I just launched a series on The Joe Cohen Show called DNA Deceptions, where I uncover some of the lies you’re being told by “DNA companies,” aka a marketing company with massive budgets.
Most companies are currently focusing on one hot topic – methylation.
Why?
Well, because it’s an extremely popular topic in the health world, especially the MTHFR gene, which has had a huge spotlight on it in recent years.
Methylation impacts your health in a lot of ways – from detoxification to energy production – so discovering how your genetics impact your pathway is key to optimizing your health.
Although your MTHFR plays a huge role in methylation, you need to look at a lot more genes to determine whether you’re an over or under methylator.
But to do that, you need a create a more sophisticated software, which means more money, more time, and a bigger science and dev team.
But that eats into profits, so companies like 10x Health ride the popularity wave and try to make a basic product that they can then overprice and sell to you.
For 10x specifically, you’ll pay $600 to get their Methylation Report, which is a PDF that looks at only 5 SNPs and makes huge promises about how you can transform your health.
In comparison, SelfDecode prices start at $318, and you get a Methylation Report that looks at 30 genetic variants, plus 1,000 other DNA reports that give you genetic risks and recommendations for health issues like inflammation, anxiety, brain fog, and more, plus a lab analysis tool where you can upload your labs and get recommendations to get them to the optimal range, plus an AI health coach that’s available 24/7, plus… you get my point. $600 for 5 SNPs is ridiculous.
This is what you see in the beginning of their report:
First, they don’t focus on the full methylation cycle, including the folate cycle, methionine cycle, and transsulfuration cycle.
They also don’t take labs into account.
And again, they’re only looking at 5 SNPs!
The studies that they use seem legit, as they will cite association studies on PubMed.
But the problem is these studies usually can’t be replicated. If they are replicated, they are often not replicated across different ethnicities and ancestries.
If it is replicated and across ancestries, then it usually contributes less than 1% to the total impact of genetics as a whole. So you are only getting a tiny fraction of the genetic knowledge.
If you want to look at your full methylation pathway, you can find it in your SelfDecode Methylation Report. Here’s what mine looks like:
We’re looking at more genes, taking your labs into account, and we adjust your results based on your ancestry. This is not a trivial matter.
I just released an episode diving deeper into 10x Health and the problems with the Methylation Reports that are being sold. You can listen to it on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple.