Knowing that an illness or disease runs in your family is one thing. But learning how to work with the genes that predispose you to it through a personal DNA test to achieve optimal health is the ultimate in biohacking. Alex Swanson, nutritionist and founder of Nutrition Genome, has built a program to tell you all about your nutrigenomics through a simple cheek swab for DNA.
Unlike other companies that do little more than telling you that you do or do not have a gene, Nutrition Genome tells you how to work with them, including which foods you should emphasize and which to avoid. They even have a referral list of providers you can work with who understand the data and have gone through their training program.
How your environment and food interact with your genes affects your disease outcome, which is why knowing more about your genetics helps you to achieve optimal health.
If you’ve already run a 23 and Me report before their big changes in August 2017, you can even upload the raw data to Nutrition Genome for a fee and have them interpret your data as well.
Alex J. Swanson, M.S Applied Nutrition, is the founder of The Health Beat,Nutrition Genome and is the co-owner of Swanson Health Center. He is a second-generation nutritionist with over 12 years of clinical experience, specializing in genetics, nutritional biochemistry, physical performance, mental health, and longevity research.
Listen to Alex Swanson tell Dave Korsunsky, founder of Heads Up Health, in this podcast what information you’ll find in a report with Nutrition Genome and how you can benefit from running this one time test.
This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up Health, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!
Why your genes are not your destiny, but a blueprint; its expression changes in response to your environment [8:00]
How understanding your genes can lead you to course correct your health [8:30]
Why you will never need to have another gene test, but as new information comes out, your profile will be updated [9:45]
Why nutrigenomics is the future of personalized nutrition [11:20]
How knowing your ancestry will help you to understand what type of diet your body will thrive on [11:55]
How Alex’s own nutrition practice lead him to start Nutrition Genome, initially using raw files from 23 And Me [13:00]
How the process works when you sign up with Nutrition Genome: from ordering to collection to interpretation [16:00]
Dave and Alex share what a report looks like and the information you’ll learn from it, including: (YouTube coming soon) [19:00]
Overview
Increased vitamin need genes — learn what foods you should and shouldn’t eat
Methylation genes
Neurotransmitters genes
Understanding the interplay between genes and how they affect one another
List of foods to focus on
Gene combinations
Anti-oxidant protection
How to find practitioners who understand how to utilize this information [23:45]
How the personalized reports give tangible results to clients for understanding why they may need to avoid certain foods and stressors more than someone else [27:30]
About the genes for mental health and neurotransmitters (ex. low dopamine receptors and the connection to sugar addictions, obesity, etc. as well as ADD, ADHD) [31:45]
How COMT breaks down catecholamines like coffee, wine, tea; why some people are more sensitive to these drinks leading to anxiety and anger issues
About the glutamate-to-GABA-conversion and why your mind won’t shut off at night [37:00]
How different types of exercise are great for people with certain genes [37:50]
Antioxidants and how those with genes with lower antioxidants are more affected by environmental toxins [39:00]
Where to start with your results [40:00]
How genetics can be influenced by epigenetics to affect your — and your children’s — future health [43:00]
Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more atHeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.
You can learn more about the Oura ring, a state of the art ring that can track sleep cycle analysis, activity, and recovery atHeadsUpHealth.com/Oura.
Learn more about Keto-Mojo, a highly accurate and affordable device for testing blood sugar and blood ketones. Check it out atHeadsUpHealth.com/Ketomojo.
All of these amazing products are integrated with Heads Up Health.
They all allow you to quantify your health in novel and powerful ways.
Thank you to our partners!
About Heads Up Health
Heads Up Health is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!
How do you know if what you’re doing to improve your health is working? If you’re not tracking your changes, it’s nearly impossible to understand. Karen Parrott overcame her lifelong struggle with obesity through a low-carb diet using data-driven tracking. She supports her weight maintenance by continuing to track her progress with Heads Up Health, where she can link all her data and see what’s working and what isn’t.
A Clinical Laboratory Scientist, Karen Parrott is also a single mother who works full-time and commutes 2+ hours. Yet Karen managed to take control of her health after struggling with her weight for 40 years. After yo-yo dieting and stress-eating for some time, Karen realized she’d have to make some changes if she was going to turn her health around. When she was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, Karen decided it was time to take her health into her own hands. She began tracking her health data and became her own advocate for testing. Through diet, tracking and lifestyle changes, Karen has successfully lost over 70 pounds — and kept it off — for 6+ years!
Listen to Karen’s interview with Dave Korsunsky, founder of Heads Up Health, as they discuss her health journey, nerd out over her numbers via the tracking she’s done through apps connected to Heads Up Health.
“We live in a world where the odds are not in our favor against developing a disease. People who monitor their health learn their body.” – Dave Korsunsky
This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up Health, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, labs, or connect your favorite health devices like the Oura ring or Keto Mojo and apps like My Fitness Pal and use your data to optimize your health!
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!
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In this podcast you’ll learn:
Karen Parrott’s story, background, and why she’s a data geek who loves tracking her health with Heads Up Health [4:25]
As a Heads Up Health beta user, she was able to merge data from My Fitness Pal, Fitbit, and Apple Health to deepen her understanding of what was changing in her body [5:30]
How she participated in an intermittent fasting study with Dr. Satchin Panda in July of 2016 and the changes she saw [6:00]
Why she tracked her own data simultaneously through Heads Up Health while participating in the study with Dr. Satchin Panda to help her get the results she wanted [6:50]
How you can change the times you eat during the day and not necessarily have to change the quantities of food to improve your desired results [9:50]
Why finishing your last meal of the day by 6pm can improve your sleep, which can be tracked with your Oura ring [10:30]
How she was able to go back through the data when her cholesterol began rising to see what had changed [14:00]
That her A1c was stuck at 5.5 – 5.4 but when she started intermittent fasting she dropped to 5.0 – 4.8, which she was able to see because she had the data to make the connection [16:00]
About empowering yourself to track your own info and make your own changes to achieve the goals you are reaching for [16:30]
How her doctor wanted to put her on a statin as her cholesterol levels elevated, so she ordered her own lab testing and convinced her doctor to order a coronary artery calcium score to see what her risk for heart attack really looked like [17:30]
How Karen was able to look back at her struggle with weight, her ability to abstain from triggers and where she was most successful with weight maintenance [29:15]
How she found out, through testing her genes, that she has an extra gene for ghrelin production which means she can even overeat things like ribeye (why she’s diligent in tracking her food intake) [37:15]
Karen talks about her triggers for overeating and her strategies to quell those urges [39:40]
Karen and Dave nerd out over the numbers and tracking with Heads Up Health – see YouTube Video (coming soon) [41:50]
What metrics Karen has found most helpful in her tracking [53:20]
How even though Karen’s doctor’s health system doesn’t connect to Quest, she can pull it up on Heads Up Health and show her doctor her own health data and trends [54:45]
Karen’s advice to anyone struggling with obesity that’s starting down their own path; why tracking –and continuing to revise your plan — is so important, to keep you moving in the right direction [59:40]
Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more atHeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.
You can learn more about the Oura ring, a state of the art ring that can track sleep cycle analysis, activity, and recovery atHeadsUpHealth.com/Oura.
Learn more about Keto-Mojo, a highly accurate and affordable device for testing blood sugar and blood ketones. Check it out atHeadsUpHealth.com/Ketomojo.
All of these amazing products are integrated with Heads Up Health.
They all allow you to quantify your health in novel and powerful ways.
Thank you to our partners!
About Heads Up Health
Heads Up Health is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!
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