S2E4 Genetics: Rebalancing the Blueprint

Today we look at how genetic variations can impact our state of mind. Tracking over a decade of self-study and deep research, our guest Christian Bonanno shares how our mood and health can be rebalanced with the right nutritional adjustments, based on available genetic analysis and gradual self-testing. This counternarrative to conventional psychological attribution is another inroad to health, well-being, and self-understanding.

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Christian Bonanno has conducted years of research and self-testing into the relationship of environmental and genetic factors upon state of mind and overall health. These factors included genetic variance, epigenetics, nutrition, air pollution, EMF levels, geographic location, elevation, season, and solar activity.

Join the Conversation:
https://www.avenuesofawakening.com/p/s2e4-genetics

Transcript

00;00;01;05 - 00;00;29;06
Christian
Literally just this one snip, one letter change in one SNP has caused just all this havoc in me and my family. My question to my psychiatrist was, you're not telling me why I'm not making enough serotonin. Then that's where my investigation started.

00;00;29;09 - 00;00;55;01
Thomas
In season one, episode four. We talked with Christian Bonanno about the effects of 5G and Emfs on the body. Today, we're going to take a look at his pivot into genetics, epigenetics, and nutrition. And I think what he's found is super important because it indicates how minute genetic variations can impact our metabolic pathways, which can produce significant physical and psychological effects.

00;00;55;03 - 00;01;13;01
Thomas
Luckily, this also means that certain dietary adjustments or supplements based on these genetics can provide benefit. I'll make sure to post some graphics on the YouTube episode and the NOAA web webpage so we can follow along. All right, let's fire this up and check in with Christian.

00;01;13;04 - 00;01;35;06
Christian
I guess I'll last podcast. We were talking about Emfs and how I thought they were affecting me, and that was like the majority of the focus of it. I've realized since the last podcast that my genetics are responsible for the sensitivities I have to the environment, but not just the genetics, the genetics, and dietary factors that make me more sensitive to the environment.

00;01;35;08 - 00;01;59;06
Christian
I have something called a CBS deficiency. It's a deficiency in an enzyme called 66. The thing in beta synthase, and I could call it CBS for short from now on. What this does is it turns homocysteine into cysteine and eventually glucose iron probably all heard about with iron. So I have this one small change in this gene in the CBS gene.

00;01;59;08 - 00;02;27;11
Christian
And so the CBS gene is made up a whole bunch of snips state snips is short for single nucleotide polymorphisms. And every gene has a bunch of snips and changes. And these snips change how the gene works. And some of them can just slow it down. Some can speed up the gene. It just depends. So many people have polymorphisms in this gene, but I have a mutation in this chain.

00;02;27;15 - 00;03;06;16
Christian
And a mutation is much different than a polymorphism. Mutations occur in less than 1% of the population, while polymorphisms occur in greater than 1%. And mutations have more of a, detrimental biological effect on people. They happen to snip or this mutation I have in this gene. What happens is, is when the now the KBS enzyme needs, vitamin B6 or a form of vitamin B6 as a cofactor, and cofactor is called P450.

00;03;06;19 - 00;03;28;15
Christian
And what happens with my mutation? Is it changes the enzyme shape. So when I take when I take B6, it will attach to the enzyme. But it attaches incorrectly. So it's almost like having kind of a broken lock. Like if you imagine, like, you know, you have an old door and it's really hard to get the key in, you have to struggle with it.

00;03;28;18 - 00;03;55;20
Christian
Well, that's what happens with this enzyme. So even though I can take a lot of B6, only about half of the time or less, that enzyme will function correctly. Since this enzyme, gets rid of homocysteine, I end up having high homocysteine. And so this is something we're probably going to talk to you in the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;03;55;22 - 00;04;29;17
Christian
Because, you're going through the same thing right now. It's high homocysteine. High homocysteine levels are actually a lot more common. And they're caused by a number of different, vitamin deficiencies. B6 is probably the biggest one, but, B12, zinc for light, all three of those can lead to high homocysteine. Why? This is important, for me, is that the B6 deficiency?

00;04;29;17 - 00;04;56;17
Christian
It does. It just affects an enzyme. We have hundreds of enzymes, and most of them are called aminotransferase. And these control, the breakdown of proteins in our bodies. So I get, slowdowns in a gene called glutamate. De carboxylate is. Which leads to a buildup of glutamate. And hence a lot of my anxiety disorders, my history of psychosis.

00;04;56;20 - 00;05;18;10
Christian
Glutamate is a big one in this, B6 efficiency. And so there's just like a whole series of effects. And I just understand now how why it was so difficult for me to weed out what was going on with me because of this one change in the KBS enzyme, it led to a cascade of things that look like everything.

00;05;18;10 - 00;05;45;16
Christian
I mean, they diagnose me, look, they diagnose like I didn't didn't diagnose, but they thought I had lupus because I definitely had the signs of weakness. The immune disorders that they check my autoimmune. So everything's fine and immune deficiency and they, you know, just never know what's going on. And it looks like everything and they all just blamed it on my mental health because my predominant, disabilities were my psychiatric ones.

00;05;45;18 - 00;06;03;09
Christian
Literally just this one snip, one letter change in one snip has caused just all this havoc in me and my family. Because this was definitely passed down through my mother's, side of the family.

00;06;03;11 - 00;06;18;15
Thomas
The way I visualize this is like it's inputs and outputs, right? So it's these several, let's say, turning gears. And so they, they it brings this one thing and there's an input and it converts it. And there's an output.

00;06;18;17 - 00;06;24;07
Christian
And so it's a little factory. It's a little factory a little tiny factory. Little factory. Yeah. Okay.

00;06;24;10 - 00;06;47;20
Thomas
And so kind of what you're saying is that your genetics sort of don't have the right blueprint for one of those gears or a couple of those gears, maybe. And so the gear doesn't really do the best job of converting these conversions. And so when the output has to function as an input for the next step of the pipeline, it's like either a surplus or a deficit.

00;06;47;22 - 00;06;51;17
Thomas
And then that has sort of like can have a cascade of effects. Basically.

00;06;51;20 - 00;07;01;07
Christian
Yes, exactly. What happens in my factory is I have really bad machinery. And it doesn't work. Right.

