Recently, there has been a lot of attention paid to what is called a “genetic variant” or “genetic defect”, or SNP, in the gene called MTHFR. The ones with the most attention is MTHFR C677T and MTHFR A1298C.
For those who learn about this, it can be very confusing. The video on this page, will try to put in layman’s terms, what this gene does, why it may impact your health, and why it may be possible that too much emphasis has been placed on it.
Here’s the basics. Your body needs a nutrient called “methyl folate”, to perform a lot of functions in the body. If all is working well, your body takes folic acid from fortified foods and folate from natural foods, and through a multi-step process, makes methyl-folate.
The DNA that you inherited from your father and mother is “instructions” so to speak, on how your body can make what are called enzymes that make the final product of methyl folate.
If your body has “genetic variants”, or “SNPS” in the inherited DNA or MTHFR 6777T or MTHFR A198C the production of the needed folate may be diminished.
If your folate is too low, your body may not be able to do a lot of important functions that may impact your long term health.
In some instances, supplementation with methyl folate may be in order, but clinical experience is finding that supplementing with methyl folate, without seeing the entire picture of your DNA patterns may and often does back-fire. It is not advisable to start taking high levels of folate based upon one gene variant in MTHFR C677T. You will learn in the video that if you have low B12 or low glutathione, taking folate can backfire until you have resolved these issues.
It is best to work with someone trained in genetic nutrition, who looks at the entire picture, and not just MTHFR C677T.
After you watch this video, you will hopefully have an idea of what this genetic variant means, how it may impact you, and the steps you may want to support an MTHFR gene SNP.