OneMedicine Podcast

Rob Lutz 00:02
Hello and welcome to the OneMedicine Podcast with Today's Practitioner. In each episode, we share the expertise of a respected thought leader. Some you'll know, and others you'll probably meet for the first time. We cover topics important to you, always with a focus on improving the health outcomes of the patients you treat, while expanding your understanding of the many healing modalities being used today.

Rob Lutz 00:24
Hi. Welcome to the OneMedicine Podcast. I'm Rob Lutz, your host, and with me today is Matt Lim. Matt is a clinical educator with Cell-Logic, and we're going to dive into nutrigenomics and some specifics around ways that we can influence that, particularly around oxidative stress. Matt is an integrative dietician who has always been fascinated by the power of food to promote health, nourish the body, and tantalize the taste buds. While studying biochemistry, Matt became enamored with the potential of phytochemicals to improve health and wellness, and remains especially fascinated by the medicinal properties of various culinary herbs and spices. With degrees in biochemistry, nutrition, and dietetics, Matt's broad educational background and clinical experience in sports nutrition, weight loss, and diabetes enables him to translate complex science into clinical solutions. So as we talk today, Matt, you know, our audience are medical professionals, and so I'm really looking forward to understanding a little bit more about nutrigenomics, how practitioners can leverage that in their practice to improve health outcomes.

Matt Lim 01:29
Yeah, I'm excited to be here, Rob. Thanks very much for having me. And I think, you know, the theory and the science is one thing, but ultimately, clinicians are after a solution to their patients' needs. And so where the rubber meets the road is, you know, very important. So I hope I can share some of my insights with your listeners today.

Rob Lutz 01:47
That's great. So why don't we start off right kind of at the very basic level, what is nutrigenomics? How would you describe that or define that for us?

Matt Lim 01:56
Yeah. So essentially, it's the interaction between your body's genome and food molecules, including some nutrients. So it's really a fundamental interaction between the body and its environment, specifically relating to food molecules. So, you know, in the past, we thought that genes--and first of all, we discovered that there were genes, but after that, we thought the genes were static. They were just there. Now we know, through the advent of, well, advances in molecular biology and mapping the human genome, that they're really dynamic. So you can modify their activity, you can block their activity, or you can promote their activity. So it's a fascinating science that, like I said, looks at the interaction between your genes and your diet, and specifically what we call these signaling molecules. So I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit more, but it's great, and it's enabling practitioners to be much more targeted, particularly with the genetic testing and so on. I hope that answers your question. I probably waffled on a little bit.

Rob Lutz 02:56
No, it does. So I think maybe I'll just try to repeat it back a little bit. You know, we're all born with our genes, right? But it's not necessarily--that doesn't tell the whole story. You can really influence that with the foods that you eat to some extent.

Matt Lim 03:09
Oh, yeah. You know, there are certain genetic pathways that I in particular, and many other clinicians, have have focused upon, and they're definitely influenced by the way you live your life, not just diet, but, you know, exercise regimen, how you sleep, how you think, as well. It's fascinating, and it gives us an opportunity to influence our body's cellular function at a very, very basic level. So healthy gene expression is what we're after, which creates healthy cells, tissues, organ systems, and your whole body.

Rob Lutz 03:42
Can you talk a little bit about some of the nutrigenomic mechanisms, go into a little more detail? How does that work?

Matt Lim 03:47
Well, essentially, when you take in certain food molecules, they activate certain pathways. I mean, one that we focus on at Cell-Logic is called NRF2. NRF2 is a transcription factor. So simplistically, we say, well, it's a genetic pathway, which it is after you activate it, and it's a molecule that is in the cytoplasm of the cell, and when it's activated, it goes into the nucleus, where it attaches to a number of genes. In the case of NRF2, there are 2000 target genes, 2000 approximately target genes. So when that pathway is activated, 2000 genes are turned on and turned up. So genes make enzymes. And so all of the products of that genetic expression, enzymes which in your body cells, and in your body, are catalysts for chemical reactions, and essentially, we're just a very well-orchestrated bag of chemical reactions. That's a very basic look at one of those pathways. Man, it's something we can activate really powerfully with your lifestyle and certain things from the diet.

Rob Lutz 04:58
So you know specifically, what are those pathways? What are they influencing in someone's health and wellness would you say?

