Mastering Nutrition

Are mutations in your genes for the vitamin D receptor impacting your vitamin D requirements? There are three common genetic variants, known as Taq1, Bsm1, and Fok1. They’ve been associated with the risk of certain diseases but no one has quite sorted out what they are actually doing. It’s possible they raise your need for vitamin D. Watch this video for my recommendations on what to do if you have them. I recommend testing your VDR genes with StrateGene, which you can get here: chrismasterjohnphd.com/strategene For more information on how to get the StrateGene report, watch this video: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/12/04/know-need-care-mthfr/ You may also enjoy these other two videos I made about vitamin D testing: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/05/16/tell-difference-vitamin-d-calcium-deficiencies/ https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/05/18/vitamin-d-normal-pth-high/ To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Can you get vitamin A from plant foods? It depends on your genes. Listen to this podcast to learn how to figure out your BCO1 genetics and how this impacts your vitamin A requirement. Vitamin A is found in the form of carotenoids in red, orange, yellow, and green vegetables, and in the form of retinol in animal foods, especially liver. BCO1 helps you convert the carotenoids to retinol, which is the form you need to have in your body to be healthy. Many of us have genetic impairments in BCO1. In fact, for genetic reasons alone, if you took 100 of us, half of us would make the conversion less than half as well as the other half. A quarter of us would have our ability to make the conversion slashed four-fold. But it isn’t *all* about genetics. There are many other factors -- thyroid health, iron, protein, zinc, vitamin E, parasites, oxidative stress, heavy metals, polyunsaturated fats -- the list just goes on and on for the things that can affect this conversion. Knowing your genes is helpful, but only one piece of the puzzle. Listen to the podcast for how I recommend handling this. I recommend testing your BCO1 genes with StrateGene, which you can get here: chrismasterjohnphd.com/strategene For more information on how to get the StrateGene report, watch this video: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/12/04/know-need-care-mthfr/ To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Do you have anxiety? Depression? Attention problems? Or are you worried about estrogen and cancer? If so, listen to this podcast to learn about the role of your COMT genetics. COMT metabolizes dopamine, estrogen, and various other things. Half of us have the genetic for intermediate activity. The other half of us are split evenly between high and low activity. When nutrition is optimal, this just leads to personality differences: with low COMT activity, you’re better at focusing, but tend to ruminate on things rather than letting them go; with high COMT activity, you rarely get stuck in a rut, but you just as rarely sit down to focus on one single thing. When nutrition is off, we can go to pathological extremes, whether it’s depression and anxiety on one hand, or attention deficit and hyperactivity on the other. Robust COMT activity is also needed to get rid of harmful forms of estrogen that contribute to cancer risk. I recommend testing your COMT genes with StrateGene, which you can get here: chrismasterjohnphd.com/strategene To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 For more information on how to get the StrateGene report, watch this video, the first of the three MTHFR videos: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/12/04/know-need-care-mthfr/ Here are the two other MTHFR videos: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/12/06/what-to-do-about-mthfr/ https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/12/11/bloodwork-get-mthfr/ Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Today, January 14, is the *last day* to get 30% off your entire order by entering masterjohn as the promo code at checkout when you make purchases on paleovalley.com. Thiamin, or vitamin B1, is central to both energy metabolism and antioxidant defense. While its deficiency causes many problems, out of all the B vitamins its deficiency is most neurological in nature, because energy metabolism of the brain becomes severely compromised, and because neurotransmitters derived from protein cannot be produced. In its most severe form, beriberi, it can cause loss of muscle control, twitching, muscles freezing into awkward positions, and seizures. Carbohydrates require twice as much thiamin as fat. This means, on the one hand, that high-carbohydrate diets increase the need for thiamin, and on the other hand, that people who are deficient in thiamin may have neurological symptoms that resolve when they go on a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. Thiamin is widely distributed in foods. Historically, diets high in refined grain produced beriberi, but now refined grains are enriched in thiamin, so its deficiency is rarely caused by diet. However, certain foods such as raw fish and moths that are eaten in some cultures contain thiamin antagonists, gastrointestinal microbes can degrade thiamin, and there are various environmental causes of thiamin deficiency, such the algae that grow in dead zones. As such, environmental exposure to thiamin antagonists may be a more common cause of thiamin deficiency than poor dietary intake. Still, some foods are much higher in thiamin than most others, with whole grains, legumes, yeast, and red meat being among the best sources. The show notes for this episode are available at chrismasterjohnphd.com/50. This episode is brought to you by Testing Nutritional Status: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet. I wrote this to make everything you could possibly need to measure and manage your nutritional status all one