Methylation, Staying Well, Aging Well, and Telomere Length

Greetings,

Today I want to write to you about a simple way to stay healthy for the rest of your life, assisting a normal everyday process in your body, and making sure it works properly.

Methylation is this fantastic new scientific word that I am fascinated with, and you should be too.

We should all understand the meaning of it, and be Great Methylators.

Methylation is an Internal Biological Process. And when it works properly you will be in great health.

If you are a good methylator, and pay attention to the nutrients you need to keep it up, you are going to feel really good and have a great mood.

If you are not a good long-term methylator or are depleted in the nutrients you need, you may end up suffering from a mood disorder such as depression, or anxiety, and end up with one or more of a hundred known diseases later on in life.

B-Vitamins Needed for Methylation, Sources of B-12

Your need nutrients to keep up your methylation pathway, and stay well, and your need to absorb key needed B-Vitamins, Vitamin-B-12, and other B-Vitamins from leafy greens (folate) to enrich the natural methylation process in your body.

In fact, how much vitamin-B-12 you absorb and need could determine whether you should eat Meat, including Red Meat, Chicken, and Eggs (and get B-12 from it), or if you could possibly be a candidate to being vegetarian or vegan (that is if you want to!).

I'm not saying you should become vegetarian, or vegan, but I am pointing to perhaps a different way to determine whether you may be able to be vegetarian if you so desire, that is a non-conventional decision-making process, i.e. considering your ability to methylate, and the nutrients needed there.

Methylation is the Natural Detox Process

Every day our body's are naturally detoxifying chemicals, and internally making glutathione (another potent detoxifier), and methylating and keeping our bodies well.

Methylation is the natural process by which the body detoxifies and stays healthy. It is an internal metabolic process.

Methylation, in a very simple definition, refers to the abundant creation and utilization of these methyl molecules: CH-3 (1 Carbon Atom and 3 Hydrogen Atoms) in the body which are either going to be in abundance, or in need of replenishment.

Remember your Science 101 class which said, "Without Carbon Atoms there would be no life?"

It's actually a little bit more complicated than that: remove all the CH3 molecules in your body, and it would be just as bad as removing oxygen.

You would not have life.

So, Methylation is essential to your Life Processes. Even to your ability to sleep.

We should all be chanting I am a great Methylator in the STREET (as a Feel Good Affirmation), because it is actually good for you!

But since everyone is not blessed with perfect genes (except Arnold Schwarzenegger), and there are a variety of gene abnormalities associated with Methylation (think limiting it), everyone's possibility of getting a disease is not black and white. There are thus a variety of diseases manifested by the different metabolic pathways in the body where under-methylation occurs.

Look at this Mindmap Diagram About Methylation Deficit Diseases.

Here's a diagram of a Mind Map showing some input (everyday chemicals), on the left, and the diseases that can show up on the right.

View the Full Mind Map of MTHFR Gene Deficit Health Difficulties (View Works Best on Large Desktop)

For example, people with Allergies or Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, or Chronic Infections sticking around, such as those associated with Lyme's Disease and it's co-infections can have a methylation deficit. They could have an increased need for Methyl Donors. Getting the right supplement(s) for Methyl donors could make the difference in getting well in a few short months, or staying sick for a year.

Sometimes, even without any knowledge of testing of any genetic Methylation Deficits, people know that something is not quite right with their body, or they know their limits.

For example, Do you get sick when you drink 2 or more cups of wine, beer or other spirits?

Can you just have a small sip of wine, or have to completely avoid it?

The difficulty is when you don't really have a clue that you are not detoxifying or methylating properly, because of your genes, chemicals in the environment, infection (such as candida), stress, lack of nutrient support, and unknown requirements for more B12.

Do you want your health to go downhill because of missing a few extra nutrients that your body needs, especially when it is easier to replenish them when you are younger and fix the difficulty?

But It's insidious, the way a person's health goes downhill. Then you finally think of going to the doctor's office because you have malaise, that all-over ill yucky feeling -- you just don't quite feel right.

But you are intelligent enough to know you don't really have any bonafide medical disease. So, what is your conventional medical doctor going to do? Perhaps you realize you can't sleep properly, and that is the first sign of a health issue.

Nutrients to Help your Body Detoxify and Supply the Methylation Pathway

First, the obvious nutrient needed is Vitamin-B-12, called Cobalamin. But in its methylated active form, it is called: Methylcobalamin. In its inferior form it is sold as Cyanocobalamin, a synthesized version of B-12 with a Cyanide molecule attached, and that you would need to methylate out of your body anyway's.

This active form of B-12 may be an obvious way to remember the word Methyl in Methyl-a-tion by remembering the better accepted supplement-version of B-12: Methyl-Cobalamin.

