Realfoodology - The Truth About Folic Acid: MTHFR, Prenatals & What to Take Instead | Dr. Ben Lynch

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

298: I’m joined by Dr. Ben Lynch to unpack a topic that’s widely misunderstood when it comes to health, anxiety, and pregnancy: methylation and the role of folate vs. folic acid. We talk about MTHFR, why some people feel worse on certain supplements, and how common prenatal advice may not work for everyone. This episode explores how to better support your body, your brain, and your future health by understanding what you’re actually taking and why it matters. Topics Discussed: → MTHFR & Methylation → Folic Acid vs. Folate → Vitamins & Anxiety → Prenatal Vitamins → Pregnancy & Baby Development → Brain Health → Lifestyle & Environmental Factors Sponsored By: → Our Place | Stop cooking with toxic cookware, and upgrade to Our Place today. Visit https://fromourplace.com/REALFOODOLOGY and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 10% off sitewide. With a hundred-day risk-free trial, free shipping and returns, you can experience this game-changing cookware with zero risk. → Just Thrive | Get your health in check and save 20% on your first order at https://justthrivehealth.com/REALFOODOLOGY → Manukora | Head to https://manukora.com/REALFOODOLOGY to save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, 5 honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook! → Timeline | Timeline’s clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to https://timeline.com/REALFOODOLOGY → Cowboy Colostrum | Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code REALFOODOLOGY at https://cowboycolostrum.com/realfoodology Timestamps:  → 00:00 Introduction → 01:00 MTHFR & Methylation Explained → 04:00 What Methylation Does in the Body → 08:00 Why Methylated Vitamins Can Cause Anxiety → 12:00 How to Approach Supplements (Bio-Individuality) → 23:00 Methylation, Pregnancy & Baby Development → 35:30 Folic Acid vs Folate → 48:00 Brain Health & Nutrient Deficiency → 1:10:00 Morning Sickness, Histamine & DAO → 1:14:00 Matcha, Green Tea & Folate → 1:16:00 Why Vitamins Can Make You Feel Worse → 1:19:00 Tylenol, Glutathione & Pregnancy Show Links: → realfoodology.com Check Out Ben: → Instagram Check Out Courtney:  →⁠⁠ ⁠LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠ ⁠Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide!⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠ ⁠@realfoodology⁠⁠⁠ →⁠⁠ ⁠⁠PEOPLE VS THE POISON - Sign up now!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠ ⁠www.realfoodology.com⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠ ⁠My Immune Supplement by 2x4⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠ ⁠Air Dr Air Purifier⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠ ⁠AquaTru Water Filter⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠ ⁠EWG Tap Water Database⁠⁠⁠  Produced By: Drake Peterson

folic acid is actually really bad. Eliminating folic acid from my life was transformative. I actually got my brain back. I felt better. My energy was better. My mood was more stable, much is worse than green tea. There's a compound called EGCG. It literally destroys folate. The research shows that 30 minutes to an hour, that compound is still circulating in your blood. During pregnancy, not a good time to be taking something that's antifolate. Methylated vitamins can make some people anxious because you're getting a plethora of neurotransmitters in your brain, more than your brain can handle. In addition, You are inhibiting an enzyme that controls the elimination of methyl groups called GNMT. And GNMT controls how much methyl donors are in the body.

And methylphylphylphylate actively blocks it. So you are now having a huge amount of methylation groups in your body too much. Dr. Ben Lynch, I'm so excited to have you back on the podcast. I told you this before we started recording. But I posted in my DMs probably about a month or so ago because we've had to reschedule a couple times that you were coming on the podcast. And I got flooded with messages from people. People love you and we're so grateful for the information that you put out there for us. So thank you so much for coming on today. Yeah, awesome. Glad we can get this going. Yeah, me too. So you know that I'm pregnant and I had actually reached out to you very early on in my pregnancy because I had come across some information that was new to me. So just to give my listeners context, I found out about, I think it's been about eight years now that I have MTHFR and I have the 677T. Do you call that variation?

Variant, yep. Variant? Okay. And I, for the last seven and a half years, have been told by every doctor and practitioner that I've seen, which have all been functional integrative doctors, by the way, that I needed to be taking methylated vitamins. And then I came across some information, which I believe was from you, actually. I don't remember where I first saw it, but then I know I saw that you were talking about

it. And so I reached out to you was that if you have certain variants of MTHFR, methylated vitamins can actually make you more anxious. And this was exactly what was happening to me. In fact, this information completely changed my life. I immediately went from taking the prenatal that I was on before, and I started ordering your prenatal, the optimal prenatal MF, which doesn't have the methylated vitamins.

And the difference that I saw in my overall baseline of anxiety was profound, honestly, in my experience. Because I'd always had this just low-grade kind of, this low-grade anxiety that my body felt like it was like, like, oh, like tensed up all the time. And when I stopped taking these methylated vitamins, it went away. Yeah. Can you talk to us about that?

Because when I started sharing about this on Instagram, I got a lot of questions from people, obviously, that were saying, wait, I thought we had to take methylated vitamins. What should we be taking instead if that happens? And does this happen to everybody with MTHFR? Or is that just a certain genetic variant that affects? Yeah, it's a great point and very common experience, which is why we might be the only company in the world, which is crazy to think that offers four different prenatals, I think even five. And it is because

women and we're all genetically and epigenetically diverse. And we're the only one in the world that has a folinic acid prenatal as far as I know. And that is because I was observing exactly women like struggling with the same situation as you were and thankfully that's past tense because a lot of people have been struggling for years and the reason why people struggle with methyl folate more or methylated nutrients more the short answer is I don't really know but I have theories and the theories do seem to make sense biochemically and physiologically so Let me back up a little bit and talk about MTCFAR. So MTFR is one gene out of 18,000.

And you've seen those Instagram reels, which are actually pretty cool, where people have these dominoes that there's some type of pattern and then mazes and they go over bridges and stuff and kick things. So that's how your genes work. So one gene will fire and trigger a cascade of events. And so when you supplement with methylfolate, you're not just bypassing an MTCFR or genetic variation, you're triggering as cascade of events via dominoes. And you're accelerating that cascade of dominoes.

And M.T. Chavar, we have to understand it is not broken. It's not something that you fix. It is simply reduced in its ability to produce a compound called methylfolate. And the MTGFR 677T, which is one variant, or T, T-T, which is two variants. If you have one variant, you're reduced in function by about 40%. So that means you have 60% capacity. So if you're eating your leafy greens, if you're eating liver, gag me, but fantastic, and you're not taking certain medications like nitrous oxide, you know, at the dentist or other things, your MTFR can handle 60% capacity. Now, if you're under tremendous

amounts of stress, if you get exposed to certain medications that reduce your ability to, you know, utilize folate or it destroys folate, then you will need more methylfolate. And then your MTFR will be overwhelmed and your homocysteine levels go up. Make sense? Yes. So we think what happens is people think MTFR is a disease and you think that you're diagnosed with a broken gene. It's not broken.

It's like if you get in your car and you turn it on and you, you're going to the store that's five miles away. You look quickly at the gas tank and you're at, you know, three quarters full or 50% full with the gas. You don't run to the gas station and freak out and, you know, fill a pass full. You're good. Now, if you go for a long road trip, that's going to take you a few hours. You're going to say, oh, I think I'm going to fill up my gas and go to the store,

you know, gas station, fill it up. It's the same thing with MPHFR. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, I think there's a lot of, for my experience, I'm finding a lot of people are finding out now about MTHFR. They're starting to test their babies or testing themselves. But there's a lot of confusion about what it really means.

