Your circadian rhythm.
It’s your body’s natural response to the light of the day and the dark of the night.
In a healthy state, your circadian rhythm energizes you every morning and calms you every night. It regulates your hormones over a 24-hour cycle so you can sleep deeply and wake up refreshed. Many key hormones such as growth hormone, melatonin, cortisol, leptin, and ghrelin are all correlated with sleep and circadian rhythm.
But….lots of things can throw off your circadian rhythm: like working the night shift or sleeping until noon on the weekends or drinking too much wine at night.
“✨ New research has discovered that poor (or deficient) methylation also messes with the circadian rhythm ✨”
And now? We discover there is something else that can mess with your daily flow…
…methylation.
Some quick background:
- Methylation is a fundamental reaction that happens in every cell of the human body
- If you want to get specific, methylation means transferring a methyl group (CH3) from one substance to another
- Many basic processes require methylation—like detoxification, estrogen metabolism, fat metabolism, neurotransmitter production, and more
- Methylation is greatly dependent certain nutrients that act as co-factors to keep the process moving smoothly. These methylation nutrients include choline, betaine, methionine, folate, vitamins B12 and B6, as well as certain minerals like magnesium, zinc and sulfur.
We also know that poor methylation can contribute to a lot of problems…
- Birth defects
- Cancer
- Heart Disease
- Liver Toxicity
- And more.
✨ New research has discovered that poor (or deficient) methylation also messes with the circadian rhythm ✨
What is even more crazy is that scientists found this to be true across all organisms—from tiny algae all the way up through humans.
What does it mean to you?
You know have yet ANOTHER reason to make sure you are methylating properly. Some people have poor methylation because of genetic polymorphisms (we can test for things like MTHFR- methyltetrahydrofolate reductase), which means that vitamins such as folate and folic acid aren’t able to efficiently reduce to its active form, 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF). Other people have poor methylation because they eat a nutrient-deficient diet without enough B vitamins.
Methylation is one of many things we take into consideration when we look at optimizing health and the body as a whole. Now we know that healthy methylation might even help your energy, sleep, and daily rhythm.
So what can we do to help methylation? Eat a diet rich in:
🥦 Dark green leafy vegetables
🥦 Cruciferous vegetables (arugula, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale and radish
🥦 Liver
🥦 Beets
🥦 Beans and legumes
🥦 Okra
🥦 Mushrooms
🥦 Berries
🥦 Turmeric
🥦 Green tea
✨Have questions? Ready to Take your health to the next level? Reach out! Let’s chat.
Reference
Fustin, J., Ye, S., Rakers, C. et al. Methylation deficiency disrupts biological rhythms from bacteria to humans. Commun Biol 3, 211 (2020).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-0942-0