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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
This episode is sponsored by Manukora Honey, and I don’t use a lot or pretty much any sweeteners in my house or in my life with the exception of honey. And so I have become quite the honey aficionado over the years, and I absolutely love this one in particular. This honey, this Manukora Honey is rich and creamy. It’s got a complexity of flavor that not a lot of other honeys have, and it has some extra health benefits. So aside from the honey I harvest from my parents’ backyard right by my house, this is the other only honey that I love to eat because of its taste and also the benefits that it has.
Now, I love honey actually in the morning first thing for a burst of energy after I get some protein or right before bed with a sprinkle of salt. This is a quick tip. It really helps my sleep. Of course, it’s also delicious to add to any beverage or food. And I find that the clean energy of honey is my favorite sweetener by far. But here’s what makes Manukora Honey different. It’s ethically produced by Master Beekeepers in the remote forest of New Zealand. And it’s a particular type of honey that contains powerful nutrients that specifically support immunity and gut health. The bees here collect their nectar from the Manuka tree in New Zealand. So the nectar is packed with bioactives and the honey that is produced has three times more antioxidants and prebiotics than the average honey. It also has a special antibacterial compound called MGO and it comes from the nectar of this tea tree as well. Manukora third-party tests every single harvest to make sure it contains MGO and makes these results available through their QR system so that you can see them as well.
So I love this, honey. It’s a game changer. And all you really need is a heaping teaspoon each morning to get the most out of the benefits. I especially love this just as an all-around support and immune support in the winter. So basically it’s honey with superpowers and incredible flavor, and you can try it easily, easier than ever. Head to manukora.com/wellnessmama to save 25% off their starter kit, which comes with an MGO 850 plus Manuka honey jar, five honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook. That’s manukora.com/wellnessmama to save $25 on your starter kit.
This episode is sponsored by Our Place. And this company is awesome. They believe in the power of home cooking to bring people together, which I’m also a huge proponent of. And they have created products that make cooking and sharing a meal together, easier and more joyful and free of all the harmful things I don’t like in my kitchen. They have a wide array of things now. I always find myself using their Always Pan and also their Wonder Oven, which is a toaster oven, an air fryer in one. And I get a lot of requests for an air fryer recommendation, especially one that’s free of things like forever chemicals and nonstick chemicals. And my family has been using their Wonder Oven for a while now. And absolutely, we love it. I love that even my little kids can cook in it really well now. So I will often find them either heating or cooking from scratch their own food in the Wonder Oven. The tray they use in the Wonder Oven is toxin-free, and it’s made without PFAS, PFOAS, PTFEs, lead, cadmium, and other potentially toxic materials. The inside of the air fryer is stainless steel and not coated. And it’s compact enough that it fits easily on the corner of my kitchen countertop for quick use. And it comes in a lot of fun colors.
Their Always Pan has 10 uses so that you can use the one pan to seamlessly saute, fry, bake, roast, sear, boil, braise, strain, and serve. And I try to make several one pan meals a week. And this one is great for that. Especially, I use it often for breakfast stir fries.
Another thing I like about Our Place is they have a 100-day trial with free returns, so they make it even easier to give their cookware a try without the risk. You can check out all of their products by going to wellnessmama.com/go/our-place/ and use the code wellnessmama for a discount. And that link is also in the show notes if it’s easier to click on it there.
Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama. com and I am here today with Dr. Erica Gray to talk genetics and especially how understanding your child’s genetics can actually help make parenting easier.
This was a fascinating conversation highlighting some very specific genes and how they specifically relate to behavior as well as some just really important ones that can be helpful for our kids to understand while they’re still developing.
