DGP: How Are You Wired? Your Genes Hold the Answers [Episode 7]

Welcome to this week’s SNPit. This is where we get down and dirty on a specific topic about your health. Today’s topic is: How are you wired? Your genes hold the answers.

I'm Dr. Ben Lynch — welcome to the Dirty Genes Podcast. I hope you enjoy the episode! If you do, be sure to give a thumbs-up, rate it, leave a comment, and Subscribe here. 

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Watch the Podcast (YouTube)
• Show Notes
• Episode 7 Transcript: How Are You Wired? Your Genes Hold the Answers.
  • How Are You Wired?
  • We’re All Wired Differently
  • I’m Sensitive...And That’s Ok
  • What’s Your Struggle?
  • Position Yourself to Succeed
  • Why Do Genetic Testing?
• Subscribe to the Dirty Genes Podcast

Click the video below to watch the Dirty Genes Podcast, listen to the episode on your favorite platform, or keep scrolling to read the transcript of Episode 7: How Are You Wired? Your Genes Hold the Answers.

Episode 7 Transcript: How Are You Wired? Your Genes Hold the Answers.

Welcome to this week's SNPit. This is where we get down and dirty on a specific topic. This week's topic is: how are you wired? I'm Dr. Ben Lynch and this is the Dirty Genes Podcast.

How Are You Wired?

Yeah, how are you wired? We are all aware of our skin color, our height, our weight, how things smell, taste, feel. If you are so focused on only the things that are outside of you, external influences like what kind of home you have, where it is, what type of clothes you own, what type of car you have, how your appearance is, and so on, that's all external. I want to invite you in to know how you're wired.

You and I are 99% genetically the same, spot-on, identical. That 1% variation of how our genes are wired really individualizes us. That 1% is massive. When you do genetic testing, and you identify where in that 1% you can make some tweaks, that little bit of difference can unlock a lot of compassion, empowerment, and understanding.

We’re All Wired Differently

You have difficulty falling asleep at night, yet your partner right next to you falls asleep in two seconds. What is it? You are a night owl; they love being up during the day. You drink wine, you feel awful. Your significant other drinks wine, and they feel fine. Something stresses you out, a cop pulls you over, something happened at work, and you aren't happy, or something happened in school. You got a bad grade and you just bury yourself in that. You just anguish and your friends are like, "Come on, chill out. It's fine. It's just a grade," and you just beat yourself up. What is it? It could be how you're wired. It literally could be how you are built and your friends and your significant other are built in a different way. And if you identify how you are built and possibly even how they're built and you compare it and you say, "Look, I'm built to be chemically sensitive.” There are benefits to that. If I smell a chemical, I can turn away and move away because I shouldn't be smelling that in the first place.

And if I'm slower to calm down, then that's good to know so I don't put myself in those situations. So instead of beating yourself up and saying that you are not like everyone else, you're right, you are not like everyone else. And if you're struggling with chemical sensitivity, or difficulty falling asleep, or you're struggling with mood variations, and you go to the doctor, and they say it's all in your head. Or they try to give you a medication; what you need to know is how you're wired. It's that simple. So back up for a second, what have you been struggling with your entire life? Okay. So for me, I'm sensitive to EMF. I can feel Bluetooth, WiFi, cell phone signals like no other, and people think I'm weird because of it. And I am kind of weird, but that's okay. I'm aware of electrical signals. I feel that stuff...literally feel it in my head.

I’m Sensitive...And That’s Ok

am chemically sensitive. I walked down the aisles of a hardware store, I know I'm in the pesticide or herbicide or the fertilizer section. I have difficulty calming down. I love to change from one thing to another quickly. I don't like being in patterns. I don't like doing the same thing every single day, I don't like routine. I like being dynamic; that’s how I'm wired. And when I did genetic testing, I found out the why behind a lot of these different things. I found out, yes, I am very sensitive to EMF signals based upon genetic variations that I personally have. Some of my kids are not sensitive to WiFi at all.

I looked at how they're wired. They don't have the similar genetic variations that I do. So I have a very acute sensitivity to histamine because I have a receptor in my brain that it makes me very sensitive to histamine, which makes me hyper-aware, hyper-focused, hyper-irritable, possible insomnia, sensitive to electrical signals, that is why just one particular genetic variant is so important.

In terms of chemical sensitivity, I have significantly reduced ability to eliminate certain compounds, formaldehyde for example. My glutathione genes, glutathione is your body's primary antioxidant. I have difficulty in my ability to produce glutathione and to use it, both. So if I know that, do I sit in the corner and wallow in my misery and say, oh, that sucks. My glutathione, I can't make my own glutathione very well and I can't get rid of chemicals very well.

