Episode 254 — DECODE The Inflammation Puzzle
Guest: Bob Miller • Date: May 6, 2025
Episode Overview
Bob Miller explains how toxins like mold and EMFs trigger inflammation in kids with genetic vulnerabilities. He breaks down key pathways and shares precise ways to reduce brain inflammation and support healing.
About Bob Miller
Bob Miller is a functional genomics researcher and the founder of the NutriGenetic Research Institute. For over a decade, he’s led cutting-edge research on the link between genetic variants and chronic illness, including autism and Lyme disease.
Through his educational platforms, including Functional Genomic Analysis software and a certification course for practitioners, Bob equips professionals worldwide with tools to decode the body’s genetic blueprint.
He’s helped thousands understand how environmental toxins trigger genetic vulnerabilities—and how targeted nutritional support can turn the tide.
Learn more: www.tolhealth.com and www.functionalgenomicanalysis.com
You’ll Discover
The Toxins That Flip The Inflammation Switch (4:13)
Why Some “Healthy” Foods Make Things Worse (9:54)
A Clear Breakdown of How Gene Mutations Affect Your Child (21:55)
Why EMFs Deserve Your Attention (27:43)
Nutrients That Actually Cool Inflammation (29:08)
HowFunctional Genomic AnalysisReveals What To Do (35:02)
Referenced in This Episode
Full Transcript
Speaker 2 (00:00.354)
Hello and welcome to Autism Parenting Secrets. I am at the Autism Health Summit in San Diego, California and I'm here excitedly with a return guest, Bob Miller. And as always, Bob is going to shed light. He is one of the true leaders in the field of this functional genomic field that's emerging, it's growing, constantly changing. And I don't think there's anyone I know who's more on the cutting edge of creating insights.
from this very different way of looking at what's happening with your child and what you might be able to do to help. So with that, welcome Bob.
my pleasure to be here. Always fun to talk to you. Now, clearly what we're dealing with here is neuroinflammation. There's no doubt that's what we're dealing with.
So for kids on the spectrum, brain inflammation, it's there, there's a lot of root causes of why that may be the case, environmental factors for sure, but your genes do inform why that's happening and what you might be able to do about it.
There's an old adage of genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger. So clearly, I mean, everyone listening to this knows the stats on where autism used to be and where it is now. So our genetics haven't changed, but our environment has. So I'm absolutely convinced that it's an environmental problem, but those who have genetic weakness are more prone to it, proverbial canary in that coma. So we've been researching this for a long time. We've done podcasts in the past about iron and all these other kind of things.
Speaker 1 (01:27.598)
But I think we're now connecting the dots as to what's happening. So first let's talk about how the body works. We have an amazing body. And we have an immune system. And if we're faced with a virus or bacteria, this immune system says, hey, who are you? You don't belong here. Let me make some inflammation to kill you. Now is that a good thing? Sure, unless it's overactive.
In small doses, tactically it's a good thing.
Absolutely. So if you've got some virus or bacteria, you need that inflammation to kill it. If not, we die of infection. So there's an interesting enzyme that does a lot of this work. It's called NLRP3. And when we're faced with a pathogen, it then goes on to create two cytokines. One is called interleukin 1 beta, and one is called interleukin 18. Now what's interesting is in the past, that would kick in when we had a virus or bacteria.
But we started looking at what are the environmental factors that stimulate it, figure it out, think there's a problem, but there may not be. Well, no surprise, mycotoxins is one of them. And as we all know, mycotoxins might be getting stronger now for various reasons. Another one is glyphosate. Glyphosate will stimulate. Another one is microplastics.
Anyone following this realizes that the whole world is now being polluted with microplastics. It's in the oceans. It's even in the fish we eat. It's in the water we drink. You know, there's one statistic out there that we each consume a credit card a week in microplastics. And then we're exposed to aluminum.
Speaker 2 (02:56.108)
I've heard about this.
And there's a whole list of things, including hydrogen peroxide. Even if we're under stress, and if the body is acidic, and if there's hyperammonia. So there's multiple things. Excess iron will all stimulate NLRP3. So one of my favorite jokes is when I talk to people, it says, I was born in 1954 when the Earth was a different planet. We did not have glyphosate. We didn't have electromagnetic fields. We didn't have high fructose corn syrup.
