Episode 331 — ATP May Be The MISSING PIECE
Guest: Bob Miller • Date: October 29, 2026
Episode Overview
Bob Miller returns to Autism Parenting Secrets to explore his latest research into ATP, the energy that powers virtually every cell in the body. He shares why inadequate ATP production may be an important connecting factor across mitochondrial function, inflammation, brain signaling, oxidative stress, and more.
About Dr. Sheila Kilbane
Robert Miller, BCTN, ANWPB, is a Board-Certified Traditional Naturopath specializing in genetic-specific nutrition. He is the founder of Functional Genomic Analysis and the NutriGenetic Research Institute and has spent years researching relationships among genetic variants, environmental factors, and complex health challenges. Bob founded the NutriGenetic Research Institute in 2015 to support genetic research and has presented multiple phases of research on genetic variants and chronic Lyme disease at ILADS conferences. He is also the creator of Functional Genomic Analysis, software designed to organize and analyze genetic SNPs for functional health professionals.
You’ll Discover
Why ATP Matters To Every Cell (2:11)
How ATP May Affect Glutamate Clearance (10:06)
How A Vicious Cycle Can Develop (18:07)
Why There May Be Many Paths To The Same Problem (28:42)
Why Low ATP Doesn't Necessarily Look Like Low Energy (39:21)
Referenced In This Episode
Watch the Full Episode Video: https://elevatehowyounavigate.com/video/bob-miller
Full Transcript
Bob Miller 0:00
One of the things we often hear is people say, "Well, they can't have low ATP because they're excitable; they're all over the place." Interestingly, that is a symptom of low ATP. When you've got that excitability, you're just you're just so excited you don't know what to do with yourself. And also, I'm sure people have heard the analogy: too tired to sleep. So, if you've got low ATP and your and your glutamate's going up, despite you're so tired you can't sleep. So that's why we keep coming back to this is a critical piece, and so many environmental factors are now doing that to us.
Len Arcuri 0:33
If you're a parent of a child with autism, you are being called to rise with love, courage, and clarity. This journey isn't easy, and most parents aren't equipped, but you can be. This podcast is your invitation to rise higher, because how you navigate matters. I'm Len, and this is Autism Parenting Secrets, where you become the parent your child needs now. Hello, and welcome to Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I'm joined once again by my good friend Bob Miller. He's the founder of Functional Genomic Analysis and the Nutrigenetic Research Institute. Bob has been doing some fascinating research around ATP, the energy that powers our cells, and how problems producing enough of it may connect things that we often think about separately: mitochondrial function, inflammation, brain signaling, oxidative stress, gut health, and more. Today, we're going to unpack that and try to make something incredibly complex more simple and useful. So, one quick note: this is primarily an audio podcast, but Bob will be sharing some visuals that will help make the concepts easier to understand, and I'll include a link in the show notes where you can watch the full video. Bob, it's great to have you back.
Bob Miller 1:50
Always a pleasure to to chat with you, my friend. We have a lot of fun geeking out as we just did a couple weeks ago at the at one of the conferences. So really excited to share this this information with with you folks, because I think we made some major major strides.
Len Arcuri 2:04
Well, yeah, you're always enthusiastic, and it's because you you continue to dive deeper and reveal new insights, and and so I appreciate your curiosity. And yes, this concept of ATP. Why don't we start with the the obvious question? If you can give a little bit more detailed definition of what is ATP and why should a parent care about it?
