After a breast cancer diagnosis, it’s not uncommon to go through genetic assessments and testing searching for an inherited genetic reason for your diagnosis.

But genetic testing can do so much more than give clues to why you might have a disease.

In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world of genetic testing.

We’ll talk about the distinct differences between genetic cancer testing and what a powerful tool in understanding your genes’ influence on your response to nutrition can be.

Imagine having a personalized nutrition guide at your fingertips, tailored just for you based on your unique genetic makeup!

It's not just about eating right for your genes; it's about making informed choices that align with your body's needs, enhancing your overall health and well-being.

By understanding the differences between these tests and their benefits, we empower ourselves with knowledge to make proactive health decisions.

Whether it's choosing the right foods based on our genetic profile or understanding our risk for certain diseases, genetic testing provides a roadmap to better health.

Referred to in this episode:

Metabolic Health Coaching Plans

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Read the full transcript:

0:00
You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills and the insights and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis. If you're looking for a way to create a life, that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.

0:33
Hello, friends, welcome to episode 357 of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I am so excited to talk about today's topic about two months ago, I think it's been about two months now, I launched my metabolic health coaching packages. Those are three different packages. One looks at your terrain 10, which is an assessment tool developed by Dr. Nisha winters that I was trained in through the metabolic Training Institute of Health as a certified trainer advocate. We use that assessment to ask questions of you and get an idea of how your health is being impacted by 10 different areas of lifestyle. I use that, along with the labs, also a specific series of labs that was developed by well the labs themselves weren't developed by nation winters, but it's a panel she uses to help us understand out of these terrain time buckets, and the impact that those might be having on your health. Where are they showing up in your bloodwork? Where are we seeing indications in your labs that these lifestyle choices or perhaps experiences are impacting your body? And how can we support your body in those areas through behavior change, nutrition and lifestyle? Okay, so one of my metabolic health coaching packages looks at the terrain 10 In your laps. Another one looks at the terrain 10 And your nutrigenomics nutrigenomics is looking at your genetics. And I'll tell you really specifically what that means in a second. But it's taking into consideration a genetic report. And it's looking at the areas where your genes are saying these are the highest impact pathways on your health. So these areas are going to have the most influence about your overall metabolic wellbeing. And we can see how that ties into the terrain time. So it gives us a lot of information and clarity on what's affecting your life and how we can work again, with lifestyle and nutrition to give you the most optimal state of metabolic wellbeing. And then my third package takes both of those and lots of coaching and combines everything together, where I support my client in understanding their labs, understanding their genetics, and implementing those lifestyle change and coaching through the mental blocks that oftentimes come up when we're trying to make behavior and lifestyle changes. So today, what I want to talk about is this nutrition genetics, understanding what this test means the difference between getting a genetic test of this kind versus the genetic tests we get in standard of care after a breast cancer diagnosis, and how having this information about your body really supports your health, how it helps you to understand how your body works, how it gives you clarity about lifestyle choices you are making, or that are available to you to make and understanding how those might impact your body. So first of all, let me start off with a little bit of a definition. Nutrigenetics looks at how we respond to nutrients based on our genetic profile. So you have heard, I am sure you are not your genetics, you are not your genes. And that is correct, because nutrigenomics explores how foods and nutrients change the way our genes express themselves. So what this means is that your genetic report may say you have these genes or you have these gene variants, and maybe some of these gene variants, say you have a stronger possibility of having diabetes or cardiovascular disease or something like that based on this genetic profile and these variants. But that doesn't mean you're going to have those things, which is basically the science of epigenetics shows us that there are things we can do in our diet and our lifestyle that influenced the way our genes express themselves. So when we're talking about a neutral genic report, versus the genes that we do the genetic reports we do through standard of care Are there two very different things. So, standard of care is tumor focused in what it's looking at, and how it's treating us, right? Our oncologist is looking at what are the qualities of the tumor that we're dealing with? What kind of cancer and all of the different scoring that you hear in the grades and things when it comes to the cancer itself, the tumor itself, and then they use medications