Dr. Erika Gray is a UCSF trained pharmacist, educator, national speaker, and co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of ToolBox Genomics and MyToolBox Genomics. Today we’re talking all about epigenetics. Dr. Gray discusses ways in which understanding our epigenetics can help us more effectively fight signs of aging, fine-tune our diet, and lead happier and healthier lives. Dr. Gray also shares the immediate steps we can take to optimize our epigenetics!

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Highlights

5:32 Dr. Gray talks about how a phone call with her parents changed her career path.

7:22 What is epigenetics?

9:40 What is methylation? Dr. Gray also talks about the confusion around the terms “over-methylation” and “under-methylation”.

11:59 Common themes of under-methylation.

12:34 The parts of the body that are dependent on methyl groups.

13:52 How studying mice and astronauts gave us a better understanding of the factors that influence epigenetics.

15:40 The Pottenger Cat Study and how we know diet affects epigenetics.

18:30 The way in which our ancestor’s trauma impacts our epigenetics. Dr. Gray also discusses the mind-gut connection.

22:22 The huge role our microbiome plays in our genetic expression.

24:05 Obesity at the genetic level. Dr. Gray also talks about how knowing your genetics can help you fine-tune your diet.

30:22 How understanding the fermented foods of your ancestors can help your diet.

32:34 Do other toxins (besides the ones found in our diet) actually influence our epigenetics?

36:22 Steps you can take to optimize your epigenetics.

37:59 Ways to connect with Dr. Gray.

38:50 The chronic wellness optimizers that Dr. Gray is excited about!

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About Dr. Erika Gray

Dr. Erika Gray is a UCSF trained pharmacist, educator, national speaker and co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of ToolBox Genomics and MyToolBox Genomics, a digital platform that takes an individual’s genetic test results and offers a virtual toolbox of informative, user-friendly, lifestyle choices and action plans to live the healthiest possible life. With almost 2 decades of experience in the world of functional medicine and a decade of experience in genomics and pharmacy, Dr. Gray is dedicated to helping practitioners and individuals understand the intersection of their unique genetics with the environment, and how they can positively change their health trajectory.

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Connect with Dr. Gray

Website | My Toolbox Genomics

Company Instagram | @mytoolboxgenomics

Personal Instagram | @thegenewhisperer

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Connect with Dr. Lauryn

Facebook | Dr. Lauryn Lax

Twitter | @drlaurynlax

Instagram | @drlaurynlax

Website | drlauryn.com

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Transcript (Episode Website contains full transcript)

Dr. Lauryn (00:02):

Well, hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Chronic Wellness Podcast, a show dedicated to quieting the noise in the health, food, and fitness world. I'm your host, Dr. Lauryn, former TV news journalist and ex-chronic illness patient gone functional medicine practitioner, and health detective. When countless doctors, diets, and Dr. Google searches in my own health history really couldn't help me heal. And today, I'm on a mission to disrupt both conventional wisdom and diet dogmas as we know it and bring you root cause solutions instead and insights that actually work. So you can also optimize your utmost potential and do what it is you're really meant to do in this world. Today we're talking all about epigenetics, a really big fancy word for the factors in our diet and our lifestyles and our environments that really turn our genes on and off. So genetics have been a big buzzy thing since, I think, like 23andMe came out on the market.

(00:58):

If you're familiar with that test where you can test your own genetics, We also see things like ancestry.com where you can find out where your ancestors are from and give you some really cool fascinating info. Even gut tests like the viome test that's doing kind of like a genetic blueprint of your gut have got people really energized and nerding out on at the topic of genes. However, just remember that genes are only a piece of the puzzle. They're actually only about 5 to 10% of our health outcomes. The other 90 to 95% really relate back to the factors in our diet, our lifestyle, and our environment. And again, which would be our epigenetics. These are the things that influence our genetic coding and can even rewire perhaps some of that genetic coding that should be quote-unquote normal expressing our genes rather than the diet lifestyle in environmental factors that will help you express your genes.