Bob Miller 2:27
Sure. Well, ATP stands for adenosine triphosphate, and it is the molecule that every cell needs to do its job. So, if we didn't have any ATP, nothing would work. So, every organ, every cell needs ATP. But I want to get to the ATP just a little bit later. But first, I want to go to to glutamate. So then I'm going to tie all these things together. So we want to start with glutamate. Now, glutamate is the brain's primary excitatory neurotransmitter, and is essential for normal communication between neurons. You need glutamate. You need it for memory, for attention, and brain development. Helps the body make glutathione one of the most important antioxidants. Now, if glutamate is too low, brain signaling may become sluggish, and you can't concentrate. You don't have any memory, motivation, and everything suffers. So it's very necessary. But the problem is the balance. When too much glutamate accumulates outside the neurons, it can overstimulate glutamate receptors, and then this can contribute to this hyperexcitability that we often see, oxidative stress, and we'll be talking about what's called lipid peroxidation and excitotoxic injury. So your healthy brain depends upon having enough glutamate for normal signaling, while effectively clearing and recycling excess glutamate through what are called astrocytes and balancing that excitation. So cliff note here: glutamate is needed for your brain to work properly. Without it, we we don't think. But with too much, we have a problem. So what's interesting is glutamate is now acknowledged as a primary excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. An aberrant activity has been associated with addiction, psychosis, neurodegeneration, and autism. So, again, to review, glutamate makes you intelligent, highly motivated go-getter. Without enough, you have a problem. If you have too much, you have a problem. So, for those of you who are watching the video, you'll see this study that says glutamate dysfunction has been central to conceptualizations of neurotransmitter involvement in autism for years, so that there was a hyperglutamate theory of autism, referring to a set of findings of increased levels of the amino acid in blood samples of children and adults with the disorder. So to sum. You need glutamate, but too little is a problem. Too much is a problem.
Len Arcuri 5:05
And and it's been known for as you just mentioned for quite a while. But I think the big question is, well, what do you do about it, right? Like what what can you do? And I think that's where there's a lot that's emerging on that front.
Bob Miller 5:16
Absolutely, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. So, number one, glutamate helps the brain communicate. Number two, it also is used to make glutathione, the master antioxidant. There's some genes that turn glutamate into GABA, but the key that we're going to be talking about here today is something called astrocytes. Astrocytes, and they clear the excess glutamate, and that's the whole purpose of our talk today, to show why those astrocytes may not be doing their job. So there's many reasons that the glutamate can go up. There's something called the microglia, and we don't have to get into that, but that'll create excess glutamate. And then inflammation and oxidative stress will also create excess glutamate. Now I'm going to diverge for just a second and talk about something called NLRP3. And for those of you watching on video, you'll see I have three studies up that tie NLRP3 to autism spectrum disorders. So in simple terms, what NLRP3 is, it's an enzyme that makes inflammation to kill virus and bacteria. Is that a good thing? Sure, unless it's overactive, because one of the things it'll do, it will make more glutamate. Now, here's another paper. This again, if you're watching the video. It says our results showed a hyperactivation of NLRP3 inflammasomes in autism spectrum disorders. So now this NLRP3 is overactive. So what happens is when we get exposed to environmental triggers such as mold, chemicals, air pollution, the spike protein, Lyme disease, all of them go through a pathway that ends up stimulating that NLRP3, which is then going to make more glutamate. So whenever you hear talks on autism, you'll see the statistics that the rate of autism is just rising dramatically. So everyone's trying to figure out why is this happening. You know, people are looking for the genetic reasons, and that's what we look at, and that's part of it. But the kids today aren't any different than they were 75 years ago genetically. So what's happening? It's the environmental factors that we weren't exposed to. When I when I talk to parents, I often say, "I was born on a different world in 1954. We didn't have high fructose corn syrup. We didn't have cell phones. COVID wasn't around. Yes, Lyme existed, but not as strong. We didn't have glyphosate. Just on and on the list of things we've thrown into our environment that is now over stimulating the NLRP3, making all this glutamate. We we did a study of with Purdue University, and we looked at 26 children with autism, and we found a very high rate of a genetic predisposition to create more NLRP3 and glutamate, and then also many of them were exposed to mold. So there's an old adage of genetics loads of the gun, environment pulls the trigger. All right, now we're going to get into why this glutamate is so high. So there's something called an astrocyte. Again, the name is astrocyte, and what it does, it takes glutamate and brings it into the astrocyte, and then it combines it with ammonia and ATP that we spoke about earlier, and turns it back into the safe glutamine. Now let me say that again: the glutamate that's excitatory gets pulled into the astrocyte, and it combines with ammonia and ATP to make glutamine, and then we have a safe substance. So if that's working, the glutamate gets recycled. If it's not, we have a problem. Now, hopefully, this won't be too complex, but we have to explain this part of it. Sodium grabs only the glutamate and takes it into the astrocyte. So let me say it again: sodium grabs glutamate and takes it into the astrocyte. That's only going to happen if there's low sodium in the astrocyte because it just flows in. There isn't a pump or anything. It'll just flow in if there's low sodium in the astrocyte. If you got high glutamate out here, it'll attach to sodium and flow into the astrocyte. But that only happens if there's low sodium in the astrocyte. And this is the key point of our talk here today. There's something called a sodium potassium. Pump that takes the sodium out and gets what it runs on, ATP. So if there's inadequate ATP, we don't take the sodium out.