Matt Lim 05:04
Yeah, well, you mentioned oxidative stress. The pathway actually is activated by oxidative stress in the cell. So in your cell, you've got a balance of oxidative stress. It's called a redox balance: reduction-oxidation balance. And so it's like wanting to have--I'm not familiar very much with Goldilocks, but you want to have just the right bed, right, not too hard, not too soft, just right. My heart might mix it up with the three bears or something, but I think I haven't. So the cell likes to have a nice, happy middle ground, okay. It's like temperature. You exist and your pH and pressure of gasses in the blood, it likes to be in the middle happy zone. What happens when you shift out of that happy zone--that is, there's more oxidative stress in the cell? NRF2 is activated. One of the genes, and there's many genes that are turned on by this process, codes for superoxide dismutase. So SOD is really one of our major antioxidant enzymes. So when NRF2 is activated, SOD is produced. It then starts to quench these free radicals, which brings down oxidative stress. And then that NRF2 pathway can turn off. So that's--it's kind of like a thermostat, you know. You set the temperature, and that's the set point in the body, the set point for oxidative stress. When it's out of that zone, when it reaches the temperature, it turns off, and so it's always on and off. The oxidative stress is in a constant state of flux. So your body's adapting to its internal and external environment, really, in quite an intricate fashion to maintain optimal levels of oxidative stress and therefore cellular function.

Rob Lutz 06:48
That's great. And so, I think I mentioned to you before we started the podcast, that I had gone through the 3X4 testing, and one of the areas that they looked at was, you know, how well do I manage oxidative stress? And apparently that's an area that I have some challenges with, you know. So they made recommendations: prioritize plant foods rich in antioxidant nutrients; avoid pollutants. It'll help neutralize damage caused by harmful byproducts from normal biological functions. Oxidative stress contributes to premature aging and several other diseases. So you know that was something that was, as we looked through my personal genetics, that was something they identified--that is, I'm challenged in that area. And it was interesting. Before I knew you guys, that was--they actually recommended your product with sulforaphane to help with that. So I've been taking it, but I'm just curious. So folks like myself that have some oxidative stress challenges, but everybody's bombarded with oxidative stress every day, right, with things that they eat, experiences, right? Can you talk a little bit about that? And you know, what's the--

Matt Lim 07:49
I mean, you know we live in an unnatural environment now. Of course, if you're concerned about your health and your family's health, you try and do those things that minimize those stresses. So, I say stresses as in ES and stressors. So you know, we have a number of stressors that impact your body's function, generally, and your cellular health. If you are impacted by this, you know, a single nucleotide polymorphism, your test shows that, then you've got to take extra steps in order to ameliorate those effects. And one of the ways is by activating NRF2, which as you mentioned, can be achieved by utilizing something called sulforaphane. So for those who don't know, and there's a lot that will know, sulforaphane is a molecule that you can obtain when you eat some cruciferous vegetables. But not all cruciferous vegetables will yield much sulforaphane, so broccoli is the best plant, and indeed, the broccoli sprout is the most concentrated way to obtain it. That's one way, through these specific molecules, but there's lots of other things you can do with your diet. I should mention that it's not only oxidative stress inside your body's cells. It's also oxidative stress inside the gut lumen, right, that's important to try and manage. So you have a tube that goes through your body, the gastrointestinal tract, that's basically the outside of the body, and it's quite a hostile place. I mean, you would not want to go through your own gut. And that sounds ridiculous, but first of all, you're getting chewed up, then into the stomach, where the pH is very low, very acidic. And then you go into the small intestine, and your body releases all these things to increase the pH, so you've got all these pH changes, which is enough and violent enough to break down all but the very toughest food products. And then you go into the bowel, where there's a lot of bacteria, pH changes again, and there's all sorts of stuff going on. You know, I see your report here, Rob, and it mentions things like polyphenols. It's a really interesting thing. I think we should spend a few minutes on that. So polyphenols are antioxidants, but polyphenols are typically not very well-absorbed, at all. But, because of that, they're fantastic antioxidants inside the gut, which as I mentioned, is something, well, a place where you--it's vital you try and reduce oxidative stress. They're a fantastic prebiotic molecule. So they feed gut bacteria, but they don't--they're not like prebiotic fibers, which in some people who have inflamed guts, can cause problems and can cause a worsening of their symptoms. You would know this if you have a really high--for instance, if you go out for a meal that contains many, many, like a lot of legumes or loads of starches, you're just not used to having it. Well, your gut's probably going to blow up a little bit. Polyphenols don't do that. So they're really gentle, and when the bacteria chew them up, right, they're using them for energy and for their processes. When they break them down into smaller parts, those are the molecules that are quite well-absorbed. So their availability, their absorption, increases, and then they can travel in the blood and interact with your body cells and those metabolites, you know, reasonable NRF2 activators. But again, they're nowhere near as good as sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is thought to be, by far and away, the most powerful natural activator of NRF2, which is why we use it as a tool. Yeah, I think. Yeah.

