 Genetics, how much of your genetics influences your body and your physicality and your ailments and how much of it is lifestyle choice? And can we change our genetics from our lifestyle? Some of the questions we're gonna be asking on today's episode, and I have brought in a genetics expert, Dr. Erica Gray, the Chief Medical Officer of My Toolbox Genomics. Dr. Gray, thank you for being here, how you doing? I'm doing fabulous, thanks for having me, James. So tell me about genetics, our genes, genomics. Just tell me a little bit about your understanding of that and your research in that and what kind of findings you have discovered in terms of how that influences our physical health overall. As a child, my father, who's a civil engineer would often take me out to jobs with him so we could have some bonding time and he could kind of teach me a few things. And the first stop we always had to make was at the city and it was terribly boring, especially as a child. And one day I said, can we just skip this part? Because you would always walk away with massive amounts of blueprints and I said, this is really tedious for me. He said, no, I can't because this is where I get the lay of the land. This is where I know where the sewer line is and the manhole. He goes, I can't do my job without these blueprints. And it occurred to me that we practiced medicine without checking our blueprint. Our DNA is our blueprint to us. It's that guide and now it is so accessible and it's economical. We can actually get that information to really start understanding what does that health trajectory look like and then what are the steps that we can take to change that trajectory if it's not in alignment with what we envision for ourselves. Yeah. So is it possible to change our genetics as we get older? It, we can't change our genes because that's what we're born with but we can change the expression of it. And that's the study of epigenetics. That's it, yeah. So I read a book, I think it was called Epigenetics or something like that by Shole and Molem or I think as Sharon Molem I think it was. And there was something, there was a study that showed that they had, they look at two twins and one of them was bullied at school and the other one was not. And in later life, the one who was bullied suffered from obesity and diabetes. The other one who wasn't was not. And a study of their genetic makeup indicated that the one who was overweight and had more stress and anxiety had higher levels of cortisol in his body. And the argument was that his genetic expression had changed. Is that, does that sound right? That sounds right. And so you're like another example is the astronauts, right? The twin astronauts who went into space and when they came back there were visible physical differences between the twin who went into space and the one who stayed on the ground. And the media went crazy and said his DNA changed. His DNA never changed. The expression of it and the methylation of these certain genes did. And that's exactly what happened with the twin that was being bullied. So he had certain genes, they got turned on by the environment or maybe other ones got turned off. So maybe certain genes that would secrete more calming neurotransmitters got turned off. And so he had that heightened vigilance and that heightened response to the bullying as a compensatory mechanism. Yeah. So when people say, oh, it's my drink too much, it's in my genes or I'm overweight, it's in my genes or I'm not a natural athlete, it's in my genes or I'm just, I've got bad genes from my dad. I have high cholesterol because of my dad. Like how much of those statements are accurate and how much of those are inaccurate? I think it becomes the lifestyle that we lead. So oftentimes we tell ourselves a very good story to say, well, this is why I am the way I am. And we throw up our hands and we just surrender ourselves and we say, well, it's out of my hands, but really it's not. And I think that is the most fascinating thing that I've seen when I look at a bunch of people with genetics is you will get some people who look incredible from a genetic perspective but yet their lifestyle and the trauma that they have gone through, they are terribly overweight. They're suffering with all kinds of health conditions. And when you dig into it, you realize as the environment that they surrounded these genes in that led to these manifestations of, for example, obesity. Conversely, you also see people who don't have great genes. They're predisposed for diabetes, they're predisposed for colon cancer, various irritable bowel conditions and they are pristine. But when you look at their lifestyle, it makes sense. Mm, got it. So how do we, from a standing start, like how do we figure out how much of what's going on is our genetics and how much of it is our lifestyle? Like we're wanting to begin and go, right, let's just, in order to know where we're going, we kind of need to know where we are, right? So what's the first step? So the first step is taking an inventory of where you're at. So whether that is lab testing. And when I talk about lab