468: Why Your Genes Are Sabotaging Your Health and How to Fix It with Kashif Khan

DNA is telling us what's not working right. The priority with DNA is to figure out which biological systems are failing, which biological processes are failing, or which are being done a little too well.

Like welcome to Midlife Conversations. I'm your host, Natalie Jill, and I'm passionate about having amazing conversations that matter to us midlife women. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated health topics and breaking them down simply so that we can optimize aging together. I share actionable steps to help you thrive in what I believe are our best years to come. Join me as I interview the most inspiring people living their best midlife years and dive into essential topics like hormone changes, health optimization, weight management, blood sugar, emotional well being, relationships, beauty, and so much more. If you feel like midlife has hit a snooze button on your brain and you've been very confused about what is going on, this is going to be the episode today for you. We are going to dive deep into DNA and how our DNA differs for all of us and how things that we've been just associated with aging or a genetic thing that we have, or just regular things that we have to accept. All of the missing links around that could be in our DNA and how we navigate what we decide to do, whether that's supplements or hormone replacement or just sucking it up, all of it can be related to our DNA. I had Kashif Khan on my podcast before and it was such a well received episode that we ended up doing a live class with many of you that attended. I've had lots of requests for a second one, but we're going to start first with this episode because I've got a list of questions I want to go a lot deeper and if this is your first time tuning in to him, you're in for a big treat. This is probably stuff that you have not heard or understood before and this could be very, very eye opening for you. So thanks so much for being back here today, Kash.

It's awesome. I don't get called a treat often, so that was flattering.

Well, you totally are and you've really changed how I look at health and how I look at aging. And I realized that DNA was this missing link that I didn't understand for years. Despite having many doctors over the years run genetic testing. I never really understood what it was they were doing, but they always said, let's run a genetic report. They never really educated me on what any of it meant or what to do with it. And I also found that sometimes their Interpretations or even the ones you can find online. A lot of people go to ChatGPT or Google. It's just not. Not necessarily accurate compared to what I've learned from you.

Yeah. I say it's incomplete because a lot of genetic testing companies remember the word test. They are testing companies. They're not functional health, they're not functional medicine. They don't ever meet a patient. And so you have this sort of ivory tower of, here's what DNA means, major gap. And then eventually there's a clinician, and they never talk. And this was a gap that we realized need to be filled. So we spent three years, one by one, with 7,000 people solving problems. And through that, we learn how to take the science of DNA that already existed, but then implementing it and making it practical, but most important, making it easy so that anybody can use the tool.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to back up for a minute and share sort of where you even stumbled into this, because I know this was not the original path you set for yourself to be this DNA expert. And you've got a lot of things about you that are amazing, but can you give us a little background on just how this even became important to you?

Yeah. So I. I was sick. I don't come from the space, no formal training. And I. And then when I look back, I think this was exactly what was needed. Is a layperson coming from the outside saying, this tool sounds okay, but it doesn't work. I need to fix it.

Right.

I need to work for me. And so I had horrible eczema, you know, bad inflammation. I had psoriasis, gut issues, depression, didn't want to get out of bed. And the thing that drove me to the doctor was migraines. So I had intense migraines, couldn't function. So when I went to the doctor, here's the context. Me and my business partner worked in the same office, lived on the same street, same age, same ethnic background, same number of kids, ate the same food. Like we lived the exact same life. I had five chronic diseases, he had zero.

Wow.

So when the doctor said, you have this, I believed it, because how could it be caused if he had all the same habits and he. He didn't have the problems I had.

Right.

So what drove me to seek the answer was when I would ask doctors, what did I do? It can't be a coincidence that, you know, I'm taking five pills for five different problems, but they all happen at the same time, and I've never been sick before. What did I do? What Did I eat? I must have done something. And when I couldn't get that answer and I for the first time realized that that's not what doctors do, it's diagnosing, prescribe versus why did you get sick? I started to look for the answer myself. So I explored traditional Chinese medicine, naturopathy, functional medicine, homeopathy, you name any root cause medicine. And I eventually landed on my unique DNA, a research institute here that was studying DNA. And this big eye opening moment for me, that whole thing about, well, if, if something's causing it, why is my partner sick? There's a gene called GSTM1 which is responsible for your gut's glutathione activity. So glutathione is this antioxidant in your body that's responsible to bind and help you clear toxins, right? Things that cause inflammation. And the way your body does this is there's different genetic instructions for different parts of your body that separately operate, including your gut. The GSTM1 gene that is responsible for how your gut detoxifies is missing from my genetic code. Not even what version or what variant. I literally don't have the gene. So imagine you're reading a book and there's a page torn out. That's what's happening in the DNA now. The exact same foods that me and my business partner would eat lunch together every day and dinner almost every day because of our, the hours we were working. What was safe for him wasn't safe for me. A little bit of preservative, a little bit of plastic, a little bit of drying agent in a grain, a little bit of glyphosate. His body was able to detoxify my body led to leaky gut, irritable bowel, borderline Crohn's and colitis causing, which caused systemic inflammation all over my body. And that was one of many, many things I learned of how I unique. And then that's the day where I said this is what I got to work on. And I kept going.

You know, as you're saying that something's really coming up for me where I've interviewed so many different experts on my podcast here and the commonality I have found with anyone that is a more naturopathic or holistic or really really deep on specific one off topics like DNA like this. They navigated their own health setback and had their own issues with western medicine. And it's interesting because a lot of people say, well how come my doctor, how come my western medicine doctor, how come they don't Bring this up and this could be any topic, hormones, gut, any of this. And I'm starting to really believe that people that walked through this themselves and face the disappointment, they're the ones that had to dig deep and become their own health detective and really learn. Right. So that's why they became an expert on these things where I think a lot of western medicine doctors, they totally mean well. They just haven't necessarily walked through this themselves. So they don't understand that, that this is even a layer there. Right. Because like if you, if you didn't have that gene, if you didn't have that in your DNA and you didn't experience this, you might be a totally different person.

Yeah. And it's interesting you say that because I now do a lot of courses and trainings and master classes and things like that. The other day I was just digging into it. I never really paid attention, but I realized when I dug into it that about 30% of our clients are doctors.

Wow.

So 30% of the people that come to us are in the health and wellness industry. They're nurse practitioners, medical doctors, surgeons, all sorts of stuff that are disappointed in their own ability to figure out the.