(01:53):

And perhaps a lot of times in, in a negative light, we, we think about epigenetics, but we can also think about it in a positive light as what are the things that can also help bring out your, like healthy genetics, maybe your fitness performance and you're a really great runner, like if you're from or sprinter rather as we see a lot of athletes or those that are on the track and field kind of sports. Whereas for others, it may be something in their creative genius or just having really great genetics for aging and, again, in our diet left down environment that can influence our genes. A really great example of the fact that genes really aren't the end-all-be-all for our health outcomes is because people are not born with cancer. They're not born with diabetes or obesity or anorexia or autoimmune disease. You may have the genes for these things, but they do not come out of our lives and express themselves in our infancy.

(02:50):

It's really genes that load the gun. And then our environment, diet and lifestyle, and our gut health, as I love to talk about as well pull the trigger. So it's a big reason why I don't do a lot of genetic testing alone in clinical practice. And I do think tests such as 23andMe are a little sliver piece of the puzzle if that's what you're looking for, just to understand your health to date. Because other functional types of testing, as well as just straight-up lifestyle dietary assessment, can really help you and your clinician determine the root causes behind the expression of your genes. So the epigenetic factors are really what explain why we get diseases. So my mold journey is another really great example of this. So when I got really sick with mold, I ended up getting diagnosed with like ten different chronic illnesses and conditions I had never had before.

(03:41):

Things like asthma, all sorts of autoimmune diseases, chronic migraines, and methyl activation syndrome. And I didn't get those overnight. These again were things that perhaps were in my genetic makeup to have, but it really wasn't until I was exposed to a lot of toxicity in the home in my environment that these things express. So we have Dr. Erika Gray in the house today to chat all about epigenetics and genetics with us. She is a trained pharmacist educator, national speaker, and co-founder and chief medical officer of Toolbox Genomics and My Toolbox Genomics, which is a digital platform that takes an individual's genetic test results and offers a virtual toolbox of informative and user-friendly lifestyle choices and action plans to live the healthiest life became possible. So with almost two decades of experience in the world of functional medicine and a decade of experience in genomics and pharmacy, Dr. Gray is dedicated to helping practitioners, and individuals like you understand the intersection of their unique genetics with the environment and how we can positively change our health trajectory. So without further ado, let's get to the show and talking all about epigenetics with Dr. Gray.

(04:55):

Well, Dr. Erika, I'm so excited to have you in the house today to talk about a really, very buzzy topic out there. Say genetics, epigenetics. We hear those words thrown around. We've heard of 23andMe methylation, maybe dirty genes, like all the things. And yet like to really understand what all of these things mean in a layman's terms. And I, I could think of no one better than you as just an expert and leader in the field to come on the show today. So before we dive in today's topic of epigenetics, though, and would love to know a little bit more about you, what got you into doing the work you're doing in the world today.

Dr. Erika Gray (05:32):

Oh, thanks for that sweet intro, Lauryn. We, you know, they usually see the best ideas. You, you fall into them, or they come to you, and this was no different. So I'm a pharmacist by training. Was taught about pharmacogenomics, so how we break down our drugs, and how that can be really individual based on your gender or ethnicity. And so I already had some familiarity with it, but then when 23andMe came on the scene, and they had all of this information, my parents, of course, did it and said, Sweetie, what do you think is there, is there any scientific validity to it? And that's when I started looking into it and really looking, and I was amazed there is 20 to 30 years' worth of research on some of these genes, which you would never think talking to people because people say genetics is so new and it's just right on the forefront.

