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Which genetic testing provider to use for methylation status?

Hi all

I’m in a job now that exhausts me, and doesn’t enable me to internet search at work, so I apologise in advance if this question has been asked before. I’ve tried searching at night, but cannot find a succinct answer.

I’m one who has struggled with mercury chelation and am wondering if figuring out my methylation status would help me with progress.

My questions are

1. Which genetic testing provider do people use to assess their methylation profile? 23and me, Amy Yasko, another???

2. Which one will provide me with easy to use answers to the assessment of the profile and recommendations on how to improve it? Being time poor I would prefer to not have to take answers, plug them into somewhere else, take that output, send it off to another program, and then finally to a forum for interpretation. That may be exaggerated, but hopefully you get my drift. I want something that is quite “plug and play”. If 23and me is fairly straightforward to obtain interpretation from, or if only one program is required then I’d be happy with that. The appeal of the Yasko one is the fact that it gets plugged into a system to interpret the results and the report from it is fairly understandable in terms of what to do. The drawback obviously is the much higher cost.

3. What sort of gains in terms of energy, thought clarity, other symptom improvement have you made by addressing your methylation status?


Thanks!
 

PeterPositive

Senior Member
Messages
1,426
Just to be clear a genetic test such as 23andme will not tell you much about your "methylation status". SNPs can indicate potential issues but you need a methylation panel to assess its status.
Typically you need to quantify glutathione (active and oxidized), SAMe, SAH and the SAM/SAH ratio.

What sort of gains in terms of energy, thought clarity, other symptom improvement have you made by addressing your methylation status?
This varies greatly from person to person, from no improvement, to major changes ... with all the shades in between.

Side note on Yasko... as multiple folks have pointed out many of her claims about SNPs are unsubstantiated. She might be onto something but the evidence is not there. She also tends to overload people with very expensive supplements... so two red flags to keep in mind before tossing out lots of money.

good luck
 
Just to be clear a genetic test such as 23andme will not tell you much about your "methylation status". SNPs can indicate potential issues but you need a methylation panel to assess its status.
Typically you need to quantify glutathione (active and oxidized), SAMe, SAH and the SAM/SAH ratio.


This varies greatly from person to person, from no improvement, to major changes ... with all the shades in between.

Side note on Yasko... as multiple folks have pointed out many of her claims about SNPs are unsubstantiated. She might be onto something but the evidence is not there. She also tends to overload people with very expensive supplements... so two red flags to keep in mind before tossing out lots of money.

good luck

Thanks for the reply. How do you quantify the metabolites you mentioned to make an assessment?
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
Here's another one, from the selfhacked guy: https://www.decodify.me/

And Sterling Hill at mthfr.net, includes some interpretation, I believe.

Results from 23andme can be uploaded at geneticgenie.org to get a methylation panel. I followed a combination of suggestions from Ben Lynch and Yasko to work my way through the snps in an order that allowed sequential healing. Accompanied with detox and diet. I've gotten immense benefit. I might have worked it out w/o the snps, but it was hard enough, knowing the snps and forging a path forward.

My many obnoxious symptoms have been relieved in this 4-year process. I still suffer from energy deficits, mental and physical. But I'm relatively comfortable, my quality of life is vastly superior to when I began. good luck.
 

caledonia

Senior Member
Methylation status - there are two things - what are your SNPs, and what is your functional status.

You need both to make a good assessment. The SNPs are just potentials which may or may not be expressed. Functional testing (and symptoms) can help determine which SNPs are expressing, and also what nutrients you may be deficient in.

As far as what I've found most helpful for treatment, that would be the 23andme raw data run through Genetic Genie and the Nutreval test. There are interpretations for both of these in my signature link.

However, these days there is no longer a need to go it alone. There are many practitioners available - I have links to two practitioner lists in my signature link. Many of them will work by phone and email, if you can't find one in your area.