Reason that makes me happy and feel hopeful for Madison because I feel too much the other way sometimes where, I mean, just even in the topic of hormones, I deal with this all the time with midlife women, with their doctors, just dismissing them, not understanding, telling them dated information. So I appreciate that they're coming to you, to you for this. When I first started talking with Cash, I wanted to know more about, I wanted to talk to him about hormones specifically. And I had my list of things and he said, no, Natalie, we're going to start with brain. And I did my own DNA with him and he right away could pull up without ever knowing me, without talking to me, without looking at my, my blood work, without me telling him my grades in school, any of it. He could tell that I had expressed as ADHD and even some high perform, high functioning anxiety. Can you talk about where DNA fits into personality and brain function?

So this is a big one. And I would tell you that we work with a lot of, you know, NFL, NBA players, pro athletes, celebrity type people all the way down to stay at home, mom or dad or like everybody. And it doesn't matter where they're at. We always start with nervous system in the brain. Even if someone doesn't think that's what they need, everyone needs it. And there's a little bit of the ability to tolerate a lot of Stress and there's ability to not tolerate it at all either way is causing damage to your nervous system. So we need to understand how we perceive the world, but also how the world perceives us. Who are we? And we just think that what we see is a yes or no, Correct or not correct. A lot of it is perception, which is what creates friction between people.

Right.

And so neurochemicals in your brain drive your perception and the DNA drives the neurochemicals. So if I can read your DNA, it's kind of like reading the instruction manual to how you think. And there are chemicals that drive how you seek reward and what motivates you. There's chemicals around how you experience emotion and trauma. There's chemicals around how much meaning you give stuff. And some people are drama queens and some people don't seem to care.

Right.

And that's all genetically driven. And it's an example the thing you talked about with yourself. So you got these great dopamine receptors in your brain. So it's very easy for you to feel intensity of pleasure and satisfaction and reward, which means your brain is somewhat content. So you're only going to really work on what you really care about.

Right.

And your brain is going to always prioritize. And this is why you're a purpose, mission driven person. Because it's like this is what you want to do, it's not what you need to do.

Right.

And then do gets delegated to other stuff or otherwise I might never procrastinate. Procrastinate, procrastinate. I need your help. Please, you do it for me.

Right?

So but the need, the want to do part is what you're really good at. But then you have this a bit of a rapid clearance so you're able to shift gears and multi track, multi prioritize in fact, kind of need to, right. Some people are more bingers. It's like I started the job, I'm not going to stop until it's complete. Some people are like, I did 50 minutes of that, what's next? Like that. And that could be misconstrued as adhd, Right. Natalie, the job was read this book. Why did you stop at chapter two? Because your brain is like, what's next? And that's an incredible strength that leadership requires.

Right.

But there's, there's another layer to this which is serotonin. And serotonin is this mood regulating neurochemical. It's referred to as like the happy hormone.

Right.

And what's not understood is the biology of what drives that outcome, whether you're happy or not. The biology isn't hormone makes you feel good. It's hormone allows your brain to prioritize information. So here's all of what's going on in the world. Do you see it like this highly laser focused or more like this? Like, I see everything. And that's what your brain's doing when you walk in the room. It's like every noise, every sound, every smell that's not supposed to be here, this person's late, like noticing everything.

Right.

And now your brain, this goes back to what I said about perception. Your brain is operating at like 120% of what's really going on. Other people in the room might be operating at 80%. And now both of you are trying to reconcile a thought idea, a to do list, and your belief around what's real versus their belief. Completely different.

Right.

So this is a source of. Sorry, go ahead.

No, it's. That's perfect. And I think this is really important for people to understand this and know it because the. Otherwise we're just putting it into a lump box and going, oh, everyone's this, you just need this medication or you just. But if you understand it, what does that create? Like what by understanding it? What can you do with that knowledge? When you have that knowledge around this?

Yeah.

So now you know this wiring. Combine this with the rapid dopamine clearance equals the high functioning anxiety you mentioned.

Right.

Which is not the anxiety of like, leave me alone, I need to stay in bed. That's a different kind of anxiety. It's more the anxiety of like, I can't stop, there's a fire in my belly. You don't know what you're doing. I'm going to do it, I'm going to fix it.

Right.

The fixer, the leader.

Yeah.

This is partly because clearing neurochemicals fast. So needing to move on. It's partly because seeing more detail. So everything matters. And you can pull people forward because you see what they don't see and partly because you also don't make enough serotonin. So your brain is looking more for problems than opportunities. Whatever you read and see and talk to someone, it's like, here's what needs to be fixed. And that combination is an incredible leader, which is what you are. Or my nervous system is fried, I need medication.

Yeah.

Can be true. And what we're trying to determine is how am I wired, what is my superpower and am I doing that? Then it's going to feel incredible. Am I not doing that? Then I'm probably going to use words like anxiety, depression, procrastination, burnout, etc.

Right?

No.

So what's interesting is when Cash told me this, of course my question was, of course the, well, what do I do about it? And I remember you said to me was, well, it's a great, it's a great gift and you can look at it that, but it also can be dangerous if you don't learn how to shut that down or to slow it. So he, that's how he was able to recommend things like serotonin supplements or you had given me a few, I think you said 5 HTP, you gave me a couple names of cortisol manager, I believe you would give me a couple things to do and you said these can help shut that down versus just what traditional western medicine would say. They'd say here is a speed based ADHD medicine medicine which would ramp it up even more.

Yeah. And so now the, the thinking here is we now know how a gene is expressing and we now know the outcome. And in some context that's exactly what you need, leadership. In some contexts, going on vacation with a family, it's like mom, leave me alone, right? Helicopter mom's back. So that's where it's like you can actually manage your gene expression. And the same tool that is bad in one context is good in another. So now there are supplements like you said, there's seraphos, phosphatidylserine, 5 HTP. There's things like breath work, yoga, nidra. There's, you know, there's stimulating your vagus nerve and calming your nerves down. And you decide when you want that gene to express differently so that you're aligned for the new context, which is Thanksgiving dinner and vacation and the weekends, then you want to express very differently when it's like leadership meeting with the team and you can choose. And that's the cool thing about your DNA is you're born with. What we're trying to determine is what are your genetics, how are you born, what's your design? And then the, the layer to add on top is now how do I manage the expression where on a given day or time I need it activating at a different level. So yeah, and this is for everything, your hormones, your mode, your detox capacity, everything you can turn the dials on how those genes express so important.