and therapies to try to attack that tumor and destroy the cancer cells. And when they run genetic tests on us after a breast cancer diagnosis, they are looking for these specific inherited genes that can indicate that you have a higher risk of cancer that these genes influenced you having this disease or can have an influence. And now there's medications, some of which can specifically target some of these genetic variants that are known to cause cancer. So that whole area is very tumor focused, right, so it's trying to understand the tumor, treat the tumor, and try to figure out where the tumor came from. And if there's specific medical medications that will align with that. On the other side, on the neutral genetic side, on the more naturopathic side, on the metabolic terrain side, we're looking at the health of the body, we're looking at the optimal functioning of the normal cells of the healthy cells of the metabolism of the body, so that the body can stay as strong and healthy as possible. And in these neutral genetic reports, what they're looking at is 157, you may have heard them called gene variants, maybe mutations. Basically, they're called snips. And snip is just short for a long scientific name that you probably won't remember if and if I tell you, so we're not going to worry about it. But what they're looking for in these 157 snips is a score on how scientific studies have shown that these specific snips influence our metabolic or biochemical health or pathways. So the genes that they're looking at in a nutrigenomic report are called Low penetrance genes. So that means that they are not genes that are going to cause or diagnose any kind of disease, right, so something like the brockagh, one and two genes, these are high penetrance genes. These are genes that doctors look at and say, if you have that gene, that gene, if it expresses in a certain way can cause cancer, these genes, low penetrance genes, they're affecting the metabolism, and they're highly influenced by environment. So the benefit of having this report is that it's helping us understand how the pathways in our body work. How is our cardiovascular health? How is the storage of fat working? How are? How does your body detoxify itself? How effective is exercise for your body? How much recovery does your body need after exercise? What of these snips can drive satiation and hunger? How do these snips impact the way your body experiences inflammation, and lifestyle, behaviors, what nutrients and even what supplements can support these low penetrance snips? So it's a very different focus. And it's very different information than what you get in a genetic report from the doctor. And as certified terrain advocate, and as a health coach and breast cancer recovery coach, I'm not working with the tumor, right? I don't treat cancer, I'm not an oncologist, I help people develop healthy lifestyles, and support the healthy metabolism of their body. So this information, these specific labs, and these specific genetic reports, give us a lot of insights on how to support someone very different, very unique body. So it's really helping us understand that uniqueness of our body because I know you know this, when you get a diagnosis of breast cancer 100 million things started coming out you you got to do this, you got to do this, you got to do that. This is what's gonna help you this is what's gonna stop you from having a recurrence. And it's overwhelming, and it's confusing. And we want to do all the things and we're not sure if any of the things are the right things. So a report like this, the nutrigenomic report that you can get gives us clarity and saying now I know. Now I understand. And I'm going to give you an example of that actually was sitting in on a case study just today earlier today. The woman Sharing her own case, was a breast cancer survivor. And she was pretty fit lady slender had never had a problem was managing her weight with weight gain or weight loss. And she had her whole life been very intense about her diet and her exercise. And I'm sure you've heard this story before, right? So she was one of those people was like I did all the right things. Why, you know, why did this happen? And what she was sharing was how amazing this report was for her, because her genetically, these really high impact pathways for her, many of them were inflammatory pathways. And some of the things that she discovered about herself were that the diet she was on that anyone would have perceived as a healthy diet, because it was a vegetarian diet, but that her specific body needed more nutrients that come from animal fats and animal proteins. And so she was actually following what she believed to be a healthy diet, and it was a healthy diet. But it wasn't the diet that had the right nutrients that her body needed. And so she was experiencing more inflammation because of that genetic predisposition. And because she wasn't taking in the right nutrients to support it. Another thing was, she was an avid exerciser. And she talked a lot about, I just exercise non stop, I just did everything all the time, more and more exercise never stopped, never let my body recover. But one of the things she discovered about herself genetically, was that her body actually needed a lot more recovery time. So all of the frequent intense exercise she was doing was causing even more inflammation in her body, because her specific genetic snips created a body of metabolic environment that needed more rest time. And so it was actually beneficial for her to step back from the intensity of exercise, because another high impact pathway was removed and behavior, which was being driven by stress. And so