And Dr. Erica Gray is the founder and CMO of Toolbox Genomics and My Toolbox Genomics. She’s a UCSF trained pharmacist with years of experience in both allopathic and alternative medicine. And she’s really passionate about integrating the best of those two modalities and specific to genetics. She’s very clear that our genes are not our destiny. However, understanding them puts us in a much more empowered position in the driver’s seat of our own health. And she gives some great examples of that in this episode. So without further ado, let’s jump in. Dr. Erica Gray, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Gray: Thank you for having me, Katie. I’m so excited to be here.
Katie: I’m so excited for this conversation and it’s one of my favorite pet research topics and you have much more knowledge about this than I do. So I’m very excited to learn from you. And it also turns out that we have been at least online friends and connected for a really long time because I know in the notes for this episode, you mentioned remembering my “happy wife, happy life” tagline, which was years and years and years ago. So I’m glad we finally get to have an in real life conversation, but welcome. Thanks for being here.
Dr. Gray: Thank you. Yes, you played a huge role in my life. So this is really fun. I’m so excited to be able to share some information and knowledge with your listeners as well.
Katie: I’m so excited. And you and I got to connect last year, like last year at a conference. And I knew I would be really excited to have you on the podcast specifically to really delve into genetics, but not just genetics alone, but genetics in relation to our children, which is a topic I have not yet covered on this podcast. And I feel like can be game changing for a lot of parents. And one that I feel like it’s just not really talked about, and you have so much expertise on.
So I know that there’s probably a thousand directions we could go in this conversation but maybe start us off broad with how understanding our children’s genetics can actually like have kind of a far-reaching impact on health and behavior and, you know, I would guess even family dynamics and so much more.
Dr. Gray: Absolutely. So I think the thing you know, we’ve heard that conversation, but or that comment so many times that you know, we’re given our genetics and as the environment that pulls the trigger, it’s like these, this loaded gun, which sounds really scary. And I think the thing that we really don’t stop and think about is like, this is how we were created. This is how we’ve come onto this world. And now we’ve actually been given the tools to learn more about ourselves because now we can actually get in and start asking those different questions.
And I think as adults, we’ve gotten very interested in it. There’s been a lot of information. 23andMe has done a great job about that, but our children have the same information and it’d be really nice if we can delve into that and understand it a little bit further because things like food preferences and personality and even exercise propensity really does start to come out.
And it’s been interesting. I have teenagers and they’ve been saying, okay, so can you pull up my genetics again? And am I doing this the right way? And it just makes it such a fun conversation to have with them. And it really does give parents a lot better grace and understanding of sometimes what’s going on with their children.
Katie: I love that and I’m right there with you with the teenagers, and I’m loving seeing them having interest in their own health for sure and also their own genetics and kind of just knowing like, oh, what are the levers specific to my human body that I can pull that might help, for instance, like my athletic goals currently or these things I want to do in my life. How do they relate? And like you said, it’s not obviously thankfully that genes are our absolute destiny. It’s not that if you have a gene, this exactly will happen. Thankfully, like we know that there’s a lot we can do to influence genes, but also, we do have our genes and our genetics do come into play.
So I feel like what an advantage for our kids to know and be able to understand this at a deeper level when they’re still so young, because I know for you and I, this technology wasn’t even available to the public when we were their age, and now they get these like nifty little handbooks of their own human body that kind of helped them understand what’s specifically going on with you.
And I personally see this as kind of also the antidote to they’re always being outliers. When we do double blind placebo-controlled studies, that’s great, and there are always people who fall outside the bell curve, and genetics are one of the reasons to understand related to why. So I feel like this is going to help us get so much more nuanced for ourselves, certainly, but then also with our kids, which I think is what’s really exciting because you and I have been online together for a long time, you know, my even a whole reason for being here in the first place was realizing that our kids are going to have worse health outcomes and a shorter life expectancy than we are.
And I think we’re actually finally seeing some hopeful waves of change with all of the technology available and all of the understanding that’s coming with that. And I have personally so much hope with this next generation and how much they already seem to be ahead of the curve in their understanding of some of those things.