00;07;01;13 - 00;07;04;12
Thomas
So it doesn't attach correctly, as you say.

00;07;04;12 - 00;07;08;21
Christian
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;07;08;23 - 00;07;31;27
Thomas
Let me pause to mention that I'm going to go ahead and post a 25 minute supplemental episode where Christian gives us a longer explanation of the technical details of this enzymatic pathway and the various effects it had on him. This includes how it relates to the MF sensitivity that we discussed back in season one. Check it out if you like the biochemistry of his investigations.

00;07;31;29 - 00;07;35;07
Thomas
Now let's see what happened with it.

00;07;35;09 - 00;08;03;14
Christian
Since taking this high dose B6 and I'm literally taking about 200 times the RDA, maybe more. It's hard to do because the form I'm taking is not listed in the RDA. So that's because I take I take 55 instead of taking it. Most people take pyroxene, but I take piroxicam all five phosphate. And so paroxetine turns into all five phosphate.

00;08;03;16 - 00;08;35;29
Christian
And that's the coenzyme that's used in the body. So taking P5 t saves the body a step of making B6. What just happened with the lowering of blood pressure? I've also had, near elimination. It's an of I'm going to say right now a total elimination of my anxiety and panic. Wow. And my OCD as well. So that's kind of the story in a nutshell.

00;08;36;01 - 00;08;51;20
Christian
I believe I'm feeling a recovery coming off a stable one. But so yeah, I found out a lot of interesting stuff. I don't know if you have any questions. I've been talking my head off, but.

00;08;51;22 - 00;08;53;24
Thomas
I have a ton. Yeah.

00;08;53;26 - 00;08;55;01
Christian
Go.

00;08;55;04 - 00;09;07;11
Thomas
Well, first of all, congratulations to to put in this much work and to find a good clutch of answers and leads into to follow through on. I mean, that's like serious dedication.

00;09;07;11 - 00;09;08;10
Christian
And yeah.

00;09;08;17 - 00;09;11;00
Thomas
A lot of people wouldn't do that and wouldn't be able to do well.

00;09;11;00 - 00;09;32;27
Christian
I want I want to interject here just to say I did. All of this was spurred on by my nephew suicide. Oh, wow. Because, the mental health of my family goes back away and it's all over. And once he died, suicide, I was like, there has to be something genetic going on. And that's when I got into all of it.

00;09;32;27 - 00;09;35;28
Christian
So.

00;09;36;00 - 00;09;45;07
Christian
So, yeah, if it wasn't for that. But anyway, go ahead. Well, yeah.

00;09;45;09 - 00;09;46;15
Christian
The, that.

00;09;46;18 - 00;09;58;27
Thomas
You know, as long as I've known you, it's funny, the progression going from what we started off in, like, which is not to throw these out, but it's just saying this was the starting point.

00;09;58;29 - 00;10;00;03
Christian
Of like, yeah.

00;10;00;06 - 00;10;32;28
Thomas
Your own feelings of how how good you felt in your body, your own stability of mood took us into like, spiritual practice. Right? You said lots of meditation and then eventually into the counseling side. Psychology. Yeah. Therapeutic sessions. And, you know, for as long as those lasted and perhaps some good. But we started to notice, I remember five, ten years ago when you were kind of getting into the, switching gears a little bit, you have not separated the pursuit of truth from that of healing and medicine journey.

00;10;33;04 - 00;10;56;04
Thomas
And so it's like being open and willing to go down these different paths to see if if it if it pans out, if it doesn't, you know, all of from actually a self-recognition of like, why is is my life presenting this way with these reins of emotions, these ups and downs that seem to be sometimes good and sometimes not?

00;10;56;06 - 00;11;04;22
Thomas
What the hell is going on there and how easy it is just to say, oh, you're bipolar conversation close, you know, and we're done.

00;11;04;24 - 00;11;05;09
Christian
Yeah.

00;11;05;11 - 00;11;08;05
Thomas
Take this lithium and your neurotransmitters.

00;11;08;05 - 00;11;12;13
Christian
You'll never get better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's unbelievable.

00;11;12;16 - 00;11;27;09
Thomas
Why would no one people do now? But like, you were really my first exposure to a lot of this. What about the range of epigenetics, genetics and nutrition, you know, and that's like the innovation not to mention these environmental factors.

00;11;27;11 - 00;11;28;13
Christian
Yeah.

00;11;28;16 - 00;11;43;24
Thomas
Just seeing this progression. And then finally, you also were really gifted this, by the way, like, oh thank you can remember these processes and cycles and long multi ten syllable enzyme. So I was like I.

00;11;43;26 - 00;11;49;19
Christian
God bless Aspergers. It was for my Asperger's I would have never gotten better. And that's I suppose that.

00;11;49;19 - 00;11;58;02
Thomas
Could be you know the the they need someone like you you know to figure all this shit out. That's good with the rest of us. Are lucky you for your your burden. But,

00;11;58;07 - 00;12;29;02
Christian
Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. And I think, too, you bring up the spiritual just, there reject. Yeah. That's I mean, that's a huge environmental factor, like, and in this, like to, like, a lot of people, like when I talk about genes, I think, totally dismissing the spiritual or the communal. Right. And I'm not like, because it's such an important fact, like how how stress, I mean, stress itself alone is great.

00;12;29;03 - 00;12;58;16
Christian
That changes your epigenetics. So I'm just as interested in that as I am in the nutrition side. Like it's all environmental factors. So healing does incorporate the spiritual side. And it incorporates counseling 100%. Like I wouldn't have gotten to where I've gotten without all the counseling I had planned, because it helped me cope, with my disorder.

00;12;58;19 - 00;13;15;28
Christian
And it helped me, disentangle it from, and disentangle it from what I thought was in me. It's a good point. Yeah. And so I realize I wasn't my disorder, but I am.

00;13;16;00 - 00;13;43;28
Thomas
So how do you discover this stuff? Kind of like. I mean, I know there's the motivation. The motivation we talked about about you have the willingness and the, you know, interest, and the sort of dogged pursuit of it, which, which which helps. But I mean, in the technical sense, you know, what do you do? The blood tests or, how did you go about kind of refining and discovering the particular snips and genes and recognizing how those.