Other Minerals and B-Vitamins nutrients required for proper Methylation are:

Zinc
B2 (Riboflavin)
Magnesium
Selenium
Molybdenum
B6-Pyridoxine
B9-as Folate

Imagine living longer and healthier because you take Magnesium every day. Many people already take Magnesium daily to protect their heart, reduce cramping, and sleep better.

Folate is related to Folic Acid. It is found in Greens. This is another reason to eat your greens. Folic acid is what is found in supplements. You've probably heard about Birth Defects caused by a lack of Folic Acid Supplementation early on after a woman becomes pregnant. In practical terms though Folic Acid is avoided, because of its deleterious ill-health effects to people who have an MTHFR defect gene.

You can find out what kind of MTHFR defect you may have by taking a simple genetic spit test. Even if you know, though, and you purchase it, it does not mean you will have disease later in life.

Now is the time to do some prevention!

The whole point I'm writing to you about is how to stay well, and feel a great feeling disease-free body. And your thoughts and mind enter into that too.

DNA Genetic Testing & Analysis for the MTHFR

Here's the link for Genetic Testing: At 23andme.com - DNA Genetic Testing and Analysis

How Does Methylation Relate to People Who Have Candida?

The body will do its best to protect itself by keeping your life processes going, and protect the brain, asking your liver to continue to detoxify, and use up your Glutathione, and Methyl Groups to detoxify poisons.

But, when a person has a chronic infection such as Candida there is the poisonous acetaldehyde chemical lurking (the hangover chemical), a by-product toxin produced by this little critter overgrowing in your gut and stealing your nutrients.

Many people have Candida Overgrowth and don't know it. This can progress to a more serious Candida Infection which can be more difficult to heal.

The distribution of methyl groups, in different organ systems, and different genetics in each person can explain why no two people have the same exact symptoms of a Candida Infection. And there are so many different symptoms.

It would be like trying to diagnose yourself with a heart attack (in men), but in you, your left foot really hurt, and in someone else their scalp hurt, or in yet another different person, their index finger turned red.

If no single male person had the same intense chest pain (in men this is definitive), you would not know what you had when you had a heart attack.

This is what happens when you have Candida Overgrowth poisoning you. Not easy to understand.

Some people ignore the minor symptoms. Some people progress to a depressive state and get on anti-depressant medication but don't know why. Some people just get put on more antibiotics, and feel worse.

The whole detoxification process then steals Methyl Groups from your body, which your diet may not replenish fast enough, and you get so many strange symptoms.

Then you get anxiety, depression, and irritability.

Our bodies are all different, and now Medical Science and Medical Research is categorizing people in terms of the diseases they could manifest determined by their genetic ability to use nutrients from foods to methylate, or simply put: Detoxify certain substances and chemicals in their environment.

Do You Just Get Amalgam Fillings Out and Feel Better?

It's not always as easy to get better health or prevent future health issues as just going to get your Amalgam Fillings out even with a well trained Biological or Holistic Dentist.

Or do a simple heavy metal detoxification and you are fine!

It may be what started happening 10-20 years before, emotionally or mentally causing repeated stress, lack of sufficient exercise which eventually causes the Mercury or other Heavy Metals in the body to become a burdensome issue.

When there is a lack of Methyl Groups formed by the body because of inadequate nutrition, or stress for example, over a long-term there can be a path to chronic degenerative disease you are on which you are not aware of.

Inflammation, however, at the cellular level may be the ultimate pathway to create chronic disease because it is the silent disease maker. But in the distant past, an inability of the body to detoxify, because of a non-optimally functioning methylation pathway, creating a shortage of the body's methyl molecules may have been the true root of the issue . Your body could not optimally get rid of the poisons.

What needs to be treated now first, however, would probably be the regeneration of the cell membrane, and the reduction of inflammation and free radical damage there. Have you been taking your antioxidants, and eating in the Zone to calm inflammation?

That sense of well-being you have now, or when you were young, may very well be because of your abundance of Methyl Molecules.

Methyl Molecules protect the length of the Telomeres

Ok, so I'm writing about Aging Well, and Staying Well, avoiding disease, and being a great Methylator, so let's talk about Telomeres in your body.

Telomeres are these cell structures found at the end of each strand of DNA, our chromosomes, which protects the ends of our chromosomes during cell replication.

The Telomeres are like the plastic tips (aglets) at the ends of shoelaces, that keep them from fraying. As we age Telomere's get shorter and shorter, and their protection factor is lost.

Scientists are studying these structures because there is a relationship between how long they are and how well you are aging.

So Telomere length might be a way to determine if you are aging well, i.e. disease free.

There are supplements already on the market since 2013, which people have started taking and garnering benefits from to increase Telomere length.

Keeping your methylation pathways working well, however, may be a more inexpensive, and more long-term beneficial route with the addition of key nutrients as also one of the keys to aging well, and keeping your Telomere's from shortening.