Functional Genomics with Dr. Bob Miller CTN

Bob Miller CTN

Well, I usually see people nine to 12 hours a day, so somebody knew an hour for a recheck half hour, so that can get up there pretty good. But as I tell people, I just get to visit with my friends all day and help them out. So it’s just a lot of fun.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

He’s like he’s too nice. He’s got to be a robot. He can’t be human.

Bob Miller CTN

I’m real.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So he is a traditional naturopath specialized in the field of genetic-special nutrition. He’s earned his traditional naturopathic degree from Trinity School of Natural Health. And is board certified through ANMA. In 1993, he opened the Tree of Life practice and a service traditional naturopath for 47 years. In the past several years, he has engaged exclusively with functional nutritional, genetic variance, and related research, specializing in nutritional support for those with chronic Lyme disease and really kind of everything, chronic multi-system disease. And it’s pretty amazing. I was just asking him. I don’t know, do you sleep?

Bob Miller CTN

Oh sure.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I guess he knows exactly what’s wrong with him. He can take exactly what he needs. So a great educator, and we’ve had him on, in with the patient and, it’s pretty amazing, and it just correlates so well. We’re very excited to have incorporated it into our practice. And it was so many steps above other ones out there. I’m not trying to bash anyone, but it’s just kind of like, “Okay, I got this SNP, this SNP, okay, you’re going to get Alzheimer’s,” and he’ll tell you what to do. You can either formulate the different things. He’ll tell you what supplement the patient needs, or he can formulate them for you. So it’s really full service and very cost-effective as well, which is nice. He’s nationally, internationally a lecturer to educate health care practitioners about genetic variance and nutritional supplementation for achieving optimal health and holds the live webinars every Thursday, which I highly recommend. And how would they find that go to nutrigenetics.com?

Bob Miller CTN

Well, if they just go to our functional genomic nutrition website, and we’ll put that up at the end, you can then see how to get a free trial of the software and listen to the webinars or subscribe, or just email one of our help people here, Yvonne or Chrissy, and they’ll help you get on the webinars every Thursday or every Thursday evening from 8:00 to 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, it’s all free. And he has a training program that, hey, the first part is free if you want to continue, it’s very extensive, it’s a minimal fee. And he’s really there to give back, and he loves what he does. So it’s just refreshing. He’s created an online certification course on genetic nutrition for health care professionals. It has over 900 healthcare professionals in the program. He’s research and growing genomic research field. In 2015, he founded and personally funded, which is huge. The NutriGenetic Research Institute to research relationship between genetic variants and presenting symptoms his research product on genetic variants and those with chronic Lyme disease was one of two winners for research by the ILADS, which they’re pretty strict and pretty intense meeting in Helsinki, Finland. His phase two study of Lyme disease presented at the American ILADS Conference in November 2016. 

Phase three was presented at the International Lyme Conference in Paris. And you got to go to some nice places. And his phase four study on mTOR and autophagy, which I think is really an upcoming thing as well in Lyme disease presented in Boston 2017 and phase five was presented in Warsaw, Poland, and phase six, another winner in Chicago, Illinois November 2018 showed increased variance and the heme Pathway and mast cell genes, which obviously is getting tons of press, at least in the whole Lyme, chronic illness group. Phase seven, presented in Madrid and all over and June 2019, show genetic variance in gene-related to production and utilization, NAD, all huge topics right now. And he’s come with a lot of new theories, or at least I haven’t read all NADPH Steal, Fenton reaction. And he talks a lot about and the research project on autism and PANDAS is being developed. If I can help you out in any way with that, that’s exciting stuff. 

He’s created 88 nutritional supplements. He’s a formulator for healthcare professionals, products based on his genetic research designed to support functions that are impaired by genetic weakness. So it’s so nice. You can just pick out what this person is going to need. And I have found is that you kind of gravitate towards what seems to help you. And when I look like flavonoids, who are a big part of my SNPs, and I’m like, “I’ve discovered flavonoids, I just feel better.” You don’t know for sure, but so it’s really interesting. He’s a software creator, my gosh, and that’s what I really like about his software. 

It makes it understandable, all these SNPs and so many companies that give you 10,000 SNPs, and it’s like, “Oh my gosh.” And there are having a new generation of that. And it organizes the genetic SNPs and really pattern recognition which it can be daunting for the person starting, but he has a system that gets you going pretty quick. So he’s memberships, a National Association of Certified Natural Health Professionals and American Association of Nutritional Consultants and boards of a Naturopath and certified with the Accreditation Board there. So again, Bob, thanks so much for being on, I have to say one of my favorite people, and I just love working with you and just kind of sit on the edge of my chair whenever you speak. And again, those webinars are wonderful, and going through the tests with patients, they’re very happy. 

It’s really an added bonus for the patient. And I think patients are looking for that now. It’s becoming kind of the standard, but everyone, I think certainly Bob’s ahead of the curve in all this and developing the software to make it… And I think I remember when I was writing research papers, I’d go to the medical library trying to find the journal, put it on the Xerox, and get it. Now it’s information overload. And that’s what I think of genetics. It’s just, “Okay, here’s a million SNPs, like, okay, what do you do with it?” But let’s see. So with your software, you call it creative functional genomic analysis. We often think genetics like 23andMe Ancestry or professional geneticists to look at potential disease. Tell us how your functional genomics. What’s the difference?