00;13;44;00 - 00;14;06;28
Christian
Yeah, well, the blood tests were really important, and it's not even the bad blood tests, even subtle changes in my blood tests, to me, are important to see in people. Like, I don't care if someone has like, I don't care if someone's white blood cells are outside of low, like if they're lower than the mean over extended period.

00;14;06;28 - 00;14;24;14
Christian
Yeah, that kind of tends to the type of person I get. The same thing with thyroid, like. So when I start looking at these things, I like, well, metabolism super low, but it's low. And so I would look at my thyroid genes and, and and look at what makes the thyroid function. Yeah. And

00;14;24;16 - 00;14;36;10
Thomas
I remember this being a big a big innovation that I thought was super important because it's like it's all in this bell curve. And, you know, you lop it off in the upper and lower 20% or something like that. Well, what if I'm like 22 percentile. It's not.

00;14;36;10 - 00;14;37;00
Christian
Flags.

00;14;37;04 - 00;14;38;02
Thomas
You know.

00;14;38;05 - 00;14;38;11
Christian
Yeah.

00;14;38;12 - 00;14;51;12
Thomas
But like you think that doesn't have an effect on the, the the chain, the pipeline, the cascade of other things that like may also be. Yeah, quite up to where they could be to feel optimal. You know.

00;14;51;14 - 00;15;10;12
Christian
For sure. That's a that's great. Yeah. You just hit on that problem with Western medicine. Like it doesn't care about people on the borderline. No matter how sick you are. They can look at tests all day and tell you you're fine. When they know they don't know all the answers yet and they know you're suffering and they still don't care.

00;15;10;12 - 00;15;33;22
Christian
So, if you get lucky, you have a doctor like my hematologist who cared, and he said, no, you actually have high hemoglobin in the current, even though it's not marked as high in your tests. He's like this. That's amazing. So what do you have? Yeah. And so, he said, oh, so yeah, the tests are, big part of it.

00;15;33;25 - 00;15;55;24
Christian
Understanding my own, reaction to things like food. And, environment, just having that self-awareness was huge and that I credit a lot to the test meditations I've done that increase that awareness, probably to a detriment. But, that's when you notice.

00;15;55;24 - 00;16;02;05
Thomas
Things that you might otherwise not notice or keep on conscious, you know, in terms of what was affecting you like that.

00;16;02;07 - 00;16;15;21
Christian
I think it also allowed me to disassociate those things for me so I can examine them more. And not just like, well, I'm just grumpy, well, over an admirer. Maybe there's something more to it, you know, than you're correct.

00;16;15;21 - 00;16;26;28
Thomas
This is huge. Like, that's almost the first step, you know, like, oh, I'm just grumpy today. Oh, I'm just depressed. And, you know, in my case, I need to be away from people for five days. You know what I mean?

00;16;27;01 - 00;16;28;04
Christian
And yeah, that's as far.

00;16;28;04 - 00;16;47;21
Thomas
As it goes. You might be able to say that, but like, no one ever things. Do I have to be this way? Maybe there's some other factors, like affecting the reasons I'm feeling like this. Maybe it's genetic, maybe it's nutritional, you know? Yeah. It's you, you know, and so it's, it's it's being able to see those and then question them.

00;16;47;23 - 00;16;49;26
Thomas
You know, most of it goes on question.

00;16;49;29 - 00;17;15;22
Christian
You know. Yeah. Or it's based solely on psychology, you know. Correct. You know like I am not I'm in no way dismissing childhood trauma. And I think in a large way it it's something that precipitates a lot of these things because I think childhood traumas lead to, you know, when you have a big buildup of stress, you'll have to metabolize that stress.

00;17;15;22 - 00;17;44;08
Christian
And metabolizing that stress takes enzymes. And I mean, literally like cortisol was metabolized through enzymes and and adrenaline is the tabela metabolized through. And so I mean my my big thing was always having to metabolize adrenaline. And that been efferent and dopamine and serotonin like just because of the stress of my childhood. And that led to deficiencies. So, yeah, it's it's important.

00;17;44;11 - 00;18;03;28
Christian
And again, another environmental factor, but again, it's nature and nurture. I will pound this into the ground because I'm not one of these people that's going to say it's all genetics. I'm never going to say that. I'm never going to say it's all psychology. Now, it might be all genetics for some people, and it might be all nurture for some people, might be all psychological for people.

00;18;03;28 - 00;18;08;16
Christian
But I think those are the rare cases.

00;18;08;18 - 00;18;31;13
Thomas
Yeah. Yeah. And and so basically coming back to the big kind of big picture innovations, it's like you finally reached the point where you're saying, yes, I've seen these these things in myself. I've seen how they vary. I've seen different environments where I feel differently. Let me take a look at the genetic profile, which in your case, you got the whole sequence right.

00;18;31;13 - 00;18;34;23
Thomas
You like, what would you call it? I don't know the right words to use her.

00;18;34;25 - 00;18;54;15
Christian
Well, I didn't really get that. And so is the genome. So the genome I so I had my genome run twice on 23 and me, which is not the complete genome. I tried to get the complete genome once, but the company literally went out of business before they got to my thing. Yeah, I think I don't know if I really needed to do it.

00;18;54;17 - 00;19;14;23
Christian
But I still see, like I want to do it, but it's still kind of expensive. It's. Yeah, I think it's over two, $400. So, I think there's other things I might want to do besides that. That would give me more benefit, but. Right, right. But so I have a lot of my genomic, but it's not complete.

00;19;14;23 - 00;19;18;22
Christian
And that, that posed a big problem. But anyway.

00;19;18;24 - 00;19;29;22
Thomas
Okay, so you got this genome and then there's other systems that help you evaluate it or interpret it or do you really get into this? Yeah. You know, GT car codes of.

00;19;29;24 - 00;20;03;10
Christian
I get into that 1% more. Yeah. More than I should. I mean, there are a lot of tools. There's a tool called Prometheus that, these, people from Cambridge started that you can upload your genome from all these companies into, and it will actually flag, and I did this with you, actually, we'll talk about that in the future, but it will flag, genes that are known to or snips that are known changes the cause or increase the risk of disorders.

