01 Apr How Our DNA Predicts Our Health with Kashif Khan
By midlife our DNA has already set the stage for how our body responds to everything – from food to stress to environmental toxins! The genetic blueprint we’re born with doesn’t just determine our eye color or height—it’s actively influencing which health challenges we might face in our 40s, 50s, and beyond. Many of us find ourselves facing unexpected health challenges despite our best efforts to eat well and stay active. We follow the latest health trends, take recommended supplements, and exercise regularly, yet still experience issues like brain fog, fatigue, inflammation, and hormonal imbalances. What if the missing piece of your health puzzle is hidden in your genetic code?
In this conversation with Kashif Khan, best-selling author of The DNA Way, explores how understanding your unique genetic code can transform your midlife health journey. Kash discovered firsthand that the mysterious chronic conditions affecting millions in midlife often have genetic roots waiting to be decoded. After overcoming five chronic diseases HIMSELF, by aligning his lifestyle with his genetic needs, he’s now helping thousands rewrite their health stories – including mine! I had to share him with you.
🧬 Don’t miss out – register for our FREE DNA workshop: https://midlifeconversations.com/DNA
Why One-Size-Fits-All Health Advice Often Fails
The health and wellness industry bombards us with universal recommendations: take this supplement, follow this diet, try this exercise routine. But what works wonderfully for one person might trigger adverse reactions in another. This isn’t just anecdotal – it’s rooted in our unique genetic makeup.
In addition, the western medicine world is designed to test, diagnose, and prescribe. You get a blood test so a doctor can decide if you need a pill or not. You have high cholesterol? Here’s your statin. But they never ask “why is your cholesterol high all of a sudden to begin with – what changed?” because that is not part of their test and prescribe model (that is dictated by insurance, really.)
Our DNA contains the instruction manual for how our bodies function at the cellular level. It determines everything from how we process nutrients to how we respond to stress, detoxify environmental toxins, and produce essential hormones and neurotransmitters. While we share many genetic similarities as humans, the variations in our genetic code can significantly impact how our bodies respond to foods, supplements, exercise, and environmental factors.
Understanding Functional Genetics
Many people hesitate to get genetic testing because they fear discovering they’re predisposed to serious diseases. Traditional medical approaches to genetics have often focused narrowly on disease prediction rather than prevention. None of the gene markers “cause” the disease.
Modern functional genetic analysis takes a different approach; think of it as an instruction manual for your body. Instead of simply identifying genes associated with diseases, it examines how your genetic variations affect biological processes that influence your overall health and wellness. This comprehensive approach helps identify potential vulnerabilities in your biological systems and creates opportunities for targeted interventions before health issues develop – and how you can navigate it to AVOID the disease.
There are key biological systems affected by genetic variations:
Detoxification Pathways
Your body’s ability to process and eliminate toxins varies based on your genetic makeup. Some people have genetic variations that reduce their detoxification efficiency by 50% or more. This can lead to a buildup of environmental toxins and metabolic waste products, causing inflammation and cellular damage over time.
Understanding your detoxification genetics can help you make informed choices about your environment, diet, and supplement regimen to support your body’s natural cleansing processes.
Inflammation Response
Inflammation is your body’s natural response to injury and infection, but chronic inflammation can lead to numerous health issues. Your genes influence how your body triggers, manages, and resolves inflammatory responses.
For example, some genetic variations affect your body’s production of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory compounds. Knowing these tendencies allows you to adjust your lifestyle to minimize unnecessary inflammatory triggers.
Hormonal Balance
Hormones are chemical messengers that regulate virtually every function in your body. Your genetic profile influences how you produce, metabolize, and eliminate hormones.
For women, genes like CYP19A1 affect estrogen production through a process called aromatization, which converts testosterone into estrogen. Some women have an ultra-rapid version of this gene, leading to excessive estrogen production and potential estrogen dominance.
Further genetic factors determine whether this estrogen is metabolized into beneficial or potentially harmful forms, and how effectively the body eliminates these metabolites. This genetic interplay helps explain why some women are more susceptible to estrogen-related health concerns.
Mitochondrial Function
Mitochondria are the powerhouses of your cells, responsible for producing energy. Genetic variations can significantly impact mitochondrial efficiency, with some people experiencing up to 70% reduced capacity.
This genetic predisposition affects your energy levels, exercise recovery, aging process, and susceptibility to fatigue and burnout. Understanding your mitochondrial genetics helps explain why some exercise approaches might leave you energized while others leave you depleted.