And I know we cannot get through anywhere near all of the genes in even one or two podcast episodes. But I would love to hear maybe some personal examples from you related to your own kids of things you found that were then applicable to them and or maybe some broad examples that when you’re going through genetics with someone that you look at that can be like really big needle movers for someone or for their kids.
Dr. Gray: So one of my biggest pet peeves is people focusing in on one gene because it is, you cannot look at this entire human body, this magnificent body through the lens of one gene and that many people talk about MTHFR and we’ll talk about that a little bit later, but there is one gene. C O M T, catechol O methyltransferase, that does really seem to come out time and time again, as far as influencing our worldview.
Now, the big thing I think is really important for people to understand, is that you can put in a lot, so this is for adults, you put in a lot of, at work, meditation, mindfulness, and that is going to help you navigate that gene a little bit better. But when you’re tired or grumpy, and it’s been a rough day, and what I like to say, when all the chips are down, it’s that personality that comes out.
So, if you are a fast COMT, you break down dopamine, epinephrine much faster. It’s those catecholamines. So if you have a child who breaks those down faster, they are going to be the child who doesn’t sit still, who’s moving all over the place, who is, they might want a video, a game, might start to have some addictive tendencies, but that is going to be the child who’s going to be, quote, jumping off the walls.
And then on the other side, you’ve got the slow COMT, and that child is going to be your anxious one. They’re going to be the one who’s going to be worried about everything. They tend to, control is very important for them. So if they don’t understand what is going on, what the schedule is, they tend to fall apart, but they fall apart in ways that tend to be very aggravating for parents, but it’s just because they’re really worried. They don’t have a clear idea of what’s going on.
And then you’ve got the child in the middle, which is your average metabolizer. Most of the population does live in the average metabolizer window. But what I’ve learned over all these years is that you will tend in one direction or another.
And the benefit to having that understanding is if you know what your child’s COMT quote status is, you can have so much more understanding and so much more compassion to say, okay, we know we’ve got a big trip coming up. I’ve got to pull my slows aside, write out the schedule, tell them what we’re doing, check in with them and make sure they’re going to be doing okay. And the fast ones, they just want to make sure that this is going to be a dynamic, fun vacation, because otherwise they’re going to be bored and frustrated.
It’s the same thing with the parents too, because I am intermediate and my husband is slow. And for years I used to say, I don’t understand why I can’t just rattle off a bunch of things at you. And he’s like, it is so stressful. It is really overwhelming. If you, if you just write it down, I’m fine. But I didn’t, and I was getting frustrated with it. But then when I learned it was like, oh, this is just a genetic predisposition with certain, how he breaks down certain catecholamines. So like, oh, okay, I can work with this.
So that to me is one of my favorite ones. And I get, it comes up consistently over and over again with really helping parents understand kids and for the kids to understand why they react in certain situations, the way they do.
Katie: Yeah, that’s so fascinating. And I feel like you’re right. All the talk of MTHFR, which is important, of course, and I’m glad we have that conversation, but you don’t hear about as much about COMT. And it seems like that one really can drastically impact the behavior side. And certainly, for adults as well.
Like I see things circulating on social media of adults talking about like, oh, I found this one amino acid. That’s really helping me, or I found this one supplement. And I wonder, I’m like, I wonder if they have some COMT stuff going on that they don’t know about. Thankfully they found something that’s helping them. But it seems like if we had access to just simple things like that, it might really help our interpersonal like interactions. And also like you mentioned with the kids and scheduling and just interacting with their environment and their schedule and for adults could really make a huge difference.
Dr. Gray: Absolutely. And so my son is slow and my daughter’s intermediate. But what’s absolutely fascinating is that the way their personalities come out, I would have thought it was the opposite. My daughter is average or intermediate. But she tends on that slow side, but my son’s still because of his dopamine receptors. So that’s the other layer on this. You’ve got these dopamine receptors, DRD2, DRD4, and this is what tends to come in with our hyperactive children is that sometimes the receptor, the home where these different products that our body makes or our enzymes that they need to go and they need to dock there, their transporter system doesn’t work really well. So we may make enough dopamine, but then it doesn’t get to where it needs to be.
