Today I have a very exciting guest on Couch Talk, Dr. Kara Fitzgerald. I’ll tell you more about Dr. Kara in a moment, but want you to know that she is absolutely brilliant…and she will be talking with us today about methylation. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard conversations – and a good deal of buzz – around the topic of methylation… and even more likely, you are probably a bit confused about what it really is and why it matters to you! It is such an important topic…as many significant health conditions, including: autoimmune diseases, metabolic syndrome, dementia, accelerated aging, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases have been associated in some degree to the issue of methylation imbalance. So, we’re going to dive in deep today and talk about what YOU need to know. Meet Dr. Kara Fitzgerald First, let me introduce you to Dr. Kara and tell you a little bit about her. She received her Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine degree from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. She completed the first Council of Naturopathic Medicine accredited postdoctoral position in Nutritional Biochemistry and Laboratory Science at Metametrix Clinical Laboratory (now Genova Diagnostics) under the direction of the brilliant and kind Dr. Richard Lord, who I’ve known well for some time. Just brilliant! These two, just brilliant, let me tell you. Dr. Kara’s residency was completed at Progressive Medical Center in Atlanta, Georgia. And now she is up in Connecticut where she has a clinical practice also involved in the research. She’s the lead author and editor of Case Studies in Integrative and Functional Medicine. She’s a contributing author to Laboratory Evaluations for Integrative and Functional Medicine, The Institute for Functional Medicine’s Textbook for Functional Medicine. She recently co-authored the ebook called The Methylation Diet and Lifestyle and has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in multiple journals. She is also on faculty at The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM). As a final note…she does an awesome podcast as well. One of my favorite all-time podcasts that I have done was on Dr. Kara’s podcast. So, What Is Methylation And Why Is It Important? Methylation is often a tough topic for people to understand, so remember that as you listen to our interview…even if there are a few minutes here or there that go “too deep”, hang in there…you’ll still be able to get a lot of true gems out of the rest of our conversation…including dietary and lifestyle suggestions that will help support your methylation balance today. At a high level, just so you have some background, methylation is a biochemical process that happens in every cell in your body. Our bodies use methylation to support, Neurotransmitter production Healthy immune cells DNA production Estrogen, histamine, and fat metabolism Detoxification Cellular energy Eye health, and… Regulating how our genes get expressed This last point is so important! Healthy methylation turns on the genes we want turned on for greater health and turns off the ones that we don’t really want to get turned on (like the ones for cancer and dementia). Think about how important this is…as it means that even if you have a gene that predisposes you to a disease like Alzheimer’s disease, healthy methylation can keep that gene turned off. So you can see that methylation supports many vital functions! We talk more about exactly how methylation works in the interview. If we aren’t a good methylator our body won’t create enough of the important molecules that it needs (molecules like glutathione, melatonin, serotonin, taurine, nitric oxide, etc.) to support these functions. Impaired methylation can also lead to anxiety and depression, increased risk of cancer, hormone imbalance, poor detox capacity, infertility, birth defects, and fatigue. So are you a good methylator or a bad methylator? (And how do you know! And what can you do about it?) Listen To The Interview Now! LISTEN TO THE INT