click away. Get it now! This episode is brought to you by Paleovalley. I use their beef sticks as a convenient yet nutritious snack. They are made from 100% grass-fed beef and preserved through traditional fermentation. The fermentation makes them more digestible and gives them a fresher mouthfeel and texture compared to most other meat snacks I’ve tried, which tend to be too dry for me to fully enjoy. They also have a grass-fed organ complex that contains a blend of liver, heart, kidney, and brain, all stuffed into gel caps for those who can’t bring themselves to eat these incredibly nutritious meats with a fork. Head to paleovalley.com and enter the promo code masterjohn at checkout for 30% off your order. This is a huge savings available for only a limited time. You can get 30% off everything on the site, ordering as much as you want, but only for the duration of the next three podcast episodes. Check it out now to make sure you get your discount! This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats. I use their liverwurst as a convenient way to make a sustainable habit of eating a diversity of organ meats. They also have a milder braunschweiger and an even milder head cheese that gives you similar benefits, as well as a wide array of other meat products, all from animals raised on pasture. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter promo code “Chris” at checkout to get a 15% discount on any order that is at least 7 pounds and is at least $75 after applying the discount but under 40 pounds (it can be 39.99 lbs, but not 40). You can use this discount code not once, but twice! To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/050-why-you-should-manage-your-thiamin

Do you have asthma? High blood pressure? Knowing your nitric oxide genes may help you find a solution. In this episode we continue to look at the StrateGene report, this time focusing on the genes for endothelial nitric oxide synthase. Impairments in this enzyme can increase your risk of asthma or high blood pressure. If you have either of these conditions and impairments in the enzyme, then you may benefit from strategies aimed at increasing nitric oxide production. Ensuring adequate zinc and arginine are part of the strategy because they support the enzyme, but you also should consider strategies that get around the enzyme, such as foods and supplements that generate nitric oxide enzymatically. Watch the video to learn more! I recommend testing your eNOS genes with StrateGene, which you can get here: chrismasterjohnphd.com/strategene For more information on how to get the StrateGene report, watch this video: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/12/04/know-need-care-mthfr/ Here is a link to Neo40: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/neo40 To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

You may have heard of MTHFR, but have you heard about MTRR? If you care about your vitamin B12 status, listen to this podcast to learn about it. MTRR is an enzyme that helps you repair your vitamin B12 once it’s been damaged. You don’t need to use it a lot most of the time, so some of us, including me, have genetic variations that make it not work very well, yet we’re fine most of the time. But when you are exposed to new health challenges that increase the damage done to your B12, suddenly you may need to use the enzyme more than usual, and if you have genetic impairments in the enzyme you may suddenly become vulnerable to vitamin B12 deficiency. I don’t recommend making a specific nutritional strategy around MTRR, but I do recommend you monitor your B12 status more proactively if you have genes that lower your MTRR activity. I recommend testing your MTRR with StrateGene, which you can get here: chrismasterjohnphd.com/strategene For more information on how to get the StrateGene report, watch this video: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/12/04/know-need-care-mthfr/ To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Glycine can you sleep, stabilize your blood sugar, improve your joint health, keep your skin beautiful, and do much more. It's a little amino acid with a big impact on your health. This episode is a panel discussion between Dr. Chris Masterjohn, Alex Leaf of Examine.Com, and Vladimir Heiskanen, covering everything you need to know about glycine. The best way to get glycine is from hydrolyzed collagen. Great Lakes offers the best balance of quality, transparency, and price. Vital Proteins, while more expensive, uses enzymatic digestions rather than heat to hydrolyze the collagen, and some people find that their digestion tolerates Vital Proteins but not other brands. Some people respond better to pure glycine. For these cases I recommend Bulk Supplements pure glycine powder. It has the same sweetness as sugar and can be used as a sweetener. You can view the show notes for this episode at chrismasterjohnphd.com/49. This episode is brought to you by Testing Nutritional Status: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet. I wrote this to make everything you could possibly need to measure and manage your nutritional status all one click away. If you purchase it by Wednesday, January 9, you can turn in your proof of purchase at any point in the future while my consultations are available to get $30 back on a single consultation or $100 back on a Health and Wellness Package. Get it now! This episode is brought to you by Paleovalley. I use their beef sticks as a convenient yet nutritious snack. They are made from 100% grass-fed beef and preserved through traditional fermentation. The fermentation makes them more digestible and gives them a fresher mouthfeel and texture compared to most other meat snacks I’ve tried, which tend to be too dry for me to fully enjoy. They also have a grass-fed organ complex that contains a blend of liver, heart, kidney, and brain, all stuffed into gel caps for those who can’t bring themselves to eat these incredibly nutritious meats with a fork. Head to paleovalley.com and enter the promo code masterjohn at checkout for 30% off your order. This is a huge savings available for only a limited time. You can get 30% off everything on the site, ordering as much as you want, but only for the duration of the next three podcast episodes. Check it out now to make sure you get your discount! This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats. I use their liverwurst as a convenient way to make a sustainable habit of eating a diversity of organ meats. They also have a milder braunschweiger and an even milder head cheese that gives you similar benefits, as well as a wide array of other meat products, all from animals raised on pasture. