133. MTHFR, Migraines, and What You’ve Been Told Wrong

In this episode, I tackle one of the most talked-about topics in the functional and alternative medicine world: MTHFR.

So many women have been told that this one gene is the reason behind their migraines and other chronic symptoms, but the real story is much more nuanced than that.

I break down what MTHFR actually does, why I believe the conversation around it has gotten distorted, and why the bigger issue may have more to do with synthetic folic acid, digestion, and the body’s overall ability to get nutrients where they need to go.

If you’ve ever been told your genes are the problem, this episode will give you a much fuller picture.

If you’re ready to address the root drivers of your migraines, you can book a free consultation at the link below:

https://www.drlesliecisar.com/apply

Free Training: 5 Proven Steps to Being Migraine Free (Even if you think you've already tried everything.)

https://www.drlesliecisar.com/5SHMN

Connect with us:

Website: https://www.drlesliecisar.com/

Free Facebook Group: Healing Migraines Naturally, with Leslie Cisar, ND

Ready to try something radically different that actually works? Read more about my approach here: https://www.drlesliecisar.com/map

In health,
Dr. Leslie Cisar

Episode Transcript

hi there
welcome to the Healing Migraines Naturally podcast
I'm your host Doctor Leslie Caesar
and I am a licensed naturopathic doctor
former chronic migraine sufferer
and I've dedicated my life to helping other women
with chronic migraines rediscover a migraine free life
so welcome to the podcast today
today we are going to tackle a very
very prominent topic
within the functional medicine space
or the alternative medicine space
if you have seen a functional medicine doctor
or a naturopathic doctor or a chiropractor
any of my colleagues
in the alternative medicine industry
if you've been listening to a podcast
health related podcast
some of the big name related podcast
you have probably heard the acronym MTH F R
and today we are going to tackle this on the podcast
a few weeks ago I got an email from a podcast listener
and she she said hey
you know I love the podcast can you talk about MTHFR
and I said you know what
we we gotta tackle this one
we're gonna tackle this one this week
so this is going to be more of a technical podcast
I do want to walk you through the biochemistry
that's at play here
because to really understand why this
you know hyped up concern about MTHFR is really not
all that the hype has LED you to believe
in order to really understand that
we do have to go into the biochemistry
that is affected here so I'm gonna hopefully do
that well
and walk you through it in a way that makes sense
but you might even want to you know
you could even take notes a little bit
if you wanted to
so let's go ahead and dive in
let's start with what you probably already know right
you've heard about MTHFR
maybe you've even had a genetic test for it
maybe you're taking methylfolate right now
because you found out that you do have the variant
maybe you read a book about it
or your naturopathic doctor
or your functional medicine doctor
brought it up to you
so here's the story that you've been given okay
you have a genetic variant
a mutation in a gene called MTHFR
and that variant slows down your methylation
so what is methylation
methylation is how your body recycles
the raw materials or the nutrients that it runs on okay
so when a nutrient does its job and is used up right
nutrients are you know
like the fuel for different processes within the body
or you know
if you're if you're gonna make furniture
you have to have wood right
nutrients are like the wood okay
so when a nutrient does its job
the nutrient gets you could say used up hi there
I want to jump in real quick
and tell you about my client Beth
she was getting 15 to 20 migraines and headaches
per month and as you can imagine
this was impacting her work performance and her
confidence she also has two small children
and she was
starting to feel like she was a horrible mom
because she had nothing left for them
at the end of the day but she reached out
and she booked a free consult call with me
and after I asked her about her migraines
and her health history
I felt confident that I could help her
I help women uncover
the root drivers of their migraines
and follow a step by step plan to dramatically reduce
the frequency by up to 90%
without adding more medication
or taking a bunch of supplements
so we built her personal migraine map
followed the plan
and now she will get one to two migraines per year
which she uses ibuprofen to treat if she needs to
verses up to 15 to 20 per month
when we first started working together
that weren't responding well to any medication
she just reached out to tell me that
she got a promotion at work
she's on top of her career again
and has been able to come off all of her migraine
medication but most importantly
she's a confident mom again
and she's attending birthday parties at Jump Zone
with her kids and saying yes
instead of saying maybe later
I've worked with women like Beth
from all over the United States
who were told this is the best we can do
but they were still willing to dig deeper
so
if you are serious about changing your migraine story
