Speaker 1 (00:32):
There’s a good chance that your oral multi-B vitamin is a total waste of money. That’s right, a total waste of money. And there’s a 100% chance that your vitamin B12 shot is a total waste of money. That’s right, a total waste of money. How can I be so sure about all this? Well, first of all, if you’re part of the 50% of people who carry one or more of the mutations of the MTHFR gene, and if you say that out loud, we will bleep you from network television. And as I tell my patients, it’s the mother effer gene, and that’s how to remember it. You can take all the B vitamins in the world, and you will not convert particularly vitamin B12 and folic acid into their active forms because you lack enzymes that convert these B vitamins into their active methylated forms. So you can keep swallowing them, but they’re not going to do you any good.

(01:57):
Additionally, surprising number of people need a receptor in the lower part of their intestines called intrinsic factor that’s necessary to absorb methyl B12 into your gut. And if you don’t have intrinsic factor, and I’m always amazed how many people don’t have intrinsic factor, you can swallow vitamin B12, you can even swallow the active form of vitamin B12, methylcobalamin, and you still won’t have any B12 in your bloodstream. Now, how do you know if you have one of these mutations? Well, you can get a blood test, you can get a gene test to see if you carry one of these mutations. But here’s an interesting, easy way. There’s strong evidence that people who carry one or more of these mutations have either a strong personal history or a strong family history of anxiety, depression, ADHD, bipolar, schizophrenia, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and suicide tendencies. Now, there are other reasons for these conditions, but when we look at family trees, it’s amazing how well this mutation correlates with those symptoms in my patients.

(03:47):
Interestingly, most successful people that I know, and I take care of a large number of successful monetarily or otherwise successful individuals, all of them carry this mutation almost 100%. And that’s because many successful people have attention deficit disorder that they recognize usually fairly early in life and used it as a powerful tool to focus their attention on something they were interested in and realize how easily they could be distracted from something they shouldn’t be interested in and harness that power. So if you’re a creative individual, if you come from a family of history of anxiety and depression, there’s pretty good odds that you carry one or more of these mutations. Now, what do you do about it? Well, that’s the good news.

(04:58):
You can get methyl B12 and methylfolate as supplements. Now, here’s the trick that’s so interesting. I mentioned that many people don’t have the ability to absorb even the right kind of methyl B12 because they lack intrinsic factor. But you can bypass that whole system by putting methyl B12 under your tongue, sublingual. And many people sell sublingual methyl B12 tablets. Costco does, for example. There are many places online to get sublingual dots of methyl B12 and combine methylfolate. Now, some companies sell a chewable tablet, but I can tell you after working with tens of thousands of patients, even if it’s a chewable tablet, chew it up and put it under your tongue and let it absorb from there. I even have one patient that I continually laugh about who had these mutations. We had him go get the supplement at Costco, and I told him to put it under his tongue, and we looked at his B12 level and his homocysteine level, uh, the next time he came in and I … It was low and his homocysteine level was high.

(06:34):
And I said, “You’re not taking your B12.” He says, “Yeah, I have it every day.” I said, “No, you don’t.” I said, “And you’re putting it under your tongue, right?” And he said, “No, it’s so sweet. I sweeten my coffee with it. ” And I said, “Oh, for crying out loud.” So I said, you know, “Go away, come back, um, put it under your tongue.” Next time, of course, he puts it under his tongue, his B12 level’s normal, his homocysteine level is normal, and which reminds me, if you’ve been told you have an elevated homocystine level, and a lot of doctors will measure homocystine on a blood test. If you’ve been told you have an elevated homocysteine level, the odds are you carry the MTHFR, the mother-effer mutation, and you absolutely should get on sublingual methyl B12 and methylfolate. Now, methylfolate, you can get it as a capsule or as a chewable tablet.

(07:40):
Either way works fine, but methyl B12 has to go under your tongue. I mentioned B12 shots are a waste of money because the people that I see in my practice who are getting the B12 shots are the people who are getting them because they didn’t know that they had the mutation and they could take all the B12 in the world and it wouldn’t do them any good. But when we switch them off of their B12 shots and put them on methyl B12 sublingual, lo and behold, they never look back. Their B12 levels are normal, their energy levels are normal, and they’re off to the races. Now, a proviso, there are a few individuals, particularly with the double mutations of the MTHFR genes, who even little bits of the active compounds, methyl B12 and methyl folate, worsens their anxiety and depression, and it’s a well-recognized phenomenon.

(08:54):
I’ve seen it a few times in my patients. If you’re one of those people, and you, you’ll know it, the trick I and others use is to have you take a B vitamin, vitamin B3, which is called niacinamide. And niacinamide, uh, even 250 milligrams usually blocks this odd effect. So if you’re one of those odd individuals, I don’t mean odd, uh, who react to the active forms of B12 and folic acid, then buy some niacinamides, dirt sheep, take it for a couple of weeks, and then read small doses of methyl B12 and methylfolate, and that usually stops the problem. Now, these vitamins are not a substitute for good mental healthcare, but they are remarkable in many people, including some children who’ve had real ADHD dis- disability in school. Getting small amounts of methylfolate and methyl B12 into them has made a remarkable difference in my practice.

(10:21):
But check with your family physician, check with a mental healthcare practitioner. Get yourself some of the chewable tablets, put it under your tongue, they have liquid drops, um, those are great options. Lastly, B vitamins in general. If I had one class of vitamins that bother women’s stomachs the most, it’s the B vitamins. And many women, just to a person, say, “B vitamins really upset my stomach.” That’s why you’re much better off getting a methyl B12 and methylfolate available as a chewable tablet and putting it under your tongue and you’ll eliminate that possibility. There are plenty of other B vitamins that won’t bother your stomach. Um, vitamin B7, biotin, which helps skin, hair and nails, uh, won’t bother the stomach. You can get it in drop form, you can get it in capsule form. Uh, so there’s ways around all of this, but the important thing is bees are not the miraculous thing you think they are because 50% of us can’t utilize vitamin B12 and folic acid effectively because of this mother effer gene.

(11:51):
And even if you don’t have the mother effort gene, quite frankly, methyl B12 and methylfolate will not hurt you, and they don’t call them the energy vitamins for nothing.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel, where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.