The Genesis Zone with Dr Brian Brown

Two Vitamins Critically Essential To Healthy Living

February 03, 2022 Dr. Brian Brown Season 2 Episode 61
The Genesis Zone with Dr Brian Brown
Two Vitamins Critically Essential To Healthy Living
Show Notes Transcript

EVER PLAYED THE GAME… “IF I WERE STRANDED ON A DESERTED ISLAND & COULD ONLY TAKE FIVE THINGS, I WOULD TAKE __________ ?” Well, in today’s episode, I’m going to share with you TWO of the SUPPLEMENTS I’d have with me

SHOW NOTES
2:16    Are we following the science that we say we are
2:53   Scientific research headlines use click bait tactics
4:51   If you're stranded on a desert island for 6months what 2 vitamins would you take with you?
7:47   You're throwing your money away if you are still taking Vitamin Bs by tablets/pills!
9:42   Does Vitamin B12 really help improve your sleep?
14:45 If you're taking vitamin D3 you need to know the right dosage to really help
17:34 The powerhouse called Vitamin D3

Connect with Dr Brian
If you're curious about what your genetic makeup is, and maybe how your thoughts can impact your genes, reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook at Dr. Brian G. Brown. Or you can go to my website. 
https://www.instagram.com/drbriangbrown/
https://drbriangbrown.com

If you are looking to optimize your health and performance take advantage of Dr. Brian's FREE GENE HACK BOOTCAMP https://drbriangbrown.com/genehack/bootcamp

 Two Vitamins Critically Essential to Healthy Living

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

vitamin D3, study, methylation pathway, methyl cobalamin, vitamin, dose, metabolic functions,  Harvard study, professional, function, sleep, phases, genetics

Dr Brian G Brown  00:55

The mission is simple: to help high achievers naturally eliminate emotional and physical obstacles, so they can optimize their life for higher achievement. Welcome. You just entered the Genesis Zone. Good day, and welcome to the Genesis zone show. This is Dr. Brian Brown. Thank you for taking time out of your busy, busy schedule to join us on this beautiful Thursday. Well, it's beautiful. So, for some people, we've got an ice storm going on here. So, it's a little dismal. But other areas of the country I've looked at the weather seemed to be doing pretty good. 

 

Have you ever played the game where you're asked the question? 

 

If you were stranded on a deserted island, and could only take five things with you? What would you take? 

 

Now, these exercises are always fun to do, because you really get to know a person's personality. And dare I say their priorities pretty quickly. In today's show, I'm going to share with you two supplements that if I were stranded on a deserted island, I would never be without. And I'll explain why. As well with some recent research. So, let's get started. Without wasting any time, let's jump right in.

 

Dr Brian G Brown  02:09

But if you will allow me, I'm going to get on my soapbox just for a minute. I very rarely do this, but 

I'm going to get on my soapbox today. Truth and science, follow the science. Whatever flavor of verbiage you've heard, has been the mantra for nearly two years now. Sadly, people have been jerked around by contradictory, “science” being told one thing today, only to have it reversed next week or told something completely sideways to the original stance the next day. It seems to be rampant these days. And I think we have to ask the question, are we actually following the science? And what does that mean? 

 

Dr Brian G Brown  02:53

Nothing amazes me more than when people see the title of a study and take it at face value. Or for that matter, they hear a headline on the news and take that at face value. It kind of seems like quite a few authors of these professional studies, as well as media desk jockeys for that matter, are using clickbait titles for their articles and stories to grab attention. 

 

These are supposed to be professional people who the public can trust. So why are they doing this? The only reason I can see for using this tactic, and that's all it is, it's a tactic is to get attention, especially the attention for five seconds of fame that ultimately sensationalizes the heck out of something that wasn't properly vetted in the first place. 

 

I have to be completely honest, I never take the title, or the abstract of a professional article with anything more than a grain of salt, especially if they are making sensationalized claims. I dig into the study to see how it was designed. And then look at the actual numbers they reported. Sometimes it's more illuminating to discover what wasn't done. Then to discover what was done. I guess what I'm trying to say is this. Don't be fooled by flashy titles and eyebrow raising claims written into the abstracts of an article. Partner up with somebody who knows how to read and most importantly, discern these professional research studies. This way, you can become truly informed and follow the science. Now that I'm off my soapbox a bit of this information ties perfectly into today's show. 

 

Dr Brian G Brown  04:52

 I'll let you off the hook, the two vitamins critically essential to you living a healthy life and ones that you'd never want to be selling ended without our B12, and vitamin D3. But stay tuned as I point out some very specific things about these two vitamins that are critical to being an informed health consumer and following the science.