So just to kind of close the loop on this one, you all are listening. You may have very different DNA than me, but just to hear what he's saying, sometimes what we're given is not necessarily the solution, but if we understand the DNA and how it's expressing, we can change that. Like I know with, if I had gone to any western medicine doctor, any psychiatrist, they'd say, here, take Ritalin, take Adderall, take whatever. That's it. Where what I heard from Cash is use that gift that you have in those ideal situations. And when you're not in the situations where you need that expressing that way, that's when you need to work at shutting that down. The 5 HTP, the breath work all the time things that you just mentioned. So it's just a different way of managing it and different way of approaching it, which to me makes a lot more sense when you under, when you understand that. And I would think that would be the same with somebody, maybe that not everyone, but somebody may be dealing with chronic anxiety or depression or other or bipolar like symptoms. I would imagine that's kind of a similar situation.

My dopamine is the opposite of yours. You have this really high density of receptors, very easy to feel, very easy to find what you like and become that specialist.

Right.

My brain has the lowest possible level of dopamine. And so it's very hard for me to feel satisfaction and contentment. And there was a time when I was depressed, right. And there's a time when that was my identity. I'm depressed. And a doctor said, yes, that looks like depression. So if I take my wiring of I can't feel satisfaction and I go try and do the normal day to day, it's not enough. My brain is wired for what we call warrior genetics.

Right?

Your brain is like specialist, expert. My brain is warrior, frontline risk taker. Go do something crazy that everyone will call you being a psychopath.

Right?

Yeah. You told me I had warrior in me too. So I had some combination of that. I think I remember you telling me I was scary in my past or something like that. You said ancestors were probably scary.

Yeah.

And for you it's coming from the crap and clearance and that serotonin like leadership trait.

Right.

For me it's a risk taking behavior. Like if I'm not taking a big enough risk, it's not satisfying enough. And whatever I did yesterday is not enough. I need to do more. More and more and more.

Wow.

I went from a guy that was helping tech apps and startups go from zero to some success to building a genetic research company with no formal training. So I'm willing to take that risk and build a course and talk to Dr. And say you need my program. And they say, yes, I do. So that's where. Yeah. So even that one nuance of how you and me would see the world if we something was sitting in front of us, you would be like, no, not interested. Unless it's what I like. For me, it's like, give me any shiny object and I'll chase it.

Wow.

Right?

Yeah. Fascinating to understand this and I would imagine this is like just even more important to understand with your family members because here you're wondering why you and your husband don't, you know, you and your spouse don't agree on things, or you handle things different, or you and your children. But when you understand this, it's almost like having a full blown understanding of therapy without the therapy.

So I was told that my kid had adhd, my middle kid.

Right.

And this is where so far we talk about neurochemicals. There isn't any problem. When someone's sitting in front of me, I tell them, it doesn't matter why you're here, breast cancer, weight loss, whatever. Until we go through all the systems, there's no answer. Because every system, from your hormones to your metabolism, everything influences everything. So we need to know in all the systems what's broken, what's not broken. And now we have a complete answer. So let me give you an example. I was told my son had ADHD when he was around 8 years old.

Right.

Okay. And I said to the teacher, well, there's only one teacher complaining, so maybe it's just a friction issue.

Right.

And so I dug into it, like, why is this one teacher keep saying this? So I looked at his genes and I didn't see ADHD type, especially in the way they're saying is that he just checks out and he's not available and doesn't pay attention. So I looked at all the pathways and what stood out to me was his metabolic health. So there's a gene called TCS7L2 that drives your insulin regulation. Are you naturally born insulin resistant or are you actually very effective at managing your insulin? So the genetics of even that, we have different baselines. We start from where some of us are more sensitive to diabetes and metabolic disease.

Right.

He had the worst gene version there. Then there's a gene called Amy1, which drives what's called amylase activity, which is an enzyme you need to break down starches and starchy foods. If you can't break them down and you have a bad insulin response, you're going to go on this metabolic roller coaster. And no surprise the teacher that was complaining was right after lunchtime.

Wow.

In a lunch box where he came from a South Asian home when he, where he was given a bowl of rice every day.

Right.

Wow.

Yeah.

And so he was literally in a coma. He was in a car crash. And the behavior looked like adhd. You don't pay attention, you don't care, you don't respond. And if you were to look at it, you would probably call it that, but it was simply a metabolic issue. And now two things. Understanding what he needs to eat, understanding that he needs some metabolic support like berberine and fiber to help him with that insulin.

Yeah.

And he needs more complex carbs and not the fast stuff like rice and pasta. And also understanding that that particular, you know, homework time, you know, test time, exam time, we gotta be very careful what he's eating that day.

Yeah. And what placement of stuff. What I'm already thinking is maybe that teacher was right after lunch, so that was even more important. Like what is he eating for lunch? Where he came in after breakfast and he was different because he had a different type of breakfast.

Yeah, yeah. And this is what was going on. And so you would believe it. You would believe, because you see the behavior and you would think that, yeah, this is true, this is what's going on.

Yeah.

But just the same, your hormones can influence your mood.

Right.

And, and again, what I'm. We're using mood as an example, but you can talk about any problem. And it's the same story that all these systems would influence, like some based on your DNA, we can understand your dominance of hormones. Are you more estrogenized? Are you more androgenized? More testosterone? Are you somewhere in the middle? And when you're more estrogenized, your body will react to stress, anxiety, trauma, with more of a worrier type outcome. You know, because the ancestral wiring is when you're androgenized and you're a warrior and there was stress, you went out to fight.

Yeah.

If you were more estrogenized, you stayed back and protected everybody. You manage the food, you manage the farm, you manage, you know, so all that. And so the estrogenized person is more of a warrior where the androgynous person is more as a warrior. So the outcome of stress and anxiety in the body is different. And this is where, and this is the good work you do. We're helping women, for example, with weight. And one place to start is hormones and mood. If you're experiencing stress on top of an estrogen dominant profile, you're going to start to drive Cortisol to a level where your body is storing fat because ancestrally, war is associated with famine.

