Genomics, Immunity, and a Moving Target - Interview with Sachin Patel and Kashif Khan

Hello, my friends, it's Satchin. I hope you're amazing today. Happy, happy Monday to you. I've got a very special guest today that is going to be discussing what I think is probably the most important information for us to all know at this moment, which is how to take really good care of our immune systems. And so with me, I have the CEO of the DNA company, Kashif Khan. Kashif, thanks for being here today. How are you?

Hey, great, Sachin, thanks for having me. It's awesome.

Absolutely. So, you know, we were talking before we hit record and launched this presentation and interview, we were talking about some of the implications of everything that's going on in the world right now and how at risk some people are with respect to infectious disease versus others. And of course, the intersection of the N equals one paradigm and healthcare shift that's taking place really, I believe started with the whole genetics and genomics revolution. And your company's kind of at the forefront and at the center of it at the same time. So we were talking about a new report that you guys have launched and I'm so excited to share this with our community because of the value that it's going to add into our own individual lives. Many of us might be frontline workers or being exposed to what's going on right now. And some of us might have patients who are really nervous about getting back into the world. And so what we're going to talk about today I think helps alleviate a lot of anxiety that people are feeling right now around getting back out there, around being around people as well. It's almost hard to envision and imagine like a loaded subway train full of people or a bus full of people traveling anywhere right now. And your company has been putting together a report that, you know, takes our genetics and then interprets that information to then identify a risk profile for an individual. So we're going to dive into that. And again, I know how busy you are. So big thank you to you and the DNA company for being here today and sharing with us.

Awesome. Great to be here. And right when you started and talked about sort of that uncertainty, you touched on exactly why we did this. Because, you know, as infectious diseases, we know what happened this past year come and hit and this becomes our new reality. It's that the first instance where nobody knew what was gonna happen. Right. Everybody thought it was a siloed event. You know, we're gonna deal with this and move on. Now if you look at the news, you know, the evolution of it, new variants, future Viruses that we're not sure of, like what's coming, you know, with the way logistics are, the way the climate is changing, there's things that are going to be coming that aren't what we had planned for or not what the healthcare system planned for, not the way we practice medicine plan for. And that's where we thought we need to not look at each instance as a siloed event and we need to get into the genetics of it to say, how do I deal with infectious disease in general? Because regardless of a virus, the process of getting sick, the process of immunity and battling it is the same, right? The way a virus deposits its RNA into your cell and spreads itself and uses you as a host, that's all the same. The way they express, for example, Covid being very unique. There's a two week incubation period, for example. There's nuances that make them unique in their expression, but the way we cope with them is the same every time. Right? And if we were to understand uniquely how we each do that, then first of all, you know what your risk actually is. Second, you actually know how to deal with where you're weak, what gaps need to be plugged. Not that, you know, sort of generic generalized answer, but what do I need? And that's what we've tried to build.

Well, that's the beauty of this too, kind of. You know, most people who are watching this are either functional medicine practitioners and coaches and they're looking for an N of one individualized approach. And nothing gets more individualized than their genetics. And the information that your team has put together really gives people an insight to have more certainty and more confidence. And I know that the clients, some of the higher profile clients that I work with, every single one of them, I have them get this testing done because they've identified to me how important their health is. And not just in the short term, not just to deal with what's going on right now, but in the long term as well. You know, many people that you and I work with travel, right? Entrepreneurs travel. And including myself. Like when I got my report, I was like, oh my God, like I travel a ton. And thankfully, you know, knock on wood, I haven't, you know, had an infectious illness or disease or anything like that in as long as I can remember. I haven't even had a sore throat in as long as I can remember. But it's probably because I'm doing a lot of the other things, right? But when I got my report, had I not been doing those things I can only imagine with all the travel and stress and all the things that are going on in my life, how susceptible or how much more susceptible I would have been. And in fact, having that information for me was actually very empowering because it actually reinforced me to make sure I don't miss a single day of taking my vitamin D, to make sure that I get outside and get some sunlight, to make sure that I'm supporting myself supplementally and nutritionally, to make sure I have the cofactors to deal with everything that's coming my way. So really, you know, some people might say, well, genetic testing is not empowering. It can be depressing for some people, but with the right mindset, it can actually be extremely empowering and equip us with information that there's really no other way for us to get.

