Back to Basics: Why Do Epigenetics Matter?

Epigenetics make up part of the building blocks of what make you... well, you! But why do they even matter? And, better yet, what can you do about it? Last week we discussed "What Is Epigenetics?" This week, we'll be discussing why they even matter.

🌟Topics in this Episode🌟
 08:27     Want better, faster health recovery and results?
10:43     Epigenetics are inherited and passed down at least 7 Generations
11:52    Trial and Terror Guesswork or Tried and True results?
15:11    How Epigenetics can help you feel fully optimized
16:21    Learn Your Specific Epigenetics

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🧬Find more information about genetics, epigenetics and how they impact your overall health and performance🧬 in Dr Brian's FREE 5 Day Gene Hack Boot Camp
https://drbriangbrown.com/genehack/bootcamp

Transcript

 Back To the Basics_ Why Do Epigenetics Matter_

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

epigenetics, genes, functional medicine, treatments, genetics, influenza, optimizing, Chinese medicine, wellness, autoimmune condition, naturopath, absolutely, specialist, roots, early stages, illness

Dr Brian G Brown  00:53

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 schedule to join us on this beautiful Thursday. 

Epigenetics makes up part of the building blocks of what makes you, well, you. But why do they even matter? And better yet? What can you do about it? Last week, we discussed what epigenetics were, and this week we'll be discussing why they matter. 

Now diving right in, why do epigenetics matter? I believe that epigenetics provides for us a promise of personalized health and wellness care at the deepest level. In other words, epigenetics is like having an owner's manual for your body and a GPS guidance system all rolled into one. 

How is this you ask? Well, I believe that epigenetics as an owner's manual and GPS guidance system gives you a deep understanding of your body and your body's genetic landscape so that it helps you create a custom-tailored wellness plan that is unique to your individual needs. I believe that allows you to know the nutritional requirements of your body as well as the nutritional requirements for the individual genes and the individual cells within your body without having to guess at it. 

Imagine that if just for the sake of fun, say, at age 25, you were given an owner's manual for your body. Now, you may be asking, why wouldn't we give it earlier, I don't think we would appreciate it earlier. But around age 25, we kind of start waking up the brain is maturing into this adult brain by that time, and we're starting to think more like an adult. And with this owner's manual, you were able to see some of the potential potholes in the road of your health journey throughout your life. Now imagine that you were able to see from your epigenetics that the exact supplements and lifestyle changes that you needed to implement in order to avoid these potholes later on down the road, or even currently, for that matter. 

Does it sound like science fiction? Well, it's not. This technology exists and it's existed for several years. In fact, we use epigenetics in oncology or cancer treatment. And we use epigenetics all the time in prenatal care, especially with women that have chronic miscarriages. Is it still in its infancy? It sure is. It's only been around since 2007. But you know what, that's what makes this super exciting. 

Now, let me tell you about a client that I worked with recently, where epigenetics totally changed her life. This client came to me and had been diagnosed with an unknown autoimmune condition. She had been referred to specialist after specialist, but no one could quite put a finger on what was going on with her.  One of the specialists said that they thought it could be early stages of lupus. Others thought it's early stages of MS. They were all on the fence. Nobody could decide on what was going on. So, they put their heads together and just said, okay, we're gonna jump in with some treatment, prescription medications.

Now overall, she perceived that she was feeling better, she was feeling pretty good. And I mean compared to where she had come from in the previous three years without any kind of intervention or treatment. With trial and error, auto immune prescription medications, she was feeling better.

Dr Brian G Brown  05:24

But as she told me, there was something still nagging inside her that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She wanted to go deeper and make sure she had all of her T's crossed and all of her I’s dotted. So, we began working together. 

During the first six weeks, in fact, it happened the first week we started working together, but it lasted about six weeks, I'll get to that in a second. During the first six weeks of working with her, she had influenza and subsequently ended up with a really bad case of shingles right after that. 

This had been her MO for years. Typically, she would get sick with influenza, or some other respiratory illness, about two to three times per year. Almost always, those respiratory illnesses were followed by an outbreak of shingles or a worsening of her autoimmune condition. We see this all the time in autoimmune clients before they get the right kind of help. 

