23andme.com
Jul. 20th, 2013 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
justalurkrSo, my psychologist, who specializes in ADD/ADHD, anxiety and depression, has taken it upon herself to spread the word about the MTHFR mutation, as she has a "self-selecting" population of patients (primarily White, ergo comfortable or well-insured enough to afford her, people complaining of ADD/ADHD, anxiety and depression) who could be carriers.
The linked article doesn't break down the consequences of the MTHFR mutation quite like she did, but close enough that I've started taking L-methylated folate and sent out my spit sample to 23andme.com, a group that will genotype you for US$99. You are cordially invited to let them study your genome for various purposes including tailoring drugs to different genotypes and studying human migration patterns, but you don't have to consent to be studied to get genotyped.
The basic consequences of having the MTHFR mutation as described by the psychologist are two-fold:
1. The carrier can't create neurotransmitters in a balanced way, hence the depression, etc.
2. The carrier can't create the enzymes or proteins or what have you to manage inflammation, which leads to heart disease, dementia and some forms of cancer.
So, y'know, pretty much anything that can go wrong with a brain or body due to chemistry is affected by the MTHFR mutation carrier's inability to methylate folate. :D While I wait to find out whether I'm really a carrier of this and/or the BRCA thing that we heard so much about recently from Angelina Jolie and also that I'm as pure North European stock as the descendant of seven generations of shameless bigotry can be, I'm taking this stuff, which is folate all broken down for the MTHFR impaired.
Advice to women who are suddenly interested in this test: if the ancestry portion of it is of any interest at all, get a male relative on your father's side to take it. They can tell anyone about their ancestry back to Eve (or which one of her seven daughters you come from) on the mother's side, but without a Y chromosome, you're sunk for finding out anything about your paternal ancestry.
The linked article doesn't break down the consequences of the MTHFR mutation quite like she did, but close enough that I've started taking L-methylated folate and sent out my spit sample to 23andme.com, a group that will genotype you for US$99. You are cordially invited to let them study your genome for various purposes including tailoring drugs to different genotypes and studying human migration patterns, but you don't have to consent to be studied to get genotyped.
The basic consequences of having the MTHFR mutation as described by the psychologist are two-fold:
1. The carrier can't create neurotransmitters in a balanced way, hence the depression, etc.
2. The carrier can't create the enzymes or proteins or what have you to manage inflammation, which leads to heart disease, dementia and some forms of cancer.
So, y'know, pretty much anything that can go wrong with a brain or body due to chemistry is affected by the MTHFR mutation carrier's inability to methylate folate. :D While I wait to find out whether I'm really a carrier of this and/or the BRCA thing that we heard so much about recently from Angelina Jolie and also that I'm as pure North European stock as the descendant of seven generations of shameless bigotry can be, I'm taking this stuff, which is folate all broken down for the MTHFR impaired.
Advice to women who are suddenly interested in this test: if the ancestry portion of it is of any interest at all, get a male relative on your father's side to take it. They can tell anyone about their ancestry back to Eve (or which one of her seven daughters you come from) on the mother's side, but without a Y chromosome, you're sunk for finding out anything about your paternal ancestry.