testing, I'm talking about things that are not just your basic chemistry panels, but really starting to get into different nuances, like maybe insulin levels or glutathione levels or vitamin C. You have things that are going to give you an idea of where are you today? And you match that up with your genetics because now you're going to start to see, wow, I am predisposed for type two diabetes. And look at this, my insulin levels are going up, my glucose is going up. This is something I need to take action on today. In contrast, you know, for me, I don't have any markers for any autoimmune conditions. And that matches with the family history. So that's not something that I necessarily worry about, but I do have a family history of type two diabetes. So that is the one I'm focused on. I can see it in the genetics and I can see it in my lab work if I'm not taking action. So you have to take, you need to take an account of where you are today and then you match it up with what does that trajectory look like? Yeah. When you get those results back, and how do you take the test? Is it saliva, is it blood, is it? It's saliva. So it's a, actually I should have grabbed my kit, but it is just a spit sample. And so you're just going to spit in there and then send it off to the lab. They'll sequence it for you and you'll get your results back in an app. And the really cool thing is that in the app, you can actually set it for what your types of health goals are. So if it's improving your physicality, if it's weight loss, if it's overall health, and then the app will adjust the recommendations based on your genetics and what your goals are to really make that a dynamic offering for you. And where can people go to get that test? They can go to mytoolboxgenomics.com and make sure they put in the coupon code SWANWIC because we have a special discount for them in there as well. They use that code. So it's SWANWIC in the coupon. Great, mytoolboxgenomics.com, fantastic. Okay, so you're spitting in the tube, you're sending it back and then you're getting the results in the app and then you can see what foods you should eat more of, what foods you should eliminate, what time of day or what type of exercise you might do or not do, is it that kind of stuff? Is that kind of the breakdown? It is a myriad. So you've got your health, so we'll talk about the vitamin deficiencies, we'll talk about the different types of exercise, we'll talk about the diet, more carb, are you more sensitive to carbs? Do you need more protein, more sensitive to sugar? And then there's another section of genetic insights which starts looking at things like stress and pressure, environmental pressures. We can look at blood pressure, we can look at cognition, we can look at gut irritability. So it's really starting to tie the environmental exposures that we have with some of the genetic markers and then you can also get epigenetic results which will talk about immunity, biological age, memory age, hearing age and eye age. And that is really the next level of DNA testing because we may think that we're living a lifestyle that is very pro, sorry, that's anti-inflammatory but we find out that we've actually turned on genes that are promoting inflammation. So now we can actually start to measure that as well. Got it. What are some of the things that stand out that can influence our genes and the expression of our genes the most? Immediately I'm thinking things like alcohol or processed foods or sugars or sedentary lifestyle but let me just throw it over to you. What are the more common things that kind of have the biggest leverage? Microbiome, so our gut has three to five pounds of bacteria really, really powerful with changing our epigenetic expression. Toxins, that's where the alcohol absolutely is going to come into play. Diet and then circadian rhythm. Are we going to bed out of sync with what our body is really designed to do? And I think alcohol is incredibly important because there's a number of different areas that alcohol is going to deplete our nutrients. It's going to tax our liver. And a lot of times we turn to alcohol when we are feeling greater stress or greater pressure as well. But we don't realize that the alcohol is now going to be playing a role in that additional deficiency that maybe we're already genetically predisposed to as well. Got it, got it, okay. How have you and maybe changed your lifestyle in particular based on what your reading has been? And maybe any other family member or friend that you've had take the test, any anecdote or story about how they've changed it also? So I love telling the story about my 90-year-old grandmother because people will say, well, how old, at a certain point, is it too old to take the test? And I always tell the story about my grandmother. So she had chronic sinus infections for several years and my mom was convinced she was allergic to dairy. And she finally took the test and we found out she was indeed missing the genes, sorry, missing the enzymes. So she didn't have the genes, we're not making the enzymes to break down lactose. And she said, so I really