What do we need to thrive?

The human body is incredibly complicated, and the answers can be hard to find. Your genetics tells the original story of your physical strengths and weaknesses. If it’s showing up in your body, its written in your genes. Understanding your genes can help you listen to your body and make sound, daily choices to live a longer, healthier and better life.

Whether you are looking to better manage (and possibly reverse) a chronic illness, optimise your energy levels, balance your weight naturally or improve your performance in sports, DNA testing can empower you to take care of your health in a way that is personalised and precise.

Only when you look at your genes as a part of a series of interconnected systems in your body do you start to see a picture emerge. A simple cheek cell swab can give you a multitude of insights, into how to approach your health.  Metabolism, fitness, weight, hormones as well as diet are all looked at, to give you not only the answers you wanted, but also the ones you didn’t even know you were looking for.

At Nutrition Innovated we work with the 3×4 Genetics team based in Cape Town and use their approach to genetic reporting. They offer pathway based analysis, not single gene-variant based analysis, meaning it looks at how genes interact with one another and work together to impact key metabolic processes. 3×4 is changing the paradigm of genetic translation.

The approach is based on systems biology, which more accurately reflects how the body functions – in systems, not in parts.

By doing the test you will gain an understanding into how your body is functioning at, first of all, a cellular level – ‘upstream’. This gives insight into how well your body is doing at protecting you against everything that life throws at us. This level is the most integral part of the test because these genes, among others, have a spin-off effect ‘downstream’ and will affect how the rest of your body functions as well as determine your risk for disease. You will gain an appreciation of your anti-oxidant capacity, your inflammatory response, your methlyation capacity, your detoxification capacity as well as the extent to which your DNA is being damaged or maintained day to day. It helps you to identify your ‘weak links’ as it were. Having this information can help you to decide whether you require nutritional supplementation as well as to what extent you will benefit from supplementation.

The next level of testing looks at specific disease predisposition. For example your risk for; osteoporosis, Alzheimers, depression, hypertension, type II diabetes, heart disease, cancers, embolism (DVT) as well as oestrogen dominance.

From a weight point of view you can expect to gain an understanding as to what your barriers are to losing weight. Are you susceptible to stress eat because of being insensitive to dopamine? Do you have the genetic ability to recognise that you are satiated and have an ‘off button’ when it comes to portion control? What is the quality of your sleep like? What is your basic metablic rate and what is your metabolism like in response to exercise? What type of exercise do you need to do to lose the most weight? Are you weight loss resistant? Knowing the answers to these questions can help you to fine tune and to target your efforts to ensuring effective and sustainable weight loss.

Sports enthusiasts will be able to better manage their training schedule to allow for optimal recovery between sessions and to minimise their injury risk. Genetics also plays a role in determining our athletic potential. Are you more power or endurance based? In which mode of sport will you thrive?

Finally you will have the answers to questions such as; Can I metabolise caffeine? How many cups of coffee can I have a day? Am I sensitive to sodium (salt) in my diet? What is my vitamin D level like and what is my requirement for daily sun exposure?

The 3×4 Genetic test provides you with a wealth of information that you can then use to help you to better manage your lifestyle choices with the overall goal of preventing disease. Most importantly this information will help ensure that you feel your best and that you can be your best every single day.

Article Credit: 3×4 Genetics & Kerryn Gibson Dietitian Durban (Kerryn is a registered dietitian in private practice in Umhlanga and Ballito working as a paediatric dietitian and a sports dietitian).