We didn't give the animals growth hormones so they get fatter faster. So all of these things are recent and the foods back then were more not as processed as much. So it's a cumulative effect.
And even plastics are night and day now compared to you back then. I'm when it was really emerging so so if all those stressors that you mentioned They're they can all wreak havoc is there any one that that you find is more problematic or all of them in their own way?
All of them are, but I believe mycotoxins is the big one. Mold. Mold. Mold is the big one.
Speaker 2 (04:04.332)
And that seems to be emerging where not only you but many other people seem to be converging on that specific one as being something to really take a closer look at.
Absolutely. We're participating with Purdue University on a study of 36 autistic children and I believe it's either 34 or 35 of them had measurable mold in their urine. So that's what happened. So this NLRP3 is getting upregulated. Then it stimulates interleukin 1 beta, interleukin 1A, and interleukin 18.
This is what's really fascinating. Interleukin 18 stimulates mast cells and histamine. You can find literature that there's a histamine relationship to autism, but it's in excess. Then there's, you know, we have receptor sites for our histamine. There's four of them. And the histamine goes in there. That's why people sometimes take things like Claritin and Zyrtec. They're histamine receptor site number one blockers. Well, when there's genetic mutations on HR1 or HR2,
more histamine gets pulled in. And then what it does, it stimulates a nasty inflammatory agent called NF-kB. And NF-kB is what goes into the cells and says, turn on all your inflammation. And we're really digging into this. And you can have genetic mutations that NF-kB can be upregulated. That it over responds.
And so in recent research, there's other enzymes that hold NF-kappa-B back saying, don't get too excited here, buddy. You can have mutations in that one as well. So what we're seeing is when people have an NF-kappa-B that's overactive and they have the things that hold back NF-kappa-B underactive, the least little stimuli will set them off into this inflammation.
Speaker 1 (05:51.732)
So what happens then is if something environmentally causes NF-kappa-B to create histamine and it gets stuck in histamine receptor site number one or two, it goes back and stimulates NF-kappa-B in a feedback loop. And this thing can just feed upon itself. And we keep going around and around. So that's why some of these children don't do well on high histamine foods, fermented foods, sometimes set them off. Or they're often having a lot of rashes.
and overreaction of mosquito bites. And their mind is racing. And they don't tolerate heat very well. All from the histamine. So the NLRP then stimulates interleukin-1-beta, another nasty cytokine.
Unless it's trying to kill somebody, then it's your friend. That's why I often say it's your best friend unless it's your worst enemy. So interleukin-1-beta is responsible for making the body make more glutamate. So as many people know, glutamine turns into glutamate. And again, glutamate makes you intelligent, highly motivated, go-getter. Not a bad thing, unless it's overactive.
So pretty much anything in excess is usually an issue and that's the case here.
Right. So then you can have genetic mutations in the DAO enzyme and naturally makes you make more glutamate. Then there's enzymes that turn glutamate into GABA. If you've got some mutations there, you don't do that very well. Well, when interleukin-1-beta gets upregulated, it stimulates more glutamate production.
Speaker 1 (07:23.65)
And that's why these kids are sometimes incredibly intelligent. One of these kids are geniuses, but they can't focus. And their brain's going so fast sometimes they can't even speak because their brain's going that fast, underneath they're geniuses. They really are. So what happens in that glutamate through an enzyme called Adora 2A, hang on to your hat, stimulates NLRP3. Feedback loop number two.
And some of these terms that Bob's using, mean, again, it can be a little hard to take in because there's a lot of pieces here, but the exciting thing is that now instead of having a sense of why these things are happening, like a general sense, the specificity that you're seeing exactly which enzyme or which gene, whatever the case may be, that's where all these terms, as hard as it is maybe to process, it's so exciting because now with precision,
with someone like Bob who can look at what's happening in your child's functional genomics, it's much more targeted in terms of how we can support that child in usually simple, inexpensive ways to help their system kind of just operate better in this very toxic world.
