MTHFR falls under the radar. It often either goes undiagnosed or untreated or both.
Let us discuss some general information about MTHFR.
A MethylTetraHydraFolate Reductase is a deficiency of methylation or the production of a single carbon that is required to properly detoxify certain materials. Having MTHFR means that at least as methylation goes, you are not as good a detoxifier, however, there are lots of other pathways. There are Sulphur, Glutathione, Glucuronidation, and Acetylation pathways. The fact that you have an MTHFR Mutation makes it so you are a poor detoxifier if methylation is required for detoxification.
The FR part of that acronym is Folate Reductase. And that is really what the mutation is about. It means that you don’t make as much folate reductase as somebody that does not have an MTHFR mutation. Folate is a naturally occurring B Vitamin, and cells and mitochondria require folate to work. You cannot complete the mitochondrial electronic transport pathway without folate. In complex 3 you use folate reductase, the enzyme to modify folate which is a B Vitamin, into its usable form which is a 5-methyltetrahydrafolate. If the mutation is MTHFR, the usable form of folate is MTHF or the same acronym without the R or reductase. Click here to read more about Folate Reductase.
Folate and Folic Acid
Remember, if you have an MTHFR mutation, it means that you are not at 100% when it comes to the production of the enzyme folate reductase which is going to allow you to make a usable form of folate by reducing it into the 5-methyltetrahydra format. Folate is a good vitamin, for everyone who is not sure if they can eat folate: you can, you should. Folate is the natural B Vitamin, and folic acid is the synthetic formulation of it. We want to avoid folic acid. It is routinely added to the food supply, and one of the biggest issues is neural tube defects.
Not having enough folate during pregnancy can lead to certain birth defects. Folate is something needed by a lot of women, and sometimes they do not have access to it. Unless you are eating fresh veggies and fruits, you will not have enough Folate. The approach was let’s build a synthetic version of this for all of the people who don’t have access to fresh fruits, fresh veggies, and naturally occurring folate. This is how folic acid was created, which is synthetic. Are you pregnant or trying to become pregnant and are looking for the right B Vitamins for the best health for you and your baby? BiomeIQ’s Baby B Mine is an MTHFR Friendly prenatal with active forms of Folate. Click here for more information.
Avoiding Synthetic Vitamins is Important
Folic acid is added to a bunch of different kinds of processed foods, such as pasta, rice, anything that’s enriched, cereals, oatmeal, cream of wheat, and bagels. If it is processed or comes in a box then it usually has folic acid in it. Folic acid was designed to ensure that the average person has enough folate, except it is not really folate it is the synthetic version. For people that have MTHFR, folate, the naturally occurring B Vitamin is good, even though it is hard to make it into its active form because of the limitation of the enzyme required to reduce it. By comparison folic acid creates toxicity.
People that have MTHFR can use the naturally occurring B Vitamin, they just are not as efficient at processing it into its usable form as somebody that does not have MTHFR. It is a good vitamin to have. Folic acid is a synthetic vitamin. The synthetic form, the manufactured version, which is added, is an enriched form. If things are being added in, they are synthetic. People who have MTHFR, typically do not tolerate synthetic, enriched, or fortified.
Check Food Labels
It seems when you are buying foods, that it is a good thing to have extra vitamins added in. They will say things like fortified milk or fortified orange juice and suddenly Vitamin D is occurring in orange juice. Vitamins that do not belong in that food are showing up. Just remember, with MTHFR we do not do well with synthetic things. Whether it’s chemicals in vitamins, women with synthetic birth control, chemicals like additives and preservatives, skin care with shampoos with parabens and phthalates, synthetic anti-fungal used in plant crops, or genetically modified, or pesticides. If you have MTHFR, you are not great at synthetic stuff.
Commonly, the problems arise with MTHFR, when you have a bunch of folic acid, which is unmetabolized, because you cannot break it down, and then by comparison, your amount of folate is not high enough, and so you become poisoned, with folic acid. There are other ways to turn on the gene mutation. Just being exposed to toxins that require methylation, because those toxins are going to build up, you are not able to eliminate those toxins in the same way as somebody else. Click here, if you need to get rid of folic acid from the body quickly, this supplement helps.
Support Liver Detoxification
We are talking about methylation, so phase 2 in the liver is in the detoxification pathway. Conjugation followed by elimination. The elimination pathway is the methylation pathway and so for that reason if there is an error in phase 2 detoxification, anything that requires methylation is going to build up and is going to make you toxic. If we are ready then we move to the second part of this which is why are there secondary consequences or syndromes that are more common in MTHFR. Click here to find our MTHFR Friendly Detox recommendations here.
It is important to understand MTHFR and how it will impact us. Not just the things that affect MTHFR directly but being cautious to not allow things that also slow down methylation in general. Things that indirectly impact which is also a common topic that we get. MTHFR ties in with being healthier. You will learn and you will feel better which is great. When you are clean. When you are methylated. When you are methylating appropriately.
Is testing necessary?