go to Doctor Leslie Caesar dot com slash apply
or tap the link in the show notes
and on our free consult
we'll map out why your migraines keep coming back
and the first three steps you can take
over the next 30 days
I do cap new client spots each month
so if the calendar is full
the doors are closed for now
but if you're done
feeling helpless and ready to do the work to heal
pause this episode for 30 seconds
and book that console call now
so methylation is the process
that puts it back into circulation
so that it can be used again
so MTHFR
is one of the enzymes involved in that recycling
process so if you have the variant
the specific variant is called C6 7
7 t
a lot of times it's just called the t variant
if you have that variant you recycle those nutrients
a little more slowly than average
or a little bit more
slowly than the person who doesn't have the variant
in the gene
so if you're recycling a little bit more slowly
then things pile up
and then because it's not recycled as quickly
you don't have the recycled nutrient back in the lineup
back in the biochemical system as quickly right
because it's running a little bit more slowly
so then
those nutrients are a little bit in shorter supply
so if you've been listening to this podcast for a while
you know
that I talk about the three things that our body needs
in order to maintain a state of health
and if we fall out of a state of health
and start getting migraines
how do we recover our health okay
so there's three things that the body needs
in order to do that I call these the three principles
the first principle is
we have to get the nutrients that your cells need
to yourselves okay
so this MTHFR conversation falls under this
first principle umbrella okay
so now when I talk about the first principle okay
the the first thing
your body needs to be in a state of health
to recover your health to feel good again
your cells have to have the nutrients
that they need to run properly
people hear that and they say
Doctor Leslie is gonna give me a diet
she's she's talking about what I eat
and I already eat really well right
I'm worried about food triggers
I wouldn't even dream of touching something with MSG
right I
I wouldn't dream of eating leftovers
for fear of histamine right
I'm already cooking my food at home
I'm already shopping at Whole Foods right
this is what a lot of people hear when I talk about
we've got to get the nutrients that your cells need to
the cells okay
now I'm hoping that this podcast
is also not only going to
teach people a lot about this MTHFR hype
but it's also going to help people realize that
it's not just what you're eating right
certainly we have to eat food with nutrients in it
but there's I mean untold uh
steps and processes
after we're putting the food in our mouth
that have to go properly okay
so what you eat is only the beginning
and like I've talked about on other podcast
a lot of migraine suffers
are actually restricting foods
if we're restricting foods
we're restricting our nutrient intake as well okay
but again the point here is that there's an entire
chain of biochemical processes
that have to work
for that nutrient that you put into your mouth
that was in the food that you're eating
to actually end up inside a cell
where it can do its job
so this methylation process is one of those processes
that get the nutrients
to the cell at the time that the cell needs it
MTHFR is one of the enzymes
not the only enzyme
like if you're listening to the hype
you would think that
this was the only thing that was going on
it's one of the enzymes that keeps that conveyor belt
running
so when MTHFR is sluggish
and if you have the genetic variant in the enzyme
yes that enzyme is gonna be a little sluggish
it's gonna run a little bit slower
so when MTFR is sluggish
the recycling step doesn't complete as quickly
and then your cells end up short on what they need
so methylation this recycling process
is involved in almost everything that your body does
making chemicals that regulate your mood
repairing your DNA keeping your hormones in balance
clearing waste material from your blood
if the recycling step is impaired
all those things are impaired
they're going to be a little sluggish
so the mechanism that you've been given is this
MTHFR is the enzyme that converts
folic acid into methylfolate
the active form that your cells need
and if you have the C 6
7 7
t variant that conversion is sluggish
folic acid builds up methylfolate runs short
and everything downstream suffers
so what is the fix avoid folic acid
take methylfolate get
you know get tested
get the genetic test run
there is an entire supplement industry built
around exactly this framework
and over the last decade
MTHFR has become the explanation
or the scapegoat for nearly everything depression
anxiety miscarriage autism
ADHD heart disease
cancer risk chronic fatigue fibromyalgia
migraines chemical sensitivities
one gene every chronic condition
so when one gene is being blamed
for every chronic illness
that should prompt a question
and here is my reply
every one of those conditions is there
because the body is not in a state of health
a body that is not in a state of health
doesn't have the nutrients
that it needs to function properly