Rob Lutz 11:19
When I was talking to the practitioner at 3X4, you know, she mentioned broccoli, of course. And I think she said I would have to eat about 10 pounds a day to get the amount that I would get, or some crazy amount.

Matt Lim 11:30
Yeah, it's a lot, and, I mean, no one will eat that much unless you're a real fan, I suppose. So, the precursor of sulforaphane is--the amount that is available to convert into sulforaphane is fixed at the seed stage, so it never becomes more than what is present in the seed. So obviously, when a seed grows into a plant, the organism increases in weight. And it's that increase in weight, it's--basically, the concentration of glucoraphanin decreases whenever the plant increases in weight. So the best source is the broccoli sprout, because it's the smallest plant. It does need to be sprouted, though, because otherwise there's no myrosinase, which is the enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of the precursor into sulforaphane. And in the plant, as in many other plants, those bioactive molecules are part of the plant's defense system, which discourages other things from eating it. And that's--that can happen if you have too much sulforaphane and you have quite a dysbiotic gut. What we think what's happening is that when you activate NRF2 in the epithelial cells in the gut, you will stimulate a natural process where the body releases antimicrobial peptides into the gut lumen, as one way of managing the microbiome or modulating the microbiome. So, the body's got many ways of managing your individual microbiome, Rob, and that's just one of them. So, if you're really dysbiotic, some people can experience a die-off of those pathogenic bacteria. So in some people, you need to be careful about how you go about consuming sulforaphane. It really only affects, you know, the most dysbiotic people, but lots of clinicians deal with dysbiotic people, You just need to titrate it in slowly and observe what's happening.

Rob Lutz 13:21
Okay, that makes sense. Talk a little bit more about the signaling molecules as it relates to this. You know, that's--I think that will be interesting.

Matt Lim 13:29
Well, I don't know how many phytochemicals there are, Rob, but it's--just say there's 70 nutrients, I mean, something like that, high 60s, whatever it is. That's not many. There are many, many thousands of phytochemicals. So if you think of an orange, it's not just vitamin C and a few flavonoids, which are polyphenols. There's thousands of different individual molecules, different-shaped, different-sized molecules in that orange. And so, I guess, theoretically, they all have the potential to be signaling molecules, but signaling molecules, I suppose, are what we would call a select bunch of phytochemicals, which have, I suppose, a marked effect upon nutrigenomic pathways. So sulforaphane is one, and indeed, some of the polyphenols, they're also nutrigenomic. There's a lot of them, and so essentially, you can imagine your genes are like a piano. When you eat a plant-rich diet, okay, an unprocessed plant-rich diet full of phytochemicals, it's like they are playing a tune on your genetic keys, okay. So, if you have a diet like I said, rich in phytochemicals, they're going to play a nice tune on your piano. If you have a diet composed of loads of fast food, they're going to play an awful tune on your piano, and therefore your cellular function will be compromised and your overall health will be compromised. Does that make sense?

Rob Lutz 14:48
Yeah, that makes sense, and it made me think about--a lot of supplements out there are synthetic, and it's very narrow with what you're getting. Whereas, if you--so, you might take a high dose of vitamin C. In fact, there was a study out a number of years ago, looking at a high dose of vitamin C, or someone eating a blood-red orange that had much less vitamin C, but had all these other components in there. Does that...?