So I think that's really helpful. Well, if I may interject a little bit on this, there's a lot of confusion because there's a lot of greed. And people respond to pain and they respond to fear. Those are the two biggest purchase drivers. in an economy. If you're scared, you're going to take action. If you're, and so what's going to happen is, is companies know this. And so they're going to sell a genetic test in order to instigate fear, in order to then sell you a chain of things for you, either consultations or supplements or what have

you. And then I don't, I think almost every single genetic report out there that talks, if it says if you have MTFR, they are going to tell you to take methylfolate straight up. And oh, by the way, we happen to sell it for you. So I have a supplement company. I own a supplement company. I have a genetic report. I don't tell people to take methyl folate. In fact, I tell them, better not take it because you're going to freak out.

In your experience, do you find most people get ramped up from methylated vitamins, or is it really bioindividual? I think what happens is there's a honeymood period. The first time you take methyl folate, it's like, whoa, where has this been all my life? I felt that way in the beginning. Yeah, it's just like, wow, this is amazing, lightheaded, you know, clear head, ability to think, fast on your feet, driven, motivated, good mood, and you're just getting stuff done. Now, you keep taking it and imagine a bell-shaped curve, and you're down here in terms of your actual folate, you know, methylfolate levels in your body, because 80% of the folate in your body

should be methylfolate, probably even 90%, should be methylfolate. And so you've been deficient, possibly for many, many years, potentially your whole life because of folic acid, which we'll get into later. And so you're replenishing your stores, you're peaking. Now, you can only get so good. There's not gooder or goodest. They're not even words. They're best, but there's not bestest.

So at some point, you're going to have too much methylfolate, and too much methylfolate causes problems. And the long and the short of it is too much methylfolate can cause excessive neurotransmission. It can cause excessive oxidative stress, which is free radicals, and it can damage things. And so it becomes really problematic. And we also need to understand that folate is stored in our liver. It's stored there.

So you topped off. So how long was your honeymoon period with methyl folate? Just guessed me. Was it a week? Was it two weeks, a few days? Oh, man, it's hard for me to remember because it was about eight years ago when I started. It, you know, yeah, it probably would have just been a couple weeks because I, I, remember the last, I've been on this journey for the last, like, eight years or so trying to

figure out where I, I've always had some anxiety that I could connect things to, but then I also had this low-grade anxiety that now looking back, I think, were the methylated vitamins, that I have been chasing for the last eight years trying to figure out a remedy of how to get rid of this anxiety. And so, yeah, I don't, I don't remember exactly when, but I just know that I've had this low-grade anxiety that I was mentioning earlier, that it was almost like my body was, like, ramped up. Yeah. The way I described it is it was an anxiety that didn't, I didn't know where it was coming from. Like I could, some anxiety I could place. It's like, oh, yeah, I have this really big thing coming up or, you know, I had some traumatic stuff happen to me as a kid. But then there was a different type of anxiety where it was like my body was like ramped up. I don't know how I also explain it. No, I had the same thing. And for me, my honeymoon period like you, I don't exactly remember because it was 15 years ago. But, you know, because I found out I had the MTCFR 677 and the 1298. So my MTCFR gene, is functioning at about, you know, a 30% capacity, but it's 30% capacity. And so, you know,

if I eat well and I'm not under tremendous amounts of stress, I don't exercise extremely hard. Exercise can cause problems for empty Jafar and so can fever and so on. But my honeymoon period was about, God, maybe just a few days. And I started getting a mild headache. But I kept taking it because, of course, I have empty Shavar, so I have to keep taking it. And this is the problem. If you think that, you know, well, you find out you have an MGR genetic variant, you are told that you have to take methyl folate for the rest of your life and you can take it consecutively and you feel really, really good. And then a week later or a few days later or a month later, you start feeling worse and progressively worse. You're not going to blame the thing, which gave you that amazing clarity, which you missed out on your whole life. So now you're going to the doctor and say, Doc, I have this anxiety or I have this.

these headaches, what's going on. So now they prescribe something different. So now you're stacking pharmacy on top of something that you should have been taking what I call the pulse method. And the pulse method is simply the bell-shaped curve. You have a deficiency, you replenish that deficiency. You stop. And if you start falling back down again, you can add. Otherwise, you become a no man's land and you start dropping on the other side. And now you're kind of frantic and don't know what to do about it. If you care about what's in your food, you also need to pay attention and care about what you're cooking it in. This is something that my mom, a gift that my mom gave me probably about 20, 25 years ago

was she got me to get rid of all of my traditional nonstick cookware because a lot of it still contains forever chemicals like Phaas, the same chemicals that are linked to environmental and health concerns. In fact, studies have found that the majority of nonstick pans still contain these coatings and even a small scratch can release thousands of plastic particles into your food. That's why I've been loving our place. They make beautiful, high-performance kitchenware that's completely toxin-free so you can cook without worrying about what might be leaching into your food. One of my favorites is their four-piece cookware set, which basically upgrades your entire kitchen and one to move. It includes their iconic always pan and perfect pot, which I use almost nightly.

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Is this just kind of a, they're going to have to figure this out on their own, like trial and error kind of situation where maybe they try the non-methylated vitamins if they're feeling the way that we're describing, or maybe they're not feeling that way and they're okay on the methylated vitamins. Maybe there's some... Yeah, I like to start. where things are less likely to cause a problem. And so philinic acid,

which is a type of folate that most people aren't known or knowledgeable about, you know, Kennedy talked about it, Trump talked about it because of lukevoren. Now lukevoren is calcium folonate, which is also known as folinic acid. So lukevorinic acid, calcium folonate, same thing. Unfortunately, multiple phrases in terms, but they're all the same thing.

And so lukevoren is simply, the prescription drug version, which comes with plasticizers. Nice. Of course. Yeah, of course it does. And then the supplement form, folinic acid, is going to be significantly less expensive and no plasticizers. So I like starting out people with folinic acid if they are sensitive. If some people are kind of, oh, I'm bulletproof, I can take a supplement and I don't feel a thing. Well, you might need to take the hammer of methylfolate and go for it. Now, if we know ourselves, especially if you tune in. And so I want you feeling, how am I feeling right now?

You take a supplement 30 minutes later, depending on what it is, vitamin D, you're not going to feel anything. Fish oil, you're not going to feel anything, but you take a folate like folonic acid or methylfolate. You're going to feel something within a, especially if it's a lozenge. You'll feel it literally in about five to 10 seconds. Yeah. So feel the experience.

Did your head gain clarity? you sharper or did it you gain clarity and now you're starting getting a little bit anxious and a little bit of a headache okay it still might be the right form for you but you may have taken too much or you've taken it too frequently which falls in the category of too much the problem is on the back of supplement bottles there's a suggested use and the problem is also you go to the doctor and the doctor says you have mtchifar you need to take methyl folate here's a supplement bottle take this, how much, Doc, take one every day after breakfast. All right, there's no individualization about your day-to-day experiences. Why? Because it's difficult to say that as a health professional.

People want easy. They want the simple button. I mean, look at, what was it? Staples, you know, the easy button. You buy it. And it's great, but that's not how life is. Some days you feel great. You wake up in the morning, you feel great. You don't take fully. You don't take any fully, period. On the days where you wake up, God, you know, I'm kind of had a pretty eventful evening last night. I was drinking. You know, I traveled to a different state or a different country. Yeah, you're probably going to need some fully.

And so you take it. So my stance on supplementation is to define and understand the word, first of all, it was what supplement means. Supplement means to add to or enhance. Again, you can't add to or enhance an already good feeling because you're going to feel worse. because now you're over-excited and overexcited is anxiety. I like that.

Well, and I like your message of really tuning into your body because this is what I tell people all the time. At the end of the day, you know, and once you start paying attention and taking mental notes of it, you're going to be able to figure it out. I also, too, I'm a huge proponent for testing, not guessing. So get lab work done, see what your baseline is, see where you are.