that connection to this methylation
recycling process is very real
but this is not a one gene problem
MTHFR is one enzyme in one step of a much larger system
the reason those conditions
those health conditions exist
is the entire picture of what's preventing
nutrients from getting to the cells
not one gene
so you know the functional medicine world
the naturopathic medicine world
was pointing at a legitimate problem
folic acid is genuinely an issue
methylfolate is genuinely better
they got there before you know
mainstream medicine did and that's great
but unfortunately
they've all pointed at the wrong enzyme
and that one error changes everything
including who this problem actually applies to
so before I wanna tell you what's wrong with this mthfr
uh story
I need to show you how the system actually works
because once you understand this
the mistake is going to be pretty obvious
so let's let's talk about food okay
so when you eat spinach or lentils or avocados
these are three foods that are
you know higher than average in folate
notice I said folate not folic acid
we're going to come back to that
so when you eat spinach or lentils or an avocado
the folate in that food
starts its journey in the digestive tract
and you know
our digestive tract
it's not just like this tube that you know
the food is just sort of you know moving through
um it's an active participant
the cells lining your small intestine
do part of the conversion work themselves
so as folate is absorbed
those intestinal cells convert it into methylfolate
right there in the gut wall
now that conversion depends
on those cells being healthy and functioning properly
so if digestion is compromised
low stomach acid
uh damaged gut lining
uh chronic inflammation within the digestive tract
that conversion step is impaired
so just eating the right food is not enough on its own
if your digestion is not functioning properly right
and I mean
this is something that just drives migraine suffers
just mad right
because we're so careful with our diet
way more careful than anybody else
and then we're wondering why
we're not getting the payoff
from all of that diligence
so the infrastructure
your digestive track that processes the food
that digests the food that breaks the food down
that does these nutrient conversions
that has to be working too
the folate in the food that we eat comes in two forms
okay and this is this is where it gets really important
the first is reduced folate
so reduced
simply means the folate is already in a form
your body can work with so
about half of the reduced folate
in real food is in its final
ready to use form methylfolate
you don't have to convert it
MTHFR doesn't have to do anything with
half of the reduced folate that you eat in your food
the plant already converted it
before you ever took a bite
so this is the same methylfolate
you might be taking as a supplement
the plant already made it for you
the other half of the reduced folate is closed okay
it just needs that final conversion step
in the intestinal cells to become methyl folate
MT HFR is the enzyme that handles that conversion okay
so we've got two forms of folate
the first form is the reduced folate
half of that is already methylated
the plant already like recycled it
the other half
that's what the MTHFR enzyme has to convert
so that we can use it
so that's pretty good right
right out of the gate that's a pretty good story
the second form of the folate is called oxidized folate
so this is folate that's been like degraded
think of it like um
the way iron rusts when it's exposed to air or heat
you know oxygen right
it becomes oxidized hi there
I wanna jump in real quick
and tell you about my client Beth
she was getting 15 to 20 migraines and headaches
per month and as you can imagine
this was impacting her work performance
and her confidence she also has two small children
and she was
starting to feel like she was a horrible mom
because she had nothing left for them
at the end of the day but she reached out
and she booked a free consult call with me
and after I asked her about her migraines
and her health history
I felt confident that I could help her
I help women uncover
the root drivers of their migraines
and follow a step by step plan to dramatically reduce
the frequency by up to 90%
without adding more medication
or taking a bunch of supplements
so we built her personal migraine map
followed the plan
and now she will get one to two migraines per year
which she uses ibuprofen to treat if she needs to
verses up to 15 to 20 per month
when we first started working together
that weren't responding well to any medication
she just reached out to tell me that
she got a promotion at work
she's on top of her career again
and has been able to come off all of her migraine
medication but most importantly
she's a confident mom again
and she's attending birthday parties at Jump Zone
with her kids and saying yes
instead of saying maybe later
I've worked with women like Beth
from all over the United States
who were told this is the best we can do
but they were still willing to dig deeper
so
if you are serious about changing your migraine story
go to Doctor Leslie Caesar dot com slash apply
or tap the link in the show notes
and on our free consult
we'll map out why your migraines keep coming back