And so typically like with our ADHD children, we will see they have issues at their dopamine receptors. They tend to be a fast COMT, so they are breaking down what they do have. And then it needs, it’s not at the little dopamine that they do have isn’t actually getting to the receptor. So then they’re reaching for different behaviors or exercise or extreme adrenaline junkie type behaviors that maybe they wouldn’t be if they didn’t have, they weren’t bringing it down as quickly.
And so to me, the quick antidote on that is got to make sure your children get enough protein because protein makes amino acids, which then makes all of our different catecholamines. And if they don’t have enough protein, then so much of their brain function is going to suffer.
Katie: Yeah, definitely. I’m glad anytime we get a chance to mention the importance of protein, and that certainly is a recurring theme from these now almost a thousand podcast episodes is the importance of protein, especially from like quality, clean, whole-food sources and how we are just simply not getting enough of those.
But I think you’re right. Like, especially for kids and for teenagers, that becomes extra important for all the reasons you just listed. And because they’re developing their skeletal muscle for their whole life and they’re still, their bone structure, their brains, like they are literally building their bodies, and they need the building blocks in which to build their bodies.
It’s definitely something we’re very aware of in my house and my kids even take, um, you know, aminos powder sometimes. In addition to eating a lot of whole food protein, just because they’re aware of, like, I have this limited window to build in this very particular way.
Now you alluded to this, but I’m guessing there’s also a tie in with behavior issues and things like anxiety and ADHD, but can you go deeper on that?
Dr. Gray: Yes. So there are several different genes around anxiety and depression, especially with serotonin. And so we make the most amount of our serotonin in our gut. And what is absolutely fascinating is the serotonin is a huge molecule and somehow, it’s, but it’s all affecting us in our brain. And so there’s been a lot of questioning about how do we get such a huge molecule that is all made in our gut up into our brain because that is really affecting our personality and our outlook on life.
And so one of the theories out there is it’s actually the vagus nerve that depending on how much serotonin we are making in our gut, that is now affecting what’s going on within our brain because the vagus nerve connects from our brain all the way down to our gut. And then it elicits the release of the serotonin in the synapse and the brain.
So what happens is that we’ve got so many different aspects of serotonin. We have serotonin production regulation. We have serotonin transport, and we have serotonin receptors, and these are all genetically governed. Now one of the big things is, again, going back to our teenagers is that you make serotonin from the food that you eat, specifically the protein.
And so, if you genetically are not able to transport that little bit of serotonin that you make or that you’re ingesting, you’re putting yourself so much further behind the eight ball on that. So what we really need to do is, what I think is super helpful is your child, learning, is your child at a predisposition for potentially some anxiety and depression? That doesn’t mean it’s going to develop. That doesn’t mean that it is if they have it a little bit as a teenager, they’re going to have it as an adult. It is just to give you an idea of what does the serotonin do in their body and how do they move it around when they have it.
And so I think that type of, and that’s just not a discussion that we’re having. In fact, it really seems to be vogue for a lot of girls to say that they’re anxious and they’re depressed. A lot of my daughter’s friends, she said, I can’t believe how many of them are on antidepressants. And I said, but for what? And she goes, I don’t know. It just seems like that’s the popular thing to do. And I really think that it’s really important for us as parents to teach them that it is normal to be anxious or worried in certain situations. Our bodies are adapted to have that, but then we need to reset ourselves. We need to go out in nature. We need to go take a walk. We need to just read a book and that helps us, helps us so much. And it also helps our body re-regulate itself as well.