So, we had her epigenetic test results at the time that she was struggling with influenza and the shingles. And I was able to help her with a more rapid recovery process by addressing things like inflammation, detoxification, methylation, just based on her genetics, or there's some other things that I did from a functional medicine standpoint to help her. But I had a really deeper insight with her inflammation genes, detoxification genes, and methylation genes that helped guide me along the way and allowed me to do some things that I wouldn't have normally done, which is playing functional medicine.

Overall, her course of illness was much shorter than in previous years, as I said, it was about six weeks. Previously, she had told me that an illness like this would have set her back 12 to 16 weeks on a recovery line. But in this particular case, she recovered in about six weeks. But because of her setback, at the beginning of us working together, we were delayed and implementing the full, custom, tailored epigenetic wellness plan that we had for her. 

However, once we started, she began to respond very rapidly. In fact, within eight weeks, she told me, and I quote, ”Oh, my goodness, I don't I didn't realize how bad I actually felt, until I had something to compare it to.” That is always the typical case, we don't realize how much of it in a situation that we are, until we do have something to compare it to. It's kind of like the boiling the frog analogy. If you turn the heat up gradually, you can boil a frog to death. And that's what happens with these disorders like autoimmune disorders, they just gradually get worse and worse and worse, and you don't really feel bad, but you don't remember how good you felt because it's been so long. 

So, in this particular case, she recovered quickly from that illness. And when we were able to start working together, within eight weeks, she started feeling amazing. Now, we've been working together almost three years now. And in that three-year period, and I kid you not, this is the craziest thing. She's not been sick one single time since that original sickness, the first week, we started working together, she hasn't even had the nasty Cupid virus that's ravaged the world over the past couple of years. Her immune system is stronger than ever. In fact, her white blood cell count is higher than it's ever been. In fact, she always flagged out as super, super low on our white count. And her white count is very robust now. And very healthy. She will tell you that she is stronger than ever. She has more energy, she has more stamina, more endurance, more motivation, thinks more clearly, has better mood. And the list goes on and on and on.

I'm actually going to be interviewing her soon, and she's going to be sharing her own story. Now, this is just one of many typical examples. Do you know why she and so many others like her have had the responses that they do as quickly as they do? Well, it boils down to balancing the roots or balancing things at the root level. Now in functional medicine, we always pride ourselves in treating patients at the root cause level. But epigenetics goes deeper than that. I'll talk more about that here in just a second.

Dr Brian G Brown  09:52

But I want to give you an analogy to kind of drive this home about roots and how important roots are. Imagine that a farmer is trying to grow a crop. Now, if you know anything about farming, does the farmer just cast seed into the ground and hope for the best? The answer is absolutely not. They have to prep the soil. In fact, sometimes they'll spend months, just preparing the soil to receive the seed, they put down the right fertilizer for the crop that that they want to grow. And it's different for every crop. Every crop has different requirements, just like every one of our genes has different nutritional requirements. And then they irrigate that field after they plant that seed. And then once the seed comes up out of the ground, they want to control for weeds because weeds will choke out the nutrients that that particular plant that seedling needs in order to survive. Now, once that seedling is mature, the weeds don't matter as much. But in the early stages, weeds can destroy that seedling and rob it of all its nutrients. 

So, there's a process here. And that process starts before the roots ever sprout out of that little seed pod. You see the roots of disease and illness start long before the seed sprouts. Evidence shows that epigenetics is inherited, just like your regular genetics. And these epigenetics, as well as your regular genetics are passed down from generation to generation to generation. In fact, research shows currently, that it can be passed down as many as seven generations. 

I firmly believe that it's more generations, it's  multigenerational, 1000s of generations. But we, right now, we have the research to prove that it's seven generations. So, we have two inherited processes here. One is with your genome, or your regular genetics, and the other inherited processes with the control switches that tell those regular genes, when to turn on. And when to turn off. We talked about that last week. And this would be your epigenetics. 

So, what can we do about this? Well, the answer is simple. We have to think like a farmer, we have to ask ourselves, what does this little seed of this cell, this gene need in order to be healthy? In other words, what does the gene or the epigenome epigenetics need in order to be healthy, in order to function healthy? What nutritional support? Do I need to put in place to support them? What lifestyle support do I need to put in place to support them? These are the million-dollar questions. 

