Are you an undermethylator or an
overmethylator? This is why I don't think
we should even be asking this question.
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 be talking about
something that doesn't work.
I think every once in a while when
you talk about what works, you need to
stop and look at the things that don't
work in order to make sure that we're
keeping our focus where it should be.
And one thing that I think doesn't work, or
doesn't work good enough to use, is to
classify people into undermethylators
and overmethylators. And the
two big reasons why I don't like such a
system is that you can be undermethylating
one thing and overmethylating another
at the same time, and you can seesaw
back and forth between
undermethylation and overmethylation.
In fact, your principal problem
with methylation might be that you
seesaw back between undermethylation
and overmethylation. So as an example,
let's take the most talked about
genetic variation related here
which is MTHFR. This is the most
well-studied genetic variation in the
methylation system. What we know about
this is that it definitely alters choline
metabolism in a way that makes you
require more choline. It probably causes
overmethylation of glycine, and it might
cause undermethylation of everything else.
But we're not quite sure about this.
If it does, based on what it does to
metabolism, we would expect that it could
simultaneously cause symptoms
relating to overmethylating glycine,
such as trouble staying calm, trouble
falling asleep, or keeping blood sugar stable,
and simultaneously cause symptoms
related to the undermethylation of
dopamine, such as ruminating on negative
thoughts. In that case, we're talking
about being an overmethylator and an
undermethylator at the same time.
You can also have genetic
variations or variations in other things
nutritional and metabolic that are
altering the specific enzymes that use
methyl groups to methylate specific things.
For example, MTHFR is involved in
supplying methyl groups through using
the B vitamin folate, but there are other
enzymes that take those methyl groups
and methylate the things we are
talking about. For example, glycine is
methylated by glycine N-methyltransferase,
while dopamine is methylated by catechol-O-methyltransferase,
and histamine is methylated
by histamine N-methyltransferase.
You can have something impacting one of
those enzymes that makes you
overmethylate histamine when the
overall supply of methyl groups is normal,
or undermethylate dopamine when
the overall supply of methyl groups is normal.
So you could have undermethylation or
overmethylation of one thing because of
how the enzyme is impacted and
have the opposite problem
or have no problem in other areas.
So because of this, I just don't think that
it's useful to say you are an undermethylator,
you are an overmethylator.
I think what we want to do is we want
to start from the place that says, "Let's
take you as an individual and look at
what might be off balance, whether it's
undermethylation or overmethylation, or
both at the same time." And not how do
we take you as an overmethylator and
lessen your methylation, or you as an
undermethylator and increase your
methylation, but how do we take you as
an individual and put the things into your
system that will help your body properly
regulate the balance itself.
And I think the practical approach,
when you look at it that way, is different
because you're not just trying to decrease
something or increase something.
You're trying to put all the pieces of the
puzzle together that allows this system to
operate smoothly.
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All right, I hope you found this useful.
Signing off, this is Chris Masterjohn of
chrismasterjohnphd.com. This has been
Chris Masterjohn Lite,
and I will see you in the next episode.