(06:25):

But they've been studying the stuff for a long time. And so really now it's that application that people are really interested in, and they realize the power of DNA, they realize that there's so much hidden information just to find out who you are. We all have a different story, we all have a different blueprint to what our health trajectory looks like, and DNA really gives us that insight. So, you know, helping people understand their 23andMe evolved to, we have a lab evolved to, we have our own array, and now we have an interpretation service. So that's been the genesis of, of Toolbox Genomics. And then we rolled out epigenetics, which I call next-level DNA testing cuz now we can actually start to look at and measure the expression of your DNA.

Dr. Lauryn (07:13):

So definitely define epigenetics. What is epigenetics? We've heard of that word in the health space, perhaps heard of that word. Some people may not have heard of that word.

Dr. Erika Gray (07:21):

<Laugh>. So epigenetics is essentially the layer above the DNA. So we know that DNA is bound together. They're hydrogen bonded with you, an A, C, T, or a G, right? And so those are bound to your phosphate backbone. And so, depending on how the A or the C or the T or the G line up, it's gonna code for different instruction sets, different what we call phenotypes. So it could be things that we can actually see, it can be things that we can measure. It's also things that we can't see or can't measure as well. But the thing that starts to govern it is something called methylation. There's three things that govern it. So methylation is one of them. It is essentially a methyl group for those of you who remember in chemistry or biochem, <laugh>.

(08:11):

but it's that carbon and three hydrogens that you're essentially just plopping onto parts of the DNA. And it is telling the enzymes that are gonna do the copying, skip it, keep it, and it's, it's like a signaling mechanism. But the other thing that it does is it turns genes on and off. And so this is where it starts to get very interesting from an aging perspective because, like our ANCA genes, we want those turned off, but we want our enzyme genes, or we want those turned on because we wanna make enough enzymes, we want our aging genes turned off. And so this is something that you are actively dynamically influencing all the time. The second thing is histones. So these are another little that goes around the DNA that depends on how tightly you wind up the DNA. So depending on how loose or how tight also is gonna play a role in what gets copied over. So, you know, we always want the best stuff to be copied, and we want anything that's bad or wonky. We want the body to ignore it. The body tries to do its best. But again, if it's not supported appropriately, it's a problem. And then microRNA. So those are the three epigenetic controllers or modulators that has been studied, the best information. The best thing that we can really measure right now is methylation and methylation status.

Dr. Lauryn (09:33):

Yeah, that is another buzzword as well. So methylation, what does that mean in layman's terms?

Dr. Erika Gray (09:39):

So the thought behind that and what we commonly hear is I'm an over methylator, or I'm an under methylator, and what they're essentially saying is in under methylator, I don't have enough methyl groups to then go and methylate these different processes. And then an over methylator would be somebody who has too many methyl groups. But it's a little bit of a misnomer because in a day, you may methylate certain genes, and you may want them under methylated, and then later at night, you want them over methylated because you need it turned off. So, you know, like circadian rhythm is a great example of being an epigenetic pregnancy. There's a lot of genes you need turned on in pregnancy, and if those are off, that's a big problem for the baby. So really, what I think, people, the way I encourage people to think about it, is do you have the machinery or the enzymes to make adequate methyl groups and put them on to these various supplements to make them active to get into the cell?

(10:51):

So ultimately you can make SAMe, S-Adenosyl-L-Methionine, which is a big methyl donor. You need a lot of methyl donors, especially as you get older that can go onto the DNA. It can be used in various biochemical processes. I don't see that many over methylators. I really think that because we've discussed under there has to be over. And I think the only way you can possibly be in quote over methylator is some if you take a product that has too many methyl groups, so you've taken too much methyl folate, methyl B12, even though methyl B12 is a little bit of a misnomer, it's not a methyl donor. But if you throw in choline and then SAMe, those are all methyl donors and then you can have, you can just feel really anxious, You don't feel well rested, very irritable.

Dr. Lauryn (11:41):

Is it safe to say as an under methylator, like you're a poor detoxifier for one, you're more sensitive to perhaps like environmental triggers, toxins in the environment maybe foods, things like that? Those are some themes that I see with folks including myself.

