, they’re going to be feeling the wrath of that way more than someone who does not have those dirty genes.
You’re thinking, “Okay, well, that’s that’s bad but let’s step back for a moment and think okay well what is the Cell Danger Response trying to do?” It’s trying to fight an insult, a danger or something that’s going wrong in the body. It’s fighting for us. So if there’s an infection, you want pro-oxidation because they’ll go and it will stimulate the immune system and the pro-oxidants will destroy the cell membrane of the infected cells.
And will get in there and will kill the virus or the bacteria or the whatever’s going on, and then after that insult is gone, the cell danger response will quiet and everything will start going back to repair mode again. The bigger response you have of that cell danger response, the harder and faster your body will respond and kill or neutralize that response. The problem is if it’s the chronic insult such as a chemical or a heavy metal, or inflamed damaging foods like you’re going to fast food and you’re eating all these garbage oils and garbage processed foods, that’s also a cell danger response.
Your body is trying to protect you and you have no energy and you’re GST/GPX genes are trying to work for you, but you keep insulting it. You keep insulting the system, and the system is designed to protect you but you keep screwing it up. There are certain dangers that our body will … It can’t distinguish, right, it senses it and does it, so if you’re eating a fast food burger or not sleeping or high stress versus an infection or a chemical, you can’t tell, the response is the same.
The mitochondria resiliency threshold
Ari Whitten: Yeah, this makes me think of this concept that I developed around cell danger response, I call it the resiliency threshold and it’s basically a way of talking about how sensitive the mitochondria are to these kinds of threats and at what point they’re overwhelmed by the stressor and then they shift into cell danger mode versus if you have stressors that are kind of below a certain threshold, resiliency threshold, the mitochondria have the capacity to cope with that and/or including the GST/GPX genes…If the whole system has the capacity to cope with that stressor respond to it adequately and then get back to homeostasis.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Absolutely, great point and great concept. I’d love to see you draw out on it if you haven’t already because it’s brilliant. You have a good night sleep, your resiliency is better, right? If you go on vacation and you come back, somebody pisses you off, you’re more okay to like it’s okay. But if you’ve been working for six months straight and you’re not sleeping well and somebody pisses you off, you might even go against all what you’re trying to do and punch them in the face.
Ari Whitten: Yeah.
Dr. Ben Lynch: You’re not resilient anymore, and it’s the same thing with your cell danger response, and so if you are caring for your body and you’re making the right decisions, then yeah you might insult it with a late night, or you might insult it with a Thanksgiving dinner and a bunch of alcohol and having a party with your friends, that’s cool, enjoy yourselves. Just know that now your threshold has just gone from here to here, and make up for it the next couple days or the next week.
So that’s all my point is and because as living, I know a ton about biochemistry, and I also know a ton about human desires and mindsets, and I also know that I have my own faults if you will. I’ll stay up to watch a show, and I’ll overeat sometimes rarely but sometimes, and I’ll have a who can eat just one chip? I am a sucker for chips and I realize that the more stressed I am, the more junk food I eat, so I do a really pretty good job, not fantastic, a pretty good job for reigning in my stress. I don’t go to grab those chips, and I know that they’re going to knock down my resiliency even more, so I’ll be more stressed because now I’m in that vicious cycle of stress, crap, stress, crap, stress, crap, where I can’t get out.
How a dirty GST SNP is linked to chronic fatigue
Ari Whitten: Yeah and one more point to add to this, it’s just extending this line of thinking just out of curiosity I had looked earlier today to see if I could see any link between GST and GPX genes and chronic fatigue syndrome specifically whereas Robert Naviaux research indicates the cell danger response is likely playing a big role in that syndrome. And a lot of other people’s research has indicated that it’s largely about mitochondrial dysfunction. I actually did find that there is a GST gene SNP that is linked to chronic fatigue syndrome, so I found that fascinating as well.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Awesome, and folks, I’m glad you did the research on that, and I’m glad that you are looking at research to find these things. And folks also need to understand which is the concept of Dirty Genes where is if you’re born with a dirty GST or GPX then yeah, you have increased risk of chronic fatigue, does it mean that you are going to get it? No, but you have increased risk because if you are smelling those chemicals and you are not dealing with it, then you better deal with it because, as you pointed out, the resiliency goes down.
The other point is you might not be born with a dirty GST or GPX, and you might be fine with these chemicals and these dryer sheets, like I don’t know what you guys are talking about, I love dryer sheets facts and I love the smell of gas and I love the smell of new clothes, and now from all the hype that they give off. I love walking down the aisle in Home Depot and smelling all the fertilizers and pesticides, I just totally dig it.