Bob Miller 10:10
So therefore, the glutamate doesn't get carried in and transformed into glutamine. Now there's some theories out there that flapping might even be associated with high ammonia. So if we don't have the the glutamate combining with ammonia to be cleared, you're going to have high glutamate and high ammonia. But it all depends upon ATP to take the sodium-potassium pump to take the sodium out. Do you think we made that pretty clear there, Len?
Len Arcuri 10:42
Yeah, I have a pretty clear visual in my head, so yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
Bob Miller 10:47
Okay, now here's what happens if the sodium-potassium pump doesn't take the sodium out. And again, for those watching on video, we have a visual of it here. But the bottom line is, the glutamate remains high, and the ammonia might remain high, and that causes all of this irritability, the excitability, can't focus when the glutamate is too high. Now, GABA, I'm sure many people have heard of that. GABA is the "Don't worry, relax, be happy" or neurotransmitter. There's something called a GABA receptor site, and GABA opens up the receptor site. That's all it does. GABA opens up the receptor site, and what it does, it allows chloride to move into the neuron, and that's relaxing. However, if we have a problem that the chloride is already high inside the neuron, and GABA opens it up, the chloride goes the opposite direction, and it's excitatory. So I'm sure there's people that have said, you know, I tried my child on GABA, and it made them worse. And the reason that could happen is, once again, back to the sodium-potassium pump. You need to take the sodium out so the chloride moves correctly. Isn't that amazing? So you see, there's a common thread here to all of this. So if you've got the right chloride levels in the neuron, and you take GABA, it's relaxing. But if you have high chloride in the neuron, GABA opens up the receptor site, and it's excitatory. Does that make sense, Erlen?
Len Arcuri 12:30
Makes sense to me. And one thought that's coming to my mind is that something like what you described, where if somebody gives their child something and the opposite of what they're hoping happens, that's not only kind of a a fail, right? Something that didn't work, but that's a huge clue as to what's happening and and why that's the case.
Bob Miller 12:49
Absolutely. Now, again, for those of you watching on video, we're showing you where the glutamine comes in to the presteptic neuron, comes out as glutamate, goes into the astrocyte, turned back into glutamine. That happens when the sodium-potassium pump takes out the sodium. Now, this may be sounding like Chinese at this point, but just keep in mind what we're talking about is ATP. Because without ATP, you don't take out the sodium. The glutamate remains high. Then, again, for those of you watching the video, we're showing what happens if if the astrocyte is not able to bring the glutamate in, the glutamate goes very high, and then it has a downstream effect of putting more sodium in, more calcium in, and having GABA have the opposite effect, so that's what happens when we don't have enough ATP to clear the glutamate. Again, let's talk about ATP. It's needed by the brain, the lungs, the kidneys, the digestive system, the immune system. All of them Need ATP now. There's something called the electron transport chain, and we'll try to make this as simple as we can. But what happens is electrons go through four steps, and they, through the fifth step, make your ATP. And there's a lot that can go wrong here. There's something called iron-sulfur clusters in NADH that are needed, and if everything's balanced, we make ATP. Now, if we have too few electrons, you're not going to make ATP. But interestingly, you can have too many electrons, and they clog up, and you don't get the ATP you need. So that's why we're big fans of doing a simple finger prick test from U.S. Biotech called the NAD test, where you can actually measure the NAD, the NADH, and see if that's out of balance. So if everything's balanced up, if you have the electrons, if you have the iron-sulfur clusters, you're going to make that ATP. Now, also to make things a little more complicated, there's something called heme, and heme is needed for those electrons to flow. And we don't have time to get into it today. This could be another podcast, but there's an entire pathway where you can have genetic issues that you don't make enough of heme. So you can see that there's multiple ways that we may not make enough ATP. But one of the biggest that we're excited about, Len, is there's something called an iron-sulfur cluster. It's four irons, four sulfurs from cysteine. They bind together, and they help the electrons flow down the electron transport chain. And this is something that no one's been talking about, and we believe this is very significant because if you don't have that iron-sulfur cluster working properly, the electrons aren't going to flow, and you're going to be low in ATP. So, how do you make the iron-sulfur cluster? Well, it comes from iron, comes from something called cysteine, and we need an electron supply, and that makes your iron-sulfur clusters. But there's a lot that can go wrong there. If you don't have the electrons, if you've got some genetic issues that you don't deliver cysteine, if something's wrong with the enzymes that deliver the iron, you may not make enough iron sulfur clusters. Yeah, I'm not sure just how looking at iron levels would tell you if you're making iron sulfur clusters.