00;20;03;12 - 00;20;22;00
Christian
And that was really invaluable to me because that's where I actually found them. That I'm a biotin deficiency carrier, which is important because if I have a child in someone else's a carrier, my kid will be born with biotin deficiency while, that. Well, there's a 25% chance that it will be born with it.

00;20;22;02 - 00;20;26;20
Thomas
So on the one hand, now you have your genetic.

00;20;26;22 - 00;20;51;26
Christian
Oh. Yeah. So I so I Prometheus was big and but Prometheus doesn't it doesn't look at every snip. And what I started realizing is that they, you know, they do a great job, but they were missing a lot of things, that could be detrimental to me. And that's when I started. That's when I can just look at the raw genome and I'll send you a, like a picture of the text file.

00;20;52;01 - 00;21;20;11
Christian
It's literally just a text file I have with numbers, the chromosome, the chromosome location and the organs and the all wheels of that. Snip. Holy moly. Yeah, they're all listed. It's a 15 megabyte text file. So yeah. Yeah. Huge. But I just start. So how I discovered the like so about two months ago I was like, I couldn't understand why my homocysteine was still high.

00;21;20;11 - 00;21;54;24
Christian
So I was like, I gotta look at this CVS gene, I have more closely because everything else I'm doing is not long ago I was 16, and that's when I discovered something that was not in Prometheus, but has five studies that they've done that show that this enzyme does not attach to the T5 correctly. So, so it was like you can think of the Prometheus as a summary, but if you really want to get into it, you have to really just start looking at.

00;21;54;27 - 00;22;05;00
Christian
So if you think there's a problem with your gene, you need to look at that gene more closely to make sure there's not something really detrimental. And that involves going to the right data. Yeah.

00;22;05;05 - 00;22;16;18
Thomas
Okay. And then you were sort of cross-referencing this with your specific bloodwork panels and stuff, like you had to have already flagged that your homocysteine was high right from your.

00;22;16;19 - 00;22;17;03
Christian
Yeah.

00;22;17;04 - 00;22;22;17
Thomas
And then you start getting curious about that and cross-referencing it with genetics and the, the research.

00;22;22;20 - 00;22;46;07
Christian
Yes. Oh yeah. And that's a whole, you know, process of PubMed and Sky hub. I mean, Sci Hub. I'll have to drop a link for that because Sci Hub is great because it's like a sort of like, pirate Bay for research papers. Okay. And, you know, most research papers you can't get a handle on.

00;22;46;09 - 00;23;06;16
Christian
Yeah. So in the early. Yeah, yeah. But in the early days when I lived in Chapel Hill, I used to go to the USC Health Library, and the USC Health Library. I had access all these papers. So that's how I was able to do a lot of my early research was at the, health Sciences Library at USC.

00;23;06;18 - 00;23;29;03
Christian
I would go there and look up these papers, and that's before I had my genetics. But but then later on, someone invented this, published this website, that you can look, I get almost any paper. The recent ones are more difficult, but, yeah, you can get any paper, past the paywalls, but, so that was really invaluable.

00;23;29;06 - 00;23;40;18
Christian
Literally, you can look up these snip numbers. They're numbers. It's like Rs one five, three, four, six. And, you can put them into Google Scholar and it will pull up studies to see if it's linked to anything I see.

00;23;40;18 - 00;23;54;02
Thomas
So there's sort of like it's like those old paper maps that give you the quadrant you know, go to quadrant A4 so you can go to this snip, you know, and copy paste it in and find papers about that one.

00;23;54;05 - 00;24;21;16
Christian
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. And I'll show example of my, my gene and how I found it. It's, it's just amazing to me that this information is out there, but for some reason, people aren't putting it together. I don't know if it's effort. I don't know if it's this. Like, I could, academic research is so, so slow. Like, I work with these people.

00;24;21;16 - 00;24;43;15
Christian
I'm getting slower. Yeah, yeah. That's true. I mean, it's not only slow, we have probably. I don't have enough people doing it, but it's slow because, I mean, the scientific process is rigorous. Now, what I'm doing is I'm living off of all that work. But what the problem is, is that people are not putting it together, like kind.

00;24;43;15 - 00;24;44;24
Thomas
Of meta research.

00;24;44;24 - 00;25;21;29
Christian
Almost. Yeah. So they're just looking at one gene or studying one enzyme. I think that's what my endocrinologist was impressed with was how I was explaining how this, how this CB's efficiency was causing my red blood cell issue, in my high hemoglobin anemia. Correct. Because most people wouldn't think of that. Because while you're either a hematologist and you just look at the genes around hematology or you know, about the CVS gene and you just look at that.

00;25;21;29 - 00;25;48;10
Thomas
So it's like putting in everyone's so far out into the very, very nuanced research domain that it's like almost impossible to come out and then reconnect that over here. Yeah. And then like your general practitioner is not going to do that. He's going to order a or she's going to order a standard bloodwork, you know, not all this sort of like there's like I think that's one thing I didn't know, actually.

00;25;48;10 - 00;26;00;20
Thomas
It's a huge piece. There's all kinds of bloodwork out there that you don't get normally. You know what I mean? Like your normal stuff is just taking the big, big ticket items.

00;26;00;22 - 00;26;01;06
Christian
Yeah.

00;26;01;06 - 00;26;06;09
Thomas
I mean, and they're not out there to pick up on a lot of things, you know?

00;26;06;11 - 00;26;28;09
Christian
Yeah, that is true. Like, I have a good ass and I have a good friend for an owner for 25 years. And I have her genetics, and she was suffering from long term depression. And when I looked at her genes, I saw some things. But one of the things I saw was, and this is about 3 or 4 years ago, that she probably had celiac disease.

00;26;28;09 - 00;26;54;14
Christian
And and just based on her symptoms and her fatigue and stuff and some of other like her anemia. And finally this year she got tested. She got an endoscopy. And guess what they discovered? She has celiac disease. Well, so it's not like, and but she would never have been tested for that unless she asked them. And she was getting so fed up.

00;26;54;14 - 00;27;17;05
Christian
Not feeling well that she finally said, I want to be tested for celiac. No kidding. And she was tested positive for the antibodies. And then she had an endoscopy. And this copy, which is where they go into her duodenum. And they took out a piece and one night, yeah, they tested positive for celiac. So she but she was a she was labeled as depressed.