You know a good example is many times, well many people say, the guts inflamed, let's give you some glutamine to heal the gut. Right. If that's happening, you're throwing fuel on the fire.
Or just take a digestive enzyme or eat a cleaner diet. Those kind of things might help but also...
Speaker 1 (08:56.898)
Well, another one is heal the gut with fermented foods. Well, if you've got a histamine problem, you're making the problem worse.
Totally the case with my son because everyone kept saying early on, I've been going to conferences for over a dozen years, know, fermented foods were being talked about, gotta go with kombucha and fermented foods over and over. But for my son, that would be counterproductive. generally speaking, those may be healthy foods, but without knowing the specifics of the functional genomics for your child, something that seems like a good idea might actually not only not help, but may set your child back.
I'm going to talk about methylation and how we can backfire on that one. I want to go next though. I'm sure people have heard about if you're working in the sewers and you get too much hydrogen sulfide, it can kill you. If you're a farmer in your silo and you get too much hydrogen sulfide, it can kill you. But hang on to your hat here, buddy. Small amounts of hydrogen sulfide that the body makes calms down NLRP3, interleukin-1-beta.
the death of cells. And I didn't get to this yet, but when potassium leaves the cell and calcium comes in, that stimulates it. Hydrogen sulfide helps with that as well. So who would have thunk? A gas that can kill you in small amounts is one of the most powerful antioxidants there is. So that's why many people find that Epsom's all bad cell, because it's providing...
the hydrogen sulfide. Now what's interesting, there's an enzyme called CBS, cystotane-botane synthase. And that takes what you need, the cysteine, and turn it into hydrogen sulfide. There's a number of pathological downregulations in the CBS enzyme, but that doesn't work very well. Now, I usually always speak about things that, know, peer-reviewed, studied, and everything. So this is popular observation. Might be right, might be wrong. So.
Speaker 1 (10:52.162)
always say that. So this in three bucks will get you a cup of coffee. so, but we need to, that's how we figure things out by observing things. So you won't find literature on this. This is just a popular observation. So as we've noticed, the people from India have a lot of glutamate. That's what makes them the intelligent people they are. What I've been observing, many of them have the genetic mutation and they don't make enough hydrogen sulfide. So let's think about what the Indian diet is. They prepare their own foods fresh and lots of garlic.
which is a source of sulfur. Interesting. So I've had many of them say to me, back in India we don't have this much autism, what's happening here? Well as they adopt the American diet and don't have as much garlic, Bob Miller hypothesis, they're not making enough hydrogen sulfide. So we formulated a product called H2S cofactors.
that has MSM in it and some of those enzymes for CBS to help make more hydrogen sulfide. So it really blew me away when I saw that this gas that can kill you can actually be good for you in small amounts and calm down the inflammation.
Well, they're not so surprising that things that are generally may be perceived as toxic in small doses could be very, very therapeutic.
Absolutely, same with the bilirubin. So, know, bilirubin, it's too high, you've got a problem with the liver, but bilirubin calms down inflammation. So, absolutely fascinating. It's right up there with glutathione. Now, the next thing that happens, and when interleukin-18 and interleukin-1-beta get too carried away, they create a process called pyroptosis, which is the death of the cell. And is that a good thing if it's attacking cancer? You betcha. But if it's just attacking your healthy cells, we have a problem.
Speaker 1 (12:34.85)
Now, when your cells get damaged, they need to be recycled. There's a process called autophagy. So, let's back up a little bit. There's a process called mTOR, mammalian tardive rapamycin. That's the growth of new cells. Is that a good thing? Sure. Because if we didn't have mTOR, the sperm and the egg would never become the baby. The baby would never become the adult. That's why when women are getting pregnant, or are pregnant, they need methylfolate. Because methylfolate stimulates mTOR.
So if they don't have enough of that, they either don't get pregnant, have a miscarriage, or a deformed baby because they don't have enough of that mTOR. However, autophagy is where we take a damaged cell and we recycle it back to a healthy cell. And to know if you've got a problem with autophagy is you get older if you have lot of age spots, sunspots, liver spots.
