New from Ben Lynch - The 7 Dirty Genes - review

[caledonia]

Dirty Genes - this links to videos on the 7 Dirty Genes and what to do if they're "dirty" (note several of these are different than Yasko). There is also a book and course to go with it, if you wish to go deeper.

I haven't gone through all the videos yet, but I did look up the genes on my Strategene report.

All of my genes are genetically dirty except one, which is GST (glutathione), but I'm sure that one is compromised by mercury and other toxic metals. I have testing showing I have the reverse of what you should have as far as ratio of oxidized to reduced glutathione. Plus I have multiple chemical sensitivities.

As a side note, my BF has been having a lot of trouble with insomnia since surgery several weeks ago. His doc gave him Trazadone (an SSRI). The Trazadone hasn't really been helping.

It turns out my BF has a slow MAOA (MAOA -/-). He actually has trouble eliminating serotonin. Adding more serotonin is not the answer. The video suggests to try B5 in the morning and SAMe at bedtime. Not having any B5 around, I just had him try SAMe at bedtime.

He has slept through the night the last two nights. Time will tell if this will work in the long term...

Note that Ben Lynch's MAO is reported the opposite of Yasko's MAO.

One more note - Lynch says you don't need genetic testing, to just take quizzes on how you're feeling, but I found the quizzes online to be confusing. Maybe the book (not out until the end of January) will be better - not sure.

I think part of the problem is most of my genes are +/-, so not an extreme one way or the other, and they're all dirty either with mutations or toxic metals or both. And in some cases, I'm already doing things that compensate for the dirty genes, like eating enough protein.

Anyway, so despite Ben Lynch saying you don't need a Strategene test, I did find it helpful to sort things out.

I have added a link to this on my Methylation link page - see my signature link.

Thanks to @suraj for giving me the heads up on this.

 

[alicec]

Lynch says you don't need genetic testing, to just take quizzes on how you're feeling,

At least with the analysis based on SNPs, we can independently verify whether or not what he says is correct.

With his quizzes he is saying "Trust me - I can interpret what is wrong with you" - with no basis whatsoever apart from his claimed superior knowledge.

Well I don't trust him. Too many of the things he says which can be independently verified are WRONG.

Note that Ben Lynch's MAO is reported the opposite of Yasko's MAO.

Both are wrong in what they claim about MAOA SNPs - ie that certain SNPs equal fast or slow versions of the enzyme.

Here is the list from Clin Var of known MAOA variants and their effect. Here is the OMIM entry.

Until very recently, the only known polymorphism which resulted in a defective enzyme was that described for Brunner disease in 1993 (item 14 on the ClinVar list). This SNP led to premature termination of the resultant truncated protein was virtually non-functional.

Also described some time ago was a sequence in the promoter (the region immediately upstream of the coding region) which was repeated a variable number of times; this led to variation in transcription rate for the gene (item 1 on the list). There was high, intermediate and low promoter activity leading to more or less protein product.

Note the effect was simply on the amount of enzyme produced, not on the activity level of the protein. All promoter variants produce a normal protein.

OMIM also discusses these variants.

Somewhere along the line these promoter variants have been jumbled up with two SNPs within the coding region of the protein - viz the two SNPs which Lynch shows in his Strategene report - rs6323 and rs1137070 (items 15 and 19 resp) - and low and high activity promoters have been transformed into low and high activity enzymes (ie slow and fast).

There is no basis to this confusion. Someone somewhere misinterpreted a study and this has been endlessly repeated with no basis in fact.

Both SNPs are synonymous variants - the protein produced by the variant gene is identical to that produced by the wildtype or ancestral gene.

rs6323 and rs1137070, whether +/+, +/- or -/- do not produce fast or slow versions of the enzyme - all products are identical.

As you would expect the variants are benign.