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter promo code “Chris” at checkout to get a 15% discount on any order that is at least 7 pounds and is at least $75 after applying the discount but under 40 pounds (it can be 39.99 lbs, but not 40). You can use this discount code not once, but twice! To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/049-why-you-need-glycine-a-panel

Concerned about kidney stones? Here are ten things you can do to naturally protect yourself. Believe it or not, calcium is protective. But there is far more. Listen to this podcast to learn all about it. To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Happy 2018! After many dozens of hours putting this together, I'm super excited to announce "Testing Nutritional Status: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet." Over the course of 2017, many of you followed my podcast series on measuring and managing nutritional status. Some of you absolutely loved it. Some of you found it too technical to follow, or found the episodes too long and dense to share with your friends and family and were excited when I started condensing them into much shorter Chris Masterjohn Lite episodes. At the end of the day, I still am only about 5% through the series, mainly because producing each episode takes me about two weeks of doing nothing else and I need to clear out more time for it. One of my goals in 2018 is to unleash the complete series. But this also calls for something else: Could I completely distill the practical, actionable information from all the technical explanations? Could I collect it all into one, easy-to-find place? One of you wrote to me last year: Hi Chris, I'd happily pay for a PDF cheat sheet containing all your evidence-based recommendations in one table. I frequently find myself hunting through your transcripts :) Just a suggestion, keep up the good work. Man oh man, was he right. Quite often, dozens of hours reviewing the science around a nutrient led me to recommend specific tests that are not in common use, or specific ranges for tests that are commonly used but where the lab's range is far too broad, or just way off. So I started to put together such a cheat sheet. Lo and behold, I found myself hurting as I tried to find my own practical recommendations in the sprawling 2-hour transcripts.  After all this time in the trenches, what I've emerged with... let's just say, ain't no ordinary cheat sheet. It's the ULTIMATE cheat sheet. It's is a “cheat sheet” in two ways: ● All of the lab testing required for comprehensive nutritional screening is reduced to a single page, with hyperlinks making ordering any of the tests just one click away. ● In just five pages, I provide full instructions for lab testing, blood pressure, and dietary analysis, as well as an algorithm for quick decisions on what to do next for each marker that may be off. This “cheat sheet” is ultimate because of what comes next: ● Over 70 pages list the signs and symptoms associated with all the possible nutrient imbalances, the potential causes of nutrient imbalances, and an action plan for correcting each imbalance. To top it off, it ends with an index of the signs and symptoms of nutrient deficiencies and imbalances. The index has 178 entries, and each entry links directly to the sections of the text where those signs and symptoms are discussed. This makes it incredibly easy to browse through the index for the things that seem most interesting or relevant to you and find exactly what you're looking for without having to read the whole guide. If you're getting antsy, you can buy it right now, but read on if you'd like to learn more about it. Three Ways to Use the Cheat Sheet Let's face it, testing nutritional status can be expensive. In my consulting practice, some of my clients often ask me to find ways to minimize the costs associated with figuring out nutritional problems. Others are able to get practically anything covered by insurance if they use the right labs, and others just want me to find the cream of the crop, the best of the best. So I've started the cheat sheet by outlining three different ways to use it: In the comprehensive approach, you get the comprehensive lab screening, conduct a dietary analysis and a series of home blood pressure measurements, and collect a list of signs and symptoms that seem relevant from the index. In the time-saving approach, you skip the dietary analysis -- the most time-consuming part -- and only resort to dietary analysis if and when some of your health challenges prove too difficult to resolve without it. In the cost-saving approach, you skip the lab screening, only resorting to running labs when doing so proves necessary to determine the best course of action. The comprehensive approach is the one that generates the correct strategies the fastest, but if time or finances are constraining, the other two options allow you to make the best of the resources you have at your disposal. By the way, while practical, this is an entirely educational resource. Please don't try anything in the cheat sheet without consulting your doctor, and please don't ever ignore the advice of your doctor because of anything I've written in the cheat sheet. This