Those are dead cells that are not being recycled and they're actually becoming senescent, sitting in the skin. And I'm seeing now people in their late 40s, early 50s being filled with age spots. Now again, one of the things we've done that we're gonna look back on some day and say, what were we thinking? We give our cattle growth hormones so they get fatter faster. my. So what are we doing? We're stimulating emtora. Now, I'm 70 years old.
And I remember back when I was 12, the girls I went to school with were flat-chested little girls. What they look like now? 16-year-olds. Because we're getting growth hormones. Now there might be other factors as well. But as we're getting all of these growth hormones in our milk and in our foods, the foods we eat, it's stimulating mTOR, weakening our autophagy. So if we don't have autophagy and you've got pyroptosis going on, you're not repairing that damaged cell.
hang on to your hat, that damaged cell stimulates an ORP3. Feedback loop number three. And I believe some combination of that is happening. Now let's look at some other factors that can cause this, because this is multifactorial. There isn't just one thing.
Speaker 2 (14:42.424)
There's no simple cause, but what you're just describing, are contributing factors that seem clear in what you're seeing and with the emerging trends. So even for young girls hitting puberty earlier, the food we're eating, these growth hormones that seem to be everywhere is a factor.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (14:59.436)
is a factor. So only if we're trying to tell you that this is the cause, I doubt it. It might be the cause in one out of twenty. But that's why it's so frustrating because there isn't a cause. Now, in my opinion, do I believe stimulation of NLRP3, interleukin-1-beta, and interleukin-18 are core? I do believe so. But there's twenty different ways that can happen. There isn't just one. So one of the other things that will stimulate
NLRP3 is hydrogen peroxide. So when we're exposed to mycotoxins or even some vaccinations that stimulate the immune system, there's a pathway that's a little more complex for us to go down through now, but it will stimulate the histamine and then it will throw off your nitric oxide production. Nitric oxide is a gas and it's made by NOS3 and that's what gives us our good circulation. But there's a NOS2 that makes a lot of nitric oxide to kill pathogens.
This might be the fourth time I've said this. Guess what it is. That's a good thing unless it isn't. if it's killing a pathogen, that's okay. If it's just firing at the body, that's not a good thing. So what that does then, it depletes a substance called BH4, tetrahydroboroptin.
and that BH4 is needed to make your serotonin and your dopamine and do many other things. But when we stimulate too much nitric oxide, we run out of that. Then we make superoxide rather than nitric oxide. And guess what superoxide does? Stimulates NLRP3. And then we have, the body is so amazing, we have enzymes that degrade superoxide. It's called superoxide dysputase.
And it takes that superoxide, which is just oxygen with an extra electron on it. And it uses manganese in the SOD2 enzyme to turn it back into oxygen. So about glyphosate. Glyphosate works by chelating the manganese out of the plants. So now we don't have enough manganese. So now here comes superoxide, which we're overproducing.
Speaker 1 (17:08.149)
and the body's mechanism to turn that back into oxygen is impaired by glyphosate. And then that superoxide just wrecks havoc. If somebody's fascinated by this, if you just go to YouTube and type in Jill Carnahan, superoxide. Dr. Carnahan and I geek out for about an hour and a half on superoxide. And that's a fascinating thing to watch.
So then we're creating it that way. Then there's also a process called Nrf2, that turns on all your antioxidants. And you can have genetic mutations on Nrf2 that the Nrf2 is not doing its job very well. So now again, you don't have the breaking system on NLRP3. And there's a couple more. For example, if EMF stimulates calcium coming into the cells,
it's calcium coming into the cell that stimulates NLRP3. Then if we get mycotoxins, we can stimulate NFKB that causes the body to make arachidonic acid. And arachidonic acid, through a complex mechanism, will cause more calcium to come into the cell, stimulate more NLRP3. So there's just so many things there. And then also, tumor necrosis factor is stimulated by mycotoxins.
And that's held back by something called phosphatidylcholine. And you can have genetic mutations that you don't make enough phosphatidylcholine. So phosphatidylcholine deficiency could be a cause. So, but what people are doing, they're just trying all these kind of things. And if you're making enough phosphatidylcholine, well, that's not going to help you much.
