What is 3X4 Genetics? How can it help me reach my goals?
Watch this short video about 3X4 testing
If you've heard about genetic testing in the past decade, it's probably been through the marketing of ancestry companies. There's the allure of finding out where you came from (or uncovering family secrets!), and at-home kits provided by these companies have shown everyday people how easy it is to test their DNA.
But unfortunately, due to the popularity and widespread marketing of ancestry tests, most people aren't aware of the other benefits genetic testing can provide. While ancestry testing simply tells you where your family came from, genetic testing for health and wellness can lead you to a whole array of actionable insights into optimizing your eating, exercise, lifestyle choices, and more in order to achieve better health.
As we’ve been utilizing genetic testing with our patients at Beach Hippie Nutritionist LLC, here are a few ways genetic testing can inform your health and wellness.
Personalized Care
A lot of approaches to health and wellness these days focus on a one-size-fits-all approach, prescribing the same diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices to everyone. But everyone is unique — so shouldn't healthcare be tailored to that unique individual? Genetic testing uncovers a person's genetic variants, which give us insight into how that person’s cells and systems function, show the impact of the types of food you eat and the environment around you, and more.
Disease at the Root
In addition to the one-size-fits-all approach to health, many times practitioners are helping their patients simply combat symptoms of chronic illness. But constantly treating symptoms can be timely and costly, and never really addresses the root issues anyway. Since genetic testing reveals how your body works at the cellular level, it can point towards the root causes of illnesses that are generating those symptoms. That way, diseases can be treated at the source.
Losing Weight
Those who have struggled to lose weight may spend time, energy, and money seeking new ways to get healthy and lose weight when their genes are able to give them all the insight they need. Genes are able to give insight into what types of exercise are best for your body, whether it be more endurance exercises or power exercises. They can also show how your body stores fat, which nutrients it absorbs best to inform which foods to eat, and other insights that can form a more targeted recommendation plan.
Metabolism
Your genes can also tell you more about your metabolism. We know that metabolism has a connection with energy and vibrancy, yet many of us have a "sluggish" metabolism we're not sure how to correct. Knowing your genes can give you insights into how your metabolism is affected by what you eat, how you burn energy, how you store fat, and more.
The Right Exercise
What if you've been hitting the gym and trying to get fit, but you've been doing the wrong exercises all this time? Getting insights into your genes can actually show you whether your body is more suited for endurance activities, like running or bicycling, or whether your body is more suited for power activities like sprinting or weight lifting. Knowing more about how your body works means being able to choose the right activities for you.
Caffeine Intake
We're all affected by caffeine in various ways — some people can drink coffee right up until bedtime, when others have to cut themselves off mid-morning! But do we know why? Our genes can tell us! Our genes are responsible for how quickly we metabolize caffeine, so we can know whether to have that extra cup or not.
Better Daily Choices
As you can see, knowing your genes and how they affect your body can give you insights into many different aspects of your health and wellness so that you can make better choices each day about actions that affect you. For example, did you know that your genes can determine how well your body eliminates toxins, which can help you make choices about what environments to be in? Your genes can also give you insight into your stress levels, and flag if you're not getting enough sleep at night.
More Than Ancestry
Knowing your genes can reveal a lot more to you than just what's stated above. Additionally, as our knowledge continues to increase around how genes work and how they impact our bodies, the blueprint that genetic testing provides for your optimal health will only become more detailed, allowing you to build the perfect life of health and wellness suitable to you.
Understanding our genetics is the key to personalized care, lifestyle choices that fit how your body works, and long-term wellness. But the science behind genes, DNA, and chromosomes takes some time to learn, and sometimes the terminology can get a bit scientific. Here are ten genetic terms made easy.
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)
DNA is what makes up the basics of our cells and what contains our hereditary material. It's formed from four chemical bases — adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T) — in different combinations, and it’s these various combinations that form the building blocks of every organism on earth. Those four chemicals pair up to form the rungs of DNA's double helix.
Genome
Genes are made up of DNA, and not only carry traits but impact functionality throughout the body. Each person has between 20,000 and 25,000 genes, and the entire set of a person's genes is called a genome. The Human Genome Project, completed in 2003, mapped every gene in the human body, how they're structured in our body.
Chromosome
Our genes are stored in our chromosomes, which are located in the nucleus of our cells. We have 23 pairs of chromosomes, and it's critical that these pairs replicate precisely in order for a human to be healthy. Defective chromosomes can cause disease, and not having enough chromosomes can cause someone to not develop correctly.
Genetic Testing
A genetic test maps out a person's individual genome, and identifies genetic variations that individual may have. These variants can give insight into how a person's cells and systems function, how they process certain nutrients, what kind of exercise or activities they're best suited for, and more. Genetic tests are conducted using either a cheek swab, saliva, or blood.
Heritability
Heritability measures how much a person's genes contribute to their traits and how it has been passed down through the family. High heritability means that a person's or a population's differences are caused mostly by their genes. Low heritability means that differences in traits are only partially caused by genetic factors.
Gene Variation
99.9% of our genetic code is the same, but that .1% of genes carries variabilities that impact a body's functionality. If genes are made up of the four different chemical bases in DNA, a variation happens when a DNA “letter” is inserted in the chain, deleted from the chain, or when another DNA “letter” is substituted into the chain.
Genetic Diseases
Genetic diseases are caused by variations in genetic code that result in a disorder. The variation can be found in one instance or multiple instances, and can either be inherited or due to environmental causes. Cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, Down's Syndrome, and even obesity are genetic diseases. The intensity of that genetic disease depends on penetrance: High-penetrance variations have a high chance of impacting someone’s health, while low-penetrance variants are likely to have less of an impact than lifestyle choice or environment.
Genetics Creates Personalized Healthcare
If you take one thing away from these definitions, it's that our uniqueness isn't just skin deep, but that it goes right down to the very ingredients of our cells. If each of us has all different types of combinations of chemicals that make up our genes, some of which have variations that alter how our cells and systems work, or that process the foods we eat and the environment we're in differently — then why is most healthcare based on one-size-fits-all recommendations?
Here at Beach Hippie Nutrition LLC, we value each patient's individuality, and know that individuality is the key to personalized healthcare for all.
Ready to start your personalized health journey?
Ask me about a genetic test today or "Call us today on (985) 278-0753".
