Demystifying DNA

Unlocking Your Genetic Code: How DNA Impacts Your Health

• Dr. Tiffany Montgomery • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Ever thought about why you just can't resist that second slice of pie, while your friend can eat an entire pizza and not gain a pound? Or pondered why certain diseases seem to run in families? Join us, your hosts, Dr. Tiffany Montgomery and Trena Weeks, as we pull back the curtain on the fascinating world of genetics and its impact on your everyday life.

Discover how your DNA plays a starring role in everything from your susceptibility to various illnesses to your response to exercise and medication. We’ll take a deep look into inherited diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia, and uncover how genes can amplify a woman's risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer. Moreover, we'll guide you on how to leverage your unique genetic makeup to make informed decisions about your lifestyle, maximize your health, and achieve your wellness goals. Be ready to be empowered by success stories from individuals who've navigated their health journey with the guidance of P23 Health. This episode is all about embracing a richer quality of life by understanding and capitalizing on your genetic blueprint.

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Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

P23. Hello and welcome to P23 telelab talks. I'm your host, Dr. Tiffany Montgomery, and joining me as my esteemed co-host, a true industry expert and the chief operating officer of P23, Trena Weeks. With a wealth of expertise in the field of molecular testing, she brings a broad range of knowledge to our discussions.

Trena Weeks:

Thank you, Dr T. You make me sound so important. I'm happy to be here today.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

We are happy to have you. I'm thrilled to have you a part of our telelab talks, Trena. P23 is amazing because here at P23 Health, we're passionate about helping you live your longest, healthiest and happiest life possible. Guess what? It's all backed by science. In today's episode of P23 Telelab Talks, we are cracking the code, understanding genetics and your lifestyle. In this episode, you can expect to learn critical roles and how and why DNA impacts your health, a few ways that we're familiar with and how we can control it and take proactive care of our health. Are you excited?

Trena Weeks:

I'm really excited and I hope I learn how to start wasting my money on things that don't work with my DNA.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

You are in for a treat, so let's dive in. Have you ever wondered why some people seem to be able to eat whatever they want without gaining weight, while others struggle to maintain a healthy weight, no matter how hard they try?

Trena Weeks:

Yes, In addition to wondering why it's hard for me to drop pounds with all the different things that I try, this is often something that I think about and I struggle with. I read up on it and let's not mention I am definitely a Google expert on it.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

I think so many of us can relate to our Google MD ways, but it's so important because we need to understand why that happens so we can do something about it. There's also some people who are susceptible to certain diseases and some people who aren't. All those answers lie in our genes. I remember the early days of COVID-19 and the biggest question was how some people would get it and some people would not. It was the same thing.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

If you can remember, in my childhood there was chickenpox. Before there was the vaccine and everybody was getting the vaccine. We would have little chickenpox parties. If one person got chickenpox, everybody would go be in the room or be around that person so they could get exposed to chickenpox, so that they would not get it later. It was about controlling the spread of the virus by going ahead and getting it and getting it out of the way. I know that sounds like the craziest thing, but even when I would go to those chickenpox parties, I would never get chickenpox. Everybody in my house had chickenpox. I've never got it. Then I think when I'm in my teenage years, like while I was in high school a vaccine was developed.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

Now people all get the chickenpox vaccine, but you have those situations where your genes or your DNA just are going to determine whether you get something or not. I think that that is a phenomenon that so many people are trying to understand. I hope today's discussion provides you with some insight and some guidance on how to understand the role of DNA. Dna plays a critical role in determining your health in various ways. It is the blueprint that defines your genetic makeup and provides instructions for your body to function correctly. Any changes or mutations in your DNA can have a significant impact on your health. So, Trinay, we're going to get into a few ways that DNA can impact your health. Can you think of any like the most common that most people talk about?

Trena Weeks:

I can think of when people think about DNA. It's probably like the ability to pick up weight and lose weight quickly, like for me. I pick it up really, really quickly and then it's harder for me to lose it, but then when you look at, like my husband, he'll pick it up and they can drop it with no thought, just instantly. It is so frustrating.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

I think a lot of women feel like, oh, my husband just loses weight when he thinks about losing weight and we have to like get our butts in gear and figure some things out. Well, DNA can impact your health in four major ways. We're going to just talk broadly in general about those four ways. The first one is inherited diseases. So some genetic mutations are passed down from parents to children and they can cause inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, Huntington's disease and many other. I think that's the most familiar impact to DNA that people think about, because it's just genetics. I was born with this, or my chromosome dictates that, and it's very much expected based on how we process those instructions that our body sends to us. So it's one of the major ways. And then the next major impact would be susceptibility to diseases. Certain genetic variations can increase your risk of developing certain disease, such as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. Trena, can you think of an example?