Len Arcuri 16:40
Got
Bob Miller 16:41
it. Now here's what I believe me one most critical pieces, and nobody's been looking at this. And I'm excited to bring this to the fore. Lyme disease is now getting stronger than it's been. Mycotoxins are getting stronger. The COVID has changed the world. The spike protein has changed the world. All of those will cause the production of free radicals called superoxide, nitric oxide, and peroxynitrite. Those will destroy the iron-sulfur cluster. Let me say that again: superoxide, nitric oxide destroy the iron-sulfur cluster. So I know it's a little complicated, but if you remember, the iron-sulfur cluster is needed to make the ATP. So if that gets destroyed, it's not going to happen. And then to make matters worse, the iron from the iron-sulfur cluster goes on to make more inflammation that further damages the membranes to make your ATP, and you're in a feedback loop of inflammation. I believe this is what the functional world, and aside from autism, I believe this might be what's happening with chronic Lyme disease, mold toxicity, long haul COVID. We're destroying our iron sulfur clusters. Now, in addition, there's something called the Krebs cycle. Most people study this in high school, and this is where we make the again more of the ingredients to make energy alpha-ketoglutarate, so it's an old CoA, and that depends upon the iron-sulfur cluster. Well, if the iron-sulfur cluster is damaged, once again, you're going to have lower ATP. So now people are beginning to understand all these environmental factors that we may not have been exposed to in the past are now just wrecking havoc with your iron sulfur cluster and your ability to make ATP. So if you don't have enough iron sulfur clusters, you're going to have ATP decline, calcium dysregulation, and you're going to have brain stress and dysfunction. Now, this might be one of the more important things we're going to talk about here today, Len. There's something called cardiolipin, and cardiolipin is a specialized phospholipid found in the mitochondrial where the electron transport chain is located. So we're not getting into the weeds today, but there's a whole genetic pattern of making the cardiolipin because it organizes and stabilizes the electron transport chain that we just spoke about that makes your ATP. So if we don't have enough cardiolipin or the cardiolipin gets destroyed, we again don't make ATP, but on top of that, we make more inflammation. And again, for those who are watching video, we have a chart here of how cardiolipin is made, and that's way beyond what we have time to get into today. But you can see there's a whole progression of how we need to make our cardiolipin, and any genetic snips along the way here can impact the way you make the cardiolipin. So, when your cardiolipin and your cell membranes are damaged, it's called lipid peroxidation. Write this word down: lipid peroxidation, and that's why we call it the bowel. So when we have in. Inflammation, it damages the lipid membranes, including cardiolipin. So when you have these free radicals, they'll destroy the lipid bilayer and the cardiolipin, destabilizing everything. And guess what it does? It lowers your ATP production. Then on top of that, it produces reactive aldehydes, which can further damage proteins, and also impacts the clearing of glutamate by astrocytes. Oh boy, you see, see what's going on here, Len. You see how this like there's feedback loop after feedback loop.
Len Arcuri 20:37
There's just a lot of factors that are going on that ultimately are resulting in lower ATP, and it seems like it's just one vicious cycle.