But if you've got some genetic mutations on the PEMT enzyme and you don't make enough phosphatidylcholine, that might be very, very helpful for you. So that's why well-meaning people said, this worked for my child. Somebody tries it, it didn't do a thing. Because it's not the magic bullet. So if somebody's got a lot of mutations on their NERF2 or their KEEP1, that might be the problem. Or they might have NFKB overactive. And as I talked to you about arachidetic acid,
Speaker 1 (19:15.596)
arachidetic acid stimulates NF-kappa-B and NF-kappa-B stimulates arachidetic acid. Another feedback loop. So that's why I'm a big fan of doing a finger prick test measuring where your arachidetic acid is. Because that stimulates it. So now the question is, what do do about this?
And before we get to Bob talking about what do we do about it, just again, just to frame this a little bit. Number one, there won't be a quiz at the end of this because the details can be overwhelming taking it all in. But Bob just a few minutes ago brought up another environmental toxin, so electromagnetic fields. And our exposure to that is something in addition to mold, glyphosate and the like. So again, as you're listening, yes, it's about functional genomics in your child's genetic makeup.
these toxins that are coming at us in all these different forms is what we need to play defense about. And everything that we've talked about so far is about neuroinflammation, brain inflammation. so if you look at it from that perspective, is my child inflamed? Is there chronic inflammation in their body and their gut and ultimately in their brain? That's where the nuances here matter because it's not as if your child has weak genes. It's just that they're
uniquely theirs and they just may be more susceptible to the toxic soup that's going on right now and therefore that precision. these things that Bob's mentioning, the excitement is we now know more about what's happening because people like Bob study this day and night to be able to share those insights. So with that, now what can we do about
Well, let me first talk about the concept of what the genetic mutations are, because that could be a big piece of it. So what a miracle the body is. We eat fats, carbohydrates, proteins. We drink water, we breathe air, we're exposed to sunlight, and everything gets made. I right now, our bodies are working to beat the band to do that. We don't even know what's going on. I what an absolute miracle that is. It's truly astonishing. Now, the way that works, the body makes enzymes. And enzymes take one substance, combine it with something else, make something new. Then another enzyme comes along and does the same thing.
Speaker 1 (21:25.39)
The instructions to make the enzymes comes from your genetics. So when the father's sperm enters the mother's egg, your genetic pattern is made. Doesn't change. Because people say, well, do some things and my genetics will be better. It's like, nope. You've got to play the hand you're dealt, so to speak. So what happens at conception, your genetic pattern is made. And when you die, if somebody takes some tissue and measure it, it'd be exactly the same as conception.
So we get what are called genetic mutations. That sounds scary, but it's really not all that bad. So I like to give you an analogy. Think of cars. Think of an eight-cylinder car, six-cylinder car, and four-cylinder car, and a turbocharged car. You look at them, they're all cars. If they're in a parking lot, you don't see much difference between them.
However, if you're out on a highway and you've to pass somebody at decent speed, the 8-cylinder car is going to do fine. 6-cylinder may be okay. 4-cylinder, let's not try. And if you've got to pull a large weight, the 8-cylinder car is going to do fine. 6-cylinder maybe. 4-cylinder is not going to make it up the hill.
So if you get a genetic mutation from one parent, because you know that twisted pair, so you get, so if you're a male, you're XY, females are X-X, so you get half your information from mother, half from father. So if one person hands a mutation over, say for example it's the gene that helps make glutathione, the GSS enzyme, if one parent hands you a mutation, that gene may work at 70 to 80%. It works, it's not doing funky things, it's not doing wacko stuff, but it just doesn't cut the
So it may only be 70 to 80 percent. If both parents give a mutation, it might be 30 to 40 percent. It's working. It's like your four cylinder car. Four cylinder car will get you around town, but don't enter a race. Okay? It's struggling. So then, and as long as we're not exposed to environmental toxins, it's okay. A four cylinder car is fine, unless you've got to go really fast or pull a heavy load. But when you're exposed to all the environmental toxins, you've got a heavy load.
Speaker 2 (23:14.478)
It's struggling.