Matt Lim 15:09
Plus, it tastes good. I mean, vitamin C doesn't taste good. It's a white powder, and it's acidic, and it's kind of like, you know. But that is the way a lot of people have done, and still do, approach nutrition. And so, I mean, you need a certain amount of nutrients, right? But they're not powerful nutrigenomically. The by far and away, the best way to do this is with whole foods. And my approach to nutrition is very, very simple. I feel like we should eat what we've been exposed to in the many, many years during our life on this planet. So our genome, our cells, have an absolute requirement for things in whole foods. We can't take things out of their natural food matrix and the food context and expect it to do the same thing as a food, and that's what the science seems to be showing. When you move away from whole foods to processed foods, you can't supplement your way out of it. You've got to have food, and so I like these concentrated food products as a way to get nutrients, for instance, like vitamin C. There's many alternatives to having a powdered vitamin C. It could be a concentrated food that's naturally rich in vitamin C, and there's many of those on the market today. So they give you not only the nutrients, but give you a good representation of what was in that food as it occurred in nature.

Rob Lutz 16:29
So you're getting all these cofactors and other things that were in the food that work with those, let's say, vitamin C or other nutrients and really make them more powerful.

Matt Lim 16:38
Yeah, and look, one of the things about antioxidants--we used to think, and I'm going to refer to broadly to studies that have been conducted on athletes. Like you mentioned in my bio, I'm very interested in sports nutrition. I used to work in the fitness industry for some time, and now I cycle and do a few other things. But we used to think that when you provide antioxidants, it's going to reduce stress on the body, and therefore we'll recover faster and be better athletes, and we can increase the training load and all that sort of stuff. Well, there's been a number of really well-constructed studies that have looked at the effect of antioxidant supplementation on athletic performance. Now, what they showed was that the athletes who were supplemented with these antioxidant products--and they were antioxidant nutrients, right, vitamins A and C, those sort of things, beta carotene--they actually had less of a benefit that they derived from the exercise. The concept that I'm going to allude to here, I mentioned is the, well, is the having a stressor and a response. So, I don't know if you've done much sports physiology, but there is a specific adaptation to an imposed demand. So you put a stress on your musculoskeletal system, it will respond in a very specific way. And that stress manifests itself at a cellular level in terms of oxidative stress. That redox balance is going to change towards being more oxidized. And so when you give an antioxidant, it actually gets in between the stressor and the response. It actually reduces the training effect, okay. So it reduces the training effect. It's like, instead of going at 20 miles an hour on your bike up a hill, like you probably do--steep hill, Rob, I'm giving you some props--so instead of it's like, instead of doing 20, you might be doing 15. Your body has less of a stress, stressor, and therefore the response is not as powerful or as--the magnitude of the response will be lower. So, it's counterintuitive. I would have thought, and we used to think, antioxidants good for sports performance. And look, there might be instances where they do offer a benefit, maybe when oxidative stress is so profound that's the only way to to get it. And in some clinical conditions, that's true too. I mean, NAC is used, NAC, N-acetyl cysteine. If you have like--I think you call it acetaminophen, or paracetamol--poisoning, you take NAC. It boosts up your intracellular glutathione really quickly, and it helps you recover from that--reduces the toxicity--but those antioxidants seem to block your natural, you know, response to stress. So they actually seem to block NRF2 as well, because they're reducing oxidative stress inside the cell, which is the activating force for NRF2 activation.

Rob Lutz 19:20
Wow, it's--things aren't always as simple as you think they're going to be. Yeah, right? I mean, as you get into this--

Matt Lim 19:25
I mean, the body's complex. You know, the body is complex. And like I said, we have evolved in a phytonutrient-rich environment, a very complex environment with so many different food molecules. The science of the last hundred years has kind of done us a bit of a disservice, because we felt, using a reductionist approach, we could bust food down into nutrients. This is what's important. And of course, they are important. You can't make them, but it's the phytochemicals that seem to have more of a profound effect upon the way the cell functions.

Rob Lutz 19:55
Yeah, it's kind of applying that pharma model to nutrition. Makes sense on paper, but I think you're missing out on all these cofactors and other aspects of the food that you might be eating if it's a whole food source. And like you said, that's how we evolved as a species. It wasn't taking a bunch of pills, it was eating lots of plants.

Matt Lim 20:12
Yeah, lots of plants and lots of animals, and whatever we could get our hands on, I think. And you know, it's not just nourishing our cells directly, it's also nourishing the bacteria and fungi that live in the body. I mean, that's a massive part of nutrition, and something that we're just starting to unravel at a very basic level. Now, how do we feed the microbiome, and how do we feed it for different genotypes? Everyone probably needs a different diet, at least in many ways.

