[Music] the insane benefits of vitamin b nobody shares all right welcome back to the dr gundry podcast today i'm going to share something about vitamin b that nobody is talking about there's a good chance that your oral multi b vitamin is a total waste of money that's right a total waste of money and there's a 100 chance that your vitamin b12 shot is a total waste of money that's right a total waste of money how can i be so sure about all this well first of all if you're part of the 50 of people who
carry one or more of the mutations of the mthfr gene and if you say that out loud we will bleep you from network television and as i tell my patients it's the mother effer gene and that's how to remember you can take all the b vitamins in the world and you will not convert particularly vitamin b12 and folic acid into their active forms because you lack enzymes that convert these b vitamins into their active methylated forms so you can keep swallowing them but they're not going to do you any good additionally surprising number of people
need a receptor in the lower part of their intestines called intrinsic factor that's necessary to absorb methyl b12 into your gut and if you don't have intrinsic factor and i'm always amazed how many people don't have intrinsic factor you can swallow vitamin b12 you can even swallow the active form of vitamin b12 methylcobalamin and you still won't have any b12 in your bloodstream now how do you know if you have one of these mutations well you can get a blood test you can get a gene test to see if you carry one of these mutations
but here's an interesting easy way there's strong evidence that people who carry one or more of these mutations have either a strong personal history or a strong family history of anxiety depression adhd bipolar schizophrenia drug abuse alcohol abuse and suicide tendencies now there are other reasons for these conditions but when we look at family trees it's amazing how well this mutation correlates with those symptoms in my patients interestingly most successful people that i know and i take care of a large number of successful monetarily or otherwise successful individuals all of them carry this mutation almost
100 and that's because many successful people have attention deficit disorder that they recognized usually fairly early in life and used it as a powerful tool to focus their attention on something they were interested in and realize how easily they could be distracted from something they shouldn't be interested in and harness that power so if you're a creative individual if you come from a family of a history of anxiety and depression there's pretty good odds that you carry one or more of these mutations now what do you do about it well that's the good news you
can get methyl b12 and methylfolate as supplements now here's the trick that's so interesting i mentioned that many people don't have the ability to absorb even the right kind of methyl b12 because they lack intrinsic factor but you can bypass that whole system by putting methyl b12 under your tongue sublingual and many people sell sublingual methyl b12 tablets costco does for example there are many places online to get sublingual dots of methyl b12 and combine methylfolin as some companies sell a chewable tablet but i can tell you after working with tens of thousands of patients
even if it's a chewable tablet chew it up and put it under your tongue and let it absorb from there i even have one patient that i continually laugh about who had these mutations we had him go get the supplement of costco and i told him to put it under his tongue and we looked at his b12 level and his homocysteine level uh the next time he came in and i it was low and his homocysteine level was high and i said you're not taking your b12 he says yeah i have it every day i
said no you don't i said and you're putting it on your tongue right he said no it's so sweet i sweetened my coffee with it and i said ah for crying a lot so i said you know go away come back um put it under your tongue next time of course he puts it under his tongue his b12 level is normal his homocysteine level is normal and which reminds me if you've been told you have an elevated homocysteine level and a lot of doctors will measure homocysteine on a blood test if you've been told you
have an elevated homocysteine level the odds are you carry the mthfr the mother effort mutation and you absolutely should get on sublingual methyl b12 and methylfoline now methylfolate you can get it as a capsule or as a chewable tablet either way works fine but methyl b12 has to go under your tongue i mentioned b12 shots are a waste of money because the people that i see in my practice who are getting the b12 shots are the people who are getting them because they didn't know that they had the mutation and they could take all the
b12 in the world and it wouldn't do them any good but when we switch them off of their b12 shots and put them on methyl b12 sublingual lo and behold they never look back their b12 levels are normal their energy levels are normal and they're off to the races now a proviso there are a few individuals particularly with the double mutations of the mthfr genes who even little bits of the active compounds methyl b12 and methyl folate worsens their anxiety and depression and it's a well-recognized phenomenon i've seen it a few times in my patients
if you're one of those people and you you'll know it the trick i and others use is you have you take a b vitamin vitamin b3 which is called niacinamide and niacinamide at even 250 milligrams usually blocks this odd effect so if you're one of those odd individuals i don't mean odd uh who react to the active forms of b12 and folic acid then buy some niacinamides dirt cheap take it for a couple of weeks and then re-add small doses of methyl b12 and methylfolate and that usually stops the problem now these vitamins are not
a substitute for good mental health care but they are remarkable in many people including some children who've had real adhd disability in school getting small amounts of methylfolate and methyl b12 into them has made a remarkable difference in my practice but check with your family physician check with a mental health care practitioner get yourself some of the chewable tablets put it under your tongue they have liquid drops those are great options lastly b vitamins in general if i had one class of vitamins that bother women's stomachs the most it's the b vitamins and many women
just to a person say b vitamins really upset my stomach that's why you're much better off getting a methyl b12 and methylfolate available as a chewable tablet and putting it under your tongue and you'll eliminate that possibility there are plenty of other b vitamins that won't bother your stomach vitamin b7 biotin which helps skin hair and nails won't bother the stomach you can get it in drop form you can get it in capsule form so there's ways around all of this but the important thing is bees are not the miraculous thing you think they are
because 50 of us can't utilize vitamin b12 and folic acid effectively because of this mother effort gene and even if you don't have the mother effort gene quite frankly methyl b12 and methylfolate will not hurt you and they don't call them the energy vitamins for nothing you're definitely going to want to see this one shiitake mushrooms easy to find now in most grocery stores they're packed with a polysaccharide called beta glucan which is number one great for gut health but number two has been associated with reducing cholesterol levels in people who take beta glucan