Well, in the beginning yeah, I actually did. I wallowed in misery, I was pissed off when I got my genetic results back. And then I realized, well, wait a minute. If I know that my dopamine levels are naturally lower and if I consume more protein because protein provides tyrosine, and tyrosine is a really close step to producing dopamine, then that's why I feel better when I eat more protein. I am like a protein guy. I chow on protein and I feel good on protein. I'm focused, I'm alert, I'm in a good mood, and all is great. If I lived on carbohydrate, I tried vegetarian diet for a while. I wasn't getting enough protein. I was not in a good mood. I would change from irritable to low moods and then just wallow in my misery. And it just didn't work for me. And now, when I looked at my blueprint, I know why. I want to ask you again, put it back to you, what have you struggled with your whole life?

What’s Your Struggle?

Is it mood variation? Is it sensitivity? Is it learning difficulties? You can't fall asleep in noisy environments? Or you need constant stimulus to keep you focused? What is it? Or you need high stress environments to empower you to succeed in something. There is a woman who did genetic testing and she shared with me her results. And she found out that she has pretty significant ability to produce dopamine and it just stays there. She has reduced ability to eliminate her dopamine and she lived in the city and her health was going down the tubes and she lived there basically her whole life. She goes, "Well, I'm retired now, but I was like an investment broker, I was dealing in with trades, it was stressful, it was high paced." Her blueprint was not designed to live a noisy, busy, crazy city. And her blueprint was not designed for a high stressed, crazy job. And she did both of those and her health was significantly compromised.

Position Yourself to Succeed

Sometimes you have to literally pick yourself up and relocate yourself to a different part of our amazing world in an area that is more conducive to your own internal wiring. And you need to surround yourself with people who also do not short your circuits. So she moved to the country and her health, she's feeling the best she has ever felt. And she's thankful she did genetic testing because she now understands how she is wired, and that she put herself in the wrong environment her whole life. And she wished she did genetic testing earlier because when you see how you're wired, you can make educated and strategic decisions to position yourself into a place to succeed. And that’s why I love genetic testing.

Why Do Genetic Testing?

You can do genetic testing for family planning, you can do genetic testing for pharmacogenomics or pharmacokinetics to see how fast you metabolize certain drugs like warfarin. Maybe you've had a heart attack or something, which would be terrible, but let's say you were put on blood thinners and the doctor puts you on warfarin. And so they do genetic testing to see how fast your body or slow your body metabolizes, warfarin, that's an important type of genetic testing. Or maybe your whole life you've been struggling with eating grains and you've gone gluten-free, you've gone wheat-free, but you haven't been really strict. And you did feel better, but you're like 80% compliant, not 100%. And so a doctor recommends that you do genetic testing for celiac disease. Test comes back; you have celiac disease. And you're like, whoa. Then you become 110% compliant, bam you've never been healthier.

You knew you felt better avoiding gluten and not eating wheat, but you still drank beer periodically,...you still had some occasional soy sauce... and so on. But then you did genetic testing and found out you had celiac disease. Wow, okay, you changed your life and you feel so much better. Your liver enzymes come down, life is good. Or you could do genetic testing to actually know how you're wired. And that's the genetic testing that I provide, that's the genetic testing that I enjoy. And that's the type of genetic testing that I believe really empowers people. I mean, they all empower people. So you just need to choose which type of genetic testing is important for you and it could be dependent on the time. And if you're in the hospital and you need to be put on a blood thinner, you should really look at blood clotting genes. And so your doctor should be looking at those types of genes for you. That's important.

So genetic testing has this ability for you to understand how you're wired and what you should do. With the StrateGene DNA Kit, the genetic tests that I provide at Seeking Health, it looks at how you're wired so you can optimize your function of these particular genes that are not disease-causing. What it does is it shows you is which of your genes are faster at being able to do something, which ones do it at a typical rate, and in which ones do it at a slower rate. But you have to know how to read the blueprint. Not everyone's an architect, not everyone can read blueprints and build things. So having a health professional alongside StrateGene is very useful.

But I want you to think again right now, what it is that you've been struggling with your whole life, write it down and then what are you going to do about it? And if you just settled for that, that's not good. Having nosebleeds your whole life and just getting your nose cauterized, which is what I did, is not the solution. Because what you've told your body to do is shut up and you should know why you're getting those chronic nosebleeds. So for me, I'm super susceptible to histamine. And so I've changed my life to modulate my histamine levels and it's made a profound difference in how I am, profound. And that was because of genetic testing. So find out your genetic blueprint and build your life around it. Take care.

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