So if you’re that person, then you’ve got a pretty strong system, and kudos to you but I will tell you that you’re putting a load on your system, whether you like it or you not, your genes are working hard for you in those aisles and those actions that you’re doing. I would reduce it because you will get yourself more chronic fatigue and problematic.
Why you should not try to fix your dirty genes with supplements
Ari Whitten: Yeah, that’s an important point, I’m glad you brought that up. I want to be sensitive to your time here, so I know we only have a few more minutes, but there’s one more really important thing that you said in the book that I love. You wrote, and I’m going to just quote you here quickly. It said, in the talking about genetic testing, so you said, “What if you’ve had genetic testing already and you want to head straight to fixing your problem genes?” Then you said, “Trust me, don’t.”
I found that fascinating, and I think it’s really counterintuitive for a book on dirty genes to have the author saying … Right before this, you had said genetic testing you don’t really need to go do genetic testing, and then if you do genetic testing and you have that inkling to say, “What are my problem genes? I want to go learn how to fix this one and that one and that one.” You’re saying don’t do that, so why is that? Why do you feel genetic testing isn’t so important for everyone to do and why someone shouldn’t rush out to try to fix this gene or that gene?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Okay, so let me give you a side example that I just came up with the other day that I thought was really good, I was just responding to someone in my dirty genes Facebook group, and … Because they were really, really frustrated with me saying all the time don’t treat the SNP, don’t treat the gene as a problem.
And somebody goes, “Why do you keep saying that? I’m so irritated, I’ve done the genetic testing so why can’t I do it?” All these people were jumping on and churning in and giving reasons and I was like, “Yes, they are getting it.” They responded and it was like, “Man this is awesome.”
So I was like, “Thumbs up, you guys are absolutely spot on.” But I ended up responding myself too, and I said, “Think of it this way, which teams win championships? In any sport, doesn’t matter what, hockey, basketball, water polo, it doesn’t matter, baseball, tennis, it doesn’t matter.”
Ari Whitten: It’s a team with the one star-player and everybody else who sucks and doesn’t play as a team, right?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yes, exactly, yeah, that’s right. I coached soccer for almost 10 years all three of my boys and now they’re in select teams and so that I’m out because I don’t have that time, I wish I did. If I retired I’ll be a soccer coach, I love it. But it’s the fundamentals, you look at any team who excels, they know the fundamentals amazingly well, they pass well, they shoot well, they work as a team well, they do all the basics.
And yeah, they can do trick plays sometimes, but that’s sometimes. They handle the balls really well or handle whatever sport that they’re doing, the racket, or their serves are greater, or their volleys are greater, their shooting abilities are great. It doesn’t matter if they could do the Maradona spin in soccer, it doesn’t matter if they can hit the ball between their legs, it doesn’t matter if they can do L Ups and what have you. They know the fundamentals, and so if you’re trying to do L Ups and hit the ball between your legs, you can’t do that unless you know the fundamentals. And the fundamentals are air, food, water, shelter, and your mindset.
If you are trying to take … You find out that you have MTHFR for example, and on your test it’s like red, MTHFR plus, plus use the light, you’re freaking out and thinking, “Okay, that’s why I’m sick,” and so you look at what MTHFR does, you learn that it uses the vitamin riboflavin to support it, and you learn that it makes L-methylfolate. So you go to the store and you buy riboflavin and L-methylfolate, and you’re all excited because those two nutrients are going to go in your blood, and they are just going to bypass that genetic cumuli and you’re like woohoo, okay? No, no.
First of all, you could be lucky and that’s awesome, that’s great if you’re lucky. You can try it, and if you’re lucky, fantastic. Now if you are still staying up late, and you’re stressed out, and you’re not sleeping deeply, or you’re eating processed foods, you’re not going to get tremendous benefit.
There are people that are taking literally 30 milligrams of Deplin or L-methylfolate, 30 milligrams, not only is that super expensive, it’s dumb. Because what’s happening is the Folic acid is gumming up the receptors to their genes and they’re not removing it.
So think of it this way too, you … I’m trying to think of an example here, you basically … If you do this in another presentation, to build a skyscraper, the foundation is humongous and super solid for a skyscraper, or a home or anything. You’ve got to have a solid foundation before you build on top of it, and you hear this example all the time. You’re trying to make a deck of cards to go up, the foundation has to be stable. If you’re trying to put a table top on legs, the legs have to be super stable, and you’ve got to have a solid foundation and everything. That’s why this … I wonder what the definition of the foundation is actually to be curious.
Ari Whitten: That’s an interesting question.
