Channel 4 News UK want to know why people have taken 23andme test and what benefits they got.

[MeSci]

Well I might have a few details in science wrong, not sure about the enzyme bit though but anyway, raw vegans on you tube are amazing compared with normal vegans who are often very unhealthy.

I don't think YouTube is really an authoritative source of information!

 

[brenda]

Well when they are people with nothing to sell, and when they are backing up their words with visuals, I tend to accept what they say. They look damn healthy regardless! Of course anyone who wants everything lab tested will not take any notice and continue as they are.

 

[Freddd]

An important point was made. Sometimes what we DON 'T eat is every bit as important as what we do. I can't heal my gut while eating milk or cheese. On the other hand too many veggies overwhelm me with unusable and even methylfolate blocking veggie folates. They are every bit as bad as folic acid for me.

And then there is that problem that appears to be a defining characteristic, problem getting cobalamins into the CSF past the brain blood barrier. It might be a nutritional factor. Methylfolate is very important as it helps us retain B12 longer. However, eating animal based foods with 3-10mcg of b12 a day, never did it for me. I just couldn't get enough b12. When I changed to vegetarian, I could feel the difference after one day without meat. My vegetarian friends all told me various anti-meat BS. However, as time did tell, it wasn't "toxins" coming out of my system, it was the life force, shear vitality, that was leaking out at 6mcg per day and nearly killed me. Cyanocobalamin didn't do the trick. Sure it kept my MCV from exploding past 100, but it didn't stop most B12 deficiency symptoms from developing. It didn't stop brain and cord degeneration as in Sub Acute Combined Degeneration.

So, for those of us with CFS, FMS, MS, Parkinson's, Supra Nuclear Palsy, and less directly autism and Alzheimer's, to get MeCbl and AdoCbl past BBB into the brain and cord in large enough quantities (several micrograms daily likely) to allow brain functioning without demyelination or other damage has become the challenge if we want to live. No possible vegetarian diet can do this for us. The "normal" amount of active b12s leaves us in the cold. Only animal based foods have MeCbl and AdoCbl and they don't have enough for this group to live a healthy life. Also, and perhaps this has something to do with the BBB situation, most of us have difficulty with folic acid, folinic acid and veggie folate to various degrees.

 

[silverseas2014]

Why does a deficiency have to be treated lifelong with supplements?

Can the right nutrition not be obtained through diet, for example once gut problems impairing absorption (e.g. leaky gut/dysbiosis) have been fixed?

Are all the lifelong supplements actually nutrients which should be obtainable from the diet, or could some be better described as natural medications?

A genetic condition (MTHFR, etc.) is a permanent thing (until science finds a way to fix my genes), and so I need a permanent --lifelong-- solution. The only way for me to bridge the gap in my genetic malfunction is to take supplements like Methyl B12 and Methylfolate. So, if I want to be optimally healthy, and I do--I am not going to find these supplements in my diet---I will have to take them for the rest of my life, or until science fixes my defective genes.

In my 52 years, no diet has ever "repaired" my genetics. No diet can offer me the necessary supplements --do you know of any bread or meat that contains Methylfolate or Methyl B12? I don't.

The best option I've found for robust good health have been in the Deadlock Quartet AND a variety of other supplements AND an optimal diet (Yasko and Ray Peat).


Cheers,
Silverseas2014

 

[MeSci]

A genetic condition (MTHFR, etc.) is a permanent thing (until science finds a way to fix my genes), and so I need a permanent --lifelong-- solution. The only way for me to bridge the gap in my genetic malfunction is to take supplements like Methyl B12 and Methylfolate. So, if I want to be optimally healthy, and I do--I am not going to find these supplements in my diet---I will have to take them for the rest of my life, or until science fixes my defective genes.

In my 52 years, no diet has ever "repaired" my genetics. No diet can offer me the necessary supplements --do you know of any bread or meat that contains Methylfolate or Methyl B12? I don't.

The best option I've found for robust good health have been in the Deadlock Quartet AND a variety of other supplements AND an optimal diet (Yasko and Ray Peat).


Cheers,
Silverseas2014

Fair enough. I'm not sure what my line of thought was when I asked these questions, but the answers are interesting.

Maybe I had in mind the interactions between genes and environmental factors, e.g. an SNP perhaps causing a dietary intolerance leading to malabsorption and/or inability to synthesise certain nutrients, which a correct diet could fix (eliminating offending foods so that the nutrients can be absorbed from the right ones). That sort of thing.

I don't think that many SNPs produce an inevitability of illness, but just require certain adjustments to be made.

I certainly don't reject the possibility that some SNPs may mean that supplements are essential.

This is the kind of thing that may come up in any TV programme on the subject, so perhaps best to thrash it out here rather than being caught out by a journalist.