Speaker 2 (23:29.152)
And if we compare now versus let's just take 40 years ago, right? Your child's functional genomic makeup, if it was 40 years ago, the level of toxic exposure now is so much more extreme than it was, which is why if it was 40 years ago, your child may be presenting with very few, if any, of the symptoms of what you're seeing now. And that's why it's this interplay between toxins. And it's not like we have a slightly more toxic environment.
it's exponentially more toxic. So your child's genes haven't changed and may have been perfectly fine decades ago in terms of dealing with the environment then, but it's a totally different ballgame now.
Yeah, I'm convinced if I was a 10 year old boy right now with my genetics, I'd be an autistic man. But I'm this crazy guy who thinks drawing circles is fun. So a lot of the kids that are autistic today, they been born 50 years ago, they might be rumbunctious, high spirited, not autistic. Quirky. Quirky, yeah. So, you when I went to school, I didn't know anybody that was autistic. I mean, maybe there was one here and there, but never saw him. Never saw him.
So it's all these environmental toxins and that's why I think we're seeing this dramatic increase. So what do do about it? Well firstly, make sure they're not in mold. And if you're in mold, I don't care what supplements we do, you're not gonna win the battle. You've gotta get out of mold. And then secondarily, consider some EMF sensitive things like turn the wifi off at night.
I've often teased I'm going to make a t-shirt that says be really smart, live in a dumb house. That's true. We have all of these Wi-Fi's and everything, we're just being bombarded with this stuff. Cut the high fructose corn syrup. Because high fructose corn syrup will stimulate the NLRP3 enzyme. Again, when I was a kid, it didn't exist. There was no high fructose corn syrup.
Speaker 1 (25:27.342)
And then we have to avoid the microplastics. So, you know, when you think about some of the plastic bottles, when we've bottled water, if it's in a truck during the summer, who knows how hot that got? 120, 140 degrees. That plastic goes in. By no means microwave in plastic. And then another thing that a of people don't know is that phthalates can be in things that have a fragrance.
So stay away from fragrance because fragrance is a phthalate that will actually, and this is probably too complicated, it stimulates the NMDA receptor that just again stimulates this whole process. So we really have to stay away from phthalates and that can come from your plastic, that can come from personal care products. And all of that will stimulate the NRP3. And interestingly, you can have genetic mutations on what are called some of the cytochrome P450s. You don't clear phthalates as well.
The phthalates will also inhibit your body's ability to make something called picolinic acid. And of course, I'm sure people have heard of zinc picolinate. Well, zinc picolinate calms down that NMDA receptor that again causes the problem. So we're exposed to all of these things. So be very careful with diet and with environmental exposure, and particularly mold. And make sure that your child is not sleeping in a room where the router is.
And even if you're living in an apartment, think about what's on the other side of the wall. So you can get devices that measure the EMF. You can get hats and clothing that protect from the EMF. And some of that may be a problem. There's an enzyme called CACNA1C. When that's mutated, EMF is more of a problem.
That's interesting. Okay, so again, EMF hurts everybody, especially if you have excessive exposure. If you have a router next to where your child sleeps, that's absolutely not helping and it's causing harm. But if you have that particular mutation, might be even more. So I think everything that Bob is suggesting, we've done a lot of episodes on a lot of those topics. And even the coaching that I personally do is to help parents with those actions. And it really is about doing them as best
Speaker 1 (27:28.204)
War and war.
Speaker 2 (27:41.896)
as you can playing defense but you can't achieve perfection there's going to be some exposure but by pretty simple things and they may be a little bit inconvenient you could really create an environment where that toxic assault especially on your child is significantly less without doing everything full force and that just might be enough for their body's natural healing abilities to really kick in.
Absolutely. Now let's talk about some nutritional interventions. So if tumor necrosis factor is upregulated, black cumin seed oil, excellent, calming that down. We talked earlier, if you don't make enough phosphatidylcholine, then we need to take phosphatidylcholine. NF-kappa-B, which I believe is the kingpin who kicks this all off, the Nrrp3, we're looking at some of the shiitake mushrooms, emutake mushrooms, cordyceps, turkey tail, elegalic acid, all of them slow that down. We're looking at making a supplement.