Yeah.

Body thinks, oh, if there's this kind of chronic stress, we're probably in battle. I better start storing some fat, because the next thing that's coming is famine. Right.

So when it comes to. I want to dive a little bit into this hormone conversation because this is a really important one, especially with midlife women. And I've had many guests on diving into hormones, and there is a definite misunderstanding about what estrogen dominant means and what that means when you say things like pathways. And we're gonna. I want to talk about that. So just to give you all sort of what came up around this is a lot of women in my communities, on my podcast and that are actually in my programs, they learn about hormone replacement and they learn about doing things like bioidentical hormones, and they've taken that on, and then they hear things like, I'm estrogen dominant. And first I want to explain you can be low estrogen and estrogen dominant. So I want to just kind of put that out there. Just because you're estrogen dominant just means you that's presenting the higher amount. Okay. If you're doing. Doing this on a. On a test, it doesn't mean you have a lot of estrogen or that you're even have ideal levels. What Cash dove into a DNA is how people clear pathways of things like estrogen and what happens there. And I'm going to give a real life example about me, Cash, and then I'm going to ask the questions because I want people to understand this. So when Cash was doing my DNA and I'm on hormone replacement, he said, you have a genetic DNA marker where you do not clear estrogen well, you will not clear estradiol well. And you've got to be aware of that because you show that you could be more estrogen dominant. And I said, well, I'm not going to stop my hormone replacement because I feel like crapola if I'm not taking estradiol patches. And he said, well, we can switch your kind. You can do something called biased. And I said, nope, try it. It didn't work. So he said, okay. So he wasn't telling me not to do it. He said, we need to figure out how to get it cleared out of your system then, which is where we talked about things like broccoli sprouts and dim and calcium deglutarate. So, Kash, can we talk a little bit about that? The pathways, and specifically with Hormones.

So this is what's missing from the medical conversation and why, why you have these questions like why maestro's in dominant. I don't feel like that. Or like I'm estrogen. I feel horrible. What's going on? Right, yeah. There's three steps to hormone metabolism, and the only one we talk about medically is dominance. Step one, there's two more steps, Right?

Okay.

Step one is hormone dominance. What do you make? And dominance doesn't mean volume, it means that of the pathways, that's the priority. So that's where everything is going.

Right.

So you're filling the bucket of estrogen more than the bucket of testosterone. Your estrogen?

Yes. Right.

So that's step one. Now, after you make the estrogen, there's three potential metabolites. Two hydroxy estrogen, four hydroxy estrogen, and 16 hydroxy estrogen. And two is clean, beneficial, good for brain and bone. And all the good things we know about estrogen or in 16 cause inflammation. They're inflammatory insults to the body. Then you would think, well, why would the body even have the option of making an inflammatory version? Because our bodies don't know that it's the year 2025 and everything you touch is a hormone disruptor.

Right.

It's like you're. You're wired for an ancestral context where a little bit of inflammation is good. You know, if you had some toxic estrogen causing inflammation to your uterine lining, building it back better, maybe an embryo can implant better. It's easier to get pregnant. So it would have been beneficial at the right dose, not in today's dose.

Yes.

So now that's the second layer is estrogen toxicity. And this is the big piece that is missing from that hormone conversation. And then third is hormone detox, which is you might be estrogen dominant making a lot. You might be estrogen toxic, making a form that causes inflammation. And you may also be lacking the detox capacity for that particular form of estrogen. Now you have the trifecta. Making too much, making a form that causes inflammation. Don't get rid of it. This is going to cause inflammation in my body.

Right.

Then put that in today's reality where every cosmetic, perfume, yoga pants, you name it, is all hormone disrupting and you're overwhelming them.

Right.

So now can you.

Sorry, sorry, I don't want to get off too off track, but can you just. I don't want to skip this part. What does that mean, estrogen disruptive? Like, because people hear that, they don't know what that means.

So there Are chemicals that when they enter your body, the molecular structure your body doesn't recognize as what it is and treats it as estrogen. It thinks this looks like estrogen. I guess that's what it is, but.

Not in a beneficial way. It's not going to help you with your hot flashes or.

Now what that does is it allows those chemicals to enter your estrogen receptors, which means those receptors didn't get estrogen. So they didn't get what your body needed. And the estrogen that was available didn't make it to the receptor. And now the estrogen is now in your body causing inflammation. Hormones are meant to be used and when they're not used, they cause inflammation. Right. So everybody has a hormonal design usually driven by, here's how your ancestors move. Were they more agricultural, were they more warriors? Were they and your muscles fueled by hormones to be able to do that physical activity, block the receptors with hormone disruptors, you're overwhelmed by inflammatory hormones.

Wow. And then I would imagine when you are pre menopausal, so you're either in Perry or you are not even in Perry yet, you having a cycle every month is helping to clear these. But once you are post menopausal, menopausal, you don't have the cycle to clear them. So this is where the, the conversation comes up about them being toxic. Is that accurate?

Yeah. Now there's no period. Where is it going? Nowhere. And your body, you're still making it. And your body recognizes this accumulation and it says, okay, priority organs, liver, heart, kidney. Keep it away from that stuff.

Yep.

It starts to push it away into the extremities and where, where it utilizes your tendons, your ligaments and your fatty tissue. And this is why so many women go into menopause with like stiff shoulders and lower back pain.

Right?

Because of the stiffness of that toxic estrogen, which actually causes your tendons and ligaments become brittle. And the other place it goes is your fat. When this is why it's so directly tied to things like breast cancer, because it, that's where it will go. It will go live in your breast tissue. Now there are very specific detox pathways that will detoxify your breasts. And those might not also be working. Now you have a perfect storm, right? So now going back to your point, which is okay, this might be the profile. Estrogen dominant, estrogen, toxic, bad detox. The straight out answer is don't overload this system with forms of estrogen that additionally fuel the 4 hydroxy estrogen. Like for example Estradiol.

Right.

Or it may be to Natalie's point, but I need my estradiol. It makes me feel good.

I don't have hot flashes. And I'm going to be in a really bad mood with you. Take it from me.

Yeah. So now you have two choices. One is get rid of the thing that my body can't handle or up regulate my biology so that I can handle it. DNA is telling us what's not working.

Right.