 

First up is a study that was published on January 24 of this year, I saw a news blurb about it on a very reputable medical news blog that I subscribe to. The title of the study, according to the blog, claimed to prove that B 12 does not help improve sleep. Now, this is pretty interesting to me seeing that there are four types of B 12. And I have previous knowledge, knowing that B 12 actually does help with sleep. And I'll explain more about that in a minute. 

 

But there are four types of B 12, there's hydroxocobalamin, there's adenosylcobalamin, there’s cyanocobalamin, and methylcobalamin. They all have different activities. And they're all at different placements or positions on the B 12 Metabolic metabolism pathway. In other words, B 12 has to be converted in stages. And there roughly are four different stages or at least four different  B12s that we can administer to people to address those different places on the metabolic pathway. 

 

Now cyanocobalamin is the very first that's the food-based form of B 12 is what you get when you eat food that contains B12. It’s not hydroxocobalamin, adenosylcobalamin or methylcobalamin has to be converted into this. So, think of cyanocobalamin is the very first form that has to be broken down. And methyl cobalamin is the one of the very last forms that is broken down. 

 

So, cyanocobalamin is the weakest form of B 12. And it's due to the fact that it is the first type of B 12 in that upstream pathway. In other words, what I mean is that it has to be converted into a usable form in order to do its job. Sadly, this study, used the cyanocobalamin form. And you ask why do they do that? Because they're previous studies that I'm going to mention that point to the opposite. And you think, why would they want to do this again, it's already been done? 

 

But they did and our tax dollars paid for it. But anyway, that's another story for another day. But they used the cyanocobalamin form, which is the weakest form, and methylcobalamin is the most potent form and the most active form B 12. Now what's even more sad in this study is the fact that they used oral tablets of B 12 that were swallowed.

 

Dr Brian G Brown  07:47

Now, B 12 of any kind isn't absorbed well in the stomach. With tablet form, it takes either an injection, a liquid that you put under your tongue like drops or spray or a dissolvable tablet that dissolves in your mouth, and you don't actually swallow. Injections are always the preferred method for getting the best results when it comes to B 12 getting into your system. 

 

Now here's what you need to know about cyanocobalamin used in this study; roughly all people have some degree of genetic deficiency when it comes to converting this form of B 12 into the useful form methylcobablmin. The only way to overcome this problem is to give the right form of B 12 to meet the person's genetic needs. And the only way you can know how to do this was to test a person's genetics with a simple cheek swab. 

 

Now here's a professional tip though, always make sure that when you check your genetics, all five phases of the methylation pathway are checked, typically speaking, and I was just looking at a person's genetic results yesterday that they had had done elsewhere, and they had brought it in with them as a new patient, they wanted me to look at it. I looked at it. And there was one gene snip checked which when you look at all thought phases in the methylation pathway, you're looking at least 11 different gene snips to look at the five phases of the methylation pathway and develop a complete picture of this person's deficiency. So, if we only look at one phase of the methylation pathway, which if a person said genetics check, chances are that's all you're checking is one phase, you're leaving four fifths of the story unresolved, so you're not getting a complete picture. So not wanting to leave you hanging. 

 

Dr Brian G Brown  09:42

Let's answer the question ~ does B 12 actually help with sleep? Well the answer is yes, as far back as 1996 researchers who have done head-to-head studies comparing the effectiveness of cyanocobalamin to methyl cobalamin have found that there is definite improvement in sleep and circadian rhythm function with methyl cobalamin administration and very little effect if any at all with cyanocobalamin. 

 

So, the moral of the story is this. If you are stranded on a deserted island, take B 12 with you, but you have to take the right form, methyl cobalamin or methyl B 12 is involved in over 300 metabolic processes in the body, everything from neurotransmitter regulation and production. So, it helps you produce melatonin which helps you sleep, helps you produce a GABA, which helps you sleep, helps you produce serotonin, which helps you sleep, also helps regulate your mood, helps produce norepinephrine and dopamine. 

 

The list goes on and on and on when it comes to neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters alone. It's a huge piece of what methylcobalamin does, but it also helps with inflammation management, detoxification, energy production, and mitochondrial health. 

 

And you remember mitochondria are the powerhouse for the cell. But they have a lot more functions than just energy production. They take care of a lot of things that help the cell do everything the cell supposed to. We call it cellular respiration, just the function of the cell. The bottom line is you can't function well without it. 

 

Dr Brian G Brown  11:30

Next up, is vitamin D. Let's switch gears and let's move to vitamin D3.