and the first three steps you can take
over the next 30 days
I do cap new client spots each month
so if the calendar is full
the doors are closed for now
but if you're done feeling helpless and ready to do
the work to heal pause this episode for 30 seconds
and book that console call now
so for folate okay
naturally occurring in the food
the exposure to the air to heat
you've stored it it's exposed to oxygen
that breaks some of the folate down
before you ever eat it
oxidized folate
can't follow the same path as reduced folate
right away it has to be converted first
the enzyme that does that conversion is called dhfr
okay so
dhfr reduces the oxidized folate
back into a usable form
so that the body can continue processing it from there
so think of it as two starting points
but the destination ends up the same
reduced folate is starting
practically already at the finish line right
half of it already arrives at the finish line
as methylfolate and the other half just needs
like a little bump from MTHFR to
for that final step to get it over the finish line
oxidized folate right
that's starting farther back
DHFR has to convert it first
before it can travel the rest of the way of the pathway
so in a Whole Foods diet okay
like if you're eating real food
the oxidized folate fraction is small
it's like a little background noise
dhfr handles it easily the vast
vast majority of your folate
is starting close to the destination
so the system works
this is what the body was designed for okay
so you're eating food you're eating regular food
natural food
haha and the vast vast majority of folate in that food
half of it is already ready to go
the plant converted it for you
then the d H
F
R enzyme reduces it and then it just continues on okay
this is not a massive problem
now hold that picture okay
because let me bring you back to what you've been told
so you've got the MTHFR variant
you can't process folic acid
you need to avoid it but let's be precise
what exactly is folic acid
folic acid is oxidized folate it is entirely synthetic
it's a molecule that was first created in the 1940s
that did not exist anywhere in nature
there's no whole food on earth that contains it
it began appearing in vitamin supplements in the 1970s
and then it started being voluntarily added
to some grain products and cereals
before it became mandated in 1998 okay
so on January 1st, 1998
this is when it became mandatory to fortify or enrich
cereal foods like uh
cereal grain foods with folic acid
so this is you know
when you are in the flower aisle
and you see the label on the bag of flour
that says enriched okay
so if you're having a factory make your food
they're going to be using enriched
flowers okay now if you're buying organic
that is a different story
but kind of the default
because this is mandatory by law
the default is going to be
additional folic acid added to
the flour so this is like enriched bread
enriched pasta enriched
rice okay
if you're eating conventional packaged green products
most white bread boxed pasta
packaged cereals folic acid has been added to them
so because folic acid is oxidized
it starts at the back of the line
it has to go through DHFR first okay
all of it has to go
through this DHFR conversion process first
the reason that DHFR even tries to process folic acid
is because it's so similar in structure
to oxidized folate okay
so folic acid is close enough to the naturally degraded
or oxidized
folate that your body has always encountered
and d H
F R recognizes it as something that it should convert
but they're not actually the exact same molecule
folic acid is more fully oxidized
and dhfr handles it far less efficiently
than the natural forms it evolved for
so instead of that
like tiny fraction that dhfr was designed to handle
folic acid now arrives in every fortified food
every meal every day
if we hadn't added it to the food supply
dhfr would never have been overwhelmed
this problem is entirely the product of fortification
now here's the part that nobody's talking about
the story you've been given
says that MTHFR is where folic acid
gets stuck
that the backup of folic acid is occurring at MTHFR
it isn't the backup is at dhfr
have you ever heard anyone talk about dhfr
MTHFR doesn't touch folic acid directly
before folic acid can ever reach MTHFR
it has to clear DHFR first
dhfr goes first when folate is oxidized
or this heavily oxidized folic acid
molecule is introduced so the backup is happening there
not at mthfr
and here's why
this completely changes this conversation
DHFR has absolutely nothing to do with the MTHFR
genetic variant
human DHFR runs slow in everyone and I mean everyone
so there was a landmark study
published in the proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences
in 2009 okay we're in 2026
this study measured DHFR activity in human liver tissue
and compared it to rats and what did they find
humans convert folic acid
through dhfr at less than 2% of the rate of rats
less than 2%
so
now consider what that means for research
because most of what we know about how the body handles
new compounds comes from rat studies
rats are the standard you know
stand in for humans in pre clinical research right
we're not gonna introduce something to a person
we have no idea what the safety is