And then if you can, I like to get blood work done every six months just to see where everything is and make sure that everything's on track. Yeah, there's, there are camps for this for sure. And for me, testing certain things is very powerful information. The problem with labs is they can change the night before. You know, you can get a different, you can get a different value from doing something the night before or even on the way to get your blood drawn. If you're listening to your favorite song, you're having a good conversation with a person sitting next to you, there's no traffic, everything's fine, you had a good night the night before, everything's great, your labs are going to show that.

Now, of course, HBA-1C, you know, that's a 90-day average of your red blood cells, your blood glucose, you know, but blood glucose actually can change. But HBA-1C, that's a 90-day average. So things that, you know, are slow and don't get the day-to-day variations, hormones. change on a dime. Your thyroid could completely be different from, you know, the moment that you get your blood drawn, you know, yeah, it can be different based upon how you're doing that day. And so that is, there's no understanding with that. And then you also have to say, okay, well, what are the lab values? What are the ranges? And you have to understand that a lot of lab ranges are determined by a very, very narrow population.

And it's usually, you know, 50 people and they paid 50 people or they just took their employees and they just drew their blood and looked at an average and bang, there it is. Do you have any sickness or illness? You fill out a survey? No, I feel fine. And then that's the average. So I actually ordered for a long time and recommended this test for a long time for a methylation status.

And it checked your folate levels, special foliates. You looked at your methylfolate, flinic acid, and it looked at homocyllate. Homocystine, homocysteine, and ethygene and saw. And I was like, wow, that's a great test. And so I was ordering it. And I kept kind of getting the same results for almost every patient. And I was like, you know, either I don't know how to read this or I'm telling them. Yeah, something's wrong here.

And so I learned and I don't know where I learned it from. But I asked the lab, I said, where did you get your, How did you define the ranges? Because everybody's falling in within the normal range. Oh, we use medical students. Okay, how many? 50.

Okay. And any other details? They were healthy. What determined healthy? They just said they felt good. I was like, wow. Okay, then. That's crazy.

You know, and so then you have ethnicity, you know, ethnicity and gender. you know, a man and a woman, lab values can be different. So they don't take any account for that. So I am of the camp where testing could be useful, but so can also experimentation. But if you experiment, you have to tune in because fast acting supplements, like the one I just took prior to joining in with you, that's already hit my head within, you know, 30 seconds to a minute.

And I felt I needed some more clarity because, you know, I got up, had a smoothie, but I didn't really exercise much. So I needed some more oomph in my head. That's amazing. Okay, well, that's good to know about the testing. I would go more down that route, but I have so many questions for you about methylation and baby, and I really want to get into folic acid, too. So I'm curious because I get a lot of questions about this, and I'm genuinely curious about this. So what is your methylation status? How does that affect your baby in utero if you're pregnant? It's the thing.

I mean, methylation status is the thing. And what can moms do about it? Because I know there's a lot of concern with autism and making sure the baby gets enough nutrients and that baby's forming correctly and all that. And I think it can affect that.

Yeah. So methylation, what is methylation? Methylation is a process that your body does. And methylation turns on genes or it turns them off. That's pretty significant. Or it transforms a compound into a different type of compound. It can transform your dopamine into norepinephrine.

It can turn your histamine into N-methalhistamine to start the process of breaking histamine down. It can transform your serotonin into melatonin so you can sleep at night. So methylation is very, very important. The majority of your methylation is actually utilized to produce. creatine. So there's 80% of your body's methyl donors are used to do two things, produce cell membrane compound and bile compound called phosphatylcholine. And what happens during pregnancy? Commonly, gallbladder issues. Why? Because fossil colin levels drop. If fossil coaling levels are less than, I believe, a two to one ratio to cholesterol, the bile starts getting sludgy and thwarty

thick and it can't go through this tiny little bile duct through a little tiny hole called a sphincter of odie i always think of garfield um when i say that poor odie he always got beat up um that's so but uh so pregnant women have gallbladder issues and to me that is a sign of methylation deficiency there's also a massive hormonal component going on during pregnancy which leads to you know phosphatol colonel colonel issues and gallbladder stagnation and so it's not just one variable But so that's what methylation does. Also, you hear about folic acid all the time. Why is, why was folic acid mandated by governments to put into food and prenatal vitamins?

You know the answer. Why was it, why was it there? Well, because I think they thought that it was going to reduce neural defects, right? Right, exactly. Okay. So we were all told that folic acid is designed to, and proven to reduce neural tube defects. especially in some populations. Well, there was a massive, massive research project that was done,

and they looked at the effectiveness of folic acid on neural tube defect rates. And they found overall, after looking at all of different variables, that socioeconomic status was accounting for over 80% of why neural tube defects have been reduced in the population. So that leaves about 15 to 20% of folic acid doing maybe the rest of the lift. So if you say, okay, 20% reduction in neural tube defects, that's still, you know, that's still something, you know. But yeah, I don't want to get in. But it doesn't sound like it's doing enough.

Yeah, it's, so we'll get in folic acid for a second. But methylation, so the reason why neural tube tube defects happen is, because it's a methylation dysfunction. You need healthy methylation to have healthy neural tube formation. So neural tube defects are not a folic acid deficiency or a folate deficiency when we'll talk about those terms later. It's a methylation deficiency. One thing that I find myself reaching for every single morning is my Manukora honey. Instead of using processed sweeteners, I do a heaped teaspoon into my coffee. And it's become such an easy ritual that supports my health. And honey being one of the most functional foods,

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with the starter kit, which comes with an MGO 850 plus manuka honey jar, five honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon and a guidebook. Where does resilience actually come from? A lot of us assume it's just discipline or how hard we train. But really, it comes down to what's happening at the cellular level because every single thing your body does, movement, strength, recovery depends on energy. And then energy is produced by your mitochondria, which are basically the little energy factories inside yourselves. As we age, those mitochondria can become less efficient. And that's when you start to notice dips in energy, strength, and recovery, even if you're doing all the right things. That's why I've been really interested in mitopure from timeline it contains uralith and a which supports something called mitophagy

basically helping your body clear out damaged mitochondria and support healthier more efficient energy production it's about supporting the foundation of how your body actually creates energy for me it's really about protecting strength and resilience long term timelines's clinically proven formula is now available at a new lower price mightopure now starts at 79 when you go to timeline dot com slash real foodology. So make sure you go to timeline.com slash real foodology. Okay, so knowing that, how does a mother make sure that her methylation status is sufficient? Yeah. It's okay. That's a great question. And honestly, it, the easiest way is to look at your homocysteine levels. It is not the gold standard, but the gold standard is not, you know, do we really even know what the gold standard is? Maybe

not because there hasn't been enough research on it. But I would say Dr. Jill James, she's a researcher. She's talked about it in her papers. So if you Google Dr. Jill James and National Library of Medicine, PubMed, you will find a lot of her research on autism and what she calls the Sam and Saw ratio. Sam Saw ratio is the gold standard. I think there's one, maybe two labs that look at this in the world. Doctors data may be one of them. They have a methylation panel. homocysteine everybody knows every lab does it it's cheap it's fast and it tends to be pretty accurate and it's modifiable quite quickly within a month or so you can go back and take a follow-up test now when we talk about testing don't guess i'm with you on homocysteine especially if you're looking

to get pregnant you and your partner both of you not just the woman guys you get off your ass and start optimizing your health because you're donating half the chromosomes to this developing baby. And so it's very, very important. So if homocysteine is greater than 7 micromoles per liter, then that is showing that your methylation status is a bit underserved. Why? Because homocysteine is a waste product of methylation. And if you, if you're, you know, it's a miscarriage status is a bit underserved. And if, you you recycle it back, then the homocysteine levels will stay good and they can keep making methylation. A lot of people think homocysteine is bad. They think histamine is bad. Histamine isn't bad. Histamine is amazing. Homocysteine is amazing. Without homocysteine, you've got no methylation.