Katie: Yeah, that’s such a good point because we know statistically a lot of these things are on the rise, especially in children and teen populations. And it makes me sad to see the kind of medication being the only slash first line of relief for these kids when I feel like we could be talking about all these things you’re saying and like the nutritional understanding, genetic understanding, and how we can give them the basic building blocks they need, even if some of these other things are necessary, seems like that lays such a better foundation for them for actually you know, interacting with their environment and for lifelong health if we kind of take a both-and approach rather than just going straight to medication as a first line of defense and especially with kids.
And I’m curious, are there any other trends, obviously each, the nature of genetics is that we’re all very unique and individual, but are there any trends that you see related to genetics that have helped you understand maybe, kind of other nutrient deficiencies that people kind of have on a wide scale or any other genes you would highlight for people if maybe they’ve gotten a genetic report in the past and they just don’t understand their genes to maybe like look at and experiment with first.
Dr. Gray: So we talk about the microbiome so much, and I think we really do not give it, it’s starting to get its day in the sun, but I think we’re still, it’s still such a new concept for so many people. So we have three to five pounds of bacteria in our gut. So eating a little bit of yogurt, taking a Culturelle really does not help promote that huge shift. But there is a gene called FUT2, and FUT2, what they have shown is that if you have a variant in that particular gene, you tend to have lower levels of bifidobacteria and we have seen over and over again, the research keeps coming out, whether it’s anxiety, whether it’s depression, whether it’s longevity, even, or your baby’s ability to have a really robust immune system all goes back to these bifidobacteria strains.
And for some reason that particular gene just seems to predispose us to these lower levels. It also plays a role in B12, which is really important for anxiety, mental acuity, our ability to multitask as well. So that is one I love to look at, especially in kids because that’s an easy fix. We can, there’s, you can go get a gut test. You can see what type of bifidobacteria varieties they have and you can supplement it. You can use your fermented foods. You can, and if, especially if mom and dad have already checked their genetics, you can get an idea of what baby might have. And so you can be proactive if you’ve, if you have a newborn, what you can be doing for that child, because for mom, you’re just going to really double down on your probiotics. You can put some probiotics right on your nipple, mix it up with a little bit of breast milk, and it goes right into the baby. And especially if you’ve had a C section child.
The other one is PEMT, which regulates choline production. So choline is absolutely critical because it, our body makes acetylcholine out of it. And this is absolutely critical for our brain function, for neuroplasticity, for our synapses to be able to talk to each other. And I feel like poor choline never gets its day in the sun, it is really, really important. And if you have that gene, what ends up happening is you just simply do not make as your body does not upregulate the production of choline. So taking a supplement like phosphatidylcholine can be a game changer for people. And they just feel so much better when they take it.
And it’s critical for pregnancy and brain development. So moms, if you are pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant, this is a great gene to look at in your genetics if you haven’t, if you have it. If you haven’t done it, get it done because it’s an easy supplement, especially in the third trimester to really give your baby that extra leg up in brain development.
Katie: Thankfully, that’s one of the things I found sort of by experimentation years and years ago, but now knowing my genes, I have a lot of genes that kind of indicate a higher need for choline supplementation. So I’ve actually experimented with several forms of supplemental choline, but at the time when I started introducing that, I realized I had been sensitive to eggs for years. So I was eating almost no dietary choline and had all these genes that heavily depended on choline. And so I remember that so vividly when I started supplementing choline, it was like someone turned a light on in my brain. Like it was such a drastic difference, and it really showed me like, it’s so helpful to understand kind of the handbook of our own body and how it can directly apply, especially when it’s so drastic, something like that.
And for teens, especially, I know there’s so much talk about focus and there, there’s so much pressure on them in the school environment. And if something as simple as, you know, like a very well researched choline supplement can make a drastic difference for them, that’s a tremendous leg up, that again, you and I didn’t have that back when we were in school.
