This is why your "MTHFR" is just a
riboflavin deficiency. Hi, I'm Dr. Chris Masterjohn
of chrismasterjohnphd.com, and this is
Chris Masterjohn Lite, where the name of the game is
"Details? Shmeetails. Just tell me what works!"
And today we're going to talk about
riboflavin, or vitamin B2, for MTHFR.
MTHFR is an enzyme that uses folate to support
a cycle in the body called methylation,
which is extremely important to your
mental and physical health. I have tons
of information on this all compiled very
nicely and neatly for you at
chrismasterjohnphd.com/methylation.
So head there if you need some background info
on this. But today we're going to narrow in
on the specific topic of riboflavin.
Riboflavin is vitamin B2, and MTHFR is an
enzyme that uses riboflavin to make the
methyl group on methylfolate, and MTHFR
has two common polymorphisms, or
variations in a gene, that result in all
of us being on a spectrum where some
of us have very low MTHFR activity, some
of us have very high MTHFR activity, and
two-thirds of us are somewhere in the
middle. And in fact, MTHFR activity is
very evenly spread across the entire
population. Now, why is it the case that
the MTHFR activity is lower in some
people? Well, it turns out that according
to experiments in cells, the
variations of MTHFR that are low are
just low because they're not as good at
binding riboflavin. And so when you have
this version of the enzyme and your
riboflavin status is rather low, your
MTHFR doesn't work very well because you
are not getting enough riboflavin to
bind to the enzyme to make it work properly.
And that would lead us to
believe that perhaps if you just get
riboflavin status higher than it
otherwise would be, the MTHFR would work
just fine. Well, in fact there's evidence
this in humans. So, what we know from
humans is that if we look at the people
with the MTHFR polymorphisms that lower
the activity of that enzyme, if we look
at those people and we look at whose
homocysteine is high, it turns out that
all the elevated homocysteine is
concentrated among the people who have
poor riboflavin status. It also turns out
that if we take people with these MTHFR
polymorphisms and we supplement them
with 1.6 milligrams of riboflavin a day,
that the homocysteine goes down. And
where do you see the homocysteine
going down the most? In the people who
have low MTHFR activity and poor
riboflavin status. In those people,
1.6 milligrams of riboflavin decreases
homocysteine by 40%. That's a big number.
So, how do you get 1.6 milligrams of
extra riboflavin? Well, a serving of any
type of liver would give you more than
that. Depending on which liver you're
consuming, it would give you anywhere
from 2 milligrams to 5 milligrams in the
case of imported New Zealand lamb liver.
So, if you're eating imported
New Zealand lamb liver, you can eat that
twice a week, two servings per week,
and you get the extra 1.6
milligrams of riboflavin averaged
across all of the days, right? So, if
you're eating high-quality liver, that's
all you need to do. You can also get
about that amount of riboflavin
by eating three or four ounces of kidney,
of heart, or of almonds, and then
if you want to eat several servings per day of
more moderate sources of riboflavin,
for example about three servings per day
of red meat, cheese, eggs, salmon, mushrooms,
seaweed, sesame, or wheat germ, or wheat
bran, and you can mix and match those,
right? So, three servings of any of those
foods added on top of what you already
eat right now is going to give you the
extra 1.6 milligrams of riboflavin.
Now, you could also supplement
with riboflavin, and
the thing is, most riboflavin supplements
that are available are much higher doses
than that. So, there are a couple low-dose
supplements that are available, and I'll
link to them in the description of this
episode, but in general I think it's
better to get the riboflavin from food,
and if you have to use a riboflavin
supplement that is, I don't know,
100 milligrams per serving, there's
not really anything wrong with that. It
will turn your pee bright yellow, but
there's not, there's no evidence that
taking higher amounts of riboflavin is
going to do any harm. So, food first. If you
need to, supplements. Now, I discovered
this while I was recording a podcast
with Alex Leaf. And Alex Leaf has a blog
at alexleaf.com where he is actually
the one that that found these studies on
the effect of riboflavin on MTHFR. He has
a blog post on this topic where he goes
into a little bit more detail and cites
the studies. So, I will put a link to
Alex's blog post in the description of this
episode. I'll also link to the much more
detailed, very long podcast that Alex and
I recorded together on riboflavin. I'll put
Signing off, this is Chris Masterjohn
of chrismasterjohnphd.com. This has been
Chris Masterjohn Lite.