And when we can answer those questions and put solutions in place, that are unique to your needs, and not just some rubber stamp treatment, or dare I say, trial and terror guesswork. Notice I said trial and terror, because that's what it is, oftentimes. I mean, I was 16 years with non-different antidepressants, and trust me it was trial and terror. But these trial and terror treatments aren't  any good.

Dr Brian G Brown  13:17

Once you can answer these questions, you've got a winning combination for rapid and lasting wellness results. I can't emphasize enough how important an epigenetics first approach is to your health and wellness success. 

Is it a new way of thinking? Absolutely. Is it a paradigm shift in both conventional medicine and nonconventional medicine? Absolutely. Because even in non-conventional medicine, with functional medicine, with Chinese medicine, with Ayurvedic medicine, with naturopath, we have a tendency to think that our way is the best way, it's treating the root causes. And it's actually not, it isn't. 

If we're not treating the genetics or the epi genome, we're not treating the root cause because that is the foundation, the building block of what made you who you are today, and how you respond to your environment. So, if we're not addressing that, then we're starting in the middle no matter how good of a therapy modality is. 

So, I'm going to wrap up with this. I get asked all the time. So, Dr. Brian, are you saying that I won't need to do anything else? I won't need to do naturopath. Yeah, I won't need to do hormone replacement. I won't need to do Chinese medicine, homeopathy or functional medicine? And my answer to that is absolutely you can do these things. And I encourage you to in fact, I'll give you an example myself, I go to Chinese medicine, acupuncture, cupping, and adjustments of Chinese herbs every two weeks. I've done that for years and I do that for me because it makes me feel better. I feel healthier, I feel stronger. 

Do I do functional medicine? Yup, I practice functional medicine, there are a lot of things I do that don't have anything to do with my genes that the literature, the research shows, but I know that they are helping my genes function better, the research hasn't caught up with it yet. I firmly believe things like Chinese medicine, it's a 5000-year-old medical practice. And the herbs and things they use are totally different than any other system in the world uses. And functional medicine is pulled from that naturopathy has pulled from that, homeopathy has pulled from that. And I do all those things. I even do hormone replacement in myself. So yes, I absolutely believe that you should and can do those things. 

But if you want them to have lasting residual effects. And if you want to not worry about having to change modalities and treatments, as often, as is often the case, even with natural therapies that lay the proper foundation first, by securing the balance in your epigenetics. That's the key, I have found that you get better results, and you get longer lasting results with everything that you do, no matter what that is. This is what I've seen personally in my own journey. And I've got quite a journey. That's another story for another day. 

But better than that, it's what I've seen with countless clients that I've worked with. When you put epigenetics first, you put them front and center, everything else just falls into alignment, all the other therapy modalities you use, just fall in. They solidify, there's less guesswork, you're not having to constantly change and adjust. Because your body at a genetic level is happy, it's balanced. And we're able to navigate through things a heck of a lot easier.

Are you interested in learning more about your epigenetics and, and how they can change your life for the positive? Well, if so, I've created a five-day bootcamp called the Gene Hack Bootcamp. By the end of the five days, you will have a keen understanding of exactly where you need to focus, your wellness journey, and your health recovery based on a proprietary questionnaire that I've created. You'll learn about the exact genes you need to have tested in order to address any hangups you have. And you'll learn some of my favorite genetic modifying natural treatments. 

Yep, I'm gonna go ahead and just throw it out there. These are common treatments that I see used with everybody. And it's a good first place to start, even if you're not going to check your genetics. Also, you can begin to feel better and feel fully optimized just by implementing those things. And ultimately, you can live the life that you want to live. 

Right now, we're running a promotional special and the Boot Camp is FREE. I can't promise how long it's going to be that way. But right now, we're in beta testing mode, and it's free. And so, it's an amazing deal. https://drbriangbrown.com/genehack/bootcamp. There, you'll be able to register and take the first step to getting the answers you deserve.

Dr Brian G Brown  18:14

Thank you. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. Tune in next Thursday at noon eastern standard time for our next in the zone segment where I'll be sharing the latest research and my insights about that research as it relates to optimizing your genes optimizing your physical and emotional wellness journey, most informed, most trusted and most grateful you spent this time with us. Until next time, stay in the zone. I'm Dr. Brian Brown.