we're gonna put that in a rat first
okay
now this rat testing
this is the foundation of how safety is established
before something reaches the population
but here is a case
where a rat is exactly the wrong model
because a rat clears folic acid efficiently
a rat's dhfr doesn't get overwhelmed
the way that a human's does
so if you are a researcher trying to understand
what happens when people eat a synthetic molecule
that never existed on earth before 1940
and you are using rats to find out
you will reach a much rosier conclusion
than reality warrants the rats are fine
the research said so the humans are a different story
okay
so think about that timing
mandatory fortification started in January on
on January 1st, 1998
this study came out in 2009
11 years after
the entire population was already eating folic acid
at basically every meal
mandatory fortification has now been running
for 28 years that's more than a generation
but folic acid was already in the food supply
before that in supplements since the 1970s
and voluntarily in some foods
years before the mandate made it universal
so folic acid has been part of the American diet for
decades
so what happens when DHFR is overwhelmed
let's go into that okay because
this is where the problems really start to occur
if DHFR is overwhelmed by folic acid
and it's struggling to reduce it
okay because remember folic acid is highly oxidized
researchers call this molecule UMFA
and UMFA accumulates in the bloodstream
so this is not hypothetical
they've done tests
most Americans have detectable levels of UMFA
right now not from taking supplements
but from eating bread and pasta and cereal
from the food supply
so here's what circulating umfa
this is the unmetabolized folic acid does
it blocks real folate
to understand how
it helps to understand something about how nutrients
actually get into the cells
because again we think that we eat food
and it just goes through our digestive tract
this sort of passive tube
and then somehow
these nutrients get into our bloodstream
and then they just sort of float into the cell right
some they just kind of travel in there right
so it's not as simple as that
so most nutrients cannot
just drift through the wall of a cell
the cell membrane is a barrier and to get through it
a nutrient
needs to be recognized and grabbed by a specific
receptor on the cell surface
so your cells that have these receptors right
so your cell sort of like a little circular bubble
and there's a
a wall that's made out of fatty acids
and so
there's these little receptors that kind of poke out
through the cell
the cell membrane
these are structures that are outside of the cell
that are designed to bind specific nutrients
and bring them in
that process requires energy
your cells have to actively work to pull in
what they need
and if you've been listening to the podcast
you've heard me talk about the third principle
that our body needs
that's required for things to function optimally
for us to feel good for us to be in a state of health
and I call that our own resilience and vitality
at the cellular level
that's the cellular energy or the cellular voltage
so if we have low cellular energy or voltage
if we're lacking in that third principle
we're gonna have a harder time
bringing these nutrients into the cell
so you need the right receptors in adequate numbers
and you need the cellular energy to run that process
so getting a nutrient from your bloodstream into a cell
where it can actually do something
is not just automatic
so much has to run properly
so folate enters cells
through receptors designed specifically for it
but when folic acid is circulating in the bloodstream
it competes for those same receptors
so two things happen in some cases
the receptor grabs the folic acid
and then pulls it into the cell
but once that folic acid is inside
it still needs DHFR to convert it
dhfr operates inside cells and inside the cell
it's no better equipped to handle folic acid
than it was anywhere else
so the folic acid made it in
but it still cannot be used
in other cases
the folic acid binds to a receptor and just sits there
occupying it and that blocks real folate
from latching on to that receptor
and being pulled into the cell
so either way real folate loses
so you can be eating all the right foods
and the umfa from your fortified morning cereal
is still competing for those receptors
it's taking spots that real folate needs
and it leaves your cells short
on the one form that they can actually use
so umfa you know this haha
this is bad enough
but studies also show that UMFA suppresses
natural killer cells
the immune system's first line of defense
against cancer cells and viruses
natural killer cells patrol your body
looking for cells that have gone wrong
research has found an association so this is not
you know fully settled yet
but
research has found an association between circulating
UMFA and reduced natural killer cell activity
so we've got less clearance and less surveillance
and excess UMFA can actually inhibit the dhfr enzyme
the very enzyme that is is supposed to be clearing it
so and this is the case with
several biochemical processes
if you get a backup
unfortunately the backup makes makes it worse okay
the problem feeds on itself hi there