Methylfolate from MCFR helps recycle homocysteine. Okay. Okay. So methylfolate along with methyl khalkobolomine recycle homocysteine into what I call methyl homocysteine. For some reason, the scientists changed homocysteine into the term for methyonyene. So homocysteine gets recycled into methygene, which then goes to Sammy. So, but if you think of it as homocysteine gets methylated from methylfolate, from Mdh, from M. Tchifar, pretty simple steps. Homocysteine gets methylated. It becomes methyl homocysteine. It makes sense, methyl homocysteine with the addition of magnesium becomes Sammy. Okay. So magnesium deficiency is extremely important to address as well.

So what happens in, like, for example, my case where I can't take the methylfolate, I'm taking philinic acid, am I still getting enough? There was a research paper that was done, I think, last year and I talked about it. And it was actually pretty interesting that individuals with who have the MTFR genetic variation, lower their homocysteine better using folinic acid than methyl folate. Okay, that's good to know. Interesting, right?

Yeah. Very interesting. Phelinic acid doesn't directly recycle homocysteine. It has to go through a couple different genes in order for that to happen to make methyl folate. But methylfolate is the body's most active form of folate, No genes really control how much is produced. So I like the fact that folinic acid, and this shows evidence actually,

folinic acid does multiple different things. It can go and make your white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets, immune cells. It makes your DNA bases so it can repair tissues from sunburns or post-surgery or hair loss from cancer. So all these things that folinic acid does. And then after that, phonic acid can get converted into methylfolate, and then methylfolate recycles your homocysteine. That's it. Okay.

So mchifar making methylfolate recycles homocysteine. That's it, folks. It doesn't do all these crazy other things that people are talking about on the internet. Methylfolate recycles homocysteine, period. That's the direct effect. Now, indirect effects, you can go, you know, for days talking about all the indirect effects. But the direct effect, that's it. Okay. So that's good to know. So taking folonic acid while I'm pregnant is okay.

It's beautiful. Okay, good. And I think actually taking folinic acid during pregnancy is possibly superior than taking methylfolate. And the reason is folinic acid, the path from philinic acid to get converted into methylfolate is a lot easier to convert methylfolate into phelphalate. Okay. Both can happen, but the process of converting methylfolate and affluentic acid is very difficult. And I have an article and a video on YouTube that talks about the differences between methylfolate and phleonic acid and why, what the benefits are of each, so we don't have to get into it. We also have an article on our blog about it, so you can read it.

And everything is referenced. So everything I talk about is referenced with research studies. Yeah, you are great with your research. You always have a lot of research to back up everything your studies. saying, which I really appreciate. Okay, so we've been, we've been dancing around this for a while, and I really, I'm excited to have this conversation with you about the folic acid versus folate, because I personally have been really invested in this conversation for the last year or so, because this blew my mind. When I figured out that we are adding folic acid to all of our grains,

so we're adding folic acid to our flowers, which means that it's in our bread, it's in our crackers, it's in our cereals. And it's very hard to avoid folic acid. And now that I'm pregnant and I have MTHFR and knowing what I know about folic acid, I have been diligently reading every ingredient label and going, oh, this has folic acid. I'm not going to eat this. Now, it's a little bit easier for me because I'm gluten-free. So there's not as much stuff that has folic acid in there, but I'm still finding it in things. And I want to, I want people to understand why we want to be taking folate and not folic

acid and what the effects are in the body when we're taking folic acid is. Yeah. You're like, where do I start? Yeah, I think I'll start not all the beginning but close. Fulic acid does not exist in nature. The form of folic acid is nowhere to be found on this planet. You're not going to find it in a leaf or an animal or a rock or in dirt or some bacteria. It does not exist.

Fulic acid is a chemical that was branded and named folic acid. So folic acid didn't exist. The term folic acid didn't exist until it was developed in a lab. Wow. The term folate comes from the word fuller, which comes from the word, which then translates into foliage. Leafy greens. Interesting. It's found in liver tissues.

It's found in plants. It's found in vegetables. It's found in beans. It's naturally found in many, many places in this planet. So we have to change all the brainwashing that we've been having ever since we were literally born about folic acid because folic acid is a chemical. There are some doctors that I love what they did,

and I absolutely love what they've said about it. They were on... Who's the guy who was really big about vitamin D? John Campbell, Dr. John T. Campbell? I think it is John T. Campbell. Yeah. So he's got a YouTube channel quite popular. And he interviewed these two researchers about folate and folic acid.

And they were phenomenal, are phenomenal. And so look for his video, and I'll try to find it for you too. So I can email it to your team for the show notes. But they came up with the term folate. And it's F-A-U-X. L-A-T-E, FOT meaning false in French. Yeah. And I was like, wow, that is so cool.

I wish I came up with that. But, kudos to them. But that's for folic acid, right? Because folic acid is the synthetic version. Exactly. And just to be clear, so people understand. And I think you already made this clear, but I just always really like to say this in just like simple terms.

So folic acid is synthetic vitamin B-9, and folate is the naturally occurring vitamin. vitamin B-9 that we're finding in leafy greens and beans, et cetera, that you mentioned? Yeah, close. Close. Oh, I got that wrong. Well, you didn't get it wrong, but terminology is very, very important to get right. My grandfather always told me, Ben, you got to really define terms really well for people

to understand. And so I used to say it the same way you just did. Okay. The thing we have to be careful of is there are synthetic vitamins. Methylphoid is a synthetic vitamin. It's made in a lab. That's fair. But it's a bioidentical to that which is found in liver and vegetables.

It's structurally exactly the same. Vitamin C, that everybody says, oh my gosh, vitamin C, acorbic acid is synthetic. Yes, it's synthetic, but it's bioidentical. It's the exact same chemical structure. Now they'll say, well, the energetics of it are different. Well, chemical structures, shape, and compounds define the energy that comes off of it. Now, then you also have the energy of the universe and all that. So you probably got me there.

So vitamin C that is in a natural plant versus, you know, a synthetic man-made acorbic acid. Yeah, there probably is a minute energetic difference. But the effect, the overall effect is, you know, it's bio, it's bio, identical. So synthetic folate can be bioidentical. Got it. Folic acid is also synthetic, but it is not bioidentical. It's a chemical. It's a fraud. It's an imposter. And it actually blocks your body's ability to utilize natural folate. It's actually extremely dangerous. Folic acid is a dangerous chemical that is dramatically interfering with our ability to to think, produce healthy babies, to every function basically in our body well.

And it's acting at a low, insidious, persistent effect that is making you dumb. And I honestly think, duh, conspiracy theory, possibly done on purpose. This spring, if you're really trying to see results like better gut health, clear skin, stronger hair, stable energy, it all starts in the gut. And once your gut is supported, everything else tends to fall into place. One thing I've added into my routine is colostrum. I really love cowboy colostrum. What stood out to me is the quality. It's 100% made in America from grass-fed cows. And it's true first-day whole colostrum, which means it's rich in bioactives like immunoglobulins and growth factors. And they collect the surplus after the calves have had what they need. It's not stripped

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Yeah. Especially now we know what we know. I believe a lot of these things weren't started with nefarious intent, but I believe that once we know better, we do better, and sometimes they know better and they're using it to their advantage. Okay, well, let me ask this very simple question. Methyl folate is found in food. Phelonic acid is found in food.

They're both found in nature. our bodies have been using them since humans have been on this planet folic acid is in see i didn't once did it myself a chemical that has no biological effect in a human body at all has been on this planet around 1980 so you know 50 years put that in your head and doctors are mandating that pregnant women use it and a lot of it. It's in our food, it's in our processed food, and it's in every single bottle of infant formula in the world by law.

