And that's exactly the point where I get stuck. It's too complicated for me, really.
(although I do have a university degree...) I've asked it already a few times: who will help to make (a piece of) my 'puzzle'?? Any advice is welcome... Sorry for repeating myself...
MMe, I really get what you are saying -- these bodily/chemical/magical systems are just not something that I can develop a sophisticated working image of in my mind.
I could look at the diagrams all day, but seeing that there's a long way around and a short way around to xyz does not say to me, "Oh, I've got a shortfall in my whatchamacallit gene, so if I drank a tincture of gooseberry leaves upon awakening, this bottleneck would clear right up and bathe my left ventricle with oxytocin."
Part of it comes down to having a good grasp of biology, I think, which not every person does. I definitely don't.
In undergraduate university (back in the mists of time, around the time that Mendel was doing his stuff with peas
), I took two classes on genetics, but they were from an unusual angle -- they were not the hardcore, laboratory-based courses for the hard-science and pre-med students, they were lecture and reading-based and only meant for the arts/humanities/social science students to take, to broaden their perspectives. So that side of the genetic testing results is still incredibly complex to me, but I understand a little bit, enough to skim articles and try to pull out the comprehensible stuff.
As I wrote in another thread, the methylation process in the body is like a complex sports car engine that just looks like a jumble of parts to me -- I know how to fill up a gas/petrol tank, I know how to turn the key in the ignition, but do not ask me about pistons and horsepower and to change the brake fluid on my own, or whatever. As Greenshots said, it must be considered from a system-wide perspective because everything is so interrelated and the whole operation can be influenced by tiny, tiny shifts at any one spot. This is where having an expert's advice about one's personal situation, and being given a schedule to follow (what supplements, what daily behaviors, what diet/nutrition), can be so helpful.
That's the "value added" of a complete offering such as Yasko's or that of the Ohio doctor who runs the website heartfixer.com, and it's well worth the expense to many people to get that kind of analysis done. It can be expensive, it can be a blend of art and science (that not every other researcher or doctor might 100% agree on), and it also may not help everyone, but many people learn a lot from it and are physically helped by it - especially if, like Greenshots, they pick and choose the areas of the programs that seem to work best for them, seem to make the most sense, and offer the most financial value, and focus on those.
I have been a little concerned about giving my 23andme file to complete strangers, so I haven't put my data through online diagnostic programs like promethease, geneticgenie, the program of a female blogger who charges about $20 that I don't remember the name of, and others, but this is definitely something you could do to get some pointers. The blogger I mentioned also does telephone coaching based on one's results, I think, and some people have said that having a session with her helped them know what to do. I am not sure that she has a medical background, though -- but I don't really know anything about it.
You could also find one of the doctors/naturopaths etc. who work with this kind of thing, and become a patient of theirs for one-on-one consultations and testing. That would probably be ideal, but expensive.
You might want to look at the internet resources I listed in several posts above this one, which do have good information in them. See what recommendations they have for your specific genetic results.
There is only so much that other forum members can advise on without straying too far into giving medical advice without having a good-enough understanding of the individual's overall health, and the requests for help with genetic results seem to have become more frequent here as more people take the 23andme test, so the senior members who have the most knowledge are probably not going to have time to help everyone, especially the newer members with whom they don't already have a history of interacting in the threads. I was lucky that Valentijn was so kind to give me a lot of her insights and time on this thread, but I didn't receive pointers about my genetic results from many others who have experience with the methylation genes, which was a disappointment, but completely understandable.
Another thing you can do, which I have done for some of my blood test results, is to search this forum for past threads where someone said they had a similar issue to yours (whether it's being homozygous for a MTHFR mutation, having high homocysteine, or whatever), and other forum members have given them extensive advice about it.
There may be other discussion forum websites where similar issues are talked about, but I don't know this area well so I couldn't recommend any.
So -- study as many online educational resources as you can find, look at what the past forum advice has been to people who have similar genetic results to yours, run your 23andme data though a couple of online programs, and consider seeking expert help via a one-on-one consultation with a professional or via the Yasko testing/written-advice package.