Bob Miller CTN

Sure. Well, as everybody knows, you can get 23andMe Ancestry, see where your ancestors came from. That’s okay. Professional geneticists, they’re trained on which genes might be related to a disease. We’re taking a completely different approach. And this goes back to the traditional naturopathic philosophy, goes way back. And that is that inflammation is the root cause of most of our problems. So I will never forget me around 10 years ago, I saw there was an article that says science has made a major discovery on the root cause of disease, and that is inflammation. And I kind of had a chuckle that the natural paths were saying that about 100 years ago. So what we started looking at was can we look at the genetics and find out if there’s a predisposition to more inflammation, or if there’s a predisposition to less than optimal antioxidants? 

So what we did is we started digging into the DNA, and I had no training on this at all. I just sort of dug into it, fell in love with it. So rather than looking at disease, as you said, there are reports out there that look at your risk for disease. We don’t do that at all. We don’t make any predictions if someone’s going to get an illness because we’re looking at function. So what we do in the software, we look at many different patterns where somebody, something might go wrong, where they might make more inflammation, or we look at patterns where they may or may not make enough antioxidants. Then you also have phase one and phase two detox. So we look at sulfation, glucuronidation. We look at how you’re dealing with your fats. And the whole premise is this is personalized for the individual. This is not the pill for the ill. This isn’t like, what do you do for this disease? We don’t even talk about that. We look at how might the person be making too many free radicals, not enough antioxidants, and then, more importantly, how to compensate. As we all know that the genetic pattern that you have you received when you were born at the moment that sperm and the egg went together, boom, that’s you, and we can get what are called SNPs, single-nucleotide polymorphism, or mutations they’re called. And when we get those, the DNA may not be as effective in making an enzyme. So some processes may not be optimal. 

So what we’re looking at is where there might be something less than optimal, and then how we can intervene and either provide what the body’s not making or support the enzymatic function that the body comes back into balance. We’re creating homeostasis. So you could see 10 people with the same condition, and you might have 10 different ways they got there. So, in my opinion, this has to be care of the future, personalized, not the pill for the ill, personalized care for the individual. And we’re hoping that we’re pioneering that to some degree.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think it’s great. And it is a different approach than, Hey, you have, EPA 4 gene period, Alzheimer’s okay bring on the next patient. And it’s interesting how you put it together, and it makes sense of their symptoms.

Bob Miller CTN

And that happens a lot of times. I’m talking to people, and I start saying, “I don’t suppose you have fill in the blank,” and they have this surprise, like, “Okay, who are you talking to? How did you know this?” Well, when you understand functional genomics, that tells the story. Good example. There’s two neurotransmitters inside the body. One is called glutamate. One is called GABA. Glutamate makes you very intelligent, highly motivated, go-getter. GABA they’re don’t worry, relax, be happy. By actually looking at the genes that turn the glutamate end of the GABA or the genes that make more glutamate. You can get clues if this person is high in glutamate and might have a hard time converting so many times with people with high glutamate. There’ll be anxious, tags on clothing bother them, their mind races. 

But on the other hand, they might be extremely intelligent. They might be gifted or are in the genius range, but they’re dealing with anxiety. And you can see that by looking at the genome. Quite amazing how you can see the personality traits that might be there. Same with histamine. We look at if the person might be creating too much histamine, if they have difficulty in the pathways that that clear the histamine, you can see if there’s high histamine, then you can see if they have some of those histamine properties in their mental outlook, or they get rashes quickly, or they get hives or they have overreactions. So you can really look at someone’s genome and get a good idea where their glutamate might be, their GABA, where their inflammatory levels might be. And that way, you can give customized care. So if the glutamate is too high, we do things that either reduce the glutamate or support the glutamate to GABA conversion. Where if their histamine is too high, we look at why they might be producing too much of it, rather than just a histamine blocker. And then, we look at the pathways that clear histamine.

There’s an enzyme called diamine oxidase that degrades histamine. There’s an enzyme called Histamine N-methyltransferase. There’s an MAOA gene. And then, you can also have overproduction of histamine from mast cells or an upregulation of an enzyme called histidine decarboxylase. So if someone just has high histamine, now you have an option rather than a histamine blocker you can look at. Are they over-producing? Are they not clearing? How do we bring that into balance? So again, for someone with high histamine, you could have 10 different protocols as to how they got there. For some people, it’s overproduction for other people, its inability to clear. For others, it’s a combination of both. 

So for the doctor who really wants to dig in and get to that root cause, I believe this is where we have to start looking. And just one other quick note, I think things are changing. One of the premises that we have is that many of the illnesses we’re seeing today is related to environmental toxicity. We’re living in a world that when you and I were kids, world has changed dramatically. When I was a kid, our milk came in glass jars, not plastic. So we’re inundated with plastics. When I was a kid, I played out in the woods and slopped around in the creek. And now it’s on your computer. Just being exposed to EMF. Glyphosate may be impacting us dramatically. I think we’re going to look back someday and say, “What were we thinking giving our animals’ growth hormones to get them fatter faster?” That’s having an impact on us. We’re seeing girls maturing faster, sperm rates dropping. We’re seeing auto-immune disease among children. When I was a kid, we used to call it adult-onset diabetes. Now the kids are getting it. 

