I had a major pulmonary event about ten years ago. Without going into too much detail (because, honestly, I’ve blocked a lot), it was a pretty scary experience. My care team didn’t know why the event happened (after all, I seemed perfectly healthy), so they ordered a bunch of tests to see if my genes had any answers.
While this super extensive blood test did not find a direct genetic explanation for why this major health event happened to me, it did reveal something else: me, along with 20-40% of the white and Hispanic population in the US, have a MTHFR gene variant called C677T.
This means that my MTHFR enzyme is 35-70% less efficient at converting folate (also known as the essential vitamin B9) and folic acid (the supplement form of folate) in the active form of 5-MTHF that can be used throughout the body. These inefficiencies make my methylation—a vitally important biochemical process that affects nearly every essential process in the body—works suboptimally.
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