If the mast cells are activated, quercetin and some of those other things help with that. If we have high histamine, I'm a big fan of DAO. I that really helps degrade that.
If the ENOS enzyme is too slow, got to nitrate things, your nitrate foods will help support more of that. If you've got a problem with superoxide dismutase, you might need some manganese. Then on the other side, the NLRP3, which we're really excited about, we've created a product called Zone that has things that calm that down, such as vitamin B2, ribonucleic acid. Also, big fan of California poppy flowers.
not the opioid. That calms it all down. Liquorice helps calm it down. And there's multiple nutrients that will help calm down that NLRP3. Then for glutamate, there's an herb called magnolia bark that supports glutamate to GAVA conversion that helps that. So, and there's more, and oh, the hydrogen sulfide, making a product with MSM and some other cofactors that help the CBS do its job.
Speaker 1 (29:49.548)
And there's many, other interventions, I don't want to get into all of those. But there are interventions you can do. So as I tell people we have good news and bad news, the good news is we can compensate. The bad news is we can compensate. So we can't fix the genes. But if somebody's overactive, you can say, cool it, dude. Just calm down a little bit. And if it's underactive, you can either give it a kick, or you can give what it's not making enough of.
back to the fossil telocoline. Maybe that's needed. Not making enough glutathione. Maybe a little glutathione is needed. If you're not making catalase, take some catalase. So if you don't make it, you either support the production or take it. But it's precision. is an A. If somebody said, Bob, what's the nutrients for autism? My answer would be, don't know. You've got to find out where the problems are.
And that's where everything that you just shared, a whole litany of things that you could do by no means would you want to do all those things. the key is knowing enough to know where does it make sense to support the body in some way. especially with the many clients that you've worked with, it's really not about throwing a supplement or throwing some diet change at every single mutation. It's about looking at it in totality and doing kind of a few things
which are super important, doing those consistently, not adding more and more.
Now I'd like to talk about Methyl Leach. People have learned about MTHFR. Bless their hearts. I hear people all the time, oh my god I've got MTHFR. Yeah, so does 50 % of the population.
Speaker 2 (31:26.678)
I have the double mutation. My son's got the single one I thought early on when this was all still relatively new. Everyone thought, that's the one to focus on and address it and everything's fine, but it's not. Obviously that's not.
Now, there are some kids that do have folate receptor issues, and folinic acid is the miracle cure for them. It really is. So, I'm not saying it's all bad. But what happens is, I spoke earlier about when you're pregnant, you need methylfolate to stimulate mTOR. Well, if you already got mTOR upregulated, and you're making all these dead cells, and you start boosting mTOR even more, you're making things worse.
So in my opinion, we've gotten a little carried away. A lot of supplement companies now, they're multiple vitamins, that's five MTHF, bethlyfolene. Then there are B complex, that's bethlyfolene. And people are like, oh my God, I've got MTHFR, I need to take this. It's like, stop! Stop! So sometimes I say, I think I've helped people the most by stopping things. They're taking that, and it's like, but I got a leaky gut, so I'm taking glutamine.
And I'm eating fermented foods because I need to heal my gut and it's like, my goodness. You're throwing gas on this fire.
even though they all seem like very reasonable things to do and that's where again it's it's the insight into your unique genetic makeup or your child sure that's indispensable
Speaker 1 (32:44.942)
And also folate will actually stimulate more histamine. So, and again folate is very important, I'm not downgrading the importance of folate, but we can overdo anything. And I believe now we're just taking, know, sometimes I look at what people are taking and as I said, their multiple vitamin has it, their B complex has it, they might be taking homocysteine supreme and it's like, my god, you're just...
bombarding yourself with all this folate. now again, somebody's got, you know, they want to get pregnant, folate, folate, folate. If somebody might temporarily have to bring homocysteine down, sure. And maybe a little bit is okay if somebody has the MTHFR. But if you've got too much inflammation going on, folate can actually throw fuel on the fire. So we have to look at each person individually.
And if somebody says this is the thing that cures it, be very cautious. Because it may have worked out for one out of ten. And for two out of ten, it might have been worse. So it's very, very complex. Somebody says I want a simple solution. I wish there was one.
