Lately, there’s been much talk about something called MTHFR. These conversations usually involve a lot of complex terminology, but MTHFR is a very important health topic nonetheless. You see MTHFR is actually involved with folate and methylation. Therefore, any disturbance in the function of MTHFR ultimately inhibits methylation and damages your overall quality of life. (Methylation is the process by which vital chemical reactions take place in your body – without these you would not survive.)

Understanding MTHFR

MTHFR, technically called methylene-tetrahydrofolate reductase, is an enzyme that converts folate or folic acid into the active form, methyltetrahydrofolate, or MTHF. And it is MTHF that makes methylation possible. So, without MTHFR, folate and folic acid cannot be converted into the active MTHF form and methylation cannot work properly.

MTHFR gene mutations—when things go wrong

Research recently discovered that some people have a genetic mutation that affects the function of MTHFR. Thus, those individuals suffer from inadequate methylation and develop disease in areas of the body that rely on methylation. No one is really sure what causes MTHFR gene mutations. Yet, similar to other genetic mutations, environmental toxins may be to blame. You can find out if you have a MTHFR gene mutation by taking a simple test which your Naturopath can organise for you.

How to overcome a MTHFR gene mutation

Unfortunately, getting more folate through your diet or more folic acid through supplementation cannot always compensate for a MTHFR gene mutation. This is because without MTHFR functioning properly, folate/folic acid cannot be converted into MTHF no matter how much folate/folic acid may be present in your body. At the same time, individuals with a MTHFR gene mutation may experience undermethylation (too few methyl groups) or overmethylation (too many methyl groups). For these reasons, you should ‘Ask a Naturopath’ to not only test you for the mutation, but also evaluate your level of methylation.