Is a Living Document Putting this cheat sheet together has been tremendously valuable to me. It required me to do a lot of research, and to collect my thoughts and findings all into one place. I know very well that it's going to be my primary tool for helping myself and others in the years to come. So I want to keep this constantly up-to-date for both myself and for you. You'll notice that I've called it Version 1.0. Since it's practical in nature, I decided to think of it more like a software program than a book, and went with version over edition. When you purchase the cheat sheet, I recommend you enter your email address in the shopping cart. That will allow me to email you updates to future editions. If I make small changes to it, I will call the versions 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and so on, and give you the updates for free. When I make bigger changes, I will release versions 2.0, 3.0, and so on, and give you steep discounts for having purchased version 1.0 early in the life of the guide. I will also offer you opportunities to give me your feedback on the guide, and I will consider that feedback in the production of updates. This Is a Practical, Not a Scientific Argument I've put together a small collection of further reading materials at the end of the guide. If I had thoroughly referenced every statement in the guide, it would be unwieldy, with a sprawling bibliography that rivaled the guide in length. I mean, geez this is a cheat sheet and it's already 78 pages long! Instead, I listed what I consider the best starting places for developing a deeper understanding of the material. One of those resources is my podcast, where I will be doing an episode on each nutrient this year, in full scientific glory. What that means is that this is not for you if what you are looking for is full explanations of how things work, how I came to each conclusion, and the exact source of each statement pinned clearly to the statement itself. I have plenty of writings of that nature, but this isn't one of them. This is for you if you want to the practical what-to-do information all distilled into one place. And hundredsof hyperlinks ensuring you never have to scroll, squint your eyes to find things, or make an appointment with Dr. Google. This Is a Digital Document The format of the cheat sheet is a PDF. You'll be able to download it immediately after purchase. You can certainly print it out if you wish, and that might be best if you want to read it straight through. However, please keep in mind that one of the key features is the hundreds of hyperlinks. They bring you to the exact section you want to use when reading the instructions for use. They bring you to the exact paragraph to read when looking things up in the index. They bring you to the exact lab test when looking for a test to order. So, keep the digital version handy if for no other reason than this amazing assortment of links. An AMAZING Gift for You if You But It This Week If you buy the cheat sheet this week (by January 9), you can use your proof of purchase at any time to obtain a discount (technically a rebate) on my consultation services: If you purchase a single consultation, you can turn in your proof of purchase and I'll give you $30 back. That's the full value of the cheat sheet. So you can think of this as 10% off the consultation, or getting the cheat sheet completely for FREE. If you purchase a Health and Wellness Package, you can turn in your proof of purchase and I'll give you $100 back. That's a $30 investment to get $100 back, a $70 profit. It's like buying bitcoin!   You don't have to commit to a consultation now. This offer is good for the entire life of my consultation services. So, the action you need to take this week to be eligible is to purchase the cheat sheet, and to save the email with the download link and receipt as your proof of purchase. The action you can take at any time in the future is to use the proof of purchase for a rebate on my consultation services. This is subject to the availability of my services. If you wait until 2020, I cannot guarantee I will still be offering consultations. If you wait until August, I cannot guarantee you'll get your spot at a convenient time. All I guarantee is that as long as I offer these services, I will honor the rebate. Even if you decide not to follow up on the rebate, what you get is an amazing resource for the ridiculously cheap "full price" of $30. Actually, you can pay less than that. Plus a Discount If You Buy It Today! For today and today only, I'm offering an early bird discount. At checkout, put in this discount code: SaveMe5! It takes $5 off the price and expires at 11:59 PM tonight, eastern time. Here It Is... Ready? You can buy it here: Testing Nutritional Status: The ULTIMATE Cheat Sheet Happy New Year! Chris

So far we’ve seen that glycine or collagen supplements can improve sleep, tendon health, and blood sugar. But many of you have asked me, should we be concerned that they can raise oxalate levels? This could potentially increase the risk of kidney stones. There’s about a ten percent chance you could be at risk of a kidney stone some day, and if you’re in that minority you should be concerned about your exposure to oxalates. Glycine is very unlikely to generate oxalates, but collagen may, especially if you are deficient in vitamin B6. In this podcast, I describe how to figure out if this is relevant to you and what to do about it. To get these episodes free of ads, with transcripts, and weeks or sometimes even months before they are released to the public, along with access to monthly live Q&A sessions, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass. Use the code LITE10 to get 10% off. To make it easier to get the discount, use this link, which has the coupon already activated: https://masterpass.chrismasterjohnphd.com/cmj-masterpass/2200/buy?coupon=LITE10 Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.