Neurochemical Balance
Your brain chemistry is heavily influenced by your genetics. Levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and GABA affect everything from your mood and motivation to your sleep quality and stress response.
Genetic variations determine how much of these chemicals you produce, how efficiently they bind to receptors, and how quickly they’re cleared from your system. This genetic blueprint helps explain personality traits like reward-seeking behavior, sensitivity to stimuli, and vulnerability to stress and anxiety.
How Genetic Insights Can Transform Your Health Approach
Personalizing Your Diet
While whole, unprocessed foods benefit everyone, the optimal balance of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates varies based on your genetic makeup. Some people genetically thrive on plant-based diets, while others require more animal products for optimal health.
For instance, some individuals lack the enzymes needed to efficiently break down certain plant compounds like oxalates, making a strict vegan diet problematic for their gut health. Others have genetic variations affecting how they process and utilize plant proteins, potentially leading to nutritional deficiencies despite consuming adequate protein on paper.
Tailoring Your Exercise Routine
Your genetic profile influences how your body responds to different types of exercise. For those with compromised mitochondrial function, long-duration cardio exercise might trigger excessive oxidative stress, prolonged recovery times, and accelerated aging.
For these individuals, shorter, high-intensity workouts or strength training often provides better results with less physiological stress. This genetic insight explains why some people feel energized after a long run while others feel depleted for days following the same activity.
Customizing Your Supplement Regimen
The supplement industry promotes numerous products for enhancing health, but genetic testing reveals which supplements your body actually needs based on your specific biochemical pathways.
For example, NAD+ boosters are widely recommended for energy and longevity, but they can trigger anxiety in certain genetic profiles. Understanding your genetic blueprint allows you to select supplements that address your precise biological needs rather than following generic recommendations.
Optimizing Stress Management
Our modern lifestyle exposes us to unprecedented levels of stress, with our nervous systems activated far beyond what our biology was designed to handle. While the human body can typically tolerate high-stress states for about 5% of the day, many people now spend 95% of their day in fight-or-flight mode.
Genetic factors influence how you experience and process stress, with some people genetically predisposed to higher stress reactivity. This understanding helps explain why certain stress management techniques work better for some individuals than others and allows for a more personalized approach to nervous system regulation.
Epigenetics and Lifestyle Factors
While your genetic code provides the blueprint for your biological systems, how those genes express themselves – known as epigenetics – is significantly influenced by your environment and lifestyle choices.
Research suggests that when you’re in a state of love, purpose, and positive intention, there’s approximately a 30% up-regulation in beneficial genetic expression. Conversely, states of fear, anger, and chronic stress can down-regulate genetic function by about 30%.
This means that even with genetic predispositions to certain health challenges, lifestyle interventions can substantially alter how those genes express themselves. The healthier your overall lifestyle, the less oxidized your DNA becomes, enhancing cellular communication and improving your intuitive connection to your body’s needs.
Personalized Health with Your Genetic Understanding
Advances in genetic testing and interpretation have created unprecedented opportunities to understand our bodies at a fundamental level. Rather than following generic health advice or treating symptoms after they appear, genetic insights allow us to:
- Identify potential vulnerabilities before they manifest as health problems
- Understand why certain approaches haven’t worked despite our best efforts
- Create truly personalized nutrition, exercise, and supplement protocols
- Make informed decisions about environmental exposures and lifestyle factors
- Potentially reverse biological aging through targeted interventions
With proper interpretation and application of genetic information, many chronic health conditions that have traditionally been considered inevitable consequences of aging may actually be optional. The pace at which we age biologically can be significantly influenced by aligning our lifestyle choices with our genetic needs.
The future of health lies not in one-size-fits-all approaches but in deeply personalized protocols based on our unique genetic makeup. By understanding and working with our genetic blueprint rather than against it, we can potentially extend not just our lifespan but our healthspan – the period of life spent in good health, free from chronic disease and decline.
As we navigate midlife and beyond, this genetic understanding offers a powerful framework for taking control of our health journey and making choices that support our bodies’ true needs.
🧬 Join us for our upcoming free DNA workshop www.midlifeconversations.com/DNA
The contents of the Midlife Conversations podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider. Some episodes of Midlife Conversations may be sponsored by products or services discussed during the show. The host may receive compensation for such advertisements or if you purchase products through affiliate links mentioned on this podcast.