The priority with DNA is to figure out which biological systems are failing, which biological processes are failing, or which are being done a little too well. Like I'm making too much of this.

Yeah.

Right now we're trying to find homeostasis the middle, which is remove the things that my body can't tolerate or add a nutrient or supplement so that I can tolerate it. But you have to pick one of those two.

So, y', all, what I did, if you. This resonates with you, is one, I do not do extreme levels of estradiol. I do a very small amount to take me out of hot flashes. I don't do things like the Wiley protocol or high dosing, because I have that marker. Really important. The second thing is I'm very aware of taking broccoli sprouts every day. Broccoli sprouts. What is it called that it makes so far. Okay. Which helps get it out. So I eat real broccoli sprouts or freeze dried ones every single day. And then what I do personally is twice a week, I don't do it every day or it drops me too low. But twice a week I do take dim and calcium deglutarate, which to me helps clear it. So I do that right before the night before I change my patch. This is what I always do. And then I'm really always working on detoxing pathways, whether that's through my infrared, sauna, red light, all of those things. That's what I personally do. I don't know if Cash approves of all that, but that's how I've chosen to handle it.

Yeah. So now the layer on the last thing you said, which is the context, is you're already working on your detox pathways, you're already supporting your mitochondria, already supporting your methylation. You're already supporting. You know the conversation we had about B vitamins, for example.

Yes.

Getting your methylation. Right. Getting your glutathione activity. These are all the pathways your body uses to detoxify. So now if you've opened the door to clearance Then everything else we said doesn't mean as much. If you've shut the door, then those toxins are going to accumulate and cause problems.

But this is really important for people to understand because if you just go to hormone replacement without understanding this, this is why some of the wiser doctors are doing things like a Dutch test to see how you're processing. But this is an even deeper level to understand the DNA, because this now gives you choices. This is why maybe your friend is totally thriving on something like the Wiley Protocol. But for you, it could be very dangerous. So it's important understand, like, I could never do that for me. And we have a mutual friend that's talked about this, Dr. Amy Horneman. For her, she learned this. Depending on your own pathways, you have to understand this before you're just dabbling and just adding hormone replacement.

Yep.

And now. So there's always the choice, but we just have to be a little bit bio individual and just make sure that it's not general, one size fits all, especially when it comes to hormones. And we now have the technology to know. You know, five years ago couldn't answer these questions, but now we can.

Right. Makes total sense. Let's talk about mitochondria for a minute because that's another very popular topic. A lot of people taking things like NAD or glutathione, and I don't think they even understand what mitochondria is and where, where this comes up. And when I first talked with Cash, I was one of those rare people that can't, couldn't take nad. I would take nid. I would get full anxiety. And when he looked at mitochondrial dysfunction, he said, not all of us have the same baseline for that. Can you talk a little bit about that?

So every cell in your body has mitochondria in it. And mitochondria is the, the energy production center where your body takes the oxygen that you're breathing and the nutrition in your bloodstream. And combining those to make energy all day long. And both the energy that you feel, but also the energy you don't feel like detoxification, hormone production, that all requires energy and a lot of it.

Right.

So in that process, when you use oxygen to make energy, there's a byproduct called an oxident. It's kind of like the smoke. And genetically, we can determine how effectively people remove those oxidants from their body. If you're not doing a good job, you cannot tolerate oxidative stress to the same degree. But also your mitochondria are not producing enough energy, and it's easier to experience fatigue. It's your. Like a virus might hit you harder. You know, when you take a. A hormone replacement therapy, for example, and cause inflammation for the toxic estrogen, the link, the inflammation may linger longer. Right. So recovery isn't there. And you have the worst possible mitochondrial genetics.

Right.

So there you go. And so now the question is you, for example, running on a treadmill every day will cause you to experience extreme fatigue versus somebody else who has good mitochondrial genetics. You doing a high intensity keep going until I can't breathe and I'm going to vomit type exercise is going to age you faster versus somebody else. That. That's the exact thing they needed you doing. Yeah. Resistance weight training. Incredible. You'll feel great.

Right.

So your mitochondria can tell you how your body's anticipating, how you're supposed to move based on what your ancestors did. The other layer to this is because your mitochondria is struggling so much, you would get overwhelmed with the typical mitochondrial solutions.

Right.

Throw some NAD or some other NMN or something at your body, it's going to literally throw you into like a. A bit of a body can't use this. This is too much for me.

Yeah. Like pulling, putting fire on gasoline. It's just not gonna. It's just too much.

So you need a rebuild first. So it's a terrain consideration. The assumption is, hey, this biohacking guru took some nad. He felt great. Now he's talking about it. Now everyone does it. Maybe he has good mitochondrial genetics where the terrain is already sitting at an 8 out of 10 he needed. It was optimization. You need to catch up first, which.

Is what you taught me. So I started. And anyone that has experienced that with nad, you likely have this. So I started with basic polyphenols first, like you told me. Then I moved into urolithin a gradually. Now a little bit of glutathione. So it's been a very gradual process.

Yeah. And now you're gonna get to a place where you're gonna overcome the poor genetics and your mitochondria are gonna be flourishing. They're gonna grow in size, they're gonna increase in number, and then you're gonna be at a place where, okay, I can actually go take the NAD and feel good.

Right.

Versus like, you're gonna have a panic attack. Yeah.

Kind of like if you have crazy high anxiety, that's not the time to go take on more stress, right?

No.

So your mitochondria were kind of there like, we are. We're struggling. Please help us. Then we'll go do a better job with that other stuff. So it's like, where are you at? And we're not all in the same place. And not only are we not in general the same place, but each system in our body is not at the same place as somebody else. So we have to analyze each system and see where you're at.

So if you've ever wondered why you went and had a glutathione push or nad, and you were like, why did I feel like I wanted, like, anxiety? And that's why. It's likely you have that, too.

Glutathione is another one that has a very direct genetic sort of answer. So there's a lady I was working with in Hawaii, menopausal, who. Her main concern was fatigue, and she said that I live in Hawaii, so I think it's a mold problem.

Right.