The inflammatory bowel disease is rising among children. Mental health issues are rising, and I believe what’s happening our detox capacity is totally overwhelmed by the onslaught mold is getting stronger. And I also think we’re going to look back someday and say, “What were we thinking putting transmitters in our ears to talk on our phones and be exposed to all that EMF?” So cumulatively, it’s taking a toll on us, and those who have genetic weakness are the proverbial canary in the mines. They’re being hit the hardest. Same with autism, autism used to be relatively rare. Now, what is it? One out of 43 or one out of 45, particularly the boys. And it’s got to be environmental factors. And that’s why I think we’re going to get away from the pill for the ill because a lot of our care of the future is going to have to be supporting the body’s ability to detox all of the environmental toxins we’re being exposed to. Something dramatic is happening.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I can’t agree with you more, but standard medicine isn’t set up to do that. They’re pill for the ill, and it’s like, you go to this specialist, this specialist, this specialist. And I just looked at their little section. Yeah, 20 years ago or growing up, no one was sick. Every time at a cocktail party or a people over, it’s like, “Hey, my sister’s sick or I’m sick. My parents are sick. And it’s like this multifunctional doctors can figure it out. And yeah, there’s all this auto-immune and chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic Lyme,” it’s scary, and where are we going to be in 20 years from now. And it’s interesting. So I was one of the high, basically not GABA. What am I saying?

Bob Miller CTN

Glutamate.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Glutamate and I didn’t get the intelligence part, but I got the anxiety, don’t sleep, and just like turn everything in, I’m always worrying. And it’s interesting. So you pick that out, and I’m like, wait a minute. And I was asking, “Hey is someone telling them about me” [crosstalk 00:19:02] like crazy. And it’s interesting too because you can show whether or not, like you said, they’re making enough or are making too much or not breaking it down. And so now, instead of shotgunning all the supplements, you can be very selective. So, because I tell patients, “I can give you 100 things at work, but you can’t take them all. And this allows you to be more of a smart bomb and go after these genes.”

Bob Miller CTN

I just had somebody say that I’m like a sniper, that I know exactly where to go and put it because I see people, and I’m sure you see it as well. People come in with shopping bags full of supplements or medications. And one of the interesting things is what I do is recommend nutrition for people. But interestingly, I often say, I think I help people the most by taking them off things because as we get more inflamed and we put some uptake, supplements that turn processes on many times, it backfires. Many years ago, we learned about MTHFR, and it’s a very important enzyme. It puts a methyl group on the B12, and every I’m sorry, it puts a methyl group on folate. And then there’s another one that puts a methyl group on B12. So the MTRR puts a methyl group on B12. MTHFR puts a methyl group on folate, and it’s very important to methylate. I mean, everything we’ve heard about it is absolutely true.

So what people did is they get their testing done. They’d find out they have MTHFR, and it’s like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got MTHFR. I need methylfolate.” And they take three to five milligrams of this. And they might feel well for 10, 15, and all of a sudden, “What the heck is happening?” They get more anxious, they get more inflamed, and they may not even tie it to them. So although we need methylfolate and we need the methylene, if something called NADPH is inadequate and that’s outside the body, all other processes are going on, then methylfolate can actually make you worse. So in the pyramid that I created, I put methylfolate at the top or last. Now, of course, the exception is pregnant woman. Somebody’s got a massive homocysteine problem that has to be dealt with. But other than that, I believe we are way overdosing on methylfolate. Another thing that I think we’re overdosing on is glutamine. 

We hear about the term leaky gut. So what do we do? “Oh, glutamine is good for the gut. It helps build new cells.” Absolutely true, but it does that by supporting mTOR, mammalian target of rapamycin, the growth of cells, and many people have that overactive. So then, when they take the glutamine, they get more anxious, and they get more inflamed. The final one that we have to be careful with is many times, people want to improve their blood flow or their muscles. So they’ll take L-arginine. Well, if you’ve got difficulty with your NOS enzymes, where you don’t have enough BH4, you just happen to make more superoxide free radicals. So some poor guy thinks he’s going to improve his erectile function or muscle strength. And he ends up making himself hurt because he took L-arginine. So it’s not only the right things to take, it’s also the things to avoid. Another problem we have is bone broth. Some people think that it’s this wonderful food and it is, but it’s high in glutamate and histamine. And if you have a problem there, it’ll make it worse.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. So, and same with fermented foods. There’s groups that tout the benefits of fermented food. It’s good for the gut. Absolutely true. But if you don’t make enough with Dynamin endocytosis enzyme, it backfires on you. So it’s interesting. I often say I think I help people more by taking them off things than putting them on. Here’s an interesting clinical pearl that we’re working on. We all know the benefits of B6. I mean, it does lots of things. However, it works with the histidine decarboxylase enzyme to make histamine. And we’re now looking at the enzymes that degrade B6. And if someone doesn’t degrade their B6 and they take too much B6, they actually significantly increase their histamine levels and can make themselves worse. So, and then sometimes people take supplements, they take a couple of them, they don’t look at the ingredients, and all of a sudden, three or four bottles have methylfolate or B6 in it, and they’re overdosing. So we have to be careful not to overdose as much as we do need to take the right things as well.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. And that was my SNPs where I was taking a pretty high dose of B6 for bestseller, because it’s good for myself. And I had that exact same thing where I don’t break it down. And so I’m making more histamine and making everything worse.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah, that happens.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. And I’m like, some is good more is better.