Is it really, is it in Serenity Kids too? Because I've been suggesting that one for people. Let me back up a little bit. It's by law, infant formula has to have folic acid in the United States. And Serenity Kids is actually labeled as toddler formula, which is why I tell women to do that. toddler one. Exactly.

Yeah. And it's also because they don't go by the, the Pufa ratio that's required for infant formula, which I actually agree with. I think it should be higher saturated fat than polysacaturated fatty acids. I've been wanting to make an infant formula with my, you know, by my company for,

for many, many years. You should do it. I can't. I can't. It's probably really, it's, it's so hard to mimic breast milk. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, I can't.

Because I have to put, I have to put folic acid in it. Wow. So folks listening, we have Secretary Kennedy in office right now. Okay? Kennedy and I know each other. You know, I've actually voted. I got a Kennedy bumper sticker on my car. I love him.

He's a great guy. We've been on stages at autism conferences, you know, a few times, and his message is amazing. There is no way that Kennedy can take folic acid out of food unless there is a mass movement supporting him. He will be politically derailed and destroyed by the savior of folic acid. So we have to prove scientifically that natural folates that have been on this planet since humans have lived on it is superior than the folic acid that was introduced in the 1980s. I mean, it's,

common sense, but, you know. He's thankfully looking at all this. I do know. I actually just saw him last week. I had a meeting at the White House and I had a meeting with him. And it was one of the many things that he brought up that he's working on right now, which he's calling Operation Stork Spee, which I'm sure you know about. And he's looking at the regulations right now because the last time they revamped those regulations were in 1984. Yeah. Which is nuts. So Operation Stork is specifically infant, infant formula and that's great. But we also need to be looking at, you know, the recurrent miscarriage in pregnancy leads to four

milligrams of folic acid. And so that's a lot. What do you mean? So are you saying miscarriages are linked to folic acid consumption? That I haven't looked at. That's an interesting question, but I haven't looked at that. No, I'm saying if a woman has lost her baby and then she loses her baby again, the go-to standard of practice by obstetricians and fertility specialists is to change the prescribed

dose of folic acid from about 800 micrograms or 600 micrograms. The whole dietary folate equivalent, now the DFE is super confusing nowadays, but it used to be 800 micrograms of folic acid in a prenatal. And then if you have recurrent miscarriage, it's now four milligrams. Oh, wow. And you're taking that every single day of your pregnancy. And so folic acid is an imposter, folks. It's an imposter. And so what does that mean?

So basically, if, you know, if I'm just to throw you a ball, how's your hand going to look, Courtney, to try to catch a ball? Hold your hand up, right? Okay. Okay. I'm overthinking it, yes. Yeah. But if I throw you a ball, what's your hand look like?

And you catch it. It depends on how big the ball. ball. Oh, yeah, if you catch it, yeah, you get it. Now what happens to your hand? It closes, right? Okay. Now if I throw you a same ball, that same hand, what's going to happen? Wait, what do you mean? Oh, if you are already holding the ball? Yeah. If I throw you another tennis ball, I'm going to have to put it my other hand. But you can catch it. Okay. Now if I throw you that ball and I throw it on that hand, okay? You got two hands and I throw you another one. Now what? Then I'm shielding. You're shielding. Maybe you can go for it like your dog and catching your mouth.

You know, but the fact is, folic acid is a tennis ball, your hands, possibly your mouth, are a receptor for the folic acid and folate. And once you have that tennis ball in your hand, if it's folic acid is a tennis ball, it will not let go. It stays there. And then folate comes by, let's say it's a softball and you need the softball because you're playing the sports softball, but everybody's been throwing tennis balls. and you don't have it, the softball just drops. And it doesn't bind to the receptor. Interesting. Okay.

Folate as methylfolate is the only form in folinic acid via a minor route are this type of folate that actually can get into the brain. So there's folate receptor alpha and then there's other ones. But folate receptor alpha are responsible for over 70 to 80% of transporting folate in the brain. Transporting. It has to be delivered. Folic acid sits on there's foliate receptor alpha in the brain. More strongly, higher affinity is a scientific term,

more strongly than methylfolate can. And it sits there, methylfolate can't get in. And if methylpholite can't get in, there's nothing going on upstairs. There's going to be a deficiency, right, in the brain? Massive deficiency. And so this was one of my questions. Is this what, now to be clear with my audience,

I've shared this before, so we don't have to go into all of this. I want to talk specifically about folic acid and folate. I believe that autism is multifaceted, but I think that there's a connection here with this, and I think you also believe this. Is there a connection with the autism and the folate not making it to the brain? 100%. Okay.

Folic acid, I mean, autism is a spectrum. I think I'm somewhere on the spectrum, honestly. I think that I'm somewhere on the spectrum. I think Elon Musk is somewhere expector. I think most of us are somewhere on the autism spectrum. And it's not like, you know, there's a very strict set of criteria and you're just, you know, your diagnosis is autistic. You know, it's, and you've seen different individuals, children mainly,

but, you know, they're becoming, there's very, very few adults with autism. There are some, but very few. and there's teenagers with autism. Some do very, very well. High-functioning autism, right? Yeah. So knowing that... Which are not the ones that we're concerned about.

Yeah, so... But autism is not going to go away. It's only increasing. And so, and I think there's, there's, from my research, there's a few major things going on. I would say, primary is folic acid. I would say that's number one. that sets the stage.

It sets the stage for failure. And everybody's saying, well, can I say the V word on your show? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We've done a lot of episodes with Aaron Siri and Del Batree. Okay. I just know that, you know. It's a sensitive topic.

It's a sensitive topic, and I don't want your videos to get throttled. So you might want to just bleep it out or something so YouTube doesn't hear it. Yeah. Because it will throttle your reach for sure. Yeah. So, but, you know, the shots that go to people arms and kids' arms, those are a major factor, especially since they change the schedule. And a good friend of mine, you know, is behind a lot of that vaccine work, Dr. Paul Thomas. He wrote the, yeah, the vaccine.

Oh, my gosh. Delayed schedule, right? Yeah, the vaccine friendly plan. Yes. But he came back later and said that he regretted writing that, I believe, right? And then he wrote a new book. Yeah. But, you know, because I asked him, and he'll be fine with me saying this now, too,

is I said, okay, Paul, you know, you vaccinated over 18,000 kids. And he was a staunch. YouTube deleted my interview with him. Wow. And my title of the video was vaccines don't cause autism. That was the title. And they still deleted it. deleted it and that is my stance i don't believe vaccines cause autism there's not a causal effect there's a

there's a series of events yeah that's why i think it's multifaceted it is multifaceted and and as i was telling you before that is this is going to be my next book and it's going to be raising haggles on a lot of people's backs because a lot of people are going to feel shame and mad and scared but the fact is this information has to get out there because the only way to reduce the incidence of of autism from 1 and 20 something is to actually talk about it and make changes. And thank goodness for Secretary Kennedy, because he's the only one with enough, you know, Cajonis to deal with it. So folic acid is a huge one.

Tylenol is another one. And the shots in the arm is another big one. And can we talk about why? So the Tylenol one, when I posted about that, again, everything we're talking about right now, is really sensitive. And I understand because of what you just said is that there's going to be, there's a lot of moms that feel guilt over the decisions that they've made. And I just want to say this really quickly that I don't think anybody,

anybody should be feeling guilt over that. You were taking advice from experts and doctors who you thought knew best. And I think a lot of the doctors think they know best. So not even trying to villainize them. The information is just not out there like it should be. And the thing with Tylenol, if I understand this correctly, and I want you to describe it, but what I understand with Tylenol is that it depletes the glutathione on your body,

and the glutathion is what is able to actually, what's the word, open your detoxification pathways, it supports your detoxification, is that correct, to get all of this out? So, for example, if you're getting a lot of vaccines, and you're getting injected with aluminum, and there's other things in there, and you're also having an effect on your immune system from the vaccines, and then your glutathione is down.