Trena Weeks:

So when I think of an example I think about maybe have blood pressure. I'm not sure if that's right or not, but I always think about how, when you go to the doctor, they sit you down and they say, okay, tell us, you have this little checklist, tell us who had this, this, this, this, and it's always my mom had high blood pressure, my dad, now I have it, now my child has it. So I kind of think about that checklist when I think about things that are passed through the DNA and I'm sure, even though a lot of times they don't often explain it to you in detail, I'm sure that's why they go through that checklist to see who had it and the relation to you and how it connects to what's going on currently with you.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

I think that's a great example. I think the other one, and more common recently in the news, is BRCA1 or BRCA2, which is a gene that increases a woman's risk of developing breast cancer or ovarian cancer. It also plays a role in the man's risk to developing breast cancer, but you didn't know that.

Trena Weeks:

I did hear about BRCA1 and how it increases the risk for women developing breast cancer. I also heard that certain age groups and certain minorities should get tested more often because of it.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

There's a lot of prevention around that when you do have the mutation. That's up for debate. I think that another major impact that DNA can have on your health is response to medication. Now, this is something that's becoming increasingly more common and people are becoming more aware your genetic makeup can affect how your body processes medication, and some people can be more sensitive to certain drugs and have a higher risk of adverse reactions due to their genetic makeup. So what does that mean? For example, one of the tests that we look at for response to medication is called a PG X test, or pharmacogenomics. That's included in our P23 optimum. Recently, I found out that high blood pressure.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

So I took a P23 optimum test, looking at the medication response, trying to gauge or decide of all of the blood pressure medications out there which one would cause me the lowest risk of adverse reaction like hair loss or upset stomach or any of those other things that happen when you start taking Medication, especially a blood pressure medication. You hear a lot of people talk about thinning hair and that kind of thing, so I was happy to be able to have a test like that where we can look at, before we even put that drug in our body, what's our likelihood of having those adverse reactions and which one would give us the best genetic outcome, because it would be absorbed best in our body and help treat the condition that we're diagnosed with. So it's important as we move into the future of medicine that we understand adverse reactions are how to manage and mitigate those risks. And then the last way that DNA can impact your health Is one of those ways that we don't always like to talk about. It's the way I think you talked about initially tonight lifestyle choices.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

Your DNA can also impact your response to lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise. For instance, some people may have a genetic predisposition to obesity or diabetes, making it harder for them to maintain a healthy weight or regulate their blood shippers. I think when you get into those lifestyle choices, that is where we all beat ourselves up or we're the hardest of ourselves. I think we're most forgiving of inherited diseases because you can't control the genes that you got. But when it comes to lifestyle choices, I think there's a burden there to show hey, I've done what I can do to reduce those risks. Sometimes, if we don't have the right diet or we consume a lot of alcohol or we don't exercise as much as we do, we seem to blame ourselves. Do you feel that way, or do you think that lifestyle choices are what they are?

Trena Weeks:

I definitely blame myself. Listening to you talk, I'm starting to blame myself more, because I didn't understand that DNA could help us understand what medications we should be taking. Does it also help us understand what vitamins we should be taking? Because if that's the case, I can save a lot of money.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

It actually does. The way it helps is not the traditional way. You can't take the test and it'll just say this will help you and this won't. But what it will tell you is how much calcium or how much selenium or how much CoQt or whatever the vitamin is that you need to take for your body to absorb it and process it. Do you need three vitamin D pills a day? Should you be taking 300, 500, 1000 milligrams of vitamin B1, for example? The guidance is based on how your body processes those vitamins and that guides how much you should take.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

If you're processing it slowly and not efficiently, you might have to take more in the beginning and taper off as you go down.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

If you are taking, let's say, a nominal amount and your body is processing that and to speed it up, you're just running through it, then you will need to take less.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

Looking at this as a blueprint and working with your health care team nutritionists, physicians because I'm just a research doctor but if you are working with treating physicians, then you're able to manage and make and create blueprints for your diet, supplement and medication routine based on your body's absorbance. And, yes, you can save money. However, on the flip side, it could also cost you money, because you might realize, gee, I wasn't taking nearly as much XYZ as I should have been taking and that's why I've been tired, I've been sluggish. It all makes sense now, and so you'll hit that while I, or that eureka moment and you'll begin to optimize or begin that journey of living your best life. I think, overall, understanding how DNA impacts your health can help you make informed decisions about your health care, including Genetic testing and disease prevention strategies. I want to open it up for questions Trena. I don't know if you have any or if we have some questions from viewers that were previously sent in, but I love to take some questions.