And going through those same things I’m curious what else, I know we said like it’s not just about MTHFR, but also MTHFR is of course a factor to consider as well, and I feel like maybe in the over focus on MTHFR, like I know I took too much methylfolate for a long time. Because I was so worried about MTHFR related things. So, what do we need to know about that gene and kind of maybe having a more balanced approach?
Dr. Gray: So choline and folate are what we consider methyl donors. Folate ends up going through this entire pathway where it ends up at this product called S adenosylmethionine, SAMe. And that is a methyl donor. And we’ve put a ton of focus onto methyl donor, methyl donor availability, which is my preferred term over methylation. And I’ll tell you about that in a second. Because our body uses these methyl groups, it is a carbon and three hydrogen, and it puts it on and off our genes. Well, it puts it on, takes it off. So this is that proverbial light switch that people talk about with our genes because it is correct. These genes are here and some of them just lie dormant until something happens in our life, and we switch it on.
And sometimes it’s the presence of more methyl donors or it’s the absence of more methyl donors. And so MTHFR has so much notoriety for it because it is this primary conversion that takes folic acid or folate from its last step and converts it into a form that can be used in the cell. And if it is not in the right form, the cell cannot utilize it.
So there’s a lot of talk about methylation, and they put methyl, methylation and methyl donor availability is often synonymous. So true methylation testing is actually looking at the CPG islands, and you can look to see how methylated or unmethylated they are. That is an epigenetic test, and right now, most of the research is focused on either inflammation or aging. We know that there’s a lot more we can do with it. It’s just the research is still very much evolving.
In contrast with the genetics, we’re looking at methyl donor availability. How well can our body utilize these raw ingredients so that we can produce these methyl groups so that our body can methylate. So, the thing with MTHFR is that everyone says, well, if you have it, you must take the methylated version of folic acid. So that is called five MTHF, five methyltetrahydrofolate. Some people will say folinic acid is another one. And in fact, if you look at any of the pharmaceutical grade supplements now, you cannot find folic acid in there anywhere.
So, but I’ll tell you something a little bit controversial. So I did the same thing as you Katie. I looked at everyone’s genes. I was like, okay, here you go, five methyltetrahydrofolate for all and sat back and waited and either people got grumpier. It didn’t seem to work for them. I didn’t see the changes on their lab work.
And so it really made me start to ask the question of we overdoing the folate. Are we giving it to people who maybe they don’t need it? Because one of the things that is not discussed is that MTHFR is very what we call thermal labile. It’s affected by heat easily. Riboflavin, which is another B vitamin, is what stabilizes that particular enzymes. So there’s some discussion out there that it’s not an MTHFR variation or issue and we should be taking folate. In fact, it’s actually a riboflavin deficiency, and that’s what’s needed.
So, again you do want to be careful with it. And I have actually gone back to plain old folic acid, because I was getting better results with people with their labs using folic acid. And the big concern that people say is, well, what it happens if you don’t utilize that folic acid or you don’t convert it, then you end up with something called unmetabolized folic acid. And the question that people are saying is, is that pro inflammatory?
And there was a study that they did in Canada. They took pregnant women. It was a double-blind study. They gave them the methylated version and the folic acid. And their primary outcome questions were how red blood cell folate concentration, which was going to be better, how quickly they reached what we call it, a C max, which is that maximum concentration. And then how long did it stay? But what was fascinating was that I waited for this paper to be published, and it didn’t get published and didn’t get published. And finally, it did. And they changed their primary endpoints because it was not statistically significant between those two products.
And this is in pregnant women. So this is a really, really critical population that we always want to make sure they get enough folate to protect their spinal cord development and also all of the DNA that end up happening and what they ended up finding was the only difference was that they had a higher level of unmetabolized folic acid, but we still don’t know what that means and what it does in the body and how much unmetabolized folic acid we need to cause a problem or to cause inflammation, or maybe it’s just part of life.