00;27;17;07 - 00;27;27;00
Christian
And she's on. And now trying to get off of so many psychiatric medications that it's so difficult to untangle. And it takes time. And that.

00;27;27;00 - 00;27;28;04
Thomas
Is hard.

00;27;28;06 - 00;27;30;18
Christian
Yeah. So but it was it's.

00;27;30;21 - 00;27;47;19
Thomas
You get so much inertia not only from the, the system but like how you, how you hear yourself interpret it and tell people, yeah, what your family thinks about you, what your psychologist and your general practitioner things. And so it was quite a straight extract out of that is very challenging.

00;27;47;21 - 00;28;09;15
Christian
Great point. Yeah, that's exactly it. So they changed my diagnosis a thousand times like yeah. Well very first it was you have ADHD gave me Ritalin. It made me manic and crazy. And I said, oh, well, I guess you have bipolar since we made you manic, giving you Ritalin. And so it was at. And then it was, well, you have schizoaffective disorder.

00;28;09;15 - 00;28;25;00
Christian
And then I said, well, you know, you probably have like schizoaffective disorder and Asperger's and that's kind of where they left it. And they just said, okay, well that's it. Monk. And so take medicine and go away like, yeah.

00;28;25;02 - 00;28;28;03
Christian
And

00;28;28;05 - 00;28;39;02
Christian
That frustration and my nephew's suicide, I feel was, he was put on an ADHD medicine two weeks before suicide.

00;28;39;05 - 00;28;39;16
Thomas
Oh, my.

00;28;39;16 - 00;29;05;26
Christian
God. And I think it I'm pretty certain it played a role in his, his behavior that led him to his, Yeah, eventual suicide. And, so, yeah, these, like, you know, these arbitrary, you know. Oh, like, just seeing someone is depressed does not get at the biological, environmental things that are causing that depression.

00;29;05;28 - 00;29;16;08
Thomas
Or if, if they do, they're like, oh, take this, you know, gamble, take inhibitor or something. These get your neurotransmitters off. You know, that's as far as I can see it.

00;29;16;10 - 00;29;30;21
Christian
Yeah. And it's I mean, listen, like, you know, yeah. Again, they're going back to your blockers, you know, since they'll work for, Right. Yeah. And I use, I use work loosely.

00;29;30;23 - 00;29;32;14
Thomas
Yeah, yeah. Functional. You know.

00;29;32;14 - 00;29;34;07
Christian
Functional. And you can be a you can.

00;29;34;07 - 00;29;36;01
Thomas
Still go to work, you know?

00;29;36;03 - 00;29;58;26
Christian
Yeah. Or, you know, they work and then they stop working. But people just keep taking them because they think they're still working, but they just get used to depression. I mean, there's so many complexities in these drugs, but it's true. But, you know, let's say even though they I mean, I have no doubt that they really can like the serotonin reuptake inhibitors that they can they can help people tremendously.

00;29;58;26 - 00;30;27;26
Christian
But my question to my psychiatrist was, you're not telling me why I'm not making of serotonin. Yeah, absolutely. And then that's where my investigations start. Like well it's like so serotonin reuptake inhibitors can make me manic pretty quickly. So, that was a big curiosity for me. Like, well, if I'm depressed, but I take them when I get really manic really quickly where other people just get like a little better or nothing happens.

00;30;27;26 - 00;30;51;22
Christian
Like then there has to be genetics behind it, you know? Wow. So I think the unreasonable people or the people are trying to like and down one thing when we have so many horrible environmental factors stress, diet, social media, emfs. I mean, I could go on. Yeah, right.

00;30;51;24 - 00;30;54;18
Thomas
I think you name some of the big four, though. That's pretty good.

00;30;54;20 - 00;31;21;01
Christian
Yeah, for sure. Then you'll have to look at each case individually. Again, this is a very holistic thing and a very individual thing like your health and your recovery is both has to be both holistic and individual. I love that like good. No no no. So I shouldn't say I want you to keep talking.

00;31;21;04 - 00;31;40;04
Christian
But.

00;31;40;06 - 00;32;01;28
Thomas
So there's this whole other piece, which is that a some of the nutritional supplements or vitamins might not even do what you think because they either aren't the right form. You know, I've learned about this, that B6 is not the right form. Or what was the other one you'd given me? Zinc pickling, I think, as opposed to.

00;32;01;28 - 00;32;02;18
Christian
Yeah.

00;32;02;20 - 00;32;19;15
Thomas
Another one. And then also by the same sort of a similar vein, like some of these tests won't pick up on stuff or they won't. They're, they're checking the wrong outlet output or they're, they don't pick up on the excess of this thing or something like that. It's just like they're not going to catch it.

00;32;19;17 - 00;32;41;16
Christian
Yeah. And there are workarounds for that. I just intercede really quick. So like and they know this like so they know that there's such a thing called functional vitamin deficiency where your, your serum levels will be normal, but they can actually test some enzyme levels. And they do this would B12. So B12, they could do what's called a methyl malic acid test.

00;32;41;19 - 00;33;02;04
Christian
And when you're low in B12 you'll have higher amounts of this method, more like acid because B12 is needed to metabolize it. So that's a way they can distinguish between a vitamin B12 deficiency or a functional B12 deficiency, where someone may need even more B12, than others.

00;33;02;04 - 00;33;07;08
Thomas
Knows this stuff. Chris. I mean, I there people who are in the field who know it, but like.

00;33;07;10 - 00;33;07;26
Christian
Anyone.

00;33;07;26 - 00;33;19;06
Thomas
Who's like, oh, I'm to I'm taking my supplement of BS, you know, whatever. But yeah. Or is it the right one? I'm doing my saying like, yeah, you're not even going to like that's not even going to be up taken into your. I don't even know how to say.

00;33;19;06 - 00;33;20;26
Christian
This, you know. Yeah. No, your cells.

00;33;20;26 - 00;33;22;24
Thomas
Aren't even going to use it, you know, because it's the wrong for me.

00;33;22;24 - 00;33;47;18
Christian
Is it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's true. Okay. Let's just take on B12 as a form of B12. If a given injections call the DNA adenosine, albeit, called Baumann. I think that's the name of it. Yeah. And it. Yeah, a DL single bowman. And then there is methyl called Domin. And those like some people can turn the one into the other.