Trena Weeks:

Sure, let me ask you this If you understand your DNA, would that help you to select better exercises and fitness routines for your body, or is that not related?

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

That is a huge part of what we look at and what other tests on the market look at.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

I would welcome the listener with that question, or other listeners with that question, to reach out to us and connect with one of our nutritionists or physicians today to help you understand if this test is right for you. We do look at the genetic markers that contribute to your exercise and your body's response to that, telling us whether your DNA is better suited and reactive to cardiovascular exercises or if it will be more for you to do strength training, weight lifting and muscle building type exercises. Some people are perfect split down the middle and their DNA tells them they should be doing 50% of both every day. So I know a lot of exercise routines call for 30 minutes of cardio and then the next day you do 30 minutes of weight lifting, next day 30 minutes of cardio. But you might need to be splitting up 15 minutes and 15 minutes just based on your DNA so that you can really see those results that you want to see. So I think that's an excellent question and we have time for one more.

Trena Weeks:

So this came in from a listener and this listener wants to know is it reasonable to consider breast implants for women who doesn't plan on having children after being diagnosed with Brca 1 mutation?

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

So I think that that is a great question for a physician and it's a personal question. Like I told you, I'm a research scientist, so from a research perspective it's always going to be reasonable for consideration. We kind of consider all of the odds and then we take all of those considerations and we put them in research papers or online and then your physician looks at the vast multitude of possibilities and, based on your age, your DNA, your life stance, your circumstances, your lifestyle, your life goals, they can help you decide if breast implants are right for you. Is it in the realm of consideration Absolutely? Is it reasonable to consider totally? Is it recommended?

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

I have to pause there and encourage you to go back to your provider. Take your blueprint, take your notes, take what you know about your DNA, take your lifestyle, take your goals, take your journey, Make it your own, give it a voice and communicate that to your healthcare provider so that you can make the best decision that you can make to live your healthiest, longest and happiest life. And with that I am going to close the questions Trena.

Trena Weeks:

no problem, Dr. T, thank you for inviting me today. It sounds like, if we are interested in creating a healthier lifestyle, or if there's listeners like me interested in getting rid of this full-on and living a more sound and exercising more, that we should listen in. So, in conclusion, understanding our genetic footprint is an important part of this and maintaining good health. By learning more about genes and how to interact with our lifestyle, we can take those steps to reduce the risk of disease and just be happier and live a happier life.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

All right, thank you. This has been an exciting episode of P23 Tele Labs Talk In this episode, cracking the Code Understanding Genetics and your Lifestyle. We want to highlight and talk about the genetic blueprint on your health and how genes can influence everything from your risk for certain diseases to how you respond to different treatments. We've covered the four major ways that DNA can impact your health, talking about inherited disease, susceptibility to disease, response to medication and lifestyle choices. The problem is not understanding how these influences work and how each of these factors contribute to our overall health.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

At P23 Health, we want to be a part of the solution. We encourage you to look at our P23 optimum testing, read our white papers, join our membership program and understand how you can use these tools to empower you every day. I would like to take a moment and invite you all to like us, share us, interact with us, message us, email us, go to the DM on the different social challenges and social media outlets. We're looking, we're monitoring. We want to engage with you. Send us an email to support.

Dr. Tiffany Montgomery:

At p23health. com, we would like to have other industry leaders as future guests and co-hosts or sponsors. Let's use this as an opportunity to empower and build our community and have those conversations with each other that we normally have behind closed doors, with the people trying to take control of their health. Thank you for tuning in to P23 Health. We exist to help you capitalize on your health and wellness, empowering you to embrace a richer quality of life. With a treasure trove of success stories from individuals just like you, we're here to guide you toward your goals. At P23 Health, we're with you every step of the way, and that's no cap Until next time. Be well.

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