But the most fascinating thing is going back to the microbiome. There are microbiome, certain bifidobacterial bacterial species make folate and that particular form of folate goes right into our cells and gets utilized beautifully. And so I really think that because so many people do have this MTHFR variant and it’s so widespread, the body evolved this clever technique to say, yup, we know it’s there, but here’s how we’re going to get around it. We’re going to make sure that our microbiome is actually making it and supplying it where we need it.
Katie: That’s super fascinating, and it reminds me that folate/riboflavin thing you mentioned reminds me of, I recently did a solo podcast on salt and minerals and kind of debunking this idea that salt is bad for us in at least normal, normal physiological amounts and how the data actually points to, for instance, it’s not high sodium consumption that’s the problem, but often potassium deficiency.
And we kind of like missed this important caveat. And like you just explained with folate, like there’s more to the story than just this sort of black or white switch related to the gene. There’s other things going on in our body. And it makes so much sense to me that our body would be adaptable and kind of figure out that work around that you talked about. And I’m excited that we’re starting to like now actually see and understand that on a deeper level.
And I know we’re going to get to do a follow up episode that goes in a few more directions. But before we wrap up this episode, are there any other genes that come to mind that are specifically related to behavior that you feel like are especially helpful for parents?
Dr. Gray: So I would say you want to look at the serotonin ones, and so it’s called SLC403, Katie, I can give you the exact one, and I can give you that RSID, because that is probably one of the biggest serotonin transporters. BDNF, that is a really important enzyme in our brain, and it has a lot to do with motivation. And so if we have a variant in that, sometimes that’s the child that’s really hard to get off the couch and motivate. But, things like fish oils, a little bit of exercise can really help increase BDNF.
MC4R is another one because that’s a snacking, it’s a snacking gene. And the reason I like to look at that is that teenagers are going to eat all the time. Totally normal. But we really want them to choose high-quality snacks. And it’s very easy because they’re surrounded by their friends, and they see what their friends are eating, and their friends seem to be fine. That’s always the comment I get, but for kids who have that variant, it can be very difficult for them to walk past that bag of chips or the sweets. And so being able to teach them about some of their dietary choices, especially as they get older, just really improve their relationship with food.
And then another one is the TASR38, because this is a bitter taste receptor. And for children, they often, when they’re really young, don’t like bitter foods, the broccolis, the brussels sprouts of the world. But if you have a child who has a variant in that, it is going to be super amplified. They’re going to be those child’s like, oh, that’s, it’s nasty, nasty, because their ability to taste bitter is so much stronger and heightened. And as we get older, we kind of get used to that bitter taste. We don’t mind it, you know, coffee and things like that, and so, but it’s, so sometimes it can be hard as parents. We’re like, well, just eat it. It’s not that bad, but to that particular child, it really is that bad. So can be made really difficult.
COMT, PEMT, I still like to look at MTHFR because I do think that it does play part of the story and then DRD2 and DRD4, those are just a really nice compilation to take a look at.
Katie: Awesome. And before we wrap up, I know you also have a lot of resources related to this as well as like direct ways for parents to interact and understand their children’s genes. And I’ll link to those in the show notes, but can you let people know where to find you and where to keep learning from you?
Dr. Gray: Yes, so you can go to mytoolboxgenomics.com and if you order a DNA test or an epigenetic test, to me, it is so important that you know how to take action, and you know how to actually implement results. And so we’ve paired every order with a free group coaching, and that’s with me. So you, you get to ask questions. We’ll go through results. It can be tailored again to depending on what the audience interests are. And then you can follow me on Twitter at thegenewhisperer, and then also on Instagram as well.
Katie: Amazing. All of those links will be in the show notes for any of you guys listening on the go, but Dr. Erica, this has been such a fun conversation and I’m so excited we’re going to get to have a follow-up conversation. So you guys stay tuned for that. But for this episode, thank you so much for your time and for being here.
Dr. Gray: Thank you so much for having me.
Katie: And thank you for listening. And I hope you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.
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