Yeah. And in general, I would agree that the general, you know, genetic testing that's out there, you know, it isn't so much empowering as it is recreational. Yes, there's something to learn, but can I take action on what I've learned? And the gap is if it's only about the genes, then it's science. If it's about how do you translate that into biochemistry, how does my body actually work, then I can take action. And that's what a lot of the people listening have heard Mansoor speak before. He's done a brilliant job of putting those pieces together. What you just said about the supplementation takes me back to. In our lab, literally in our office, we have a compounding pharmacy. Right. In our office, where we custom make supplements for people. Not so much as a business, but more for research to learn what ingredients up and down regulate genetic expression. How do we solve problems uniquely at the genetic root? Cause. Right. And this is where we try and make it actionable. And we surveyed our audience and we usually have about 3 to 400 people at a time that we're working on research and thousands that we've been through. But there's usually about that cap that we can handle. Right. So we send a message out and to ask how many people have had Covid? And 100 people replied approximately, I think it was 110. And in that we asked how many had severe complications where you ended up in the hospital? The answer was zero. Literally it was zero. Which we weren't expecting that answer. You know, we were hoping to learn more from it and validate some of what we're saying. But even the people that had the profile that would be, like you said, the most risk because they were doing the right things themselves, not the right things. As general advice, even though they got Covid, they didn't end up with the most adverse reaction. Right. They were okay. They had a minor flu and they recovered. Right. So that being said, you know, that guidance, that quarterbacking, of what even to do in the first place. Right. To know what gaps need to be filled, because those gaps aren't the same for everybody. That technology is only now at a place where it's, like, affordable, where people can actually do it. You try doing this like we talked before about Joe, Joe Polish. You know, he did this seven or eight years ago and spent tens of thousands of dollars to learn less. Right. But now it can be done for a couple hundred dollars and you get a lot more. So anyways, we're also in a place now where it's even possible.

Yeah. I mean, that's the beauty of where we are right now in the world. I mean, advancements in genetics and testing and Moore's Law as well have brought down the cost of many of these tests and given us access to information that was once inaccessible to the average person. So it's kind of great to see that anyone can really afford this test, and why don't we dive right into the test? And I know. I also want to make sure we save some time to talk about a special offer that we have for everyone who's tuned in today and part of our community.

Sure. So I'll actually open up the report. That's probably the best thing to do. We'll look at what is even. You know, what does this look like? So you see that, Satchin?

Yep.

Yeah. So the report here, this is actually the summary page. Or a little bit into it. We're deep into it, page 19. But this is really where we summarize risk for complications. Not risk for Covid itself or infectious disease in general, and immunity, but risk for complications. What really is immunity. Right. There's a section earlier that talks about contraction and spreading and all that type of stuff we'll look at. But there's a few things we look at. Vitamin D being an important one. There's one thing to test your blood and to see how much vitamin D do I have, and then make an assumption of how we're dealing with it. But genetically, what we've determined is people that even have optimal vitamin D levels, optimum vitamin D in their diet and their sun exposure, et cetera, still end up with fractures or poor immunity or poor cellular response because there's a second cellular process where you actually have to transport the vitamin D to the cell where it's used. So to get it to metabolize it from food and sun and put it into your blood is one thing, to take it and to actually use it as a second gene of which many people have the suboptimal version. You and me, Satchin, being of South Asian background, our ancestors exposed to constant sun would be needing to mitigate that vitamin D. It would probably have this low version. Right, so this is one big thing we, you know, vitamin D is responsible for 2000 of the 22,000 genes in your body's function. So 10% of your body requires this and that's why it has such a sort of potent expression. Sorry, need for immunity. It's not just a thing, immunity, but there's so much biochemistry that's dependent on this that you don't do it right. Everything's failing. 10% of your biochemistry is failing. We then look at complications, hypertension, insulin risk. Here's where we've actually for the first time incorporated blood work, which I'll go scroll back up and show you. It's the first time that sort of DNA and blood work has come together for a fulsome report like this. We look at oxidation, your detox profile, glutathionization, highly implicit when it comes to lung health, arterial health, your mitochondrial reaction unit. If you're not clearing at the mitochondrial level, your sod 2 is not out there clearing that soot, that oxidation that comes from using oxygen, sorry, nutrition as fuel. You're going to again be at a higher risk for that mitochondrial strength, not be there to power through this load of viral infection.