Dr. Ben Lynch: It’d be interesting to look that up because SNPs to me are like the radio antenna on top of a skyscraper. It’s like the last thing you work on, and I’ve learned that the hard way, because believe me, I tried to go straight to the SNPs because people come to me with their genetics because I was the genetic expert, and I would try to fix their [inaudible], trying to fix their CMT and sometimes it worked, but most of the times it didn’t. I’m just trying to prevent you from all being frustrated and you’re going to … You will get way more benefit of dirty genes and your whole life and if you do the fundamentals first, and then you tweak your genes. Because you cannot tweak your genes if they’re so gummed up and varied, you can’t do that fined up.
How you get most benefits from eating your supplements
Ari Whitten: Yeah, and this is such an important point that I just … I see so many people that are out there talking about genes, who are operating in this really insanely reductionistic myopic way where it’s you have this gene and that gene and this SNP and that SNP and therefore you need to be on this supplement, and that supplement, and this supplement, and do this, this and this. That’s most of the discussion that I see out there, so it was really refreshing and surprising in a really good way to see you emphasizing, “Don’t treat the SNP, treat the entire system with these fundamentals of lifestyle habits. Get everything functioning well and really pointing out the flaws in that reductionist approach.
On a personal note, I’ve done gene analysis, I’ve run it through a lot of the different testers that are online and there’s one particular one that I ran it through that … Well, I’ll actually mention two, one told me that my MTHFR genes variants are pretty good, and I don’t really have to worry too much. And then another one that I ran it through literally wanted to prescribe, I’m not even exaggerating, probably 25 different supplements to help me methylate properly. It was just crazy, some of the stuff that’s out there on gene variance is really it’s crazy and I think it’s getting people into a lot of trouble, so I really appreciate you bringing sanity to this.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Well, thank you very much for helping me do it. Your questions have been fantastic, and you prepared exceptionally well, you’re very knowledgeable, I love your thinking and problem-solving. I’d like to keep in touch and your resiliency thing is a good point to get out there too, push that model, and I think it’s a great one. It’s let’s face it, people are really driven by the mighty dollar and not everyone, but a lot of people.
And then they see a fad or something new, they jump on, and they see an opportunity in generic reports, and everybody is running them. So they throw a couple of supplements together and they try to label them and they start recommending stuff on this. Look, I have a supplement company, and I tell you in Dirty Genes like don’t take supplements, don’t do it. I don’t want you taking supplements until like after page 270 and after you’ve done the fundamentals. Once you’ve done the fundamentals, yeah, you might need some additional support to get that gene working again, maybe you were deficient, but as you get feeling better, there is a diagram. Did you see the post method diagram in there?
Ari Whitten: Yeah, I actually wanted to bring that up because I teach a similar concept, and you’re the first person that I’ve encountered that teaches this. I just call it cycling of supplements, you call it post method but very counterintuitive that when you take a supplement you start to feel better from it. I like how you say that’s the time to get off the supplement.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yes, that’s right. A supplement is designed to add or enhance something, and so if you take a multivitamin in the beginning, and you haven’t taken a multivitamin for a long time, and you find a good multivitamin without Folic acid, and you’re starting to feel great like, “Wow, this is what life is supposed to be, right?” You’re doing awesome, you’re doing really well, you’re getting more done, you’re thinking clearly, you have more energy, you’re exercising harder and life is great, and you keep taking it, and you keep taking it and now you can’t sleep.
Now you’re finding yourself more irritable, and you’re starting to get some anxiety and headaches, and it can’t be the multivitamin because hey, that’s what pulled you out of all of that. But it’s a bell-shaped curve, it’s everything’s a bell shape curve, you’re feeling bad, feeling bad, you feel exceptional, but now you’re pushing the system. Now you’re on this side, now you’re in a whole new world that you’re not familiar with.
You stop the product, whatever you’re taking as long as it’s okay with your doctor, but I will also tell you that most doctors don’t get this either because they prescribe something like L-methylfolate, you have entered too far, you’ve got to take L-methylfolate.
Ari Whitten: They view it as like take it and you should be on it indefinitely.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yes, and I was in a major like the most major medical conference in the world of medicine and I’m not going to names. And doctor after doctor, because it was physician only, doctor after doctor, it was like 1,500 docs there saying, “What about L-methylfolate?” Are you telling everybody to take L-methylfolate for MTHFR and aren’t there side effects? No, there are no side effects. From the presenters to 1,500 people.
And all these other doctors are like, “Well, I heard from …” Nonsense, it’s nonsense. I was like, “Wow,” and so if you give something with the belief that it’s going to only help, you are creating bias. You have to understand that something can always help or hinder. Water can kill you, air can kill you, right? If it’s too much, or too little, it’s the same thing with a supplement.
So if you feel great, stop, and then if you take it right away and you feel worse, you should probably stop. If you take it a little bit, in the beginning, you feel nothing, maybe you need some more.