Bob Miller CTN

Exactly.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And with the MTHFR, I can totally see that night was going to do and even the same thing whatever, “Oh methylfolate, Oh, I got some, I’ll take 10,” whatever, once in a while. And now, how does that relate to depression?

Bob Miller CTN

Well, keep in mind that there’s many ways we get to depression, but to keep in mind, to make serotonin, we need something called BH4, tetrahydrobiopterin, and then that confines with your 5-HTP to make your serotonin. Lot can go wrong there. Your BH4 also plays a role in making nitric oxide. So if we have not enough NADPH, the NOS enzymes aren’t working properly. Rather than making nitric oxide, we make superoxide, that makes peroxide nitrate that further depresses your BH4 most common thing we see in depression, but of course, we don’t have the protocol for depression because there’s many ways to get there. That’s just one that I think can get there, or I’m tending to think that there also may be an inflammatory component where the brain starts shutting down a little bit in a self-protective mode. Now that has to be researched. But the most common I see is that inflammation dampens the precursor to serotonin.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Interesting. And so will treat ALS patients, and they’ll come in, and wheelchairs and they’re out jogging and send them back to the neurologist. Neurologist goes, “Oh, it must have been a misdiagnosis.” But and so let’s try riluzole… I pronounced it a long time but blocks glutamate. And I found it doesn’t work for ALS, but I found it worked for depression and anxiety, which kind of makes sense.

Bob Miller CTN

Absolutely. Absolutely. If you can, I’d like to talk a little bit about one of our most exciting discoveries, and that is what we call the NADPH Steal. I’m very intrigued by the NOX enzyme NADPH Oxidase and the enzyme NADPH. Just very briefly, the immune system we have is totally astonishing. I mean, I’m just amazed at the complexity of the body and how it works, despite what we do to it. So when we’re exposed to a pathogen of some sort, there’s an enzyme called NADPH Oxidase that says, “There’s somebody here that doesn’t belong here. We’ve got to get rid of this.” So when we’re faced with a bacteria or a virus, this enzyme will take some oxygen from iron and electron from an ADPH and create a storm. 

It’ll create superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, mast cells, histamine to kill the pathogen. And if we didn’t have that, well, we’ll die of infection. It wouldn’t work, but I believe what’s happening. Going back to what I said earlier, environmental toxins are overstimulating this NADPH Oxidase enzyme, and we’re making too many mast cells, too much superoxide. Now, what’s interesting. There’s a fascinating molecule called NADPH. I love NADPH. It is what takes your oxidized glutathione bacteria reduced. It helps the HMOX enzyme breakdown heme. It helps you make nitric oxide and does many, many important things. Without it, we wouldn’t recycle our antioxidants, but that NADPH is used by the NOX enzyme to make all this inflammation. So here’s a molecule or an electron that recycles your antioxidants and is protective from free radicals. On the other hand, is used to make free radicals. I am just totally thrilled by that thing. And I think that’s what’s happening to us. That environmental factors are shifting that balance. So when we were faced with a pathogen, we wanted to stop antioxidants, create an inflammatory burst to kill the pathogen. Then go back to homeostasis. I believe environmental factors are overstimulating that NOX enzyme, continuing to make inflammation and mast cells. I’m sure when you started your practice, you didn’t hear much about mast cells. Now, doctors hearing about it all the time.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, yeah.

Bob Miller CTN

And those who have a genetic predisposition to the NOX enzyme being overactive or more sensitive to these environmental factors are the ones being impacted by this. That’s why I call it the NADPH Steal, where there’s very important in NADPH is being used to make more inflammation that it should rather than recycle antioxidants. Now, additionally, we look in the software, there’s genetic mutations where you may not make enough NADPH. So if you combine that with it, you’ve got a real problem. And what we generally find is that when people are really ill, they can’t get answers to their questions. They’re usually overproducing free radicals by Fenton reaction or NOS uncoupling where the excess glutamate or interleukin 6 being upregulated, and then something wrong and they’re not making enough antioxidants or enough NADPH or the NADPH is being used, excessively in NADPH Steal. And then finally, we’ve coined the phrase, the home cycle term we came up with based upon a relative of mine that I admired. And it’s where this inflammation then feeds the renin-angiotensin system creates more NADPH, and we just have one cycle of inflammation, and I believe that’s what’s happening to a lot of people that the inflammation can’t be stopped. They might get Lyme disease, and their doctor tells them, “Okay, your Lyme is over, but they’re still sick as can be.”

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah.

Bob Miller CTN

They get other, some other inflammatory condition that just keeps going. So I think the challenge we’re seeing today is that environmental factors are upregulating the NOX enzyme. And primarily by us overstimulation of interleukin 6. If anyone would like to listen to it, I did a one-hour, 50-minute interview with Dr. Jill Carnahan. It’s on her YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube, subscribe to Dr. Jill Carnahan. And actually, I have like five or six videos there, but the one on interleukin 6, I think the doctors will really appreciate because we look at all the environmental factors combined with genetic weakness. That’s leading to up-regulation of interleukin 6. I’m seeing that in so many of the most ill people we do, and we do consult with-

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That seems to be the key cytokine that just sets everything off. And just to backtrack a little bit. So, you’re talking about NADPH. How does giving NAD affect NADPH, I guess, as long as you can recycle it?