It's just creating this perfect storm for something bad to happen. Right. And what do they call autism as well? It's a neurodiversions. You know, it's a neurological disorder. Okay. Well, how do you get neurological dysfunction? Well, I would say first thing is nutrient deficiency. And if you have a nutritional deficiency that is functional, because the argument is, which is really stupid, the argument of taking folic acid, is that it has superior absorption over methyl folate. That's crazy. That's the argument. So my counter argument is, okay, if that's the situation,

then we should all be breathing carbon monoxide. Because carbon monoxide binds to our hemoglobin better than oxygen by about 200 times. It's more efficient at binding to our hemoglobin. Well, that'll kill you. Well, yeah, because you actually see that. that, you know, people die from it. So it's obvious. With folic acid, you don't see death, but you do see in extreme situations autism. Less extreme situations, you see ADHD. Less extreme situations, I don't know, I would say different situation, not extreme. You see

depression or inability to think or early onset dementia, you know, so or increased cancer risk. You know, all these, there's, there's a plethora of things that happen if you don't not have sufficient folate in your brain. And the term folate is an umbrella term like the term vehicle. A vehicle can be a truck or a car or a motorcycle. Those are vehicles. Follate is like vehicle. You have folic acid. Honestly, you should just get rid of that one.

Cut that from the definition and that should be gone from this planet completely. then you have folinic acid and you have methyl folate. So when you hear someone talk about folate, you need to say which one? If you say, I need to go buy a vehicle, you automatically think, oh, what are you going to get? That's your first thought, right? Or I'm going to go shopping for some socks today.

Oh, what kind? You know, sports socks, dress socks, you know, tube socks. What are you going to get? Oh, you know, I got to get some stuff for soccer. Oh, okay. So I got to get some folate. Whoa, which one? Fulic acid.

Oh, no, no, no, no, not that one. No, nobody takes that one. So it's methylfolate or folinic acid. So that needs to be the mindset. And you need to think that if you see folic acid, it needs to be the same thing like Red 40 or MSG on the bottle. It's the same thing. It's a chemical.

Fulic acid is a lie. It is a chemical. It's not a vitamin. It's a chemical. Yeah, that's really helpful for people. And I know I've been getting a lot of DMs from women saying, because I've started talking about this more, well, my doctor told me to take folic acid. And I'm like, no, like don't do it. Take folate.

And then of course, there's also people that love to come after us. And I saw somebody go after Paul Saladino for saying take folate. And what they did is they just clipped off the part where he said don't take folic acid. And they were like, this is such harmful information. We need it. And blah, blah, blah. But they cut out the part where he said take folate. which I just thought, I just just, you know, the internet.

Paul for a second and Carnivore Aureurelius and a lot of these other folks and, you know, that talk about, and Sean Baker that talk about carnivore. So there's, there's, when I first met Paul, he was like crazy carnivore. Like, he came to my house eating raw meat. Then that was it. I was like, Paul, you know, dude, there's bugs in there. There's worms in there. He goes, oh, I salted the hell out of it. And he goes, try some.

I'm like, oh, what the hell? So, you know, he brought over some tenderloin or something that was salted heavily. And me and the boys ate it and like, wow, it was actually really good. It was raw. But then he's like, you know, I bet I feel like I got some nutrient deficiencies. I was like, yeah, I bet. And I think he still should cook your meat. So he's changed his diet from raw meat to cooked meat to now adding in

fruit, honey, dairy. And he does some squash too. Yeah, in some root vegetables. And I love Paul. He's an extreme dude. But his message is great. I am nowhere near. My book is called Dirty Jeans.

It's not Perific Jeans. I mean, I eat my potato chips. And, you know, I get exposed to seed oil sometimes and, you know, by choice. And when I go to restaurants, but, you know, then I just can mitigate by doing other things. and, you know, Paul will still shake his head at me. You know, so. Same. But, you know, the carnivore diet is eliminating what?

Realistically, if you're like the carnivore diet like Paul is doing, where it's adding also fruits and all that, it's completely eliminating folic acid. It's completely eliminating processed foods. And I believe that is a huge reason why so many people get better on that, food because it's food. Now a diet that people follow is simply a narrower choice of foods that you're eating for a period of time. That's a diet. It's either quantity, diversity, type, or just a massive different change of what you're usually consuming. That's a diet. Now, diets, I think you have to be careful because they're trendy and they don't last long. You always think of a diet as temporary.

When you're pregnant, a diet should be not temporary. It should be actually a way of life. And that's what Paul teaches. He teaches you should eat these foods. Walk the perimeter of the store and buy the foods in the perimeter of the store. Don't even go in the middle aisles because that's all processed crap.

That's run by like three companies, all those different foods. So the elimination of folic acid, I surveyed over, I think it was 4,000 people many, many years ago. I said, what was the number one thing that you learned from me. And hands down, not all the responses, but hands down, the majority response was eliminating folic acid from my life was transformative. I actually got my brain back. I felt better. My energy was better. My mood was more stable. I mean, the list was on and on,

but it was folic acid elimination. This is so fascinating. I'll be curious to, I want to encourage everyone listening if you haven't already, because my listeners are pretty smart and they're on a lot of this stuff. So if you have not already cut folic acid out of your diet, I want to challenge you to start reading all the labels for folic acid, train yourself to look for that because I had to train myself for that. I know what everything else to look for, but I really had to train, like I said, at the very beginning of this episode, was I'm reading the label specifically for folic acid now that I'm pregnant because I've really been wanting to avoid it. And I encourage you to read the labels and stop eating folic acid and see how much better you feel. And write me and Dr. Ben Lynch

and let us know how it's changed your life. Yeah, agreed with that. And the easier way to do that is to buy foods without labels. Well, exactly. That's the easiest way. But if, you know, that is, processed foods are convenient and they're nice to have. And, you know, King Arthur is a type of flour that is gluten-free that we use in our home for pancakes and stuff.

And I don't do well with carbs. I'm a very slow carb-utilized. carb utilizer, I guess, so I can gain weight really quickly and get puffy and then I crash. So I really try to limit my carb intake because I just don't do well with it. If I have carbs for breakfast, I'm wrecked the rest, whole rest of the day. Protein for me is huge. And start your day with protein is another huge tip. But let's get back to the Tylenol.

So we talked about folic acid, just leave that alone. And it sets the stage for putting your child at risk for ADHD. It puts your child at risk for autism development or any type of neural dysfunction, any type, learning dysfunction, memory, mood, anything, because it's brain. And so the only way that your baby is going to get nutrients is through you. And again, you have been told by books, the media, magazines, your grandparents, your parents, your friends, everybody on the planet to take folic acid. So you thought that you were doing the best thing possible for your situation and your baby.

And in no way is it your fault. My job as a health professional is continuous ongoing improvement. Typically, doctors are satisfied when 70% of their patients have success. They think that's a good thing. Oh, yeah, I said about 70% of my patients get better. I always go for the 100%. One of my core values at the company that I represent and own is never settle. And so I'm one of now more and more health professionals out there that are constantly looking, how do we improve?

And so this information is how do we improve? How do we get the ratio of autism going from one in 20 or so babies to start going to 1 in 50 to 1 in 100? How do we flip the curve? And as Courtney said, it's not one thing. It's not the shots in the arm. It's not just Tylenol. It's not just folic acid. But what about the trio?

What if it's all three together is the perfect storm? Or what if you eliminate just folic acid? What's going to happen? Well, you will see if you eliminate folic acid, I will guarantee there will be a reduction. If you eliminate Tylenol, just one, there will be a reduction. If you eliminate shots in the arm in that crazy schedule, there will be a reduction. Now, if you do all three, there will be a significant rapid reduction.