Okay. I looked at her. There's a system called glucuron addition, which is another detox pathway, and she was doing great. And that's the primary path for mold removal. I said, I don't know if it's a mole problem, because your mold detox is great. There's something else going on. So I said, tell me about all your habits. And she's like, there's nothing I can really tell you. Tell me what supplements you take, what food you. I don't really take anything. Tell me. And then one day we're on a call, she's like, oh, yeah, I forgot to take my glutathione. One second. It's like, what glutathione? It's like, well, this naturopath told me to take glutathione because of the mold.

Right.

I said, okay, I already told you, you don't have a mole problem. And now when I look at your glutathione genetics, there's a gene called GSTT1, which is the primary driver for how your body instructs the utilization of glutathione. If you were to add additional. Not the endogenous that you make, but the additional that you might add.

Right.

She was missing that gene doesn't have.

Wow.

So now she was taking this glutathione without genetic instruction for her body to know what to do with it. So, yes, it was pulling some toxins out of her body, but it was also pulling minerals, nutrients, vitamins, all these things she actually needed. And she was literally malnourished and experiencing fatigue, which. Which is something seemingly harmless. Like, oh, the Kardashians might have got a glutathione iv. I'm gonna get one too, right? So it seems okay, but if your genetics don't know how to use the tool, you're gonna hurt yourself. Wow, that was like. Did you not realize that the day you started taking glutathione is that you started having fatigue? She's like, yeah, I guess so. So she stopped and literally three days later, she felt fine.

See, and this is the problem with one size fits all. Like, like IV labs or whatever. Like we, you don't know. They're, they're going off of the general consensus. It doesn't mean that's going to work for you. It's very individualized. What about when it comes to things like autoimmune disorders? Do you think there is a DNA component with that?

There's, there's multiple. So remember when I said I'm missing this gut detox gene? So some people have the opposite. They have the really good gut detox. Like, incredible. Now what did I say earlier is that our DNA is somewhat ancestral. So our DNA assumes that you're still a cave woman. It doesn't know what the reality looks like. So your, your biology is designed for that context, including your gut detox. So even somebody that has really good gut detox, the assumption is once in a while some plant went moldy, or once in a while the meat spoiled and you're not going to get diarrhea. You have really good gut, right? Now put that in today's context where the food is three, four times a day, highly toxic seed oils, preservatives, packaging, all the stuff on top of this really good gut detox becomes somewhat hyper vigilant, always on, on, on, on, on. The gut and brain are directly connected to the gut. Brain access and the brain keeps getting signals from the gut, like detox, hypervigil hybrid like red alert, red alert, alert. And eventually the brain says, this is not food. There's something else going on. This is a pathogen or viral load of some sort. It starts to produce antibodies to fight something that isn't even there. And this is why so many women will end up with thyroid issues because they ate literally just too much glyphosate in bread. Because the, your, your body will design antibodies to attack what the toxin looks like. And bread looks like your thyroid.

Right?

So literally, if I were to, in simple terms, so so many women, just because they have this really good gut detox, didn't know that the glyphosates Were triggering this constant response. Glyphosate is used on grains.

Right.

And it will cause antibodies that then attack your thyroid.

Right.

It's starting to make sense why a lot of people that have auto. It's like they have autoimmune, then they also have thyroid problems. And they also, it's like they all kind of. They also have the gut. It's like it all sort of ties together and it's making sense that it's stemming from this.

There's a step one, you got step two, antibody. Step three, thyroid. But the thing that. But the medical answer. Answer is the exact opposite. This. The main Symptom is step one, but it's. It's not. It took you seven to 10 years to develop that thing with the actual step one, which is your genetics point to what you eat will determine whether you have a disease or not.

And so this is why when you unwind someone with like Hashimoto's for example, or autoimmune, and then you say things like take away gluten and dairy. And so it's like, it's kind of, it's going reverse engineering versus like you're seeing this from the beginning on with the DNA.

Yeah. There's a lady right where I live, right here in Toronto. Her name is Lisa Jean. She's told her story publicly, which is why I'm giving her name. So she was on thyroid medication, I think for 17 years. Three months she's off her medication. Wow, three months.

Right.

Now I will tell you that thyroid takes longer to heal than other parts of your body. The nature of the tissue is not so regenerative. So three months is exceptional. It's usually like eight to nine months. Other things like hair loss, libido, whatever, weeks, eczema, sometimes days. Thyroid longer, in her case, three months. But yeah, she actually just emailed me a couple weeks ago saying, letting you know, I went to my doctor. I don't even have my medication anymore.

And that's from understanding this and then changing how she was eating, fixing that part and then that, that's wild. And I think that's why some people that have, they're not, they're not presenting as it. So like for instance, I have two autoimmunes, but I have zero symptoms from the autoimmunes because I eat gluten and dairy free for the most part. So I don't eat never.

There was a particularly big aha moment for her, which seems simple, but it affected her body's ability to recover, which is the most important Nutrient in your body is vitamin D, right? It's. It's a hormone that you have 22, 000 genes. Of those 22, 000 genes, 2, 500 need adequate vitamin D in order to express and function. So imagine if out of your 22, 000 genes, 2500 aren't working. The havoc that that's going to cause in your biology.

Wow.

Everything from your hormones to your mood, your hair to your skin to your bone, it affects everything. So there's a gene pathway called CYP2R1 that will take your D2 from the sun and convert it to the active D3. That's step one. And that's where medicine ends. Because medicine is in blood work trying to see how much vitamin D is in your blood. But that's the first consideration, which is, how much did I make? Now, there's another gene that takes that activated molecule and transports it to the cell where you actually need it. You don't need it in your blood, you need it in your cells.

Right?

Then there's a third gene called VDR that makes a receptor that grabs that molecule and brings it into the cell. Now the job is done. So for her, all three genes were not working. She lives in Toronto, where I live, where we have long winters and she's indoors.

Right.

Zero exposure. So now this is not the complete answer, but one of the big pieces for her was we told her you need vitamin D three times a day.

Okay.

Because you can't transport it and bind it quick enough. So, yeah, whatever you do in the morning, probably 20 of that actually got to the cell. Her blood work from her doctor was that your vitamin D is high. Don't take any.

Right.

Which is true. Because if you underutilize it, it's not.

Yeah, Right.

So blood work is going to mislead you. So to some degree, it's like, yeah, it's high. Now we need to investigate why is it high. Is it because you took too much or is it because you don't use it properly? Right.

Wow.