cannot handle dairy. And we said, yes. And she said, because of what my genes are telling you. And I said, yes. She goes, okay. And she finally was willing to give up dairy based on that information because before then she always had an explanation as to why she had a drippy nose or why she had the chronic sinus infection. So it's never too late to start. And then for myself, I mentioned the type two diabetes. But the other thing that I found very fascinating is choline is a really, really wonderful nutrient that helps both our brain and also our liver. And a lot of people don't realize that if you are choline deficient, you're at a higher risk for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And that's really on the rise. And choline is the nutrient that helps with that. But if you have the gene that is not helping you make the choline from your food, you're going to, again, be at an increased risk for that. So that was really fascinating. And then just different nutrients, different understandings of how we handle stress. Am I, my husband, for example, is a slow COMT. So he tends to be a little more tunnel vision, a little more prone to anxiety and concern versus my daughter and I are not. So a lot of times our worldviews were initially in conflict until I really understood the genetic role that it was playing from a fundamental perspective for us. Let me ask you a little bit more on the alcohol. How is alcohol toxic to our brain and liver from a genetic perspective? So when we consume alcohol, we break it down. And the different enzymes that are going to be breaking it down like the acetyl aldehyde are under genetic control. So what ends up happening is if you're a slow alcohol metabolizer, the alcohol metabolites are going to stay in the liver longer. So now you're going to feel those effects a lot more. Those metabolites are not getting cleared out. And those can be incredibly damaging to the brain as well as to the liver. And you need nutrients to come in and help support the liver. You need your glutathione. You need vitamin C as an antioxidant. You need your B vitamins. And we know that alcohol depletes B vitamins terribly as well as potentially changing the gut microbiome. So when you start putting all of those things into consideration, you may be raising homocysteine levels, which is damaging to the brain and to the arteries. You may be changing your gut microbiome. So now you're not making the necessary neurotransmitters. So you can't underestimate the power of the alcohol and what it is doing, not just in the liver, but in other very important organ systems in the body. So you mentioned their vitamin C, B vitamins. What are some other things specifically for people who maybe have been drinking consistently and now they're stopped and they're kind of doing a detox. So they're now experimenting with the alcohol-free lifestyle. What are some of the supplements you're encouraging them to take? So definitely the B vitamins, especially your folate and your B6, look for an activated B6 version. Look for an activated folate. And it will say something like methylfolate or pyridoxyl 5 phosphate. So it's a longer word around the B vitamin. Glutathione is really, really wonderful for the liver. And you can easily get that through n-acetylcysteine, which is a precursor to glutathione. And then your body will convert n-acetylcysteine or NAC into glutathione for your body. And as well as really repairing the gut microbiome and your gut, because we also know that alcohol can potentially lead to leaky gut. And so you might have more food allergies as well. So tracking some of your food allergies and doing gut repair can also be incredibly helpful. Great, thank you for that. What about things like Tylenol and over-the-counter drugs, maybe like aspirin, or I mentioned Tylenol or Advil, things like that? Does that change our genetic expression? How is that impacting us? So unfortunately, a lot of these over-the-counter drugs deplete our nutrients even further. So we know that, for example, proton pump inhibitors actually increase the pH of our gut. And so now we're not absorbing our B vitamins. We know that birth control pills deplete lots and lots of our B vitamins. So for women, again, if you're drinking and you're taking birth control pills, you may be really depleting the B vitamin stores and magnesium that you have. And Tylenol is the big one. Tylenol depletes glutathione. So what ends up happening is that if you're drinking and you take glutathione because you take glutathione, that's what you need to do. And you take Tylenol. This can be a really terrible combination for your liver because the same enzymes that your body is going to use to take apart to detoxify the Tylenol is also being used to detoxify the alcohol. So a lot of people will feel like, oh, I have a hangover. I drank too much. I'm not feeling well. Do not take the Tylenol. You really want to be a lot more mindful about your alcohol consumption and support it with the B vitamins and glutathione, some activated charcoal, if you know you're going to be going out drinking. Mm-hmm. Someone