And the articles that I've written about Tylenol, about folic acid versus folate, about the shots in the arm I have not done because I just can't. But read Paul's book or just be careful. But as Courtney said, Tylenol depletes Clutothion. Glutothion is your body's primary antioxidant. And while you're pregnant, so there's three different pathways that Tylenol can be broken down in your body. When you're pregnant, one of the ones that is a good pathway to break down Tylenol is slowed down. And so you are making more what's called NAPQ1.

And NAPQ1, or it's NAPQI, I think it might be one of those. But it's the toxic part of tonal. Tynol itself is not toxic. It's when it gets processed by an enzyme called cytochrome P-450, that it makes this compound called NAPQ1, I believe. And then in order to get rid of that compound, you need glutathione. Well, the problem during pregnancy is the enzymatic function, the genetic function of how your genes function while you're pregnant change.

They change. So your ability to produce clutidthione goes down while you're pregnant. Your ability to clear tonal while you're pregnant goes down. Your ability to clear caffeine while you're pregnant goes down. And so these are important things to consider and understand. So will one dose of tonal give your kid autism? No, it will not. will a woman who's taking Tylenol multiple times throughout her pregnancy increase a risk for her baby having autism?

Yes, but what's the population? What is the subset of pregnant women that are most at risk? Well, the ones who already have low glutathial. And there are women now and men who are going through in vitro fertilization programs that cannot get pregnant naturally. and if you're going through that, your gluton levels are tanked. Researches are tanked. So if you're doing IVF treatments,

you better not be taking Tylenol. And you better not be taking folic acid. And you better be very careful with getting shots in the arm for your little one. When we have our baby, we celebrate that we made it. And, you know, if a woman has had 10, 12 recurrent miscarriages, holding a baby in her arm is, I can't even believe how emotional that would be. I'm going to get teary thinking about it.

Yeah. But I've had women come up to me with their babies and say, this is a single-health baby, so it's pretty cool. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, you know, because they've lost their babies like 12 times, you know, and now they're holding it. But you're not done. You know, that's nine months.

That's nine months. And now you've got a very dangerous period for like another, I would say, nine months while that baby's out in the world. So you are not done when that baby is delivered. You're still taking your prenatal vitamins to support healthy breast milk. Your breast milk is only as good as the nutrients that you're putting into your system. Breast milk are from perfect if your diet is not good. and your nutritional intake is not good.

Lily Nichols has written great books. Real Food for Pregnancy is one. Definitely read that. She's amazing. She's a nutritionist out there. If you want to get more training, you know, take her courses as well. She's got great, great education that you can get CEs for. So just know that once you're holding that baby, you're not done.

You know, I'm a father of three boys. And, you know, I was pretty scared that two of my kids were, you know, I wouldn't say scared. I would say I was concerned that the neurological development was not right in two of my boys. And so I was being very, very careful and designed actually some supplements to support them, which actually ended up being the transformative factor for them and succeeding. What supplements were those? They supported acetylcholine.

Okay. My wife didn't take folic acid during pregnancy. We lucked out there. And my two boys were not vaccinated at all. One was not vaccinated at all. One had just tetanus and diphtheria. The oldest had everything because I wasn't sure. And the two were very speech delayed without the shots in the arm,

which was interesting. Interesting, yeah. And the youngest was very struggling with learning. And then I looked at his genes, and he had a genetic issue, which reduced his ability to produce acetylcholine. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So I didn't really know much about acetylcholine. So I started supporting his acetylcholine in his brain,

and it took me 13 revisions from, for this supplement to support him. And autism is what they call it a cholinergic deficiency and a chylcholine. You hear the, you hear the two, the two? Yeah. And so I formulated this vitamin for him. And after the 13th one, I just kept going.

And I would give it to him. And he was a big storyteller and he took the vitamin. He was probably, I don't know, 10 or 11, 12, 12. And he came back from school and said, hey, how was it? He goes, I was a genius dad in class. I raised my hand and answered every question. And this kid is a storyteller. I love it. Whatever. I didn't say that to his face, but I'm like, another story. But then his grades went from not good to A and good. And he's like, yeah, dad, I'm literally answering every question in class. and the teacher's like, you know, you're good, man, you can put your hand down.

You're good. And the teacher put away. So acetylcholine is a natural anti-inflammatory for the brain. And so if you have glutathione deficiency, you have inflammation in the brain. If you have acetylcholine deficiency, you have inflammation in the brain. We think of acetylcholine as just a neurotransmitter for learning and cognition, but it's way more than that. So that is a whole other podcast.

And actually, I'm presenting at a medical conference in three weeks. weeks I need to prepare my slides for on this exact topic. I did want to ask you quickly about morning sickness for women because this was something that I was struggling with and this is when I reached out to you where mine was all day sickness where I was just feeling really nauseous if I wasn't eating every two hours. And I know that there is a connection there between estrogen and histamines. Can you explain that for a couple minutes for women? And there's something about the Dow enzyme.

Is that what it's called? D-A-O. Yep. Yep, Dow, DAL. Yeah, so morning sickness during pregnancy is extremely common. And the treatment of choice by the medical field is to give basically an antihistamine. And I forget the name of it. It starts with a C, I think.

I can't remember what it's called either, and I should know this. Yeah. But I didn't take it, so I don't know. Yeah. So, but if you think about that, it's like, okay, morning sickness is very, is treated by giving an antihistamine and vitamin B6, high-dose B-6 and histamine. And ginger is another factor. And so B-6 is a co-factor, a nutrient required by the DAO enzyme. B-6 deficiency reduces the function of DAO. And so by taking higher amounts of B-6,

DAO enzyme can function. What is DAO? D-A-O's job is to break down histamine in the gut and and outside the cell. So the placenta, thankfully, also makes a lot of DAO enzyme. But the placenta isn't fully developed, you know, until later. So as a baby... It's until about 10 to 12 weeks, right? Is that right? I don't know the... Sure. I would bet on your response more than mine at this point. So let's say it's 10 to 12 weeks. So when the, as a placenta gets bigger and bigger, it's going to produce more and more GAO enzyme, which is great. But the baby,

and I wrote a whole guide on morning sickness, and I can give that to your team for the show notes as well, because I can't remember everything that I've written and researched. It's just too much. That guide is really helpful, by the way. For everyone listening, I've sent this to every friend of mine that has had any sort of morning sickness. It's really helpful, so we'll link it.

Yeah, so I would say in short, morning sickness is associated with histamine. And so if you support healthy histamine levels by either taking a probiotic, which helps reduce histamine, and avoid probiotics, which increase histamine like lactobacillus, vulgaricus, lactobacillus fermentum, lactobacus helveticus, do not take those strains. And you want to be also. In the first trimester or period throughout your whole pregnancy? I would say first trimester for sure. Okay. And Possibly all pregnancy because most pregnancy complications are associated with high histamine. Okay. Preeclampsia is another huge issue.