I wanna jump in real quick and tell you about my client
Beth she was getting 15 to 20 migraines and headaches
per month and as you can imagine
this was impacting her work performance
and her confidence she also has two small children
and she was
starting to feel like she was a horrible mom
because she had nothing left for them
at the end of the day but she reached out
and she booked a free consult call with me
and after I asked her about her migraines
and her health history
I felt confident that I could help her
I help women uncover
the root drivers of their migraines
and follow a step by step plan to dramatically reduce
the frequency by up to 90%
without adding more medication
or taking a bunch of supplements
so we built her personal migraine map
followed the plan
and now she will get one to two migraines per year
which she uses ibuprofen to treat if she needs to
verses up to 15 to 20 per month
when we first started working together
that weren't responding well to any medication
she just reached out to tell me that
she got a promotion at work
she's on top of her career again
and has been able to come off all of her migraine
medication but most importantly
she's a confident mom again
and she's attending birthday parties at Jump Zone
with her kids and saying yes
instead of saying maybe later
I've worked with women like Beth
from all over the United States
who were told this is the best we can do
but they were still willing to dig deeper
so if you're serious about changing your migraine story
go to Doctor Leslie Caesar dot com slash apply
or tap the link in the show notes
and on our free consult
we'll map out why your migraines keep coming back
and the first three steps you can take
over the next 30 days
I do cap new client spots each month
so if the calendar is full
the doors are closed for now
but if you're done
feeling helpless and ready to do the work to heal
pause this episode for 30 seconds
and book that console call now
so why why do we do this right
it's like why do we keep doing this to ourselves right
so here's why folic acid was chosen for fortification
in the first place
the evidence showing that adequate folate
in early pregnancy
dramatically reduces the risk of neural tube defects
this is a very uh
a very real problem
neural tube defects cause serious disabilities
loss of life
so the goal to reduce this was very legitimate
however
and you know I will say
mandatory fortification of folic acid
did reduce neural tube defects
from about 10 per 10,000 births
down to seven per 10,000 births
so in the United States
that's roughly 13 fewer cases per year
and that's wonderful but you know
we've added this to the food supply to reduce you know
to go from 10 to seven
it's not it's not nothing but it's not right
it's not what you might have hoped for so why is that
the reason folic acid was chosen over real food folate
is that folic acid is stable
it's already oxidized
so it survives the milling process
you know you gotta bake the bread in an oven right
it it can survive the heat
it survives shelf storage cooking
reduced folate degrades with heat and light and oxygen
so you can't add folate to bread
and then bake the bread and expect the folate to
to still be there right
you you can't add something to a
food that's gonna break down in the conditions
that are required to make the food
so there was a real practical constraint
but here's what that choice missed
not all of the folic acid that entered the food supply
made it into the cells
we can see that through the biochemistry here
the women most at risk
women with the C677T variant
they face the same DHFR bottleneck as everyone else
and then they have an additional slow point
at MTFR on top of it
so the population with the highest risk
received the least effective form of the intervention
had the fortification program used methofolate
had that even been possible
given that this is being added to factory made foods
that you know
have to have a shelf life etcetera
so but you know if it were feasible to add methofolate
you would have bypassed both DHFR and MTHFR completely
and the reduction in neural tube
defects would almost certainly have been much greater
so the goal was valid
the molecule was the only practical option at the time
but you know
we've been running this now at population scale
for every age
regardless of pregnancy status for 28 years
and the research showing just how slow human
dhfr actually is
didn't arrive until 11 years after fortification began
all right so what do you do with this
first you
you don't need the MTHFR genetic test to act on this
okay
the folic acid problem applies to every human being
DHFR is slow in everyone
this this is not a gene problem
you don't need a test to know that folic acid
is going to be a problem
even if you have tested and you do carry the C6 7
70 variant here is something worth understanding
about why MTHFR became such a big deal
in the first place
the functional medicine and supplement industries
can sell you methylfolate
there are products for MTHFR
this is a problem with a solution in a bottle okay
there's no product for DHFR
there's no supplement for DHF
for DHFR it's simply how human beings are built
every one of us regardless of genetics
so that's not a story that sells anything