Now, all we did was take your vitamin D three times a day. Her levels in her blood dropped to the right amount because now she's actually getting into the cells. And this was a major contributor to all these other systems. And again, her plan was many things to do, but this was. This was a big one.

And did you do that with a supplement or was that with being in the sun? Both.

So I gave her three options. I said, get out in the sun because there's other miraculous nutrients. The sun give you that we don't even understand.

Right?

You're taking vitamin D or get a vitamin D lamp. And when you're sitting and working, just have it on.

Right?

Okay.

She doesn't need constant exposure. And, you know, I have a. Because I live in Toronto, I work on a lot of NHL hockey players. They come here in the off season for training. And I can't tell you how many times I've worked with a hockey player that has, like, fractures. And their. Their coach, their doctor will say, you got good vitamin D levels. You're just playing too hard. And we show them this exact same story, which is you. You live an indoor sport life, and you. Your genetics are designed for being outdoors all the time. And your fractures are because the vitamin D you're taking in the morning, which most of these guys do take supplements, is too much at once. You need to split it up. And that's the one thing that helps them not get fractures anymore.

So I want to. I want to go a little deeper on this because this is a definite controversial topic lately when. Especially when it comes to the sun. So in my mind, most people are spending way too much time indoors, as is. And then what happens is when they do so, they've got artificial lights, which is disrupting a lot of other things in addition to just being indoors, right? So now they go outdoors in the sun, and instead of getting any sun, they put sunglasses on, they put sunblock on, chemical sunblock, not mineral. And now they've got their. They're loading their skin up with more toxicity, more things. And I want to ask you about that, your opinion there. But then also how you address that. Someone says, well, yeah, but we've been taught to avoid the sun and skin cancer and all the things.

We need a whole other podcaster to talk about this. So let me give you the summary. The summary is this. All the steps you said, your sunglasses, your eyes, your. You know, all that stuff. Skin cancer. So your eyes are part of your brain. They're not a separate organ. They're an extension of your brain. Your eyes are responsible to constantly survey the environment for light to tell your brain how to drive your biology. So when sunlight hits your eye, that is a signal to start making melanin in your skin to protect you from sun. And when you cover your eyes with sunglasses, because just like any other part of your body, if you don't train it, it doesn't work. If you don't go to the gym, you're not strong. If you don't get sun into your eyes, you're going to be sensitive. So you have to build that up slowly to the point where you can tolerate. There's guys walking around the Serengeti that don't wear Ray Bans, right? They don't have a problem. They're out in the desert sun all day long because their eyes have acclimated and become a customer. Step two, sunscreen. When you buy a chemical sunscreen that talks to you about the, you know, uva, UVB stuff, right? The UVB rays that they're talking about aren't what hurts you. UVB will burn your skin. And what we we again, we're living in a symptomatic world where, oh, I'm burning. This is not good. I'm not burning. This is good. UVB will cause the burn. And that burn is actually a signal to you that you got enough vitamin D, get out of the sun. That's the purpose, right? When your skin starts to burn. Now that's one step. The uva, which most chemical sunscreen doesn't block is the one that goes deeper subcutaneous and causes DNA damage and cancer. Artificial sense of security from having protection against ubv. And you're not burning, but you're now exposing yourself longer to the thing that actually causes the cancer. Which is a complete nonsense backwards way.

Wow. Right.

Wow.

Doesn't care. They know this, but they don't do anything about it. And the, the benzone, that is what's being used, avobenzone, as it's called with active ingredient in this chemical sunscreen. When UVA rays hit it, it turns into benzene, which is a carcinogenic cancer causing chemical. Right. It's a complete, literally it's like as if it was designed to cause skin cancer.

Wow.

Yeah, backwards story. So, and this is why you see surfers and pro athletes, all that they get skin cancer all the time with all the sunscreen because it doesn't do the job that they're supposed to. So that's one thing. Mineral sunscreen, zinc, olive oil, coconut oil. But here's the last part of the story. There was a research study that was done at Baylor College where they took these animals and they fed half of them an American diet. Seed oils, glyphosate and high fructose corn syrup. They fed half of them a very strict pasture raised, organic, clean carnivore diet, just meat and organs. They put them out in the sun. Of the animals that ate the seed oils, which was the most important part here, 25 got skin cancer of the animals that ate the carnivore zero.

Wow.

So what is that telling us? That we are not allergic to the sun. The sun actually is a giver of life. We are highly inflamed and our skin is at an 8 out of 10. And now you add UVA to that, you're gonna get sick. But if you fix your gut, fix your food, there's many people, look at guys like Paul Saladino who lives carnivore that lives in Costa Rica, and all he does is get sunlight. He's not sick.

Right.

So, so what do you.

But you know there's somebody listening with red hair and light skin and who's had melanoma or has a huge history of that. And right away they, they shut this down. So what do you want them to know? What do, what do they need to hear from this?

So we all are genetically designed for a different context.

Right.

A redhead from the Northern British Isles wasn't meant to be in the sun all day long.

Right?

Okay.

But the answer isn't also lather myself in chemical sunscreen. It's a little bit of how healthy am I? How much inflammation do I have? You know, the number one inflammatory disease in the world is periodontal gum disease, because your skin will show inflammation before any other part of your body. So know that your skin sensitivity is a check engine light. It's not a disease. It's like, dig, there's something going wrong.

Yeah.

If you are in optimal gut health, then the redhead actually can tolerate the sun better. But it's also not. I went on vacation. I. I live in Ireland. And then I decided to go into Aruba and spend eight hours a day in the sun. You have to build up that tolerance just like any other part of your body. You don't go to the gym and bench press £400 on the first day.

No.

Right.

But you can eventually get there.

Yeah. I'll tell you, my, my husband was a big sunglass wearer. He's got light eyes, like, and he stopped wearing sunglasses and he now he's, he's way more excessive than I will ever be with this. But he is make sure he's outside all the time in the sun. He like literally lays out in the sun. He doesn't wear sunglasses anymore. He tans, he does not burn. And his testosterone, like through the roof, like lots of things for him. Now, for me, I've definitely had basal cell carcinoma several times. But I will blame mine honestly on tanning beds when I was young. Like artificial tanning Beds, overexposure, like definite anorexia and I'm sure seed oils and stuff when I was younger. So all of that I don't personally lay out in the sun. I still think it can age our skin. But what I don't do is I don't do chemical sunblocks. I do mineral, if anything, and I shade, so I'll put hat on my head. But I do make sure I'm getting sun, sunrise, sunset, and a little bit in the middle of the day. That's how I navigated it.