Bob Miller 20:46
Yep, sure is. So, how do we damage the lipid membranes and the cardiolipin? We call them Sparkies to to make it easy to understand. So, the names of it doesn't matter, but it's called peroxynitrite and hydroxyl radicals. Peroxynitrite is formed when there's that electron leak, and hydroxyl radicals occur when iron combines with hydrogen peroxide. Both of those will damage the cardiolipin and the lipid bilayer, and when that happens, your ATP goes down, inflammation goes up, cellular energy goes down. So we've got to make sure that we don't have these sparkys produced excessively. But unfortunately, due to so many environmental factors, that's what's that's what's happening now. Then what happens is when that cardiolipin is destroyed, the electrons, rather than making ATP, make inflammation that further harms the cardiolipin, and you're in what we call a vicious feedback loop. And therefore, you're not making enough ATP. Isn't that amazing? How when the cardiolipin gets destroyed, the electrons leak. That makes something else that'll further destroy them, and this just is a downward spiral. That makes sense to you, Len.
Len Arcuri 22:07
Yeah, it does. It's very, very disconcerting, right? In terms of if that's what's happening, you know, how do you break that cycle?
Bob Miller 22:14
So we're going to talk about. So, and I believe this is what's behind the frailty of old age. You know, as people get older, it's harder to walk. They have a hard time standing up. They're losing strength because their mitochondria is not making ATP as effectively as it should. It's making more inflammation, and that accounts for the frailty. Interestingly, studies of high-performance athletes, people who are just naturally athletic, they really have strong cardiolipin that holds this all together, and they're more effective in making ATP rather than inflammation. So, here's a graphic, and again, well, for those who are watching the video, you may actually pause it and look at it, but we're not going to get into it just on the audio recording. But the lipid peroxidation through two different methods will cause excess extracellular glutamate, and then that makes more lipid peroxidation, and run a vicious cycle that amplifies the damage. So as those cell membranes get damaged, they they mess with your astrocytes' ability to clear the toxins or clear the glutamate, and then they'll actually even make more glutamate. So lipid peroxidation makes more glutamate and lowers the glutamate clearance. So you see now, Len, what I'm so excited about, we have to make sure that we don't oxidize our our lipid membranes, because that is the genesis of it all, where it begins this downward spiral. Then also, the cardiolipin can be damaged by inflammation as well, so now you're damaging the cardiolipin from what's called peroxynitrite. As we said earlier, when iron combines with hydrogen peroxide, it causes hydroxyl radicals, and that will also damage the cardiolipin. So you can see there's just multiple ways that this can happen. Now you think that would be enough, but no, there's a little bit more. So the genomics of autism spectrum disorder point to a hub for calcium signaling where diverse genetic and environmental risks converge. So when somebody says calcium, they think, well, that's good. You need calcium for your bones and your teeth. You know, you know the old commercials. Milk it does a body good because of the calcium. All true, but you can have too much or too little of virtually anything. So, if the calcium signaling gets too high, it starts wrecking havoc. So, lipid peroxidation generates aldehydes, and there's an enzyme called RYR1, and that is where calcium comes from. Something called the endoplasmic reticulum gets released. So, the bottom line is that. If that calcium gets released excessively, that will increase reactive oxygen species, disrupt electron transport chain, and you guessed it, decrease ATP production while increasing electron leakage and oxidative stress. So, for those watching the video, you can see here. Here's that enzyme RYR1. When it gets stimulated by lipid from sedation, it starts spewing out all of this calcium, and then it's called the calcium vicious channel, where more calcium is pushed out, and the methods where we put calcium back into the cell are diminished. So again, you've got this calcium vicious cycle that just keeps going on and on and on. And I think this is why it makes finding out what autism is. You know, there isn't one reason. So you could have 20 kids that are autistic, and they could have 20 different places that this is breaking down, and that's why it becomes so difficult because there isn't easy answers. Now, here's the crux of the matter. Here, the sodium-potassium pump, what it does, it takes out sodium and brings in potassium, and guess what it needs, ATP. So basically, it's very relatively simple. The pump, as it says, takes sodium out, puts potassium in. That's what it does. Then there's other pathways that are ATP dependent. There's something called NCX that takes the calcium out, and that is ATP. That I'm sorry, that's dependent upon the sodium-potassium balance. And then there's something called circa that puts the calcium back into where it belongs, and it's ATP dependent.