Right, yeah. This one was actually low on me.

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

SOD 2 is a big issue for me.

Yeah. And for you, you have to supplement or support that externally because you're not doing it internally. So what appears and expresses itself as immunity may just be poor mitochondrial function where you just literally aren't set up to fight. Right. Methylation, anti inflammatory response, again we've mapped it out. It's not just about MTHFR and this one gene, it's the entire methylation process. There's seven or eight genes that make up that process and if you're suboptimal there, it's one thing for, okay, I have a viral infection and I'm fighting this with an immune response, but if my inflammatory response is exaggerated because this doesn't work, well, I'm the person that I can't breathe. Respiratory issues, cardiac issues. What are people Actually going to the hospital for. It's these things, vascular inflammation and cardiac inflammation. They're not going to the hospital for Covid or for infectious disease. It's what happens after the complications. So this is where we look at the worst of it. How do you do what you did, Sachin, have these suboptimal items or attributes in your profile, but not have any suboptimal adverse reaction because you're powering through, you've supported the right systems. I'll scroll back up and show you. Here are some of the new genes we added. I know a lot of you listening have already been to the testing, but specific for infectious disease and immunity. We added a few genes that are implicit in biochemistry that, you know, inform those processes. We also look at, you know, the. Here, the blood work where we incorporate and that's where all these markers are. So the risk here for bmi, blood pressure and how they compound your, you know, immunity response. And this is where we incorporate the blood work. So you bring that in here. There's also recommendations. You know, what should you be doing at home, what should be doing at work? You know, when it comes to mental health, when it comes to. And this is a big one, Satchin, where you kicked it off to say that anxiety, let's call it the aftermath, right? There's one thing for everyone that God forbid, if you were to get ill, we hope that you would recover quickly. But it's all the social pressure that's leading to the anxiety. And we've actually mapped that out, the genetics of mood and behavior. When your serotonin is dysregulated or you're adjo to be, which you're very familiar with. Satchin, if you're emotionally imprinting and you're taking things that are negative stimuli and that load that comes with the negative stimuli is just much heavier on you than it is on others. That's genetically predetermined. Your serotonin being dysregulated and being able to meet a situation where that situation actually is and not over or under react and not be irritable by it, which would lead again to the anxiety, your dopamine levels and being able to experience pleasure as it is, right. And not need to binge or have addictive tendencies and you know, be then leaning on food as a coping mechanism because you're stuck at home, etc. All these things have been mapped out. And what happens here is the awareness in itself allows someone to detach themselves from that scenario they're stuck in and realize that their perception may not be what's actually, what it actually is. The meaning or the value of the thing may not be what it actually is being perceived as by them. And they can then cope with it better just by understanding their cognitive wiring. And this is a big piece of the report. We put all the mood and behavior genes in there, diet recommendations. If you have an inflammatory issue, how do you deal with anti inflammatory foods? The thing we know you're all going to do every day is eat. So let's at least start with the food and make that better for the environment and to support immunity. This is more for the actual risk itself. Meaning we understand genetically when there's immunity is like fighting it. Right. Then there's actually getting it. There's a step before that and that's this, that's the actual process of depositing the rna, the virus sort of spreading throughout my body. That's all this. So the genetic risk factors for actual contraction and being like call it a super spreader for example. Right. And that's really the crux of it. And if I scroll back down. Sorry, I'm just gonna skip back down. This was where we started on the summary and then we start to look at some of the genes and what they mean. So at the clinical level it's important to be able to dive deep and support what you're saying. And so that's where we put in the actual gene report attached and separated from the core genome pulse and hormone pulse reports that people have seen, including the new genes that are for specific issues, e.g. hypertension, et cetera. So we've tried to make it fulsome so that it's all in one place. This one tool can really power you and your patients through understanding their immunity better, understanding it at a personalized level, understanding the risk for complications better, and then being able to create better protocols. What does this person actually need at a preventative level, at a therapeutic level? If they're actually sick already, what support does their body need? Is it mitochondrial support? Is it vitamin D? What do they actually need as a tool? Right. So that's what we had put together. And the beauty of it is in order to get here, we use a lot of the same genes that we use in the other reports. So there's sort of a double dip for people that have already been tested. And for those of you that have not been tested yet, you'll also learn some of the other stuff.

