I was facilitating a Q&A session in a conference last weekend and someone pretty asked “what is the best way or approach to detoxify” - the answer she received was water and exercise (sweat). While those answers are not wrong, I really had the urge to comment, but time and ethic restricted me so I hope this blog could reach her somehow... As we now live in an era where most questions on health can be answered better, to my opinion, the best way would be first to know your genomic on detox pathway, knowing your SNPs, nutrients need and antioxidant defence so that you can detoxify “safely” - be it with water or exercise or else.
Most of our toxins are bound to our fat, the more fat we have the more toxins we hold. The purpose of this is so that those toxins can’t move around freely in our circulations. When we are detoxing, we would lose some fat whether we want it or not, when we lose that fat, the toxin it holds would be somehow “free” and as any other substances that need to be cleared out of our body, this free form toxins would go to our detoxification pathways.
We don’t want to detox and got sicker as the result (I have seen many patients who got sick after a detox program). So, how to detox safely with a peace of mind? Well to my opinion in my practice for the last 11 years or so (I have been testing my patients’ DNA since 2014), at least these three are important:
1. Knowing how good (or bad) our detox I and II pathways. This is to see if you have SNPs on the pathways.
2. Knowing your nutritional status, especially those involved in your Kreb’s cycle and liver detox pathways.
3. Knowing your SNPs on antioxidant defence. To know if you can make antioxidant enzymes like SOD and GST optimally.
Now what the heck is SNPs?
Our DNA sequence is formed from a chain of four nucleotide bases: A, C, G, and T. Where A must always be paired with T, and C with G. When people do not carry the paired nucleotide at a specific position in the DNA sequence, this can be classified as a SNP.
SNP is the most common type of genetic variation among people. It occurs normally throughout a person’s DNA and on average occur once in every 300 nucleotides, which means there are roughly 10 million SNPs in the human genome. TO NOTE THOUGH, Most SNPs have NO effect on health or development but SOME DO.
Particularly in Estrogen Metabolism pathway, which represent other toxins being detoxified too, the most common SNPs are CYP1A1, CYP1B1, COMT and GST. If we know about these SNPs, then we can detoxify “safely” by supporting metabolic pathways affected by these SNPs.
This approach (looking at your genomics) also applicable for your antioxidant SNPs. If you are among those who carry SNPs on SOD enzyme (one of most potent antioxidant in the body) production, then you might need to increase your Selenium intake to support that SNPs.
So, in the era of genomics, I would say knowing your own genes, and what your genes want you to eat and do so you stay healthy and far from being sick is kinda important step in your biohacking:-)
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