Bob Miller CTN

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, that’s a good question. And again, that’s gotten a lot of attention. Some very well-known people are talking about the benefits of NAD, and everything you’ve heard is true. It feeds the PARP enzyme, which repairs your DNA. It makes your NADH, which is at the top of your electron transport for energy and makes your NADPH. It stimulates the sirtuins that are your longevity enzymes that balances mTOR autophagy. So you tend to think, “Well, the more NAD I take, the better off I am.” And I talked to a lot of folks who do NAD therapy, and I’ll say, it’s for some people, is this the best thing they’ve ever done? It’s like, “Yeah, that’s great.” And I say, for other people, was that a horrible experience? And it’s like, ‘Yeah.” So I think what’s happening is that, and this is just Bob Miller’s hypothesis.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Okay.

Bob Miller CTN

But I think what’s happening when the NOX enzyme is upregulated, and you start boosting NADPH, you’ve just given more fuel to the fire to make more inflammation. So what I’ve been recommending people do is first calm down NOX, find out what are the factors that are overstimulating NADPH Oxidase, calm that down, then give NAD and watch what happens, then it works.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Now, it seems like the NOX enzyme, which I hadn’t heard about since I spoke to you, seems to be central to all this stuff.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. It’s interestingly, a paper just came out in December that said that anyone who had upregulation of NOX seemed to be more susceptible to more serious COVID, and that’s kind of the path we’ve been going down because the cytokine storm is interleukin 6 and also Bradykinin is a piece of this as well. But we’ve been talking about up-regulation of the NOX enzyme and IL-6 in the cytokine storm. But even if you said COVID aside, I believe many of the things that we’re seeing today are related to this IL-6 being overstimulated. Again, I encourage people to listen to my one-hour, 50-minute interview with Dr. Jill Carnahan. We go through slides. We don’t make things up. We look at all the peer-reviewed studies and show how this upregulated interleukin 6 is behind so many of the conditions we’re seeing today. So I’m seeing a very unique client base. 

Now, many times people will come to me after nothing else is working 80% of the people I talk to have upregulated and Interleukin 6 by other environmental factors or genetic factors. And mold is becoming a real problem. Mold will stimulate interleukin 6. It’s believed that the lipopolysaccharides in Lyme is what’s stimulating the interleukin 6. Radon will stimulate it. Over-exercise and then internally histamine, homocysteine, dopamine, sulfites all stimulate interleukin 6. So the beauty of the software is rather than guessing, you can actually look and see, and we actually have interactive maps where the doctor can look and see where there’s a genetic predisposition. And with that precision, you can say, “Oh, I think it’s the sulfites. Oh, I think it’s the dopamine.” Calm those down NOX calms down. Then you can put in your NADPH. Keep in mind we need NADPH to recycle glutathione. So here’s another example. 

We learn all about the benefits of glutathione, the master antioxidant. The lower it goes, the sooner you die from all causes. So we tend to think, let’s take glutathione. And many times, you hear people that say, “I felt good for five days, then I felt worse,” and they don’t understand why.Well, if you take glutathione in its reduced form, then it does its job through glutathione conjugation or by a glutathione peroxidase to remove hydrogen peroxide. It goes into the oxidized form. And if you don’t have enough NADPH to take it from oxidized to reduced that oxidized glutathione, ironically, combined with oxygen and superoxide to make peroxynitrite, an oxidizing agent, then makes you more inflamed and depletes your glutathione. So who to thank taking glutathione under the wrong conditions can make you more inflamed and deplete your glutathione. So that’s why you have to make sure that the glutathione as reductase enzyme is working. Here’s an interesting clinical pearl that we’re just researching again its patterns that go together. 

I’m sure most of the doctors listening to this have heard of NRF2, a nuclear transaction factor. That’s controlled by KEAP1, and NRF2 controls GSR, glutathione as reductase that takes the oxidized glutathione back to the reduced. I’m observing that people that just have been everywhere and can’t get any answers. They’ve got mutations on KEAP1 that make it stronger, NRF2 that makes it weaker, and mutations and glutathione as a reductase. And some well-meaning person says, “Let me give you a cystine,” they get worse. They say, “Well, let me give you glutathione,” they get worse, and they don’t know why. So what you have to do is you have to make sure that an NRF2 is strong enough. You give the co-factors to help GSR. Matter of fact, we’re just formulating a product now called GSR assist that I think is going to be incredible. It actually has things that stimulate the GSR, as well as the co-factors trying to use riboflavin to make FAD. Then when you give glutathione, it’ll work, and that’s the kind of personalized care I believe we need. We just can’t throw glutathione on a person because they’re inflamed.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Because you see these doctors and like, they give glutathione to 100 people, whatever, a couple of a while go, “Oh my gosh, I feel worse.” Like what, “Never seen that before.” And they have no idea. And just since we’re on the Peptide Summit, just BPC, TB4 KBV lowers interleukin 6, but nitric oxide can be a double-edged sword. Right?

Bob Miller CTN

Absolutely. Yes, of course. If you Google nitric oxide, Nobel Prize, you’ll see the Nobel prize. I can’t remember if the late ’80s or early ’90s won a Nobel prize, three scientists for the importance of nitric oxide. Well, we think of it as the dilator, men needed for erectile function, and we need it for cardiovascular. But it’s also very anti-inflammatory. It actually calms down mast cells and has an anti-inflammatory role. However, I think nitric oxide has gotten somewhat of a bad rap because sometimes people look at nitric oxide as pro-inflammatory. Well, what happens is that nitric oxide will combine with superoxide to make peroxynitrite, Bob Miller’s opinion. Okay. Just my hypothesis that the problem is that we’re making too much superoxide. And if we don’t have enough, superoxide dismutase to neutralize it, that superoxide combines with nitric oxide to make that dangerous peroxynitrite. One of the potential causes of that could be EMF. There are now published reports that show that EMF stimulates superoxide.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. I’m telling you I’ve done a deep dive. And the more you read about EMFs, the scarier it is.