Dr. Erika Gray (11:59):

Yes, because you need meth donors for the liver to do its phase one and phase two processes. So when people say, Oh, I have the MTHFR variant, therefore I'm a poor detoxifier. It's not so much as the MTHFR, it's just that you may not have enough methyl folate for these various detox reactions to happen because they are dependent on the presence of a methyl donor. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Does that make sense?

Dr. Lauryn (12:26):

Definitely. Would there be anything else in the body that also, like aside from the liver is dependent on these methyl groups like that would show up in other ways?

Dr. Erika Gray (12:34):

So the brain heavily uses methyl groups. They also use phosphate groups. So ATP, a lot of mitochondrial processes. You know, anything that's dynamic and demanding, usually the body's going to use either a methyl group or a phosphate group to make it active. It's a, it's a controlling mechanism cause we don't need everything going into the cell at once. Yeah. Everything on the outside of it.

Dr. Lauryn (13:00):

So perhaps like power output from like a fast switch muscle fiber, for example, that would be like an under methylator would not have as much power output basically.

Dr. Erika Gray (13:10):

That I think is a little bit different because you really have the programming from the DNA perspective; whether you're fast twitch or slow twitch, you can train in more fast twitch if you're slow twitch and vice versa. But usually, it involves recruiting other muscle fibers that maybe you're not aware of. I haven't seen methylation per se play a role in that, but I could be wrong and I just haven't seen the research on that.

Dr. Lauryn (13:38):

Yeah. Perhaps some of the genetics, well, kind of circling back to also epigenetics, like on a granular level, like, I mean talk about how that impacts, how, what epigenetics like are, what are factors that influence that in our daily lives?

Dr. Erika Gray (13:52):

So I think two of the greatest examples is there's that Agouti mouse study that you know, if you just Google it Agouti, A g o u t i, you'll see that a mouse whose mother was given a diet devoid of methyl groups. So they didn't have the folate, they didn't have any choline etcetera. The mouse is born significantly bigger. It has lost the pigmentation from its fur, it's obese and it dies much younger. And then you contrast it with a mouse mother who actually receives the appropriate mouth groups and the mouse looks perfectly normal like the brown mouse you would expect to see. So it is just such a beautiful illustration of diet. That's all it is. It's just, you know, pure and simple. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you had the astronauts who went into space, they were twins. One went into space and one stayed here and they said, Oh, the DNA changed.

(14:50):

It wasn't the DNA, it was the expression of it. And some of the immune genes got upregulated. So there was an epigenetic change there. And what was really interesting too was after a year, those epigenetic differences actually were indistinguishable to show you the power of gravity of space of, you know, there's a lot of EMFs out in space as well. And so that exerted pressure onto one of the twin's DNA and he physically changed. So it's absolutely fascinating here. Identical twins. So the point being that how we live our life, what we eat, what we cover our body with is constantly sending signals to our DNA and changing the expression of it.

Dr. Lauryn (15:39):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that reminds me of the Pottinger Cat Study. I don't know if you've ever seen that before.

Dr. Erika Gray (15:44):

That sounds vaguely familiar. Remind me of that.

Dr. Lauryn (15:47):

Basically, they took two cohorts of cats and one cat cohort was fed to like the standard American diet. The other cohort was fed like a traditional diet that cats like scraps to meat and raw milk. By the fourth generation, the cats that were fed the standard American diet like were arthritic and like their teeth were falling out and they couldn't jump up on counters. Whereas like the fourth generation of the ancestrally fed diet I mean they were just like robust felines. And so just to kind of show the, the passing down from generations as well how our diet and our predecessor's lifestyles can influence like their offspring.