I love this. I mean the report is so comprehensive. You guys have done a beautiful job. This Test for me personally has been extremely beneficial. Mansoor and I, Dr. Mansoor and I spoke at an event many years ago for Zymogen and I was blown away by his content. And I'm sitting in the back and this is long before any of these reports and things were available and I got the test. And one of the things that I can tell you is that that test was so insightful for me personally on my personal development journey, on my journey as being a better husband and a better father. And now you guys have taken it to a whole new level by giving me an idea of how my body engages at a cellular level with the environment that I'm in and what I can then do to then better optimize myself and prepare myself or arm myself, if you will, with the right tools and the right equipment. Because you know, even as, even as the kind of mainstream solutions come to light, it's not going to change this report. So if somebody gets inoculated and thinks that they're protected, they actually may not be because we're not actually changing how their genetics and their genomics behave. So for somebody who's looking for a solution, wants to get rid of the anxiety, wants to have better self awareness, I mean, who wouldn't besides a practitioner who's watching this? I mean, I think all of us should have this test done. It's, it's the most recommended test for me to my clients and to my mentorship as well because of the value it's provided for me. My whole family's been tested. We all got our reports and it's amazing how different we all are. So despite the fact that we're all in pretty great health, we all had varying reports in relationship to our immunity. And my wife naturally has better immunity than me, which is great to hear. And I'm glad to know that a lot of the things that your company had recommended to me based on my initial genetic testing I was doing, but then I was making sure I was doubling down on them because sometimes you forget to take your vitamin D, right? And now guess what? I don't forget. Right. I pay close attention to my stockpile as well. Make sure that it's in stock because it's not always easy to find these days. So I would definitely encourage anyone and everyone to get this test. I mean, if it's for your immune system, if it's for your marriage, if it's for your own personal development, if it's for, you know, understanding better about how you detox your, how you metabolize Your, you know, female and male hormones, the executive function. I mean, there's just a ton of value packed into this. And I know you have a very special offer for us as well. So I'd love to, you know, help people understand what are some of those steps that they can take and how is the test administered. Maybe you could walk us through that whole process.

I'll walk you through that. And I'm going to touch on one thing. You mentioned that with the vitamin D, because what we found over and over and over again, you know, I'm in Toronto, right? So we experience a nice winter here and there's no sun. So everybody takes their vitamin D, right? But what's happening when your body with vitamin D is very different for many people, and what we've learned and we've had to coach people through is there's some people, you take your 1000iu, you're peeing out 800 of it. There's some people that take their 1000iu and use every single ounce of it. So why that difference? And this goes back to what I said earlier, where most people don't have a challenge getting the vitamin D into their blood and where it's used, where the challenge is genetically, is getting it to the cell. And this is something that isn't measured. And so nobody knows what's happening. And you're on your 1000, 2000. Some people even take 5000 IU and they're still not getting enough. Why? Because even if you take that 5,000 IU, it doesn't mean that you got more than the person that took 1000, because you're still peeing it all out. So there. I can't tell you how many people we advise that you need to take vitamin D three, four times a day, right? Take vitamin D with every meal because you simply just can't get it in fast enough. It just passes through. So take care. Take your 5000iu, you still peed out 4500, because your max capacity to actually metabolize and put in the cell is 3, 400 at a time, right? So just something as simple as that is so impactful.

Yeah, it's kind of like imagine, you know, your trainer or your doctor tells you to drink a liter of water or 4 liters of water or a gallon, and you pour that entire four gallons into one cup, right? So the cup can only hold so much, and the rest of it just spills over onto the countertop.