Bob Miller CTN

Absolutely. Again, if somebody goes to Dr. Jill Carnahan’s website, we just did an hour 20-minute video on EMF, where again, we went through the published literature. We just didn’t make things up. Somebody had it on a blog. And the published literature is there that it stimulates free radicals and inhibits your glutathione, SOD, and catalytic.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And it’s there, but no one wants to talk about it. It’s like they deny it. It’s like so much of medicine is just like, just suppression of information and-

Bob Miller CTN

Look how long it took to admit that cigarettes was a problem, back in the 1940s. I mean, if you want to be entertained or disgusted, go on YouTube and type in 1940 cigarette commercials where you see doctors in their white coats recommending Camel cigarettes. It’s good for your throat.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I remember even a residency, like doing anesthesia, the anesthesiologist to be smoking the cigarette in the OR.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. Well, we didn’t know. We didn’t know. And there was denial for a long time because you could smoke a cigarette for 10 years, and you were okay, smoke for 20 years, lung cancer and emphysema. And I’m afraid we may see the same thing with EMF. Now, the cool thing about our software is we’ve identified the calcium voltage channels, and we can actually identify those people that might be more prone to EMF sensitivity. We look at what are called the CACNA1C gene that are the calcium voltage channel gates. And just at the gate implies, it pushes calcium in by voltage. And when you’ve got mutations, you’re more prone for that EMF from outside sources to push calcium in as calmodulin that then combines with nitric oxide and superoxide to make peroxynitrite. And I’ve spoken to many people who’ve had to move out in the middle of nowhere in a wooden log cabin and not have any EMF exposure cause it makes them ill. And we’ve just done that. And we just did a five webinars series. If one of the doctors is interested, just contact us. We’ll give you the links to the videos. We just did five webinars on how EMF will create Fenton reaction, interleukin 6 through the calcium voltage channels. And then, more importantly, how to identify that and then what to do about it.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Where would we find those?

Bob Miller CTN

Well, at the end here, we’ll just go to our website, functionalgenomicanalysis.com, and that’s our website, and you can go inside, and you’ll find our contact information there. So what you may want to do is contact Yvonne Lucchese, and I’ll give you her email address. Yvonne Y-V-O-N-N-E. And then the letter L @dnasupplementation.com, [email protected]. And just ask her for the link for the five webinars, and they’re free. Somebody can watch my five webinars on EMF and again-

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Your more EMF lectures. I just keep adding and adding to them. And, and we’re finding BPC helps stabilize those voltage-gated calcium channels. But yeah, it’s crazy stuff. And so your software is, I think, really one of the keys, and you’re even upgrading it and allows doctors to understand all this.

Bob Miller CTN

Absolutely. Now, this is a lot to learn. So one of the things we’re doing, and I’m going to try to do a screen share here that way, we can put that email address up. I think I can do a screen share. Let’s see, let’s see if it allow me to do that. Oops, disabled from you. So if you turn on my ability to screen share, I’ll screen share the website. Yes, what we’re doing is we have online certification courses for the doctors to train them. And then, we also are creating software dynamic messages in the software that will actually give doctors messages on what to do. There we go. So I will look at a screen two here,

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, I love your figure and grasp ability which allows you to understand all this stuff.

Bob Miller CTN

Sure. So here’s the website functionalgenomicanalysis.com. If you want the webinars, YvonneL Y-V-O-N-N-E [email protected], and just ask her for the webinars, and we’ll be glad to send them at no charge. And while we’re doing on a screen-share here, we didn’t plan on this, but why don’t I just very quickly bring over this is our inflammation map that we create.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I love this stuff.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. So here is the entire map, what it looks like, it maps out how you can make inflammation inside the body, and then you can zoom in and depending on like this map, again, we send it to you free of charge just to ask us for it. Here’s what I was talking about earlier. The NOX enzyme NADPH is used by the NOX enzyme to make the superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, mast cells, and histamine, but it’s also needed by the NOX enzyme to make nitric oxide thioredoxin, glutathione put the iron from heme into ferritin. And there’s this battle here, the NADPH Steal. And then, as I spoke earlier, we talked about interleukin 6. I believe that many environmental factors are just overstimulating interleukin 6, which then creates a cascade of superoxide, peroxynitrite, mast cells, histamine. They all come back and stimulate IL-6 even more. They also then come down and stimulate the renin-angiotensin system and create more IL-6. And we’re just on a merry-go-round of inflammation. And I think many doctors will find this fascinating that glutamate will inhibit the ACE2 enzyme, which will allow Bradykinin to go up and angiotensin to go up, that stimulates Interleukin 6. So this is something we need to look at.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Interesting.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. And then in the software, this is what the software looks like. Here’s the pyramid, and the ones down here are the ones related to inflammation when there’s mutations. But let me just quickly show you the maps. Remember we talked earlier about nitric oxide. So what we do in the software, we allow the doctor to look at the pathway of how to make nitric oxide. Remember we spoke about BH4, and then the software will actually even show you how many genetic mutations you have on each of these. Like you can see on this person, they’ve got the MTHFR A1298, they will impede their BH4 production, or they may have mutations on their NOX enzyme. You see it coming up over to the right. How many mutations?