Yeah, the sun will. I mean, we hear all this about red light therapy and people going to clinics for red light beds. You know, the, the sun will give you a therapeutic dose of red light if you go out in the first 45 minutes or the last 45 minutes. And so even just that, even if you do that one thing, and especially for you, Natalie needs mitochondrial support. One of the best things you can do for your mitochondria is red light, which is what I do, has all these healing tools in it that we ignore and we mask it with other things. But yeah, just get out of the sun, last 45 minutes, and the red light won't burn you.

Yeah. And I have one at my house as well, so. So I'll do that as well. Yeah, so. So, okay, so the next question I have for you is about when it comes to weight loss, fat loss, help specifically with that and where this relates to DNA.

So anyone that we talked about weight loss or any problem for that matter, we always say we're not looking for a weight loss gene. We're not looking for a magic silver bullet. We're going to go through all the systems and figure out how each one of them is affecting your weight issue.

Right.

I'm doing everything right. I eat properly, everything's good. Why can't I lose weight? So many people are stuck. So we go through all the systems. We first have to look at mood and say, is cortisol driving it? Because cortisol will tell your body to store fat. Maybe it's your mood and maybe that's one of many pillars. Second, we have to look at your gut because if you. There's genetics around how you manage the diversity of your gut, microbiome, bacteria, and you know, when you start to drop in, things like lactobacillus and bifidobacteria and akkermansia, you can't burn fat the way you used to. The, the metabolic state changes. So sometimes it's that. And that's one Layer to the story. Then we look at, you know, your hormones and in terms of if you are more estrogenized, that's a signal for fat retention, that's a structural body design signal. The voluptuous woman with larger breasts, larger hips, that's an estrogen signal. The, the lean, thin, wiry woman with lean muscle fiber, that's an antigen signal.

Right.

So what is your body actually being told? And then you can, you can interject in the right place to slow things down. But a lot of it is also perception driven by things like satiety and neurochemicals. So there are genes that are responsible to communicate between your gut and your brain so that your brain knows when you're full. And some people don't do a good job of that. So it's much easier to still actually feel hungry even though you've eaten enough and go for that second and third helping.

Right.

It's a genetic wiring. And this is meant to be a survival trait for somebody who was more like a warrior that didn't have calories.

Right.

That when you got it, you packed it in. Then there's other genes around the satiety of your palate. Some people will eat their meal and then it's like, now I need my Doritos and now I need the cookies, but now I need some Doritos again, but maybe now some ice cream. And why is that happening? Because there's literally signals in your palate that are looking for diversity, variety. And the more diversity, the more those signals get satisfied. And then it tells your brain, shut the appetite off. And if you have that this is again a survival trait designed for someone who didn't get enough food, that when they got it, they got the diversity for nutrition. And so the ways to solve it are unique based on the problem. But there's also what we said about you, the high functioning anxiety and live in a context that is driving the stress of high functioning anxiety. Then often the body starts to recognize that this is too much cortisol is too high and this is inflammatory and I need to do something about it. So it will give you coping mechanisms, it will give you go actually turn your hunger on to go grab some cheesecake and feel happy. And you're actually going to think that you're hungry when you're not.

Right? Right.

And that's your body's way of coping. And so this is why I'm saying that any question we ask whether it's hair loss, breast cancer, weight loss, whatever, we would go through all the systems to figure out how each one is contributing. And now if you chip away at every possible path to the problem, there's no problem anymore.

Right.

And. And it goes back to what you said. You either remove the thing you can deal with or you add some kind of nutrient or supplement to bring your biology up as if the problem wasn't there.

So good. Oh, gosh. I could, like, talk to you for hours and I'm not gonna. I'm gonna have to have you back on, but I'm gonna. You guys, the last time I did a podcast with him, we. And I'm going to link that last podcast with him as well. So you also have that access if you want to hear more right now. But what we did last time is we did a masterclass. We did like a webinar, like, whatever we want to call workshop. We did a bigger deep dive with those of you that heard this and want to go deeper and actually be able to ask him questions and interact. He's gonna. It's so good. We're gonna do another one and we are gonna do it on August 7th. August 7th. And if you. I'm going to put in the show note, wherever you're watching this, whether it's on YouTube or you're listening on Spotify or itunes, I'm gonna. I'm gonna put a link below. But if you go to midlifeconversations.com forward slash DNA, so midlifeconversations.Com forward slash DNA, sign up and save your spot. It is free, but I want to make sure you save your spot. So you come on and we're going to be on. It'll be like a zoom kind of situation or something like that that we do it on. I don't even remember what it was. We did it on Cash, but we'll do something like that where you can see us. I will be on there, but Cash is going to be teaching. You can ask as many questions as you want. And you all this. The last time I did this class with him, it changed people's lives. Like, I cannot tell you how many people were like, I can't believe I almost did not come to that free class. It is so good. So I'm going to link it below. Make sure you come on. I'll also link the last podcast we did. But, Kash, thank you so much for chatting with me today. I always learn so much from you.

Yeah, it's honor. And also, yeah, I'm excited about the class because it's not often, like, because of technology, we can talk to people all over the world all at the same time and that's really cool. Like, and people showing up with their questions, I can just directly tell them about their unique thing. That to me is awesome.

So good. So good. Thank you. Cash thanks for tuning in to Midlife Conversations today. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and tag me Natalie, Jill, Fitz and our guests on social media. The best way to support the show is by leaving a review. Review. Send a screenshot of your review to supportnataliejill fitness.com for a free digital DSR journal download. And just a friendly reminder, I'm here with a microphone, not a medical degree. Half the time I'm sharing things that I read on the Internet or learned just as you were learning it while I'm interviewing the guest. I'm not an MD or your therapist or your mom, though I do give excellent mom style pep talks. This podcast is purely for entertainment, curiosity and educational purposes. When in doubt, please ask your own doctor. For advertising inquiries, contact sales admintegory3ca and this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek advice from your physician. Some episodes of midlife conversation may be sponsored by products or services and and I may receive compensation for advertisement of your purchases through affiliate links.