00;33;47;18 - 00;34;09;06
Christian
And so you have registered deficiency and they shouldn't with the one that they can metabolize and nothing changes. And they say well I wasn't B12 we gave you B12 like and this is, this is well known now and they work around that. Yeah. Primary care physicians are horrible at this. And that's why I have to do your own homework and you have to push them as much as you can.

00;34;09;08 - 00;34;20;17
Thomas
I've put in a zinc test, requested a GP one time and he like he got upset. He's like, no, you don't need that. I you know, I don't see why you need that. I'm not going to do it, you know? And

00;34;20;20 - 00;34;26;22
Christian
It's so ridiculous. Yeah. You're right. I can.

00;34;26;24 - 00;34;29;13
Thomas
I guess that's why we like lab core.

00;34;29;15 - 00;34;29;29
Christian
Yeah.

00;34;29;29 - 00;34;32;02
Thomas
You got the money. You know, they'll test you like.

00;34;32;06 - 00;34;36;15
Christian
Oh, yeah, I'll do it for sure. It's not too bad. Not too expensive.

00;34;36;15 - 00;34;37;29
Thomas
Not too bad.

00;34;38;01 - 00;34;52;29
Christian
Yeah. They said you should try to get a get a, ad, for walk in labs for your podcast, for this one. Here you go. Get it. Yeah. Okay. Let's think. Yeah.

00;34;53;02 - 00;35;08;14
Thomas
I don't know if you're if you work with other people, if you even want to go that far, but at least what would you tell someone who's, like, seeing, potential, a whole new framework of what may be going on?

00;35;08;16 - 00;35;38;25
Christian
I would say the first thing is that. If you don't feel well, you don't feel well. And by that, I mean they'll be people that will say it's all in your head, so they'll prescribe it to depression or they'll prescribe it to mood. Like I think that's the biggest problem we're having is, like, they keep talking about the rising brew disorders, right?

00;35;38;25 - 00;35;45;06
Christian
Well, I see it. Right. It's in health problems. And I think that's a big.

00;35;45;08 - 00;36;10;12
Christian
A different way to think about it. So it's you feel depressed enough that you can't get out of bed or it's you feel so much anxiety that you need to crawl in a corner like that's not in your head. That's your health. That's your health. Yeah. And so you have to start looking at your mood as an extension of your health.

00;36;10;12 - 00;36;32;08
Christian
And I think that's what's, missing in a lot of people's self dialog. So and it was true with me, like, you know, when I had anxiety, well, that thing was making me anxious, so I need to be away from that thing. And then, you know how small your world gets when you do that. It gets tiny.

00;36;32;08 - 00;36;52;24
Christian
And that's what I mean. That's what happened to my mother. My mother had OCD as well. And I can't do that. I can't do this move that that I don't want to see that like. And she had to have a very particular world to live in, to not feel anxiety. And I got smaller and smaller. And, and so, and that's not a way to live.

00;36;52;27 - 00;37;19;08
Christian
So but again, yeah, the big change I think the first thing is like your mood is your health. It's not your brain person. It takes part in your brain, part of it. But even when you break up with someone, well, there's two points somewhere to go. So say you break up with someone and your someone breaks up with you when you're sad.

00;37;19;10 - 00;37;47;20
Christian
When you're sad, this is still caused by a biochemical reaction in your brain. Now, this biochemical reaction is purely environmental. And when that environment goes away and you get some distance from that person, you lose their attachment to them. You do, your depression goes away like so. It's like it takes time. Like we get addicted to people and breaking up with person is a a ripping off of that addiction.

00;37;47;22 - 00;37;54;22
Christian
And you have to say, well, okay, I have to be away from that person to not be addicted to them.

00;37;54;25 - 00;38;05;25
Christian
But that's a purely that's a it's still a biochemical thing, but it's environmentally driven. Now, how you react to break ups could be genetic. Like

00;38;05;27 - 00;38;07;22
Thomas
Yeah. The holistic individual.

00;38;07;22 - 00;38;34;15
Christian
Yeah. When I, when I say holistically, like, why do I see a neurologist and neurologist for my neurological pain and a psychiatrist for my mental pain when they're all the nervous system. And so when I started seeing it holistically, like I started associating my, mental pain and physical pain, and that led me to genes that were overlapping in these areas.

00;38;34;17 - 00;39;01;03
Christian
And so I could see how a single gene can cause both psychiatric issues and physical problems, such as heart palpitations or neurological problems, are linked to anxiety, to the same calcium ion channels like and, and so that's how you can look at it holistically, like by not like, oh, every time I seem to get sad, my ankle hurts or my ankle hurts.

00;39;01;03 - 00;39;23;24
Christian
That's why, like a lot of times I'll say to people who have chronic back pain and depression, well, you're depressed because you have chronic back pain, but they know that inflammation drives depression as well. So is it caused by the back pain or are they both Co arising together. Yeah. And that's for the person to work out you know because they might or might not be.

00;39;23;24 - 00;40;01;06
Thomas
But it's I think one takeaway for me too is, is in a general medicine journey. And in the cases you're talking about like, I think you start pushing into this stuff, some of these doors and things will some of them will open for you, you know, and there's like connections that can be made. And I think there's discoveries and I would want for others, I would give advice to, to to be open to exploring some of these things and taking some re empowering yourself to start to figure out what's going on.

00;40;01;06 - 00;40;03;27
Thomas
You know, there's an extent. Yeah.

00;40;03;29 - 00;40;04;27
Christian
Because there's a lot of them.

00;40;04;27 - 00;40;20;27
Thomas
So out there I mean it doesn't mean you don't listen to the experts, but it also means that as we said, experts can be so far down their own, narrow field that they can't see the connections between these things. And so that's up to you. You know who else is going to do it?

00;40;21;00 - 00;40;48;21
Christian
Yeah. And I think that's probably the hardest thing, that people who have depression deal with. And I can understand that because I was in a period of deep depression myself and how hard it is to, to motivate to do these things, because that's true. That's part of the disorder. So I am and that's the other side where I'm was kind of lucky in that I, I my manias are more prevalent than my depressions.