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So the different colors are the degree, or how does that work?

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. The blue is good. The green is a little bit better or a little worse than you go orange, yellow, red, and then you can click on them to see how many mutations there are. Now what’s coming is going to be dynamic messages in here. And that’s a simple one, but if someone wants to see if IL-6 might be a problem, then you can pull up this chart, and you can see in the center, you’ve got the IL-6, but all of the mutations that could allow that to be upregulated. So this is not for the faint of heart. This is for the person who is really serious and wants to crack the code.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It takes time, but it’s not overwhelming. You can get it. You’ve made it. So people just don’t go, “Oh, forget it.”

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah, well, it’s for the person who is serious. I mean, it takes some study to do this, and this is our latest upgrade-

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Anything worth it does.

Bob Miller CTN

Exactly. This is our latest upgrade, where it shows how the potential is for Fenton reaction. So we put together the SNPs that could create the Fenton reaction, such as the hemochromatosis genes or not clearing hydrogen peroxide. And if you want to click on one of these, you will see if there’s any SNPs. And this really gives the doctor a really good opportunity at a snapshot. See, a Fenton reaction might be going on. This one helps you understand the SNPs that are related to NOS uncoupling.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And now you talk about Fenton reaction a lot.

Bob Miller CTN

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, let’s talk about what that is. So discovered in 1895 by Dr. Fenton… let’s just do a slideshow from current slide. So inside ourselves, we make energy. And as we do, sometimes an electron flies off that combined with oxygen to make superoxide. If we have enough superoxide dismutase, we’ll make hydrogen peroxide, but if we don’t have enough catalase, glutathione peroxidase, thioredoxin, or NADPH to clear it, that hydrogen peroxide will combine with iron to make hydroxyl radicals that are very inflammatory. So that’s the Fenton reaction. And this is as you mentioned, we won the award in Helsinki, Finland, in 2016.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Wow.

Bob Miller CTN

Those with chronic Lyme had five times more opportunity or five times the SNPs in the Fenton in the HFE gene, and that causes you to absorb extra iron. So we see this happening quite a bit in individuals, the Fenton reaction. And so, if you want to just see the SNPs that are involved in that, here they are. And again, color-coded like for this person, they’ve got a lot of mutations in HMOX, which could allow them to not break down their iron properly. So that’s what the software looks like.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It seems like there’s a lot of ways to make hydrogen peroxide, people will use hydrogen peroxide, and it’s an oxidant, and you’ve got like Brownstein study on COVID hydrogen peroxide, nebulized works for to stop the cytokine storm. Can you kind of explain that?

Bob Miller CTN

Wow, certainly. Hydrogen peroxide is one of the things that the body uses to kill pathogens. It’s not all bad, but again, everything has to be in balance. So if we have genetic mutations or environmental factors that don’t allow us to clear this, and we have iron absorption extra, that’s when that hydrogen peroxide can go south on you. So it’s wonderful at killing some things, but for some individuals, it makes them worse, or if you do too much of it, which all goes back to the balance.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It’s kind of short burst and then recovery.

Bob Miller CTN

Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Because if you have too much and if we go back to my map here, let’s see where’s the map? When we have interleukin 6 being stimulated… It’s not on here, but the mast cells will make superoxide and hydrogen peroxide for the purpose of killing pathogens. So-

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

They’re not all bad. They’re considered just terrible. Now is there anything in particular ozone does, although it generally-

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah, of course, I mean, ozone kills pathogen does wonderful things, but I’ve spoken to many people who ozone really made them sick because that has to be turned back into hydrogen peroxide. And if you clear that, okay, great. If you don’t, it can create inflammation for you.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And like high-dose vitamin C, same thing, right?

Bob Miller CTN

Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So those are all the ways that we can get ourselves into trouble that one person’s medicine is another person’s poison.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It just makes sense, and I love it. So yourself, what really combines, the genetic, SNPs, lab, symptoms, and it kind of brings everything together.

Bob Miller CTN

Absolutely. You can have the person fill out a symptom survey. Right now, we’re putting in the urine organic acids from great plains because the SNPs is just a predisposition. We’d never say, “Oh, I’ve got this SNP; therefore, I need to fill in the blank.” I often tell doctors SNPs are waving at you, think about looking here, but again, I think we have to look at patterns when you look at our software, we don’t make any predictions based upon one SNP if you over absorb iron, if it looks as though you’re not clearing hydrogen peroxide, if you’re not making NADPH, that can create the Fenton reaction. So I think we’ve got to get away from having this SNP means this. Just because you have MTHFR doesn’t mean you need methylfolate. You might need to do some other things first.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It says other SNPs. Do you have that? That’s me tell doctors we do 35 labs normally is our normal intake for chronically ill we could do 50 and paint a picture, and you can’t hang your hat on any one test.

Bob Miller CTN

No. Particularly as things get more complex.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And I think this is just the way of the future. And let’s see. So, and then you also have it, so you tell doctors what the patients need either they can… All the supplements that they need, or you have kind of all these things ready-made for these doctors.