And then you can take the DAO enzyme directly to help with morning sickness, but it might not be sufficient. And then you can reduce your intake of histamine-containing foods and drinks. So stay away from citrus, stay away from fermented foods, the kombuchas, the, the bone broths, the leftovers, fish. You know, so avoid those types of foods, you know, age meats, age cheeses. You know, it sucks, but I would say avoiding those foods is going to be easier than dealing with the morning sickness. Even though I've never had it, I've observed it plenty of times with free boys and then

being around a lot of women with it. It does not look fun. So I just saw a video of yours where you were posting about green. green tea, why would a woman not want to drink her matcha latte while pregnant? So there's a few reasons why green tea or matcha, and matcha is worse than green tea, by the way, because in green tea and in a matcha there's a compound called EG-CG, and it's an antifolate. So it literally destroys folate. And so that's why they're so promoted during cancer treatments because they're actually nature's anti-folate. Well, during pregnancy,

not a good time to be taking something that's antifolate. And it's antifolate for a few reasons. One, it destroys folate actively. It literally destroys it. And you'll say, okay, well, I'll just have my macha in the morning, and then I will be fine. Well, the research shows that 30 minutes to an hour, that compound is still circulating in your blood and it's still destroying the folate. And folate is also stored in your liver.

so the macha will go through your liver and destroy the storage foliates in your liver as well. So then you'll say, oh, I'll just take my prenatal. I'll be fine. Well, you're helping mitigate a little bit, but, you know, you're still destroying folate. So, and you're taking folate every day in your prenatal. And also, if you're taking folic acid,

instead of real folates like methylfolate or foletic acid, the EGCG component of matcha or green tea, it inhibits the conversion of folic acid into a more natural bioavailable form of folate. And so what do you mean by that? Folic acid is completely not biologically active at all. In order for your body to make folic acid into something you can use, it has to go through an enzyme called DHFR. And DHFR is never talked about.

MGFR has talked about, but DHFR has never talked about. DHFR is the enzyme needed to convert folic acid into a, another type of folate that your body can actually start using. Still not good, but your body can start using it. And so green tea, macha, inhibit that conversion. So folic acid stays in your system and it blocks receptors and does not do what it needs to do. That is fascinating. I have never heard this before until you started talking about it.

Yeah. Why would methylated vitamins make some people feel anxious? Methylate vitamins can make some people anxious because you're getting more of something that you already have enough of. Follates are stored in your liver for a long period of time. In the beginning, there's typically honeymoon period where you take methylfolate and you feel the best you've ever had. Maybe the next week you start feeling a little bit anxious. And then the following week, you start getting headaches and actually quite anxious. But you cannot relate it to the methylfolate because it made you feel so good. But it is the methylfolate. So stop. And why is it doing that? Because you're getting a plethora

of neurotransmitters in your brain, more than your brain can handle, you're also increasing a significant amount of oxidative stress through compounds called hydrogen sulfide and proxy nitrate, which are caused by higher levels of methylfolate. In addition, you are inhibiting an enzyme that controls the elimination of methyl groups called GNMT, and GNMT controls how much methyl donors are in the body, and methylfolate actively blocks it. So you are now having a huge amount of methylation groups in your body too much. I will say when I switched from taking methyl folate to folinic acid,

the reduction of anxiety in my body was profound. It really changed my life. It's massive. And it's if you are still struggling because it takes a while for methyl folate side effects to go away. And so niacin as nicotinic acid

is actually a methyl sponge. So in order to process nicotinic acid into another form of niacin requires sami. So people who are taking high dose nicotinic acid to reduce their cholesterol are actually methylation deficient and hurting their livers and going to cause serious problems if they're not supporting methylation. But the answer to over-methalation, if you've taken methylfolate and you're anxious or have headaches or joint pain or what have you is one stop taking methyl folate and two take nicotinic acid 50 milligrams probably every 20 to 30

minutes until you feel literally normal it works that fast is there a legitimate science connecting Tylenol with autism I would say the short answer is yes and it's not causal so we we tend to think that when we hear that Tylenol causes autism that it's the only variable in the causation of autism it is not it's a factor there's autism is a multifaceted condition that is on a spectrum. And so Tylenol is a risk factor, yes. Is it a risk factor for all women? No.

Is it a risk factor in a subset of women while they're pregnant? Absolutely. Why? There are a subset of pregnant women that have lower glutathione levels to start. And Tylenol, by very nature, reduces glutathione levels. and glutathione is your body's primary antioxidant. And so by taking Tylenol, you are reducing glutathione, which is then missing from supporting your baby's brain and development,

because glutathione is an antioxidant. And so if you increase oxidation, you are literally destroying cells and harming the formation of new cells and development of your baby. And so if you have low glutathione levels, you are making them even lower by taking time. Tylenol. Now, if a woman has healthy glutathione levels and takes Tylenol, she has no problems. That's really great to know. I think there was a lot of anxiety and fear circulating the

internet about Tylenol when this all came out. And just to your point, I think it's multifaceted, and I know you believe this too, but there are certain things that seem to be, yeah, that seem to be linked to autism. Yeah, and we have full videos on my YouTube channel that talk about methyl folate and folinic acid that we talk about green tea in pregnancy we talk about caffeine in pregnancy we talk about Tylenol in pregnancy and we talk about it Jafar and a bunch of other things so a YouTube channel will share a lot of that in detail and then we in the YouTube channel as well we link to articles which cite the research and the evidence and it's all written out because some people are readers they're not listeners or viewers and they also want to see the studies themselves and the

studies are there for you yeah i have a personal question for you do you think it's really bad if I take, if I have about 20 to maybe 50 milligrams, is it milligrams of coffee a day, I do very low. Like I do like half a cup of coffee a day. Caffeine? No, I do not. So the typical recommendation for pregnancy is 200 milligrams of caffeine. Okay.

But the studies in my video say that that's too much. No, non-caffeine is ideal. I would say 25 to 50 milligrams is still falling in that. frame where it's okay. And the video that you can watch, the evidence is there and the articles and you can read and then you can see how to support it as well. So because some women, you know, do need some additional caffeine, especially if they have another kid. So there are ways that you can support the potential effects of the caffeine. Okay. That makes me feel better because I did see that you were talking about caffeine and I was like, oh no, I'm not a big coffee.

drinker. Like I said, I'll do, like I'll order a latte and I'll drink like half of it. I just don't even drink the whole thing. Or I'll do King Coffee, which I know is really low. Yeah. So my whole point is, you know, there's, there's women out there who are struggling to have a baby to full term or they're struggling to have, you know, what is labeled as a healthy baby. And then I've a lot of comments on my, my caffeine and pregnancy video or it's like, oh, I had caffeine all throughout my pregnancy. baby's healthy and it's like okay I get that but you know not to be a jerk baby could have been healthier yeah so it's true um it's 25 to 50 milligrams a problem i don't think so especially with the rest of your lifestyle going on you know yeah you know it's it's typically multifaceted is is my big thing so just another variable uh well dr ben lynch thank you so much for your time and coming on today. This was absolutely fascinating. And I know it's going to be really helpful for a lot of women, a lot of people in general, but especially women, if you could just let everybody know where to find you and where they can find your supplements as well. And

anything else you want to plug? Yeah, sounds good. So wrote a book called Dirty Genes. That's a good way to get started because a lot of this can be overwhelming. And you're like, where do I start? Read the book. It's very empowering. So start there. And then supplement company called Seeking health and where I design and formulate our own supplements based upon my research findings. And I test a lot of things on my own family before we go to market. And a lot of things were actually designed for my family members, including myself. And they work. So we did why not help you everybody?

Then you can find me on Instagram at Dr. Ben Lynch and YouTube at Dr. Ben Lynch. Amazing. Thank you so much. And I'm taking his prenatal right now. I think I said that in the beginning. And I'm also taking the glutathione and the histamine probiotic. Because everybody always asks, and I'm a huge fan of seeking health. Yeah, you're doing a lozzenge of glutathione?

Uh-huh. Yeah, half or a full? I do a full one because of the mold exposure. Oh, right. Is that okay? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Absolutely, 100%. Yeah, because mold actually reduces your body's ability to produce glutathione.

Everybody says you can take NAC, but you can't just take NAC because NAC has to be converted in glutathione and mycotoxin prevent that conversion. So you need direct glutathione. Okay, good. Well, I'm glad I'm taking that one from seeking health. So, perfect. Well, thank you so much for everything you're doing and thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, appreciate you getting the word out.

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. The theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com.

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