Methylation is a mechanism our body uses to turn genes on and off. This is important for healthy functioning and protects us from disease. I have previously spoken about the power of epigenetics, which is how your environment determines your health, and that we are not bound and helpless to our genes. Epigenetics and the environment activate the genes to be turned on or off. It can turn the cancer gene on, or it can ensure the cancer gene is not activated and you do not fall prey to this disease. Genes are not our destiny. It can depend on what you are exposed to in your environment, your lifestyle and detoxification abilities.
Our environment consists of the follow aspects: diet, exercise, sleep and toxin exposure. How we process these will constitute how healthy our environment is and how well our body activates or reads the genes.
So, when we are in an unhealthy environment, like poor sleep routine, GMO foods, poor circadian light cycling, methylation is poor and this environment turns on the bad genes and the good genes are turned off leading to illness.
Basically, methylation improves our body’s ability to detoxify. When this is operating well, we are healthy, energetic and emotionally strong. If our detoxification is weak, we can more easily succumb to:
• pesticides
• heavy metals
• pharmaceuticals
• plastic toxicity
• phylates
• cleaning products
So, when you get diagnosed with a toxicity and/or are told you need to detoxify, but the treatments are very slow to show improvement, you may need to put more attention on improving your environment and methylation to heal.
Besides external toxic load, our bodies have internal toxins or waste products that they produce and if methylation is poor, it cannot clear them from our systems.
These can include the poor detoxification of hormones, such as oestrogen and production of neurochemicals, such as histamine, dopamine and homocysteine.
From poor methylation you can suffer with symptoms like migraines, allergies, arthritis, digestive issues, poor circulation, insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, all because your detoxification through the liver is not working properly.
One of the most important starting points of methylation, occur in relation to neurochemicals. Neurotransmitters help us feel clear-headed, focused and calm. If you struggle with depression, anxiety, brain fog, ADHD and confusion, you may have poor methylation and need support with better neurochemical production.
Healthy Stress Response
A healthy stress response, ensures that the autonomic nervous system is well balanced, ensuring that you remain active, focused and on the ball for work, using noradrenalin, adrenalin and cortisol. At the same time it ensures that the parasympathetic portion of the ANS is functioning to ensure a good night’s sleep, good diet, and to be able to shut off, allowing relaxation, so that your methylation is able to respond appropriately.
Methylation allows both sides of the human experience to occur. If you are not responding well to stress your methylation may be off, leading to a quick temper, feeling wired and burnt out experiencing poor sleep.
Methylation genes
Methylation genes are able to methylate (change Vit B9 to its active form methylfolate). Since genes are not our destiny, having a MTHFR gene mutation does not specifically mean your methylation cannot function normally. It means you need to strengthen your environment, lifestyle factors and methylation cycle.
Some signs indicating a MTHFR mutation include:
• Anxiety, depression, or irritability – neurochemical dysfunction
• Migraines- due to poor oestrogen detoxification
• Hypothyroidism
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• High blood pressure
• High homocysteine in cardiovascular disease
• Poor tolerance of pharmaceutical medication (unable to detoxify in the liver
• High folate / vitamin B12 levels
• Low alcohol tolerance.
Homeopathy can be used as an adjunct in assisting these metabolic pathways according to hormesis (stimulation or inhibition) in conjunction with improving lifecycle, diet, sleep etc.