Dr. Erika Gray (16:27):

Absolutely. And so when we talk about, you know, if your grandmother smoked, you're at a higher risk for asthma, specifically for women because, so when I was pregnant with my daughter, I was actively influencing the future of my grandchildren, which is such a mind warp to think about because my daughter's eggs developed in utero. So what type of environment I was putting her in was potentially giving my grandchildren a genetic advantage or disadvantage. And we don't think about that. We don't think about, you know, prepping our bodies prior to pregnancy. And this is both men and women, you know, it doesn't, men don't get a free pass on this one because having high-quality sperm, which needs to be methylated appropriately, is also going to ensure that you get high-quality babies and is in fact, infertility is linked to hypo, so low methylation of sperm. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> more prone to breakage. It's not as robust. They don't swim as well. So there's a lot that comes in with it. And from the ancestral perspective, processed food, there is more and more studies coming out showing that the processed food is really messing with our epigenetics. It's just accelerating the aging.

Dr. Lauryn (17:49):

And considering that, you know, 70% of food that Americans eat is processed, that's just like, I mean, not shocking I guess, but crazy to think. And also just thinking ancestrally like have you done any study in say like, I've heard the Holocaust survivors, for example, like offspring of Holocaust survivors, ie myself and, or like Audrey Hepburn I think was one where she like had a really hard time putting on weight. People thought she was really sick, where that was a generational I guess health issue that she carried. Like just kind of the physiology as well as trauma, like emotional, but like what have you found in your time and study?

Dr. Erika Gray (18:30):

Yeah, so absolutely famines, trauma, and the holocaust, those are kind of the three big ones where you will see that carry through. So especially triggers, you know, some people who are just hair, hair-trigger happy, a lot of times there was some traumatic event. Trauma in utero. I mean, you can't underestimate what's going on because we're constantly releasing hormones. If we're, you know, in a fight or flight, a constant sympathetic or cortisol-driven state, that baby is going to start to get conditioned because we're putting different signals or different metal groups onto the DNA, which is potentially going to prime them to be, you know, maybe they're gonna be quick to anger or they're going to have a shorter fuse and that starts there. But I do wanna say that you can change that. So like yeah. Yeah. Like I don't wanna go down the...

Dr. Lauryn (19:29):

Breaking the cycle

Dr. Erika Gray (19:29):

You absolutely can. And this is where when we talk about, you know, mindfulness or positivity or you know, just even taking the time and eating with the family, it seems so insignificant. It seems like no duh. Of course, you should do that, but most people don't. You know, and that's the thing that always blows my mind. And Kara Fitzgerald, who does a lot of work with functional medicine, published a study just this year which she took a cohort of men 50 to 70 and just measured their biological age and then put them on a diet and you ready for this? She did food swaps where there were more methyl donors. She gave them probiotics and made sure they had a multivitamin that had methylated B vitamins in it. They did moderate exercise; I think it was three times a week. So it was like walking and maybe some weight lifting were not running marathons or anything adequate sleep like seven to eight hours and then they had to practice mindfulness. Followed them for two months; on average they're aging slowed down by three years. And this is a group of, you know, that demographic is notoriously difficult to get them to do anything to move the needle, et cetera. It was nothing heroic.

Dr. Lauryn (20:48):

Wow, that's so amazing. And so just like powerful that the little things that we can do that really can make a difference. Anti-Aging without all the creams and the bot dogs needed there.

Dr. Erika Gray (21:00):

Yeah, the little things matter because they add up because they send signals. And you know, the other part of it too that I think is absolutely fascinating is the mind-gut connection. So we keep trying to figure out like how is it possible that serotonin is made in your gut but somehow gets into your brain. And yes, we know there's some in the brain, but like they can't cross the blood-brain barrier. And so how is this all work? And so there's a new theory that when we thi- so that when we have certain thoughts, it immediately sends a signal down our vagus nerve and our vagus nerve ends in our stomach and it changes our microbiome. And so then our microbiome is going to, cause there's gonna be a shift. And so maybe now we're gonna be shifting more towards obesity. Maybe we're not gonna make as much of our neurotransmitters, which are so important and they're utilized in the mitochondria, in our cells all over our body. So those gut feelings when you're like, Oh, I have a sinking feeling, there's actually something going on there. It's, it's not a joke. It's you're not making it up. And so I think being aware of that, this is where the power of the thoughts and the mindfulness comes in, it's just we're shifting our microbiome and our microbiome plays such a big role iIn our health as well.