exercise is a stressor on the body, we looked at as a positive stressor. But in her situation, with her specific genetics, it was not having a positive impact in the way she wanted, right. Of course, exercise is always good for you, but too much exercise and the way she was doing it was actually causing harm to her body. So it was amazing to listen to her because she's an advanced registered nurse practitioner, and to hear her insights and her his mind being blown, as she's going through her own genetic report. And as it's translating into the lifestyle habits and behaviors that she had, and how it was answering so many questions for her in what was going on inside of her body that she perceived as Uber healthy body because of all of her lifestyle practices. So it was really fascinating to see someone you know, who is science minded, and a clinician start to understand her body from its own unique way of being. So one of the things that I believe that I learned from my own genetic reports from going through this, and what I see with the clients I work with, and what I heard from this woman presenting her case, was that getting this type of an assessment really starts to remove the randomness, from the choices we make to support our life. And it not only reinforces the benefit of the good practices that you may already be practicing. And this just reminds me another one. So I had a case where the client was someone who had a genetically a high predisposition to gain weight. And the recommendation for this person was to practice intermittent fasting along with a couple other nutrition recommendations. And this person had never had a problem with their weight. And pretty much their whole life had only eaten one meal a day. So reinforce the fact that although many people would tell this personal a time you're not eating enough. The fact was that that was exactly what their body needed. So it reinforces that, hey, this practice that you've been doing is great. And so those genes that have the power to kind of make it more difficult for your body to lose weight and make it easier for your body to gain weight or not expressing themselves because you're participating in the right lifestyle habit to support it. So I think it reinforces for us the benefit of the good behaviors and good choices we're all making already making for ourselves the positive ones that do align with the needs of our body. And then it also gives clarity, and I think like a renewed sense of commitment or understand Doing to doing the things that this report says, Hey, this is what your body needs. For example, we hear things all the time about cutting out sugar, cutting back toxins, all of this type of thing. And, and then I hear a lot of people say, Yeah, but moderation is the key and a little bit doesn't really hurt. And I'm not saying that that isn't true. But what happens is that when you see it laid out, and you're looking at the genetic variants you have in your body and how they impact your pathways through the way your body works, and for instance, the detoxification pathway, this is a powerful one. So this is one that's a very high impact pathway for me in my body. And I know this, because I am very sensitive to chemicals, I have a high chemical sensitivity I always have, when I'm around scented candles, scented laundry, soap, dryer sheets, anything that's got these chemical fragrances in them, Oh, I get a cold sweat, I get a headache, I feel nauseous, I feel dizzy, hair color, right, any kind of chemicals really have an effect on me. So it's not surprising to see the genetically, my body has a difficult time detoxing. The detoxification pathways have some genes in it with lots of variants. Someone else in other case that I was working with just recently, she struggles a lot, especially after surgeries and things being able to even just wake up or come out of the stupor. It takes sometimes like weeks for her or an entire week, plus a few days before she feels better after surgery. Well, we got her genetics, and it totally shows us why right? It's this window, not only into what's been happening, when she goes through surgeries, or when her body gets exposed to any kind of drugs, whether it's anesthesia, alcohol, or toxins in the environment, there are a lot of snips she has that directly affect her livers ability to detoxify these things. So they stay in her body longer. And they can have a much stronger impact on her hormones. And on her mood and behaviors as a result of these really high toxins, that also gets stored in her fat cells. And her body has this predisposition to hold on to fat and create bigger and bigger fat cells. So with our fat cells, we're not really making new fat cells, when we gain weight, we're growing fat cells, right, the fat cells we already have are able to hold more and more fat. And it's interesting to know that this is a genetic thing. And genetically, some of us can have bigger fat cells than some other people, which you know, in times of starvation is a really efficient energy storage method. But in times when food is everywhere, maybe that's not what we want. And when we store more fat, fat soluble toxins tend to stay in that fat. And so then that's creating more inflammation in our body. So it's fascinating to see now and understand that pathways. So now, this person realizes at a completely different level, how important is for her to get this extra body fat off of her body, so that she can help to detoxify her body, it helps her understand the huge impact of detoxifying her environment around her is going to have on her health and how much easier that's going to make her very enlarged liver that's having a really hard