00;40;48;23 - 00;41;32;25
Christian
And I really haven't had a, a only depressive episode in years. I tend to have just manic depressive or manic episodes. So for people who have depression, which I think are the majority of people, I think people in my case are more rare. And I'm saying that because of the genetics of it are more rare. Understanding that, like trying to like, understand that the depression is something that is something I don't want to say overcome, but it's it's something you need help with to start working on yourself.

00;41;32;28 - 00;41;39;14
Christian
Like if you're in such a state of depression or you can do anything, it doesn't it doesn't matter if you have to take medications to feel something like that or.

00;41;39;15 - 00;41;40;23
Thomas
Kickstarter or Jumpstart.

00;41;40;23 - 00;42;03;04
Christian
Yeah, exactly. And then once you're feeling well, then you can, you know, have the energy just to push. But the thing is, is when you feel, well to push, that's when you have to do the work. Like, and not just be like, well, okay, I feel better now. I'm taking Prozac, our version or whatever.

00;42;03;06 - 00;42;05;08
Thomas
And cured. That's a release, you know?

00;42;05;08 - 00;42;18;04
Christian
Yeah. Oh, that's I feel better still. Yeah, yeah. Let me go to work and that's it. I was like, no, that's just when the work starts. It's a good point. Because it's so difficult.

00;42;18;07 - 00;42;43;26
Christian
Like it's you need other people to help you with it or like. And the that's the one thing about depression is most times people with depression want to be alone. And it's a, you know, it's a it's easier, to be alone. It's not it's weird depression. And the difference between depression if I just interject is because it might help people.

00;42;43;28 - 00;43;14;29
Christian
Depression, difference between depression and depressive phenotype in the phenotype to me are just so interesting. And how society looks at them. Depression is so overly romanticized in the media. You have the depressive writer that's so romantic. Oh, he's pensive and melancholy and so interesting, and people just want to get into that. It's like they want to be drawn into their.

00;43;15;02 - 00;43;40;26
Christian
Hole. It's like a black hole that draws people in. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just think it's interesting and where people with with mania are feared, like, I mean, you look at anyone with doing meth on the street, meth induced mania, and you people are scared of that person they walk away from, but someone's depressed.

00;43;40;28 - 00;44;06;18
Christian
The person just hit it. Now they'll just walk right by them like they're not a threat. And I'm saying this too, because I think mood issues are big signals of health issues. Like one of the primary, symptoms of health issues, even cancer, Parkinson's. You know, I'm a firm believer that depression is an early sign of possible Parkinson's or a risk factor for Parkinson's.

00;44;06;18 - 00;44;15;21
Christian
And this is known this is well known that depression, is the early depression is linked to a higher risk for Parkinson's.

00;44;15;23 - 00;44;43;10
Thomas
I see now what you were saying, that we are so much just looking at mood as the thing to address or treat is the kind of where we're at. Oh, I'm so depressed. I need to be not depressed, you know? But you're sort of flipping it and saying, like, that's just the indicator of something else. You know, that could well be physical, biological, whatever, you know, and not in the way that we mean that you need this pill, but rather, you know, nutrition, whatever.

00;44;43;12 - 00;45;19;16
Christian
Yes. Exactly. Like, I think psychiatry should be, should know its place. That they're there only to help people figure out what their health problem is. Instead of saying, I'm depressed, say you're fatigued. That will change how your doctor treats you. A thousand, 180 degrees, because now they're treating fatigue instead of depression and they'll say, oh, well, let's test your B12, and they will literally, I'll be damned, change.

00;45;19;17 - 00;45;32;27
Christian
Yeah. And I've seen, I've seen and heard that happens like, and you know, and the other case, they'll say, well, you're depressed. Let's get you a psychiatrist and then your whole journey is pretty much over then.

00;45;32;28 - 00;45;35;16
Thomas
Yeah, you're going down that road now. You know.

00;45;35;20 - 00;45;54;07
Christian
Yeah. So I'll, I'll say I have too much energy where people have too little energy. That doesn't do much for doctors for me, unfortunately, but. Right. Because it's a whole because again, like it's, it's it's so it's more rare and the like too much energy. What I want more energy because everyone wants more energy. Like why are you okay.

00;45;54;11 - 00;46;17;18
Christian
Well, I can't sleep. I'm sleeping three hours a night, like, well, so I'll say I have insomnia and that that can change things, you know? But unfortunately, that didn't happen with me because, you know, this all started in 1999 and before I knew all this stuff. So, but by suffering, be, Yeah, be something you don't have to go through by changing the wording.

00;46;17;18 - 00;46;43;20
Christian
When you go to the doctor, because I'm still trying to figure out, like, how does the someone who doesn't have all this genetic knowledge that I do or even the bio biochemistry knowledge, where do they start? And that's a really hard question. I think you can do a lot without knowing the biochemistry and actually a lot of and it goes again, it goes back to the self-awareness.

00;46;43;20 - 00;47;13;17
Christian
Like, and I think that is actually probably more important. Like I use the biochemistry to explain my, the awareness of my body and what's going on in my body like. But do I need it like it helps me? But maybe if I just knew, like I knew, I here's a good example I knew from the past before I had the CBS deficiency, that when I eat a lot of protein, I became more manic and had more insomnia.

00;47;13;19 - 00;47;39;23
Christian
Yeah. And so I did eat a lot of protein. And I think that's something that frankly saved my life and ended up not giving me like having heart attacks like my brother and mother and other brother had. So that I did without genetics. I was just like, oh, I keep watching myself and okay, I correlate this with my insomnia.

00;47;39;24 - 00;48;18;17
Christian
Well, look, it turned out genetically to be true, for me. So that's why I'm saying, like, I, you know, I, I don't like, want all my scientific jargon to get in the way of the importance of self-awareness. Good point. To your environment, and thinking that you need to know all this stuff to do anything and I mean, literally, like, if you go to a retreat that no one's using Wi-Fi and maybe there's no cell towers nearby, and you feel better, maybe it's not the retreat that's doing it.

00;48;18;20 - 00;48;28;24
Christian
Like, maybe you're it's your exposure to, you know, your lack of exposure to Wi-Fi. So maybe try to find another place that doesn't have Wi-Fi and or cellular towers, or you're.