Dr. Lauryn (22:19):

Yeah. I love the microbiome. I mean the microbiome has more genes than the actual human genome too.

Dr. Erika Gray (22:27):

That's right.

Dr. Lauryn (22:28):

Like we don't even know the number right. <Laugh>,

Dr. Erika Gray (22:30):

We don't, And you have three to five pounds. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> not, you know, it's not ounces, it's pounds of bacteria. So, you know, if you think about it and be like, Oh, I took some probiotics and didn't do anything. Well yeah, kind of a full scale... <Laugh>. Yeah.

Dr. Lauryn (22:46):

Quite a bit

Dr. Erika Gray (22:47):

... Inoculation and you've gotta feed them and take care of them and yeah,

Dr. Lauryn (22:52):

I will say, yeah when I got really sick with mold, like one of the biggest game changers in my healing was like a really high dose of probiotics. I have a lot of gut issues and then a lot of the stress components like de-stressing yoga daily, infrared sauna, some limbic system retraining. And those two things combined are really, I mean, kind of going back to that mind-gut connection, what really spearheaded and really I think also changed. I was about 20 pounds less than I am today. And without changing anything else in my diet or my exercise, it was really my microbiome and my stress levels that I needed to regain that healthy weight.

Dr. Erika Gray (23:27):

And our microbiome does impact our genetic expression. And so, you know, if you get someone who doesn't like the way they're aging, I mean the first place to look, I mean just easy, diet microbiome. You don't even need to go do a microbiome test if you don't want it. Cuz you know, sometimes those can be a little bit pricey or you, and even though, what was that?

Dr. Lauryn (23:48):

Just optimize. Yeah,

Dr. Erika Gray (23:50):

Optimize. Or you like fermented foods like some go keeper or some sauerkraut. All of those are great for introducing diversity and you know, just to constantly keep a steady flow of different probiotic strains in there.

Dr. Lauryn (24:04):

Well said. I know before the show too, we were talking, we about obesity being like an issue. Just like by and large we all know that in our society. So what do you say for the person that's like, you know, doing all the things to, to really try to change their genetics? They're like, this is in my family, I'm eating right, I'm exercising, Like I keep hitting ceilings, like what's going on? What's happening at a genetic level? Or perhaps this is where the epigenetics comes into play. And we talk a lot about that on the show as well.

Dr. Erika Gray (24:34):

So it's a little bit of both because there definitely are markers for an increased BMI. And so there's one called the FTO gene that some people call the fatso gene, but it was designed to get us through a famine. And so people who have that gene tend to be anywhere from three to five kilos higher from a weight perspective. So, you know, that's almost upwards of 12 pounds. Compared to people who don't, now most people seem to carry at least one variant on it, if not maybe two. Now here's where it gets interesting. Those people do better with a higher protein diet. So those are people, if you're going to do keto, it's gotta be protein heavy, not necessarily fat heavy because you may have that, you may have an 8082, which makes you more sensitive to saturated fat and you're going to gain weight easier.

(25:31):

Again, it's from an environmental perspective or an sorry, an evolutionary perspective; it makes perfect sense. I mean, you need to have adequate weight to get through the times of scarcity. So then you can come around and reproduce and, and stay alive. But there is no scarcity anymore. I mean, we can literally, you know, whatever we can't get from the grocery store, we order, we can order it from overseas. I mean, it's always amazing to me now growing up, like I remember like, Oh, I can't get that anymore. And that was it. But those days, <laugh>, those days are gone. So what's interesting is I'll get some people with the FTO gene who will say, I've never had a weight issue because FTO acts on another gene. And so it's the other gene. If that one gets turned on, that's where you start to gain the weight.