I can't tell you how many people just notably their mood Minor things like, you know, aches and pains and headaches and brain fog. Things that they didn't even realize were going on until after it went away. Right. Because vitamin D is so impactful and supportive. So going back to what you were saying, as far as the process, we tried to keep it simple and easy. So we just created a code. And this product isn't even on our website, by the way. This is a tool that's only for a practitioner, so the public can't go buy it from the website. And we wanted to keep it that way. This is really something we built as sort of a response to how do we help? What's our part of this conversation? Right, so it's not even for sale on the website. So the comprehensive test on our website, if you were to go buy it, is 550 Canadian, I think. $450 US. Right. And so what we said is let's slash that down to like we're just getting it out there. Because the whole purpose of this is to get that Covid report out there. So practitioners have a tool to use to help people. Right. So if you were to use. And I'll show you exactly how to do it. In fact, just open it up here. One sec. All right. Do you see that page?

Sure do.

So this is a page on our website. If you go to Solutions Comprehensive reports, it brought us here. Right. And from there when you add to your cart and you check out, so it says 515 and again Canadian. So for those of you south the border, that's 450 US. What we did was you go to checkout. Oh, sorry. Just put in a link there for clinic code. Oh, sorry, DNA code. It's telling me what to do and I'm still not doing it. You put in right here, living proof. So LP, 250. And what does that give you? It makes this $250, which we've never done before. Right. But what does it also do is our back end office sees this code and they know to give you the COVID report for free. Right.

Amazing.

So there's two layers here. First of all, for anyone that has been tested, meaning that you're in our database, there's a different way to just add on. I think it's $99. And you can buy the COVID report for yourself. And if you're already a clinician, that's what, that's just contact the way you normally would contact. Right. Anyone that hasn't been tested, do this and you can get it again. You'll get the comprehensive, which is the 450 for 250, and we're gonna give you the COVID report for free. And the other reason we do this is because for any of your patients, we're gonna set this up so that you as a clinician will have your own code where your clients can order the comprehensive test and again, come to us. And we'll set that up with each of you individually, and most of you are already set up with us, and they will just need a separate code. But the whole intention is we wanted to get this Covid report out there again. It's not even a product for sale on our website. We just want it out there with clinicians and practitioners. We want everyone using it as a tool to support in the way that we can. And we know that the best way to do that is with a practitioner community who has that wave of clients coming saying, how do I deal with this? Right. How do I prevent and how do I treat? And that's why we put this in there. So again, for anyone who hasn't been tested yet, use this. You'll get the comprehensive, you'll get the COVID report free. Anyone who's in our system as an existing partner, contact us. We'll get you that upgrade for $99 for essentially get you your Covid report, and we'll set you up with your code for your patients.

Awesome. And there's more to it for those of you that have had the test, because your sample has to be rerun, and that's actually something you're including in that price as well.

We have to rerun it. So typically, like a test you saw, it's 450, and I think clinicians, it's 350 for our community. Right? So we're saying let's just. If it's for Covid, we'll run it for $99, get that report. We have to run it again because there's a new set of genes we curated that specifically speak to how do we deal with immunity and infectious disease. Right.

Amazing. This is. This is awesome, man. I'm so excited to see this come to life. And I know your team has put a lot of effort into it. How many man hours do you think went into putting this report together and interpreting the genomics?

So back in March last year, you know, just like everyone else, we shut down. Right. Nobody knew what was going on and what was going to happen next. And our compounding lab, the testing people spitting into tubes, you can imagine Last March, that didn't make any sense. Right. So everything shut down. The testing lab themselves even shut down. So we took a step back and said, how do we help? What do we know? So we started diving into the. And we spent 30 days just looking at our existing samples and trying to find those correlations. Who had respiratory inflammation issues, who had cardiac inflammation issues, Right. Who sort of reported having immunity or constant cold and flu type symptoms. Right. That got us to one layer of sort of call it like filtration. And there's a genomic profile that was looked at. Then Mansoor started to dive deep into the literature and he started to see what was going on in the world. And what he's really brilliant at is taking pieces and putting them together and interpreting them better. Right. So whereas the science community takes one thing and studies it and proves it, he'll take those 10 or 15 things and package them together. Here's the full answer. Right? We literally spent up until, I would say the summer Juneish, that's all we did. We actually worked with Health Canada and got clearance as a medical device to build an algorithm that practitioners could use to plug their data into. And never have I seen this quickly that we got Class 1 medical device certification because we actually had a solution. Answer these questions and we'll tell you your risks. Right? And that came out of the genetic interpretation. So it was a full on everybody on it from like March till like June, July. And then we came around and started focusing more on employers and how to help people. And now we came back to like, clinicians need to have that, especially the more we hear new variant, new version, what's happening, mutation. Except this is why this has to happen. Because it's your 1 answer for regardless of what's going to come. I'm prepared. Right. And that's why we came back.