said to me the other day, if it's advertised on TV, it's not good for me. And I thought that was pretty good actually because you see Tylenol advertised on TV and you see a lot of these drugs and SudaFed and cold and flu tablets and things like that. And then you kind of dig a little deeper and you realize they may indeed give you temporary relief from the cold, et cetera, but it's doing a lot of other damage. It is. And actually that's a really good point that you just brought up because I was thinking fresh fruits and vegetables are never shown on TV. It's always processed. It always comes out of a box. And we know that processed foods are really a great way to accelerate aging. And there's a new study that had just come out to speak about that. But I don't think that people realize that when you take the different medications, and again, they oftentimes serve a very specific purpose. And as a pharmacist, there's a place in time for it, but this is not something you wanna be on chronically. And if you are on any type of chronic medication, it's really a wake-up call, I think, to take a look at what's going on in your life, to see what types of deficiencies are going on, where the genetics might be playing a role because for a lot of people, when they clean up their diet, they clean up their lifestyle, especially when it's tied in conjunction with what their genetics are going to support, they get a lot of relief and a lot of symptom improvements. I don't know too many people who don't have some vanity or ego about them. And so everyone wants to look good, right? Everyone wants to look the best they can. And in particular, people wanna slow down or reverse the aging process. They did a fascinating study out of the UK some years ago that showed that people who don't sleep particularly well have 30 to 40% more visible crow's feet and wrinkles on their skin. Same with alcohol. People who drink alcohol consistently have noticeably drier skin because of course our skin is the body's largest organ and when you drink alcohol, it's a natural diuretic and it dehydrates you. Of course, that's gonna make your skin look weathered. So my question really is twofold. The first question is how do we slow down and in some cases try to reverse the aging process? I don't know how we can reverse the aging process unless we're in the movie Superman 2 where he flies around the earth backwards and kind of goes back through time. But maybe how do we slow down the aging process? So the three big ways we're gonna slow down the aging process is going to be are we supporting ourselves from a nutritional perspective? Are we getting adequate sleep and are we nourishing our microbiome? Because really when you start putting that concert together that's where you're going to get the most benefit. And I think people often say, well, there's such a great phrase. People say, I will sleep when I'm dead or I'll sleep when I get older. But what you don't realize is as you mentioned when you are not sleeping, when you have fragmented sleep, the genes expression that is getting turned on and off is going to be changed and it's going to be accelerated. And there's great studies that show even one night of fragmented sleep or staying up all night changes our glucose levels. It changes insulin sensitivity and it throws off our circadian rhythm. So now when you have done those things just for one night and think about the amount of sleep deprivation we have as a society, you can imagine how we are accelerating the aging process. So we are naturally, it's going to happen that we're going to age, but the question is how quickly do we do it? And can we slow down some of the aging genes that are getting turned on? And so those three factors that I just highlighted are really going to be the key ways to be able to slow, to decrease how much methylation really from a scientific perspective is happening at those aging genes. So just to break those three things down again for me, were you? Yes, sleep, diet, microbiome slash environment. So you're with the toxins or the type of environment we're living in. Got it. Because that's going to tax our body and our resources the most. Got it. In relation to sleep, obviously you can see I'm wearing a pair of Swanee's blue light blocking glasses that I produced from my sleep company, Swannick Sleep. And I know you wear blue light blocking glasses when and under what circumstances do you wear yours and what benefits have you got from that? So I should be wearing them at all times when I'm on the computer, but I use them at night. I also put blue light, I have a blue light blocker on my phone. I have a blue light blocker on my computer as well because the research has come out over and over again to show that the blue light, the wavelength is really damaging truly for our sleep and for it lowers melatonin levels, it raises cortisol, which is going to lead to greater fragmented sleep. It's not going to promote the deep sleep. And what I found is by making these two changes for myself using the blue light blocking glasses and then also increasing magnesium at night, specifically