 

A recent study was published that showed that vitamin D3 supplementation appears to help prevent the development of autoimmune disorders. This is no small study involved 26,000 people over age 50, half were given placebo or sugar pills. And the other half were given 2000 international units of vitamin D3 per day. They followed these people for five years and found that those who were given vitamin D3 on a daily basis, were significantly less likely to develop autoimmune conditions. In fact, it translated to a 22% reduction in occurrence of autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, MS, and other autoimmune illnesses. 

 

Now, here's the crazy thing, almost to the day that that study was produced. In contrast, there was another study published last month that according to the title, says this. It says vitamin D health trial, a randomized controlled trial of the effects of vitamin D on mortality or death rate. Okay, this was published in The Lancet. And it was no small, no small study, actually looked at around 22,000 People 21,315. Anyway, a lot of people were in this study, again, they divided in 50/50, right down the middle half received placebo, half received a monthly dose of vitamin D. 

 

Now, I didn't have time to pull it for this show. But there are actually studies that show that monthly doses of vitamin D don't do as well as daily doses of vitamin D. But the problem with this study was, and they went on to show that vitamin D3 dosed monthly, like they were dosing it didn't really do anything to change mortality. Well, we have contradictory studies that show the opposite is true, they actually do improve mortality outcomes. Over the long haul. 

 

However, you've got to get the dose right. When we look at this study that was just published a couple of weeks ago, with this 21,315 people, there were actually the dose of vitamin D3 was too low. So, they weren't giving enough vitamin D3. When you look, especially these were people who were retired, they followed them for five years. So, these are people at the end of their life. You could argue that, okay, they used a sicker population, because a lot of these people had diabetes and things like that. It doesn't really matter. 

 

When you look at other studies that get the dose right you actually seen improvement in mortality rates. When you don't have the dose right you just don't see that improvement.

 

So, we got to get the dose, right. Yes, it was a large study, which is it's a strong point for this particular study. But the dose was too low, and you've got to know what you're looking at. Or else if you take things at face value, you can come away from this saying, oh well vitamin D doesn't really help with mortality rates in elderly people. And when we look at when we 

 

Dr Brian G Brown  14:45

when we look at actual studies of people who are 65 and older, they should be receiving a daily dose and study support these 5000 international units per day vitamin D3 is essential. Just proper metabolic function, and overall health in general. And when you look at the long-term data of people who receive that, one of the hallmark characteristics is that they had fewer fractures. 

 

I've talked on previous shows that bone fractures, especially large bone fractures, like hip fractures, things like that, are the number one cause of death among people aged 65 and older who are women. So, if we weren't protecting that, we need to give daily doses of vitamin D3, not monthly, this is vitamin D3. In fact, if you looked at the Daily Dose of 5000 international units per day for this, it would be almost it would be a little over two times as much as what they were giving people in this study, it would be like 60%, more than what that they were given. So yeah, it's you got to look at the study with great detail. 

 

Dr Brian G Brown  16:08

Now, here's some, here's some other good news about vitamin D3 that was published. A Harvard study that came out January 1, and the title of this one was Treating low vitamin D levels may help people live longer

 

So, you've got this one study over here that says, no, it's not going to help people live longer. And then you got a Harvard study over here that says, treating low vitamin D levels may help people live longer. So, which is it? There's this contradictory information. But when you look at the Harvard study, the Harvard study was set up correctly, these people were treated with great care, and they were given the right doses, daily doses of vitamin D3. And that makes all the difference in the world. So, it's those little bitty nuances when you're looking at studies that are that are really important. And then we all know what's been going on the past couple of years with one particular virus that we've been dealing with.

 

And yet another study that was published in September of 2021. Trinity College in Dublin, showed that further evidence that vitamin D3 might protect against severe insert the name of the virus, disease and death. And just last week, we had a study that came out and says, it doesn't appear to do anything for that. But again, the doses were too low, and they weren't monitoring it correctly. 

  

Dr Brian G Brown  17:34

 So anyway, I hope that clears things up, there's a little bit, much like a methyl cobalamin being involved in 300 metabolic functions Vitamin D3 is involved in close to 300. It's like 289, different metabolic functions that we know of right now. So, it's Uber important to have both of these in your body at all times. 

 

I think we owe it to ourselves to really, really dig into the studies and not let one particular study that speaks against dozens of other studies, not let that one particular study sway us. Because you have to look at the totality of the research, when I'm reading a research article, I'm looking at the all the works related to this particular supplement or disease condition, or whatever it is that I'm looking at. Because you want to take the totality of the research body into consideration. And if I've got 40- or 50- years’ worth of data, that is for the use of something, and I've got one study, it's very weakly designed, that comes out and says, hey, it doesn't work, then I'm not going to let that sway me. We have to look at the totality of the body of literature.