Rob Lutz 20:39
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about how a practitioner might use nutrigenomics in their practice.

Matt Lim 20:46
Okay, well, number one, you know, the pathway and transcription factor that we tend to focus on at Cell-Logic is NRF2. In your particular instance, with more likely to develop oxidative stress, a practitioner would look at your report and go, "Right, what can I do to influence that oxidative stress?" And of course, you would look at exercise, sleep, maybe intermittent fasting--these are all activators of NRF2--sunshine, and so on. But then we would look at, what can we do with the diet? Now, how can we supplement with some powerful NRF2 activators in order to help reduce that oxidative stress? So that's one way, as it relates to oxidative stress. Another way that we can influence the health of the body nutrigenomically is simply--and we're going to go back to basics here--simply providing prebiotic fiber to the microbiome. So when you feed those bacteria, they make--and it's a really nice relationship; it's a symbiotic relationship--they make short-chain fatty acids, including propionate, or propionic acid, butyric acid, or butyrate, and they--the butyrate is the primary fuel for cells lining the large intestine, the colonocytes. This actually influences gene expression. So when those cells--and that makes sense--when those cells are happy they've got food, the genes work better. And when those genes are expressed, and the cell is working better, it improves tight-junction integrity. So the tight junctions are those intelligent gateways, if you like, between epithelial cells. It's kind of profound because, and very basic at the same time. So when you feed your bacteria, they feed your cells, your cells get busy doing what they do, and their function is improved. But that can have really profound implications for someone with any sort of condition. I mean, if you have poor gut barrier function, autoimmunity is more likely, okay. Nutrient absorption is going to improve. Oxidative stress will certainly improve there. Your body's ability to manage its microbiome is going to get better. So your microbiome is going to be better. The gut barrier function is going to be better, simply because you fed the bacteria in your gut. And so that's a nutrigenomic mechanism, the nutrients being the prebiotic fiber for the microbiome, and then those bugs giving our colonocytes the simple fuel that they need, which is butyric acid.

Rob Lutz 23:09
Wow, that's pretty complex stuff.

Matt Lim 23:11
Well, yes and no. I mean, we know that we need fiber. I mean, the people, proponents of the carnivore diet, will probably go, "Well, hang on. I don't think we need any plant foods." And look, I'm open to discussing that. It's a complex issue. Some people do extremely well on that. I mean, I'm not an epidemiologist, but you know, I kind of base my opinions on food a lot on how a food makes me feel. But it could be also that people experience benefits from that sort of diet simply because, at the point in their life when they removed them, they happen to have a lot of dietary intolerances that may result simply from poor gut function. And when they improve that gut function, through nutrigenomic means or otherwise, then they would probably have much better tolerance, andtherefore, their opinion about plant foods might be different at that point, you know. So I think a lot of people go on the carnivore diet to lose weight, shape up, which is fantastic. That's--it does work. But I also think that the colonocytes, they need food, and they need butyrate. They might say, "Look, just eat some butter, well, or some ghee." I don't know about that. I think we're meant to eat plant foods based upon the shape of our guts. I think we're meant to eat all foods that we come across, actually--of course, within reason.

Rob Lutz 24:23
Right, Interesting.

Matt Lim 24:25
I kind of went off topic there. Rob, certainly.

Rob Lutz 24:26
No, no, this is great. I missed this. I enjoy this quite a bit, and I think our listeners will too. So you talked a little bit about sulforaphane. You know, it's not just another phytochemical. Do you want to just kind of expand on that a little bit?

Matt Lim 24:39
Well, I mean, it's important, I think, when we approach nutrition and medicine, that we, of course, think about things and initial, you know, first principles and so on. We've also got to follow the science, of course. I mean, we're all scientists, or should be. The science simply points to the fact that sulforaphane is the most potent natural activator of NRF2. So, I mean, we can look at phytochemicals as a pyramid, ones that don't--in terms of their nutrigenomic activity, they may do lots of other things in the body, but in terms of their nutrigenomic activity, there's clearly a pyramid. Some things are at the bottom, some things are at the top. And you can measure this. You can measure the effect of phytochemicals on NRF2 activity. You can do it in vitro, and I suppose you could do it in vivo as well. But, yeah, sulforaphane just sits at the top of that tree in its ability to activate NRF2. So that's a pretty simple answer. I guess.