We're all way too complex and again I think with this field it is super exciting and maybe just if you can share with our listeners in terms of your process, right? Because I know you've devoted so much time and energy on this. Every time I talk to you you're super excited about some new insights that you have. But in terms of how you even look at the 20,000 genes, can you talk about your proprietary process, how you do that?
to get to that level to target, to help parents target in a very specific.
Speaker 1 (34:28.686)
It's only taken me 12 years and five million dollars. Exactly. I can't think of anything more fun. I just recently had a woman say, Bob, I can't thank you enough because last year I was convinced I was going to have a nervous breakdown. And now my kids are doing okay. Priceless. can't think of anything more fun than that.
Return on investment in terms of people help makes it all
Speaker 1 (34:53.898)
So what we do is we created our own genetic test called functional genomic analysis, proprietary test. You can do it with buccal swab or saliva. You collect it, it to a lab called Sampled in New Jersey. They extract the data. It goes into my computer program. where the, I'm not five million, I'm not exaggerating. That five million was just programming costs to the programmers. And then that analyzes the data and we can look at it either as a visual representation of a map.
And one of the things we're now doing is I have a... The software I'm sending it and letting other doctors use it. I mean that's what it's for. So because I can't see everybody. So now one of the feedbacks I got from doctors was, Bob, this is cutting edge. This is the one we have to do, but it's too complex. I can't spend the time studying it like you do.
So we're now creating executive reports that will actually summarize and tell you what to do. We're now working on color coding where it'll actually show you the different genes, green, yellow, orange, or red. So a doctor can look at a page and say, OK, there it is. Because doctors are busy. They might have 12 minutes with something. It's got to be digestible. So I was wrong. I thought that people would be excited to dig into the weeds and learn all this. And I was like, they're not.
It's gotta be digestible.
Speaker 1 (36:05.486)
So we're in the process of making it digestible. digestible in an action item. And I've learned the hard way. I was a bit of a hard head. I thought, is so cool, they're going to want to learn it. And it's like, no, no. So we've got to make it simple. And that's what we're doing now, executive reports that spell out what to do and the nutrients that can intervene with.
So it's not easy, it's not simple, but the dividends are right there if you're willing to do the work. And so what we're hoping to do is get other doctors, and if there's any doctors listening to this, please contact us and use the software. Because clearly, I do consulting, but I can't see everybody do this.
So if you're a doctor or if you're a parent, so where should people go to learn more about your operation and how you help?
Sure, well the clinic where we see people is Tree of Life Health in Ephraim. And I also should mention we're traditional naturopaths here, we're not medical doctors, we're not geneticists, you know. We're just looking at function.
So, toolhealth.com, toolhealth.com is our website. And then for health practitioners, and that could be a health coach, a doctor, nurse, for nurse practitioner, functionalgenomicanalysis.com, and then you can actually sign up for a free trial. And just contact us and we'll get you going. We have webinars every other Thursday evening where we geek out. We have an online certification course for the doctors. And again, we're trying to make it more digestible and easy to understand so we don't
Speaker 1 (37:34.928)
overwhelm people. So that's what we're doing and I think we're going to continue to learn. I've got a great research team. My son has his master's in genetics, knows more than I do. Then we have somebody who has their degree in biochemistry and I have a functional physician who helps out as well.
So between all of us, we're crazy. eek out. We're e-mailing each other at midnight. hey, look at this. This connects to that. So when holidays come around, everybody else in the family says, my son and I, says, you guys are crazy. That's all you talk about.
Passionate, right? Passionate.
Yes, well I find it absolutely fascinating, you know, to find all these interactions and how we have really messed ourselves up. And I'm convinced if we didn't have the mycotoxins and the glyphosate, we wouldn't be having the crisis we're having today.
Well, as always, I always appreciate our conversations. And again, there's nobody more passionate about this subject than you are. And I look forward to having you on again down the road. In the in the show notes, we'll include links to where you can find out more about Bob and his team. But again, I'm looking forward to your presentation here at the summit. And again, thank you as always for your time. Take care,
Speaker 1 (38:47.36)
It was pleasure my friend.