Bob Miller 26:53
So now you can see again, Len, ATP is you know ruining the whole process here because not taking the sodium out, and it's not putting the calcium back where it belongs, and then that excess calcium is excitatory, and then circa is the one that puts the the calcium back into what's called the endoplasmic reticulum, and we don't need to get into all the names, but what it does, it puts the calcium back where it belongs, but it's ATP dependent. So if we have low ATP, you're not going to put the calcium back where it belongs, and you're going to have one giant mess. So what happens here, Len, is when you get environmental factors, it stimulates the NLRP3 to make superoxide and nitric oxide, then that will start raising the glutamate, putting it higher on a tone. Then all that oxidative stress damages the mitochondria, so then you've got damage to that cardiolipin, more lower ATP. Then that causes the calcium to go wonky, as we just discussed, in a vicious cycle, and then your astrocytes. Remember, we talked about the astrocytes have to clear the excess glutamate; they can't do their job. And then the neurons that have to deal with the the GABA, they can't do their job either. So the bottom line is excitatory signaling, neuroinflammation, neuronal dysfunction, and some of your core autism symptoms. That's a lot. I know somebody wants to fully grasp it. They may have to listen to this again. But what do we do? I mean, it's like, okay, Bob, there is the there's the problem. What do we do about it? Okay, so you've got to try to reduce mold, pesticides, environmental toxins. I'm sure in some of your consulting, Len, you talk about mold. I'm sure, correct,
Len Arcuri 28:52
all the time because environmental stressors, toxins of all kinds, as you've talked about over and over, right, are a huge piece of the puzzle, and for every child or every family, it's going to be different. But mold specifically keeps coming up over and over.
Bob Miller 29:08
Absolutely. Now, genetically, which is what you know we focus on, there's enzymes, and again, the names of them don't matter. But they're TNFA, NF kappa B, IL six, INOS. Forget about the names of them, but they are inflammatory, and you can actually have genetic issues where they overreact. It's called gain of function, and that's what we often see with these with these autistic children. They're living in mold, and then they have genetic issues where they overreact to it, and on and on we go. So what you've got to do then you've got to restore calcium homeostasis by reducing the lipid peroxidation, supporting the ATP production, protect the cardiolipin, and there's interestingly there's a special kind of vitamin E, CoQ10, glutathione, something called astaxanthin, and. K2 that help protect the cardiolipin from from damage. So then you want to make sure you've got adequate digestion and absorption of essential fatty acids because that's what builds the cell membrane. Then you need to limit your hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radical formation by making sure you've got the antioxidant side. Then support the electron transport cofactors, making sure you have balanced NAD, NADH, all of those factors need to happen, and then things will come back into balance. So people might be asking, well, how in the world can you figure all that out? Well, that's what we did. We created a program called functional genomic analysis that takes a little bit of saliva or a cheek swab, send it to the lab, get the data back, and we can actually map out where the person has weakness. So, for example, if there's less than optimal NAD or overexpression of the TNFA, there's a diminished ability to clear mycotoxins, glyphosate. So we have to get in there and do something very targeted, and that's why we created the genetic test called Eurofunctional Genomics. It's a saliva test, and then it goes to the lab. We pull out the data. We run it through our software. We do a one-hour consult where we look at where might there be weakness here, and you could see 20 different people, 20 different ways they got there, but the bottom line is something's causing them to have low ATP. They're not clearing the glutamate, and they have all these symptoms. So, if anyone wants to contact us, our clinic is Tree of Life Health and website tolhealth.com. If anyone wants to call us, 717-733-2003. Now, if there happens to be any health professionals listening and they would like to do this testing on their own, you can just reach out to us, and you can reach out to us at functionalgenomicanalysis.com or call us at 717466 5700, and you can get set up. Now, again, this is for health professionals only, not for the general public. But if any doctors or functional practitioners are listening to this and they would like to learn how to do all that, we're there to to help you with that. Len, that was about a a half day lecture in in 35 minutes, but that's the the cliff notes here of what we believe is happening, and much more research has to be has to be done. But we believe that we're on the cusp here of really identifying some serious issues that that need to be addressed. So, I'm hoping that more research can be done into this area and try to figure out what are all the factors here that's causing us to lose our ATP. What's causing us to have all this neuroinflammation, and if we get away from the toxins, we figure out what's upregulated and downregulated and compensate that. Hopefully, we're going to make some serious progress in this very serious issue that's affecting families so so horribly.