Rob Lutz 25:32
Yes, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.

Matt Lim 25:33
And look, you know, these molecules like sulforaphane, or whatever they are, resveratrol, and other polyphenols from foods, these come from foods. Well, most of them do. Some come from foods that we've never eaten. People just happen across them. "Wow, that seems to have an effect. Let's make a product out of it." But I think these molecules that we use in our practice should ideally come, and importantly should come, from foods that have had a very long, safe history of human use. So and that's certainly the case with cruciferous vegetables. They are something that in the blue zone, you know, parts of the world, they eat a lot of, in the Mediterranean, you know, some parts of of Asia, and so on. Cruciferous vegetables not only taste good, but have a very long history of safe use, and if you look at the populations who have them, they're generally healthier, with lower rates of disease.

Rob Lutz 26:25
Yeah, It makes sense for all the reasons you mentioned.

Matt Lim 26:29
And look, Rob, I'll just go back to oxidative stress. I made a note here, and this is something that people may not be aware of: coenzyme Q10. There's two forms, the reduced form and the oxidized form. Ubiquinol is reduced, and ubiquinone is oxidized. So it's something we make. A lot of people may not know that we make CoQ10. It's just one of our secondary antioxidants, so not an enzyme, but a kind of a direct-acting antioxidant. People supplement with it, and if you were to supplement with it, Rob, and you weren't, say, taking sulforaphane and activating NRF2, you would be in an increased--you would have an increased level of oxidative stress, okay. That's what that genetic test identified, and we've talked about that a little bit. In that particular instance, that CoQ10, that you supplement with and that your body makes, is likely to be burnt up being used as a an antioxidant quite quickly. So for people who have high levels of oxidative stress, and they're not activating NRF2, that supplemented CoQ10 is likely just to be oxidized quite quickly, okay. So, that's a bit of a weird concept. You think, okay, it's an antioxidant.

Rob Lutz 27:34
I take Ubiquinol, it was recommended.

Matt Lim 27:36
Oh, yeah, I see that. It's identified in your--and look, that's a good thing. But keep in mind that if your body is just trying to get on top of a big fire--so, if you can think of oxidative stress in the cell as a fire, that ubiquinol without spraying water at the bottom of the fire, it's like you're just sprinkling it with a, you know, a hand's, you know, a little spritzer. You're not really tackling the most important part of it. That most important part of it is dealt with by those antioxidant enzymes like SOD, glutathione, peroxidase, and many more. In fact, there's one that's an NRF2 target called quinone reductase. That's an NRF2 target gene, and it will reduce the CoQ10 back to its reduced form. So, in redox chemistry, the antioxidant is oxidized, and the free radical is reduced, therefore neutralizing it. So the important molecules in all this redox chemistry are the enzymes that recycle your body's own antioxidants like CoQ10 and glutathione. Glutathione peroxidase oxidizes glutathione, so then it can be--then, it's reduced, and it can then work again. Without the enzymes, glutathione and CoQ10 are next to worthless.

Rob Lutz 28:51
Interesting. Since I am taking ubiquinol; I'm also taking sulforaphane. Is that a good combination? Or is the ubiquitol kind of a waste?

Matt Lim 28:59
Yeah, well, we don't know each other that well. I think I'd probably want to have a better idea of your whole life before I recommend specific things. But yeah, it's certainly probably going to have a benefit, but like I said, unless you're dealing with the basics, up-regulating your antioxidant enzymes, a lot of that CoQ10 will be burnt up.

Rob Lutz 29:18
I see. Okay, well, that's good for me to know.

Matt Lim 29:21
Just goes to show how you can personalize someone's nutritional treatment. So, before you had that genetic test, you weren't aware of that, okay. You thought, "Okay, I'm pretty good. Feel good on some days, not as good on others, and my recovery is not as good as it used to be." Well, that happens, but it's actually given you a window into the functioning of your body, which is invaluable for practitioners,I think.

Rob Lutz 29:43
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a lot of this came about--I mean, I did the 3X4 test about a year and a half ago, but I turned 60 this year, and I did some advanced lipid testing. My Lp(a) was off-the-charts high, and some of my other markers weren't terrible, but they weren't exactly where I wanted them. So the last, you know, five months, I've really been trying to focus on, you know, a lot of different things, mostly to get that lipid profile back in line. Because I guess we're finding out more and more about Lp(a), how critical that can be to to heart health. And, you know, most everything else I'm fine with, but that's a concern of mine. So this has been part of what I've been doing the last five months or so.