something like magnesium three and eight, I've been able to take my deep sleep from about 45 minutes to more like an hour and 15 hour, 20. So you and a lot of people don't realize those changes that are happening unless they're tracking it as well. So blue light blocking glasses, anything that you minimize the amount of blue light you're getting at night is absolutely key for your health. Yeah. Just to go back backtrack again on the alcohol because I know this is a particularly interesting topic for me, obviously I have a program that helps people quit alcohol. Genetically speaking, if someone is drinking, let's just say someone is not an alcoholic, but they are drinking at least a couple glasses of wine or beer or whatever their drink is per night, each night, five, six, seven times a week, couple of drinks, they're not getting drunk, but they're drinking to take the edge off each day, they're drinking to relieve them of their stress. Genetically, what do you feel is likely happening to that person? I suspect that the root cause is probably with how they're handling their stress. So people who there's a really good enzyme that you can look at called COMT and especially in the brain. So people who are a slow COMT, again, as I mentioned, they're gonna be more prone to anxiety, to worrying, versus the fast COMTs tend to break down the dopamine faster, sorry, the slow COMTs have more dopamine that sticks around. Fast COMTs break it down faster. So they are looking for more dopamine fixes and they tend to be engaging in more addictive type behaviors or extreme sports. So what ends up happening is that depending on where you are with your COMTs, depending on some of the other genes that play a role in how you perceive stress, I think a lot of people will turn to alcohol as a way to take the edge off because they can immediately feel that effect, but the question is why? Are we feeling the stress more? Are we having more fragmented sleep? So we're not feeling as relaxed. So that way, so constantly we're more quick to anger, we're more frustrated during the day, or even just not realizing the role that when we drink, we're raising our blood pressure as well. And we know that that can also have cognitive effects. So a lot of, and it's also what they grow up with. If they see their parents always winding down with a glass of wine, there's a normalization that happens with it. Instead of people really stepping back and saying, why am I doing this? And what are some other contributing factors that may be making me even more sensitive or more prone to using alcohol to bandage yourself? An irrespective of the reason why they would be drinking, whether it's societal pressure or the normalization of alcohol or marketing or their parents did it or whatever, the consumption of it on a genetic level, what impact could that be having? How is alcohol, the toxins of alcohol, how is that affecting our genetic expression? For two perspectives. So the other, as I mentioned with the, how we break down alcohol. So a slow alcohol metabolizer is, it's gonna be much more dangerous for them when they're drinking alcohol. The other aspect of it is our body, as I mentioned, makes glutathione. But we also have genes that code for the production of glutathione. So if we are not making adequate glutathione, we're not protecting our liver. And that's a really common gene that a lot of people have. It's in the GST family, it's in the glutathione transfer, S-transferase family. So now you're drinking, you don't realize you have the genes that are not helping you make enough glutathione. So you're causing greater liver damage unwittingly. And again, as you mentioned, it is these, it's more like the chronic drinks, it's not a lot, but it's happening constantly over time. Yeah, it's death by a thousand cuts. It really is. Okay, great. The website that we can get that test from again, if you would please, doctor. It's my toolbox, all spelled out genomics, G-E-N-O-M-I-C-S dot com. And don't forget to use the coupon code SWANWIC in there for your special discounts. Wonderful, well, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your guidance with us on all things genetics and our genes. This was fascinating, particularly about my two big interests, which is sleep and alcohol. My pleasure. And I so appreciate the service that you're putting out there for people because I think people really underestimate how alcohol interferes in their life and in sleep and relationships. And so I'm just so grateful that you're out there doing this for people. Dr. Erica Gray, Chief Medical Officer of my toolbox genomics, thank you so much. Thank you so much, James. Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Free Lifestyle Podcast. I wanna load you up with some free stuff right now. So if you wanna go to jameswanwick.com slash guide, I will send you my quit alcohol guide, which has helped six figure entrepreneurs and top professionals produce or quit drinking. You can also text the word quit guide to the number 44222 if you're in the US, of course. 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