(26:20):

And so people, if you just really do pay attention, you have a great lifestyle, you may never turn that gene on and you never may never have a weight issue. However, it does seem like the lower protein potentially more of a plant-based diet or processed food does seem to turn that gene on. So this is where knowing your genetics can help you fine-tune those different nuances. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I'll give you another example. I had a practitioner call me with a patient who was rather distraught because he didn't like the way he was aging. He's 77 and he was coming in at 88 on his biological age and his eye, he, his eye age, memory age, all of this not doing well. Well, for the past 12 years he's been eating a plant-based diet because he thought that's the best thing for him.

(27:11):

Now what's interesting is we then also looked at his lab work. His A1C was high, his homocysteine is still high. The only thing he was able to shift and it took a long time, was his cholesterol. He finally did give cholesterol numbers down. These inflammatory markers are still high. His mini mental exam didn't improve with a plant-based diet versus his wife also did it. And she wasn't aging as quickly. In fact, she was aging slower, he was so much faster. So my recommendation was actually he needs to scrap the plant-based diet because it's aging him. It's not working. And he needs to think about a heavier protein diet, which he wasn't a happy camper. But sometimes, you know, the data's the data and that's the power of getting that information because as you were saying, someone who thinks they're eating well or doing everything right may not be doing it right for their genetics or for themselves.

Dr. Lauryn (28:07):

Right. And perhaps the releasing, ultimately the dogmas that we all have about food or like what you just read on paper. And I mean, it sounds like had this person experimented maybe just like, you know, I'm doing animal-based versus plant-based versus like, there's so many out there, but to release, like just what our grip is on what we should eat. And more so like really tuning into the body and using that. Perhaps that data can guide as well if it's just kind of like, I don't even know where to start. But that's really powerful. And just goes back to the like, we're never gonna agree, like the one size fits all diet. There's just not one out there.

Dr. Erika Gray (28:45):

There really isn't. You know, and I think we've, we've moved, finally, we've moved away from being fatphobic, which is fabulous. But there's some people that if you eat a lot of saturated fat, you don't have the machinery to deal with it. And that's okay. You can still have, you know, maybe it's a monounsaturated fat diet versus you keep the saturated fat at a lower level. It's, it doesn't mean we're being fat phobic because we're not saying low fat. We're saying, I would say like smart fat, smart fat for your genetics.

Dr. Lauryn (29:18):

That makes me think of a client of mine. That man, she had done all the diets and then keto was really popular at the time and like started hitting a roadblock after about two or three weeks on it. And so then transitioned to carnivore, which was also very popular. And like felt fine, I think at least mentally fine. I think sometimes we can go on a diet and we just feel better because we're doing something with consistency. But her cholesterol ended up bumping up to 600 and I've never seen a total cholesterol that high. And for her, it was just like shocking. It was for shocking for me as well. But just to kind of go back to like, man, she needed some plants is what she needed and like peace with carbs. And as we integrated that back in and really addressed the microbiome, like her body was back in a happy, healthy place too for her. Whereas I mean I think for others I've seen like they feel great on a carnivore and less plant-based diet. I think a lot of it actually goes back to our gut too how we're digesting and absorbing, but also maybe ancestrally where we're from. You may know a little bit more insight on that.

Dr. Erika Gray (30:22):

Yes, yes. And every culture had their own version of fermented foods. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so when you know, there's the Sonenberg's out of Stanford, they were studying the Masai Mara in Kenya. And what they found was that they ended up kind washing their hands in the, like the guts of the goat mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. and so then when they would eat the meat, they had the microbiome on their hands. And so then they were essentially inoculating themselves with some new bacteria. But they do fermented cow milk there with blood in it. So that, you know, that's

Dr. Lauryn (