Matt Lim 30:22
Yeah. I mean, you look at your levels and your family history and your, you know, your genetic predispositions, and you--they say, the genetics loads the gun and the environment triggers it. So, I've had said to me many times, "Well, I'm--my dad had it, so it's kind of inevitable." Well, you know, it depends on how you want to live your life. If you want to live it proactively, and you want to make the most of what you've got, well, you're doing what you're doing.

Rob Lutz 30:48
Yeah

Matt Lim 30:48
So that's a glass half full sort of an approach.

Rob Lutz 30:51
So it'll be, you know, we talk about this offline, but it'll be interesting. I get to have my the testing redone here in about a month and a half, so we'll see if all these things that I've been working on have made much of an impact, but I'm hoping that they will.

Matt Lim 31:04
Yeah, I hope so.

Rob Lutz 31:05
I guess, you know, maybe another question here, and if there's anything else that you want to make sure we're touching on, but you know, how do SNPs influence the function of genes, and by extension metabolism? That was a question that--

Matt Lim 31:16
Well, yeah, I mean, I think we've touched on that a fair bit. And I mean, essentially, you've got, I don't know, 20,000 genes. They can have SNPs on, which is just a mutation. I mean, you can be homozygous, heterozygous., and you know, the test that you can take, and obviously, there's various labs, not just 3X4. There's many out there. I think 3X4 is excellent. The report is very easy to interpret, but it can impact your body in so many different ways. And so any report is going to highlight the most important things. And I think for a practitioner, it's about understanding the best ways of, you know, dealing with that SNP that you might have. So it depends. We focus a lot of oxidative stress, but there's also things that affect their mood and detoxification pathways that are, you know, really important to address. So, I mean, I think the key is really looking at the report and producing a treatment plan that addresses those issues specifically.

Rob Lutz 32:11
Makes sense. Yeah. You know, we've talked about a lot of different things here. I know you've got an upcoming webinar with Doctors Supplement Store that's going to go deeper on some of this. Do you want to just share kind of where you're going to take this in that webinar, so they know what to expect if they want to go deeper on some of these topics and how to apply it into practice.

Matt Lim 32:31
Yeah, and I'm really happy to be doing that webinar for the US audience. And so we in this podcast, Rob, we've talked about some specific things, but it's mainly been in theory, some broad theories and concepts. The webinar will delve into more theory, of course, but there'll be more of a practical focus, okay. We'll look at some 3X4 test reports. We'll look at some case studies, which will highlight the impact of utilizing not just sulforaphane but other nutrigenomic molecules and other treatments, really, to enable practitioners to see that these things are worthwhile, see the potential benefit for their patients, and want to utilize them in their practice. So, you know, I hope that people come onto the webinar. I think it's going to be very interesting, and I'll share a lot of insights for the viewers.

Rob Lutz 33:20
That's great. I'm sure it'll be awesome. And so we'll help promote that as well. So that'll be in the newsletter. We'll make--include a link from the podcast landing page to the webinar sign up, and we'll keep those two things connected even after the webinar has gone live and it's on demand. But you know, Matt, I want to thank you for coming on the show. And this was really interesting. I know the audience is going to find it fascinating, and we'll look forward to going a little bit deeper, figuring out how to take this information and apply it into their practice after your webinar. So thank you.

Matt Lim 33:50
Yeah, I thank you, Rob. It's been great chatting to you and getting to know you. And for those people who are thinking about coming onto the webinar, what have you got to lose? I think you'll get some really good information, and we'll look at some case studies and open up what I hope is going to be a whole new world of potential benefits for you and your practice.

Rob Lutz 34:08
That's great. Well, thanks again, Matt. Appreciate it.

Matt Lim 34:11
Thank you, Rob.

Rob Lutz 34:13
Thanks for listening to the OneMedicine Podcast. I hope you found today's episode interesting and came away with a few insights you can apply to your practice. If you're looking for the show notes, they can be found in the link below. If you want to go deeper on this topic, or anything else, please visit todayspractitioner.com and consider registering for our weekly newsletter as well. Thanks again, and I hope you'll join us next time.