so the conversation landed on MTHFR
but in the context of everything that we've covered
the MTHFR variant is a relatively minor factor
think about what the variant actually does
in someone eating real food
digesting it well with no folic acid in the picture
half the folate in the food arrives as methylfolate
already the plant converted it
MTHFR doesn't have to touch it
if you have the variant
it has zero effect on half of the folate that you eat
in real food
the other half is reduced folate
which means MTHFR's final
conversion step is needed
and that's where the slowdown happens
so if you carry one copy of the variant
your MTHFR runs about 65%
of capacity so it runs about 35% slower
if you carry both your MTHFR runs about 30%
so about 70% slower so that sounds
oh my goodness this
this sounds terrible right
you know what we
what we're being told is that you're working
with a handicap okay
but you're only working with a partial handicap
on half of your folate intake
the other half is completely unaffected
no folic acid is loading the system
no umfa is blocking receptors
real folate is getting into the cells
the machinery works just slightly less efficiently
on one portion
we've been told that this has more of an effect
than it actually does now let's consider the prevalence
okay so what's called homozygous C677T
this is two copies of the variant
so this is where
now that enzyme is only running at about 30%
that's present in roughly
10 to 15% of people of European descent however
in populations of indigenous Mesoamerican ancestry
so this would apply to Mexicans
Guatemalans Central Americans
the rate is dramatically higher
a 2016 study of Mexican
Amerindian groups
found an average homozygous rate of 44.5%
in some specific Mayan populations from southern Mexico
that rate reaches 80%
that's not a rare variant in some of these populations
it's the majority of people
and here's what's notable about those populations
so the Americas had almost no large
domesticated animals before European contact
no cattle no pigs
no sheep the diet was built on corn beans
squash and particularly in Central America
whatever small game insects
fish were available was predominantly plant based
so a diet
where half the folate already arrives as methylfolate
ready to use without MTHFR touching it
on a diet on that diet
a slower MTHFR enzyme is not a significant liability
the variant persisted
because in the nutritional environment
those populations evolved in
it was not a meaningful problem
the gene didn't change the food supply did
if this variant were as clinically significant
as the supplement industry suggests
that prevalence doesn't hold up evolutionarily
a variant driving severe
chronic disease in nearly half of a population
or 80% of a population
would not have survived that long
and there's evidence
it may have done more than just survive
some research suggests and again
this is not settled yet this is some suggestion of this
that the that this variant
the C677T variant is actually protective
might be protective against certain cancers
particularly colorectal cancer
slower MTHFR shifts how folate is distributed
making certain folate forms
less available to rapidly dividing cells
there's also research suggesting that
certain pathogens depend on folate for their own
replication and a host
that's a person haha
with slightly reduced folate conversion efficiency
maybe a less hospitable environment for them right
so
this is sort of parallel to the sickle cell phenomenon
right that trait can protect people from malaria
so you know
there's some evidence here that
having a slower folate conversion rate to methylfolate
might be beneficial in some environments
or some situations so again
these are hypotheses right now
there's some research suggesting this
it's not settled but
you know this goes back to
our body is not stupid and defective
and hates us and trying to kill us right
our body is trying to survive
it's trying to do the best it can
in the environment that it's in
and so you know
we are always we're so quick to assume
especially now that we have the ability
to look at the human genome
we're so quick for any little variation to say oh
this is it this is a problem
you've got a genetic defect all all of this stuff
it it's kind of counter intuitive
isn't it I mean
maybe there wouldn't
there be some beneficial reason behind
some of these variations
so this is not like a broken gene
it's a gene that was doing something
we're not exactly sure what it's
what it's doing we've got some leads
um but it certainly
it was adapted to a specific environment
a specific nutritional environment
potentially
offering real advantages within that environment
so again
your body is not defective
your genes are not defective
the food supply has changed
that's the problem
so you know
this whole MTHFR discussion and how
you know
what is the clinical significance of this variant
may largely be an artifact of the folic acid era
separate the variant from the folic acid exposure
and what remains is a relatively mild metabolic quirk
not the master switch over
chronic disease that it has been made out to be
so whether you carry it or not
you you wanna do the same things okay
so a second let's talk about the food
virtually every whole food
