Genetic Testing
Genetic Testing… It’s No Longer just for Determining Disease Risk or Ancestry
Today, genetic testing is easily accessible, affordable, and continually expanding its scope.
This advancement affords health practitioners an unprecedented ability to identify weaknesses in your body and target personalized nutritional protocols to support bodily function.
Your Genomic Resource Custom DNA Test
While many genomic tests tell you where you come from, Your Genomic Resource can tell you where you may be going.
Starting with a custom DNA test kit from Your Genomic Resource paired with the interpretive software Functional Genomic Analysis, your health practitioner can now investigate and analyze influential genes and pathway function. In addition, they can measure your ability to make and use the enzymes that are critical components of your health.
The ultimate goal is to support enzymatic activity throughout the body, which may help you look and feel younger and remain healthy and vibrant as you age and function at optimal performance.
Using the analysis, your health practitioner will be better equipped to address imbalances and formulate a personal nutritional protocol personalized just for you.
Functional Genomics & How It Can Impact Your Health
Your DNA that you inherited from your mother and father contains “instructions” on how to make enzymes that help convert the food you eat, the air you breathe, and sunlight into all the cells, blood, and neurotransmitters in your body. It’s an amazing process. Genetic variants may impede the proper function of these enzymes, and as a result, you may have less than optimal function, and the creation of critical molecules for health.
The newly emerging field of Functional Genomics provides insight as to how your DNA impacts specific functions in the body and how genetic variants may serve as roadblocks to optimal wellness.
For example, glutathione is the master antioxidant that protects you from the onslaught of environmental toxicity and from toxins that are naturally created inside the body.
Additionally, imbalances in some minerals, such as iron, copper, and magnesium may cause your body to create more oxidative stress, which causes inflammation that may age you prematurely and lead to less-than-optimal health.
Functional Genomics is the health care of the future, moving away from a “one-size-fits-all” and “take this for that” approach.
It’s All in the SNP
Learning about DNA has supported a new scientific approach to wellness. DNA is like a blueprint for life, telling the body how to make nutrients and molecules vital for optimal health. Genes are passed from parent to child with each cell containing a set of genetic instructions.
At some point in our ancestry, possibly due to illness, famine or other events, genetic “variants” occurred. These are called single nucleotide polymorphism or SNP (pronounced “snip”).
We live and function at the cellular level. Our well-being is dependent upon the health of 60-100 trillion cells in the body. One of the most important activities is the enzyme function that fulfills major roles in the cell – structural, enzymatic, hormonal, and more.
Because DNA is nothing more than instructions that tell the body how to make enzymes, these genetic SNPs, or variants, may impact your ability to make and use different nutrients critical for healthy bodily functioning.
Genetic variants may cause less than optimal conversion of substance A into B in your body, resulting in impaired function. This may include how your body clears toxic substances, how it makes antioxidants to neutralize damaging free radicals, and much more.
What Does this Mean to Me?
Most SNPs do not cause any observable differences. But the unique location and patterns of SNPs a person has may influence their susceptibility to health issues or their response to food or environmental toxins. For example, some SNPs may predispose you to not tolerate fermented foods, or chemicals like Benzene.
The presence of free radicals and oxidative stress in your body also may be a root cause of health issues. Your body naturally produces all these agents, but genetic SNPs can cause you to have too much or not enough of them. When out of balance free radicals and oxidative stress may cause cellular damage, inflammation, and excessive toxin build-up, leading to slower rebuilding and repair of cells…and ultimately faster aging.
To compensate for free radicals, healthy body makes antioxidants to rebuild and repair damaged cells. Your inherited genetic SNPs may inhibit you from making enough antioxidants, causing you to produce too many oxidants and suppressing your ability to support cell repair. This can all negatively impact your health.
Because each person has their own unique patterns of SNPs, it requires a program personalized just for them.
Experts in the field of health recognize how significant this information can be to your overall wellness. Functional Genomics enables you and your health practitioner to be proactive – rather than reactive – when it comes to your health. Most importantly, there also is less guessing about what could support the underlying issues or concerns at hand.
Examples of How DNA May Directly Impact Your Health
Functional Genomics analyzes hundred of processes in your genetic patterns. The list below highlights a very small sampling of how your DNA may be impacting your health:
- Variants in the HLA and KIAA1109 genes may increase the chances of gluten intolerance, or the ABP1 genes may impact your ability to digest fermented foods, thus resulting in digestive disturbances.
- People with variated SULT SNPs may be more sensitive to toxins, hormones, xenobiotics, and heavy metals.
- People with variated PEMT SNPs may be less able to digest and utilize fats.
- People with variated NRF2 SNPs may be less able to make, utilize and recycle their antioxidants, critical to lessen inflammation and toxicity.
- People with variated HFE and SLC40A1 may have unresolved inflammation from iron being a free radical rather than a needed mineral to support health.
- Variants in the CACNA1C gene may negatively impact your response to electrical field exposure.
"Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind, and spirit." -B.K.S. Iyengar