time processing things start to function better. So much clarity comes from these reports. So I want to talk about that on this show. Because I've been getting a lot of questions about it. And I know for those brave souls that reach out to me with their questions, I know there's always so many more who had the same questions or just don't understand what's available to them. So for me, as someone who's managing breast cancer in her life, right, as someone who's at a stage four diagnosis, what I found from understanding how to use these labs and these nutrigenomic reports is that it's they can really be used as a very effective guide in clearing out the overwhelming confusion in understanding exactly what our body needs. And and really getting that at a much deeper level not guessing as to whether or not you're doing the right thing. And I'll tell you it's interesting. I've seen a couple of people who their high impact pathways when they've seen them. They were very surprised about them. They didn't realize that this could be something that was going to be affecting them. And so they had their mind focus on other things that are talked about in general now they got the report and they You can look at the report and say, Oh, now I know where to focus my attention. And it's really quite amazing how these genetic reports in these labs align with the terrain 10, which is that assessment and shows you the top three areas that potentially are having the most impact on your health now, so all of these reports really tie in beautifully together to lead you down a path of much more understanding of your own body. And I think the most powerful thing is, you know, after we've gotten a breast cancer diagnosis, and we're done with treatment, one of the biggest areas of concern is a recurrent. So as I talk about all the time, when we look at being focused on our body, instead of focused on our tumor, because we're not oncologists, and we don't know the sciences of the tumor, but when we can focus on our terrain on the health of the healthy tissues in our body, we know we have more power. And this information gives us even more power to say, I can see the right things to focus on. So that I can reduce inflammation, which is the root of so many diseases. So we can balance blood sugar, and how glucose and insulin works in your body, so that we can understand and not feel freaked out by this idea of toxic burden, but understand how toxins work with our body and where the priorities are. So we don't have to think about all the things all the time, all at once. And I hear this a lot, you know, I'll hear some people are all in, right. They're like their total biohackers. They're like, I want to track everything I'm eating, I want to measure my blood every 15 minutes. That's a little over exaggeration, but they want to be all in on every single thing right down to the nitty gritty details, and they just can't get them up. Some people just want to know, like, how do I just have a healthy diet, like, I don't want to do all that stuff. You know, I don't want to track all that stuff, I don't want to prick my finger and check my blood. And wherever your app is totally fine. Because that's really important. If you know that tracking your blood and tracking your food is something that's going to stress you out, and you're not in an active canceling process, then it's okay, don't stress yourself out. Even just having a nutrition genome report will just help you to construct a really healthy diet, saving money on supplements that you might not even need. This is another thing that I see a lot in getting these nutrition genome reports is that people focus on the supplements that are talked about most commonly. And then they'll get a report back, and we'll get their labs back like you don't even need that. Right, you're perfectly healthy in those areas, everything's functioning really well in those areas. So you don't need to be throwing away money on supplements that your body doesn't even need. So I see all of these tests, and all of this information as just a super valuable tool in reducing our own stress and confusion over what the right things are to support our wellness. So if you are interested in learning more about that, and you're interested in working through some of these metabolic packages, I'll link to those in the show notes for this episode, which you'll find where you're listening to this podcast or watching this on YouTube. And you'll also find them on the show notes on my website at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash 357. And you can get all of the information. There's even a link there. If you have questions. You can set up a complimentary call with me and ask questions about it. I'm just so passionate about these metabolic health coaching packages because they're making they've made such a big difference for me in my life. And I see the impact they're having on my clients and I love it. And they love it. You know, for me, seeing the people I work with feel empowered and confident and in charge of their health. That's just everything. It's so important because man, this whole experience of breast cancer is so hard on our minds is so hard on our energy of our mind and our thoughts and the anxiousness and all of the emotions that we can go through that anytime you have something that can give you a little more direction and reduce that mental angst a little bit more. I'm all in I think it's amazing and I love it. So I wanted to take the time for this show to give you some clarity on what that tool can do for you if you're ready to explore it. Alright friends, I hope that helps and I'll talk to you again soon take care