real food that contains folate
contains it in the reduced form
the form your body was designed to use
the answer here is
not a specific list of foods to track down or avoid
folate in the right form is in real food
essentially all of it a wide variety of real
whole food actual real food ha ha
that's the answer
and that's what I work on with my clients right
we're not chasing a food list
we're adding in variety
in so many cases with my clients
we're actually adding some really
really wonderful foods back in to what they're eating
because they've been avoiding them for so long
because they've been given
the poor advice about food triggers okay
so we want to have
we want to be able to eat and digest and break down
and metabolize we want to be able to
break down a wide variety of food
and here is the full picture
the processed grain diet
that is loading your body with folic acid
is also failing to deliver
the real nutrients that your body needs
so you're getting the synthetic molecule
that creates the problem and you're not getting
the food that would have prevented it
but again changing what you eat
is only part of it for a lot of migraine sufferers
there is another layer
and it is the one that I see constantly in my practice
right
many women with migraines are also restricting foods
because they've been told
that certain foods are triggering
their migraine
so if you're restricting foods
you're restricting your folate intake
before any of the rest of this even comes into play
and even with the the right diet right
digestion has to be working
we talked earlier
that the cells lining your small intestine
convert reduced folate to methyfolate
during absorption
but before folate even reaches those cells
it's got to be extracted from the food
and that requires adequate stomach acid
adequate pancreatic enzymes
proper motility food moving through at the right place
mixed
and broken down in the way that it's supposed to be
half the folate I'm gonna keep saying this
ha ha ha cause this is not what you're being told
half the folate in real food
already arrives as methylfolate
ready to go the other half yes
it has to be converted by those intestinal cells
and MTHFR does that
but none of that happens if digestion is compromised so
you know a lot of people change their diet
and they still don't feel better
and that's often why the food changed
but the digestion did not
if your digestive symptom is not working
the best diet in the world cannot
deliver what your cells need
digestion in those cases is where we have to start
and third
if you do supplement with folate use methylfolate
it's also written as 5 mthf or L methylfolate
don't use folic acid
methofolate is already in that final form
and it bypasses both DHFR and MTHFR entirely
and it goes straight to where your cells need it most
unfortunately inexpensive vitamins
use folic acid because it costs less
so read the label this is
this is where reading the label really does matter
so in conclusion here if you've made it this far
through all of the biochemistry and so on
congratulations
so you know
just to summarize the MTHFR conversation
it's been pointing at the wrong problem
folic acid is a real problem and you know
the natural medicine space
did get there before mainstream medicine did
I do give credit for that
but pointing the finger at MTHFR
instead of DHFR is pointing at the wrong enzyme
and it's not even talking about the importance
of eating a wide variety of real food
and having proper digestive function right
you're only told that you've got a genetic problem
and you are
gonna solve this with a capsule that you purchase
from the company that's talking about it okay
no one's talking about
improving your digestive function
so that you can eat a wide variety of food
that you enjoy and then actually break that food down
and that air has changed everything
about who this problem applies to
because
by anchoring this story to this genetic variation
it let the rest of the population
believe that this doesn't apply to them
and it kept the conversation
in the supplement territory
because there's a supplement for MTHFR
methylfolate in many forms from many companies
but there's no supplement for DHFR
dhfr is just how humans are built
you can't up regulate it
you can't put something in a capsule
that's gonna make it run faster
so the answer to the real problem
can't come from a product
it's the food the real food
a wide variety of food that you enjoy
because the nutrients
that keep this whole system running
come from different plants
different animals different sources
this is how the body was designed to receive them
so eat real food eat a wide variety of food
your body has been handling that for a long time
haha
it has had decades with folic acid in the food supply
and that is not going well
so if you're living with chronic migraines
and you're ready to understand
what's actually driving them
and what you can do about it
I'd love to talk I offer a free consultation call
the link is in the description
we'll talk about your migraines
and any other health conditions you have
and we'll put together a game plan
to get you feeling better
I'm telling you
it's gonna be the best 30 minutes you've spent
on your health in a long time
so thanks for being here see you guys soon