You know, one thing that comes up for me right now as you're saying, this is all the children that are back in school.

Yeah.

And you know, they have no idea, like, you know, their parents even have no idea how to protect them, you know, if something does. Because like I work from home, my wife works from home, you know, my son goes to a Waldorf school and they're outdoors like half the day, so they're not in these confined quarters. And I can only imagine what it would be like, like how much anxiety I would have if I was sending him to a, you know, a school where you're there in close quarters or indoors all day having to wear a mask. I'm sure I'm sure that plays into it as well. I wonder if there's something that this test can reveal, whether wearing a mask is more dangerous for you or if it's actually beneficial for you. Well, for sure, because you're circuit recirculating that bacteria in your body.

Who, where, where does detox happen? The first line of defense is where things actually enter your body. Your lungs and your stomach. That's where third party stuff enters. Right, Right. That's where the first step, a detox happens. We already know genetically who's not doing that well. Right. So that person that just can't handle that. There's. I mean, it's unfortunate, but we hear stories about clinicians that have died of lung infections because of the great work they're doing day after day after day, 48 hour shifts with the mask. Right. And literally we've seen it in the news. And why some and not others? This is why. Because some people are bulletproof. Right. And some people there's a gap that needs to be filled. Right. And even just the anxiety of as a minimum, at least if we can filter out which kid has the most risk. Right. Not saying shut the schools down. We're saying, you know, if this one kid has everything is wrong. That's all the wrong checkboxes. Maybe that kid shouldn't go to go to school. Right. You know, at least it's at least that allows us to stride and personalize and not have that anxiety of I don't know. And I'm just going to wait. And the day that I hear my kid's sick, that's when I regret and wish I didn't do it. Right.

Yeah. You know what? As we're having this conversation, I'm just thinking I'm going to get make sure I think my whole team's tested, but I don't know if they've all upgraded to the new test. So I'm going to make sure that we take care of that for them. Because if they're out and they're out for two weeks because they forgot to take their vitamin D or they just didn't know that they needed to stay on top of it, then that affects our company. It affects a lot of different people in different ways. And if you're watching this and you're a practitioner, then imagine what happens. I mean, I've had practitioners even in our community have to shut down their practice for two days or two weeks in some cases, rather than because they got Covid. Right. And of course they want to also protect the public. But we want to make sure we're taking good care of ourselves so that we're able to fend off whatever's coming our way.

Right? No, you're right.

Amazing. So I've put a coupon code in the comment section. So for those of you that want to jump in and get this test, which should be all of you, I've included the coupon code and the link to go to. If you're listening to the podcast, we're going to share the coupon code and the link in the show notes. So please be sure to check that out and get this done asap, because, you know, you know, do the right thing to protect yourself at a minimum, and your family after that, and then, of course, your patients as much as you possibly can. And the value that you're offering here is unprecedented. So you're taking like, almost like 3, $400 off the price of the testing, and you're adding an additional value by doing those additional markers. And then also the report for us. So thank you. I appreciate that quite a bit.

No, well, we gotta be part of the solution, so we're jumping in.

Amazing. Well, thank you, brother. This has been very enlightening and very encouraging to see that, you know, there's good work being done, especially here in Canada, to make the world a better place. And I'm just so proud of everything you guys are doing and so great to be part of the ride with you.

Thank you so much. It was awesome.

Thank you. All right, everyone, so get that test. I highly encourage you to take that next action step. It's going to really put you in the right position to continue to be of service to your communities. When I got my report, I shared it publicly because I wanted people to know, hey, this is information that we all need, and it's unprecedented at times that's going to call for us to take some meaningful strategic action to help our communities, help ourselves, and help our families. So, once again, Kashif, thank you so much. I appreciate you. And I know we both have busy days ahead, so I'm going to let you go and do your thing, but thank you once again for spending time with us.

Thanks. It's awesome. Thanks.

Okay, bye for now.