You start feeling better, and maybe you continue taking it. If you start feeling better and better, keep taking it. When you feel great, that’s like okay stop. Wait a few days, as you wait a few days thinking, “Okay, I’m starting to go back to my old self again, well take it again.” So as you start feeling yourself slide back down that slope again, take it again. That’s it.
How you can get your own copy of ”Dirty Genes”
Ari Whitten: Very cool. This has been a brilliant discussion and I am a big fan of your work and this was a lot of fun to connect with you in person and have this conversation, and I think people are going to love it. Where can people get a hold of more of your work and actually let me first say that I highly recommend that everyone go out and get your new book Dirty Genes? So definitely do that, and then beyond that where can people find more about your work and read more of your material?
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, so Dirty Genes, if I may is here, and I will have this little thought in here it says encrypted proof, not for sale. Yours will be. So you can find it anywhere books are sold, after January 30th and you can also go to dirtygenes.com to grab it there. My website where I’ve got you know my social media is my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and all that is drbenlynch.com, so drbenlynch.com. And then my supplement company is seekinghealth.com.
Again, I don’t want you to go to Seeking Health, don’t go there, I want you to go to Dirty Genes, I want you to read Dirty Genes first. You can go to Dr. Lynch and watch my Facebook Lives that I do once a week, I’ve got a lot of videos there. You can go to my YouTube channel and learn about your stuff there. There’s a bonus chapter on drbenlynch.com, have you seen that?
Ari Whitten: Yeah.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Downloaded that?
Ari Whitten: Yeah.
Dr. Ben Lynch: What did you think of that?
Ari Whitten: It was great.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, so it’s basically the 26 steps of cleaning genes, and what I like about that is the first step is A, which is do you remember what A is?
Ari Whitten: I don’t remember what A is.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Avoid.
Ari Whitten: Avoid.
Dr. Ben Lynch: It does not add, it’s avoided. So a lot of people have a problem or a symptom they want to swallow something for that. I want you to avoid something, so do not go to Seeking Health, do not go buy supplements, I want you first to learn to avoid something. You have smelled in your home, get rid of them, you have a lot of stressors, find them get rid of them, you’re eating foods that you shouldn’t, reduce those and add something back in, but first you got to reduce.
Ari Whitten: Avoid the treat the SNP mentality.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yes, stop, stop. Yeah, because you won’t get better, you’ll only get frustrated and doctor after doctor, person after person, I’ve talked to says genetic testing was the dumbest thing I ever did. I’m telling both people nowadays that don’t even do genetic testing until you’ve done the fundamentals or you’ve got through that because what happens is you get so anxious about seeing all these reds and yellows on your genetic report that you feel that you have to fix that. But you don’t fix that by swallowing pills, even though company after company is telling you, even doctors.
Ari Whitten: Yeah and in my Facebook group with members of my energy blueprint program, I see it all the time. I see people who have done genetic testing, who have done these reports, and they say I have this SNP and that SNP and they’re trying … They’re in that approach of trying to treat specific SNPs with specific supplements, and I’m so like I said before, I’m so happy to hear someone like you really emphasizing the same thing that I’ve been emphasizing. I think for me it validates my thought process on this whole thing, which is, don’t treat the SNP, get the fundamentals in line so I love that. Thank you again for sharing your brilliance and wisdom with my audience, really such a pleasure to connect with you and this was a lot of fun.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Yeah, I appreciate your time and I love the fact that you’re in total line with this too and it’s great to finally find a comrade to help change the paradigm for people to get better, because treating SNP, they won’t get better.
Ari Whitten: For sure. Well, thank you again, Dr. Lynch. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Ben Lynch: Thank you, yeah.
How Your Genes Can Cause Fatigue, and How to Clean Up Your “Dirty Genes” – Show Notes
How your genes are working (0:47)
What dirty genes are and how they affect us (10:30)
The difference between the two types of dirty genes (13:00)
The strengths and weaknesses of MTHFR (18:39)
The dangers of folic acid (20:41)
Folic acid during pregnancy (24:30)
How to address challenges with MTHFR (28:30)
How supplements are made with ”bad folic acid” (29:46)
The GST and GPX genes (35:28)
How MHTFR and GST/GPX genes are working together to improve your health (37:35)
The strengths of GST and GPX (38:36)
How the Cell Danger Response and Glutathione are connected (43:53)
The mitochondria resiliency threshold (48:48)
How a dirty GST SNP is linked to chronic fatigue (51:32)
Why you should not try to fix your dirty genes (53:35)
How you get most benefits from eating your supplements (59:57)
How you can get your own copy of ”Dirty Genes” (1:06:10)
Sign up for the Dirty Genes Summit HERE (It’s 100% Free – but only from Jan 22-29th).
Links
To get Dr. Lynch’s new book, go check out his website
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