Methylation and mental health are intricately related. We take a deeper look into the association and why it is important.
Methylation has been a buzzword in the integrative health sphere for some time now. This is unsurprising considering its importance to our overall health and wellbeing. You may have heard of it before – or even googled it… Were you then promptly turned off by it after just one glance at its complexity?
We don’t blame you; understanding methylation is not for the faint-hearted.
However, let us break it down for you into bite sized chunks. Hopefully you can finally make sense of it and apply this knowledge to your everyday life.
Methylation is a critical biochemical process that happens billions of times in every single cell of the human body. It’s responsible for a vast range of biological functions such as:
Whilst it can be complex in nature, the process of methylation simply entails the transfer of four atoms: one carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms. These are transferred from one substance to another.
Let’s say that methylation is a type of biological switch that turns on and off to help keep our health in check.
While we know that methylation plays an intrinsic role in many important body functions, for the purpose of this article, we will focus on its role in mental well-being and brain health.
Put simply, methylation helps us make neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, norepinephrine and melatonin.
(For more in-depth information and references, please read the Upgrade Your Brain Book)
Methylation does this in a number of ways. It helps:
So as you can see, it’s pretty vital to a balanced mood and overall brain health.
Unfortunately there are many things that can negatively impact methylation, such as our diet, exposure to environmental toxins, genetic factors and lifestyle habits.
Let’s look at this in a little more detail.
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Anything that triggers oxidative stress can have a negative effect on methylation. Oxidative stress is a natural biological process that’s usually offset by our body’s own endogenous antioxidant production. But when there’s an imbalance between the two, and factors in our environment generating oxidative stress are tipping the scale in their favour, that’s when we can see prolonged inflammation and problems with methylation.
Our modern environment is plagued with reactive oxygen species ROS that generate oxidative stress in the body. Key examples are environmental endocrine disruptors, like PCBs, herbicides, pesticides and plasticisers, as well as air pollution.
Whilst we can’t necessarily fully control these aspects in our environment, we can control our defence against them, as well as making wise dietary choices that will have less of these substances in them.
But first, let’s talk about what else can impact methylation.
What you eat can impact how well you methylate, especially the intake of processed foods and sugars, which has been shown to play a negative role in methylation.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, research shows that eating a wholefood diet that includes wholemeal cereals, fish, legumes, fruits and vegetables can have a positive effect on methylation.
Aside from dietary factors, there are a few nutrients that play a critical role in methylation.
Perhaps the most important nutrient is folate or B9. Methylation is almost entirely dependent on the availability of folate in the diet. It uses this nutrient to create the methyl donors – SAMe and methionine – to spark enzymatic reactions that are required for neurotransmitter production and transport.
A large body of research (1) confirms that folate deficiency – something that is incredibly common – is frequently seen in those with depression, and is remediated with the supplementation of this nutrient.
When we consider the role that optimal methylation plays in producing serotonin and other neurotransmitters, it’s easy to see why folate is so important.
Many are drawn to supplementing folate in the form of folic acid, the synthetic version of this nutrient. You can often find folic acid in fortified foods such as breakfast cereals and breads.
However, what people don’t realise is that this version of folate needs to be converted in the body to l-methylfolate and many people lack the ability to do this efficiently due to gene variations.
This means the body is unable to utilise the folic acid properly. We go into gene variants in a little more depth further down, so hold on for more information.
The best food sources of folate are dark leafy greens (like spinach and kale), legumes (such as lentils and chickpeas), liver, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and fortified grains, so be sure to be getting these in your diet frequently.
Whereas folate is important to initiate the methylation cycle, B12 is required for the activation of folate from dietary folate to 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, so that it can go on to create the methyl groups – SAMe and methionine.
If there isn’t enough B12 in the diet, folate can get stuck in the cycle, which halts methylation.
B12 is a nutrient that’s found in animal foods, such as meats, fish, eggs, poultry and dairy products. This means that if you’re vegan or vegetarian, you will likely need to supplement your B12 and consider eating fortified foods, such as plant milks.
Choline – plays an important role in various junctions in the methylation cycle. It is widely known that when folate is low, the body uses choline as its back up methyl donor to help keep methylation ticking along.
It helps with activation of folate, as well as the recycling of homocysteine to methionine – a critical step in methylation.
Having high homocysteine is a key way of indicating whether your methylation is struggling and whether this recycling process isn’t functioning properly.
We don’t want accumulating levels of homocysteine as it is a neurotoxin that has been linked to psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, bipolar and Alzheimer’s disease (2).
This is why if mental health is a concern, testing for homocysteine is a great way to find out whether you may have issues methylating.
You can order and test your homocysteine level accurately from the comfort of your own home. Join our research and order your homocysteine test.
(Bear in mind that levels are not static and can change based on how well you’re methylating, as well as certain dietary factors, such as caffeine and alcohol consumption, which have been shown in some cases to tax methylation.)
In addition to homocysteine, which is explained in further detail below, you can also take a DNA test to see whether you have any mutations on the MTHFR gene – the primary gene that is responsible for folate activation and homocysteine recycling – both of which are necessary for optimal methylation and therefore neurotransmitter production.
Testing for MTHFR
Variants or mutations on the MTHFR gene are inherited from your parents and can either be heterozygous (meaning you have one mutation) or homozygous (two mutations).
It’s well known that having a homozygous mutation is more likely to cause health problems and having a heterozygous mutation is unlikely to cause issues.
Common variants are:
Testing for these variants is done by a simple saliva test and is usually done privately. Here in the UK, there are various providers such as Lifecode GX, however, if you’re not based in the UK there are likely many more providers globally.
As well as eating a wholefood diet that is devoid of sugar and processed foods, if you suspect methylation may be an issue for you, it’s important to take the environmental factors listed above into consideration.
In order to avoid toxins and pollutants you can:
Work with a nutritionist – find out more at our Brain Bio Centre Practitioners here.
Eating a healthy, balanced diet, as well as engaging in healthy lifestyle practices as we outline in our COGNITION Programme, is key. We cannot change our genes but we can create the right environment for them.
When you become a FRIEND and gain access to your personalised 6-month COGNITION programme you will learn how to create the right environment to ‘upgrade your brain’.
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