Len Arcuri 32:58
I appreciate that, Bobby. I appreciate what you do, and I think you you eloquently kind of walked us through what is by definition a complex. I mean, the human body is complex. Bottom line, but I think what I'd like to just highlight a little bit is that it does come down to ultimately understanding what's happening in a very detailed way to be able to determine what specific steps, perhaps a parent may take to help their child, again in a very targeted way. So I know you don't have, okay. If this is an issue, here's all the things you do. Right? It's it's not that simple, which is why your your test, the saliva test, reveals the the the genomics like what's the blueprint that's happening with your child because they very well may be set up to perhaps have more challenges in certain pathways in certain areas so I think it's that the the targeted nature of what your test reveals coupled with then, okay, we know environmental toxins are clearly a piece of this puzzle, and again, that's going to be very different from person to person, family to family. So, you know, in terms of what can parents do, which I know anyone listening, okay, that's what they're trying to determine. I think you've shared a lot of what you know how you would address this, but again, the particulars are really important. And I guess the only thing I would frame is that I feel like, from a parent's perspective, we need to know, you know, with more precision, what root causes we're focusing on. Like, what do we think our child most needs now? And I think what you're offering here is something that's not very well well known in terms of honing in on ATP and this possible root cause that inadequate ATP or low ATP might really be like an Uber root cause that might be showing up in so many. Different areas, so I think it's just powerful for a parent to have that that theory that low ATP might be what's really at the root, and then with your testing and and that precision, if they focus their energy on what they can do to increase those cycles and ATP production, that that might be much more powerful than perhaps focusing on some specific symptom that they may be seeing.
Bob Miller 35:26
Absolutely, you know one of the things we often hear is people say, "Well, they can't have low ATP because they're excitable; they're all over the place." Interestingly, that is a symptom of low ATP when you've got that excitability. You're just you're just so excited you don't know what to do with yourself, and also I'm sure people have heard the analogy: too tired to sleep. So if you've got low ATP and your and your glutamate's going up, despite you're so tired you can't sleep. So that's why we keep coming back to this is a critical piece, and so many environmental factors are now doing that to us.
Len Arcuri 36:01
No, I think it's a it's a powerful concept, and again, a very different way of looking at things. But I appreciate you sharing more the details about what might be happening. I guess the final thing I'll ask is if there's one thing that you'd want parents to walk away from this conversation with, in terms of like how they might look at things differently. Is there anything you'd add in terms of what they may have as a as a key high level takeaway?
Bob Miller 36:26
Sure. Well, you know, the first thing is take away the self blame because nothing they've done. You know, and and their their child isn't broken, but they're just struggling because environmental factors that we weren't exposed to 6070 years ago are now impacting those who have genetic weakness more strongly. It's affecting all of us, but it's just for example, you can have a moldy house. Two people live in the moldy house. One person is sick as can be, and the other one says, "Well, I don't feel anything." So there's where the genetics comes into play. But for that person who doesn't feel anything, it's just impacting them on a smaller level, and we're all being impacted by these things. But if we have upregulation of genes that are overreactive, downregulation of enzymes that clear things out, we're more susceptible to all these environmental factors.
Len Arcuri 37:17
Right. Nope. I think that's a powerful takeaway. Well, Bob, as always, I appreciate you sharing this. I know you're off to another conference tomorrow, so people can find you usually on the conference circuit. But otherwise, the information you shared, I'll make sure it's in the show notes. And again, I just really appreciate the way your mind works and your passion to share this with with family. So thank you again for what you
Bob Miller 37:40
do. Well, my pleasure. I can't think of anything more fun than helping these kids get their life back. It's just so unfair that they're struggling like this. It really is. My heart goes out to them. So we've got to crack this code, and I think we're getting closer all the time.
Len Arcuri 37:54
Your child needs you running on all cylinders now, and the fastest way to rise is with personalized one-on-one support. Get started today. Go to elevatehowyounavigate.com.