00;48;28;28 - 00;48;34;09
Thomas
Getting really healthy food regularly, or you have other people around you to interact with, you know.

00;48;34;09 - 00;48;58;08
Christian
Like, yeah, you have community. Yeah. Like, I mean, I my genetics come from a very tribal culture, and I am totally without a tribe right now. And I know that's one thing that I suffer from, and I'm constantly reaching out to people who are not tribal people. And that's not to say like it's ones any better, any worse is just different.

00;48;58;10 - 00;49;30;06
Christian
But they cannot handle me. And I understand that. Like, and I have to pull myself back from it because I know whether it's I'm almost certain it's the oxytocin that I get is something that I need from people. And a lot of people don't have it for me, and that's fine. Like, and it's something I have to accept because, again, the rarity of the genetics, yada yada, yada, so.

00;49;30;09 - 00;49;51;23
Thomas
Well, and that's something you and I touch on too, is we're all so many people are kind of genetic mutts or combinations of people. Yeah, very different nutritional backgrounds and backgrounds that we're going to probably would be expected to get some of these. I don't know, I don't want to say glitches, but, you know, our machines are our.

00;49;51;26 - 00;49;54;06
Christian
Glitches good, glitches good. But our genetic.

00;49;54;06 - 00;50;11;20
Thomas
Blueprint isn't really wired to like, metabolize these certain pathways, or it's better at these ways than others. And now our nutrition doesn't like, fit that. And so it's sort of thrown the system into a little bit of a haywire. You know. So there's another benefit of, knowing your background and checking your nutrition, you know.

00;50;11;22 - 00;50;30;17
Christian
Yeah, that's a good example. I mean, a perfect example is the, you know, the, omega the the type of omega fatty acids I need in my diet, like, so, you know, I know my ancestors came from, hunter gatherers around the Baltic Sea. Probably ate a lot of seafood or or at least ate a lot of meat.

00;50;30;19 - 00;51;00;13
Christian
They were hunter gatherers, like, I'm pretty certain, from the Sami population of Finland. And they ate a lot of meat. Now, meat is very high in what it's called long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, while vegetables are very high in short chain. Now I have all these mutations. I mean, sorry, not mutations, polymorphisms in these genes that break down the short chain into long chain.

00;51;00;15 - 00;51;25;23
Christian
So I can't break down the fatty acids and seed oils. To turn them into the long chain ones that are like in seafood. So, so I need to get my polyunsaturated fatty acids from. Yeah. So being a vegetarian, my cholesterol was through the roots and my HDL was down to like 30 low. Yeah. And they were always like, you're going to have a heart attack.

00;51;25;23 - 00;51;52;06
Christian
You need to go on sans. Well, I stopped being a vegetarian. I started eating fish like crazy and also some meat. And that reversed my cholesterol. But unfortunately, the mutation I have that caused the problem with anxiety and stuff. After that, you. But so? So my case was complicated. But like someone without my mutation, you know, just knowing your fatty acid desaturate genetic profile, you can.

00;51;52;06 - 00;51;59;17
Christian
You might reverse your heart disease or lower dramatically lower your risk of heart disease. Like. And that's the difference.

00;51;59;17 - 00;52;07;06
Thomas
The difference between go on this statin versus adjust your diet because of your genetic ability to handle these inputs and outputs.

00;52;07;06 - 00;52;29;29
Christian
You know, like, yes. And what happened when I went back to my doctor and they saw my HDL went up to 55 and my my LDL cholesterol lowered back under 300. They were like and I told them not to did a diet. And they're like, oh, that's I'm glad that worked for you. Almost like patronizingly. They didn't believe me, dismissing that I was doing sub dismissive.

00;52;30;04 - 00;52;45;19
Christian
I'm like, why are you not interested in how I found this out? Like I'm like showing you, like I look at my genetics, like, everyone should know this. Like, I want you to be anyone with heart, you know, with high cholesterol. Should get this genetic test to see if they have these. And then then change their diet accordingly.

00;52;45;19 - 00;53;03;11
Christian
Like you would save so many lives. Get the most sense like which caused all the other problems. So yeah, it's it's a, it's a, it's it's really depressing to me in a lot of ways. And I try to forget about it, but and just help the people I know.

00;53;03;14 - 00;53;07;14
Thomas
Small steps man. That's the best people we can help is those we know.

00;53;07;17 - 00;53;11;02
Christian
Yep. That's it. Yep.

00;53;11;05 - 00;53;36;26
Thomas
Well, I'll probably wrap up this convo, but I do want to acknowledge the Christian has recommended me to get, several blood test panels, including things like iron and B6 and homocysteine, and I've got those results. And Chris has seen them and he's. And we're going to have a conversation about what he sees. And I'll try to give sort of the background story of how we got how I got to this point of working with you.

00;53;36;29 - 00;53;49;21
Thomas
It's another way of demonstrating kind of how this, way of looking at things can start to have results and start to affect changes in life. You know.

00;53;49;24 - 00;54;10;23
Christian
Yeah, definitely. I, I'm so into that. Come on. It's just like I talk another three hours about it. Like we should do it. Well so go and Joe Rogan podcast links just blow it up baby. Yeah. Like no but yeah anytime of course. Yeah it's going to be a it's going to be a really good one. And I can't wait to get the rest of them done.

00;54;10;23 - 00;54;26;16
Christian
So get the rest of the results. Yeah. The more people we can get talking about it, because I'm still a skeptic of myself on all this, and that's the one thing I want to point out that anyone wants to talk to me about this. I'm welcome to it.

00;54;26;18 - 00;54;33;24
Thomas
Sneak preview. Christian was called it definitely on the on one of these results here. So nice job man.

00;54;33;26 - 00;54;42;26
Christian
Thanks. You're welcome.

00;54;42;29 - 00;55;02;06
Thomas
All right that's it on genetics for now. Again, be sure to check out the bonus episode where Christian shares more of his process of personal health discovery. And also, you can stay tuned for part two of this topic where I'm going to go into some of what I've found in my own genetics, with Christian's help and how this affected me.

00;55;02;08 - 00;55;13;29
Thomas
I will post that on the YouTube channel and the website, but not as a dedicated podcast episode. Until then, stay safe, listen to your body and I'll see you next time.