Should I test before taking supplements? You are not going to typically hurt yourself with the supplements when talking about increasing methylation. Having said that, it is not my preference. I do not like taking stuff just for the sake of taking it. If you have general symptoms that are not specific which many with MTHFR have such as:
- Fatigue
- Achiness
- Poor focus
- Poor concentration
- Difficulty sleeping
- Fogginess
- Joint pain
- Sleepy during the day
- Ruminating thoughts
Many of those with MTHFR will have googled things such as obsessive-compulsive disorder because of the ruminating. There are any number of causes and so I always like the idea of testing just because if it is MTHFR then you treat it from a methylation perspective but if it is not MTHFR, it may be something else. You just want to know what it is. Click here for MTHFR Genetic Test Kits.
Additionally, your genetics are behind MTHFR, so knowing which variant you have, whether it is one or two copies, is going to determine how much supplementation you need. So, a double C677T copy is going to require a significant amount of methylation support by comparison to a single A copy. I think that the way a lot of people get into problems is over methylating or not getting enough methylation support, so on either side. They do not know their genotype, so they are just throwing a lot of things at it, so therefore we like testing. We prefer to know what you have first, and then treat it accordingly. Click here to find supplement recommendations for your specific MTHFR mutation.
Elimination of toxins, once you know that you have MTHFR, how can you eliminate toxins?
The number one thing: is Detox mandatory?
It is going to help tremendously. I think the number one thing we can do is stop encountering the toxins. Eliminating exposures is thing number 1. Reducing the amount of folic acid that you are ingesting, thing number 2, right? Those two things become more important than anything else. Remember, before you knew you had MTHFR. Before you tested, before you were symptomatic, you were you without the symptoms. Meaning you still had that genotype, but it was not aggravated, it was not turned on, the methylation deficiency was not causing a problem, and the question is: why is it now? The answer is: as toxins build-up because of poor methylation, you become increasingly symptomatic. Prior to the point where that exposure level hit a critical mass. You still had the genotype; you did not have symptoms. Think about you prior to symptoms, before you ever went on the journey to know what is going on and you are now. You want to eliminate environmental exposures as much as possible and you want to eliminate folic acid as much as possible because if you have an MTHFR mutation and you are constantly coming into contact with toxins that require methylation, it doesn’t matter what you do, you are going to continue to have symptoms because supplementation still can not make up for ongoing enormous amounts of toxic burden. For the how, its going through the day and seeing exactly what you are encountering and eating. Do some research and eliminate them one by one. It could be burdensome. To completely change your whole lifestyle around. Step by step get with someone who knows. MTHFR Experts, you can always call us for a consult, we can help walk you through what your day looks like and help to eliminate those things in a healthy fashion. Without just throwing your life into disarray and limiting all these things all the sudden.
With detoxification, on our side its typically our starting point. We recommend it routinely for folks who come on over here. I guess the time that detoxification for me is not as big a focus is if somebody knows that they have MTHFR, but they are not symptomatic. Let us say there is a parent who is symptomatic which leads them to the testing, and they find out they have a mutation. Now, the parent wants to test their child just to know if they have a mutation, but that child doesn’t have any symptoms. For me, there really is no need for a detox, they are not symptomatic. The time that detox becomes a requirement in my estimation is when you are not looking to maintain a proper methylation frequency. You are not trying to just add methyl groups in to support the basic methylation process but instead you’ve already built-up toxins that require methylation and now you must get a whole pile of them out. If that is the case: if you have a bunch of symptoms and you have MTHFR, even if you take daily methylation supplementation for me it is unlikely, you will find the underlying cause of it. So, the example I think of: you fill up a big bathtub and then the question is can you empty that with a teaspoon. Over time, but it is going to take a lot of time and a lot of work. So the idea of being super toxic and then trying to with a couple of pills a day or a teaspoon, dump out a giant tub full of water, it’s going to take a long time but instead if the tub is filled with water and you get something big like a giant bucket of water and you start taking out huge amounts of water, you empty out that tub in 10 minutes. The Detox is the big bucket of water, you can remove massive amounts of toxins that require methylation in very short periods of time by comparison just adding some methylation support. Now with that in mind, as far as the length of the detox, anybody that has seen us before, you know that we like the P5.0 Detox. It is an amazingly effective phase 1 and phase 2 detoxification.
How long do you have to be on the P5.0 Detox?
The question is: How dirty are you? The more symptomatic you are, the longer you have had those symptoms, the longer you are going to have to be on it. We typically split the Detox up into 10-day segments. 10 days is adequate for someone who does not have a lot of symptoms, who is new to the MTHFR world meaning symptoms are not terrible, they are not occurring all the time but they are increasing, by comparison we are talking about someone who has synptoms day and night you are going to be looking at someone who needs 20, 30, days, even more. The length of times that you had the symptoms, the frequency, the duration, and the severity of the symptoms, is going to give an indication of how long youre going to need to detox. Thinking just of toxicity and expusre and years and years of build-up will take a little time. We take the shake every single day in the morning with my green leafy vegetable in my smoothie. If you feel that you should be doing then its completely safe to do so, The full detox is the P5.0. It contains packages of pills that you take 3 times a day and a shake in the morning. We detox about 2-3 times a year, but I don’t take the pills except those periods of time, unless I get (22:30).
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