Bob Miller CTN

Let’s take a quick peek at that. So again, we don’t have the pill for the ill. We’re looking at the supplement for the function. So we’ll do just another quick real screen-share here, and here you will see again the pyramid, but what you can do, you can go to… when you’re in the Fenton reaction, the software might give you a suggestion that we think Fenton reaction is going on. Like here’s a dynamic message. This came up specifically for that person. So I put logic in here that said, if these conditions exist right then, so these messages will be unique. It’s like having me sitting there talking to you.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I have to say that I’ve done a lot of algorithms. And when you try to for every scenario that it is so much more difficult, and you have so many things to take into consideration. So my hat goes off to you.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. Well, we’re working on that. So there’s a product called Hydroxyl-Blox that is designed in multiple ways to help the proper use of iron and not have the Fenton reaction going on. So what’s really cool here is that we’ve all done this. We talk to someone and say, “We have a supplement here for you that we think is going to be good for you.” And they look at it, and they say, “Oh, but I can’t take, fill in the blank. Then what do we do?” So that’s why I’m so happy that I worked with a company called Personalized Nutrients, that the doctor can actually make a custom product. So say, for example, we want that Hydroxyl-Blox. You can go to personalized nutrients here, and it will pop-up the nutrients that are in there. And then you have the ability to customize them. So logic is starting to go in here where it says catalase. And there’s a little message over here. Click on it. It says with a mutation in this one. You may want to increase the catalase. The doctor can then accept that or reject it.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So interesting. I did take a bunch of catalase. And I didn’t correlate it with my genetic test from you. I don’t know. Is there anything bad?

Bob Miller CTN

Well, we look at the catalase genes, but here the doctor then has the ability to say, “You know what? This person has a real histamine problem. I’m just going to take that out.” So you just delete it out. Or if you want to add something, you can then say, “You know what? I think I want to add a little fill in the blank.” Say you want to put a little nicotinamide adenine and nucleotide in. Then it comes up, and you decide, “Yeah, well, I’ll put 20 milligrams in.” So now you are making a custom supplement for that person.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, that’s with Pete there.

Bob Miller CTN

Pete doing this and adjusted to us at [crosstalk 00:57:01].

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I liked them. We’ve been working with them for a long time.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. And then you just go up into the software here, and you finish it up, and then the software sends it to them, and it’s made for the person.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Dude, you’re just got it down.

Bob Miller CTN

There’s my test. And you can put several together, and then the good folks at Personalized Nutrients will make it. So here you can see the estimated dose, four capsules, wholesale. The doctor then gets to put in whatever they want to sell it for. And then when you’re done, you save it and order it, send the order to Personalize Nutrients, but you still have the ability to mess with it. You can take [inaudible 00:57:44] down. You can add things to it,

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

A little tip. It’s usually better to get more bottles. It’s got to cut down your price.

Bob Miller CTN

Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. You can combine several things together. And the nice part about the program is that if two supplements have the same ingredient, it will just pick the one that’s the highest. It won’t add them all together.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Well, they’re moving up too. That’s great. Great to hear.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. So that’s the way that gives guidance to the physician on what to do. Like here’s a product for supporting ATP, autophagy this is for interleukin 6 supporting the DAO, the dopamine, those are all the options that the doctor has to put it together, and the software gives them some guidance on what you might want to use.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Are those listed somewhere?

Bob Miller CTN

If somebody goes to functionalgenomicnutrition.com, they can see all the supplements.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So they’ll under your name or whatever?

Bob Miller CTN

Just go to functionalgenomicnutrition.com, and all the supplements are there. So if they want to look at the labels and then the software helps them decide if they should use them or not.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Nice. Nice. Let’s see. Before we tell people how to get hooked up with you, which I highly, highly recommend, anything else you want to mention?

Bob Miller CTN

I think that’s it. Other than that, we’re just honored that we’re having an opportunity to hopefully be a little bit of a pioneer in helping functional doctors and those who are interested in functional medicine, how to really go under the hood, so to speak, and find answers that they may not have had before. And so if you go to the functionalgenomicanalysis.com, you can take the online certification course, you can get a-

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I highly, highly recommend that.

Bob Miller CTN

Yes.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And you can try out a couple of lectures at no charge. He’s just great at all that.

Bob Miller CTN

I’m a bit of a geek. I’m not Mr. Excitement.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Hey, we beg to differ. Where are you located, by the way? Where do you live?

Bob Miller CTN

Well, a little town called effort of Pennsylvania in Lancaster County. I’m among the Amish and the Mennonite. In the early days, I mostly saw the Amish and Mennonite, and then as we got interested in genomics, we kind of went worldwide. We now talk to people all over the world where for whatever reason, were very popular in England and Australia, and Canada.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Wow. Congratulations.

Bob Miller CTN

So we talk to a lot of people there. Thanks.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I was going to say, wow, I didn’t know he was Amish.

Bob Miller CTN

No, I’m not Amish. No. I’m saying that we live in Amish territory here. No, I’m English and German, but I’m in Pennsylvania Dutch country.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It takes a while to commute in your buggy.

Bob Miller CTN

Yeah. They’re wonderful people. They really are.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

No, it sounds good. So how the heck I’m watching this? How do I heck do I get started with you?

Bob Miller CTN

Well, I would encourage people to go to functionalgenomicanalysis.com and just give us certification that you’re a practicing health professional. This is not for the public. So if the public is watching this, sorry, we don’t work with you on that. It is only for health professionals, and sign up for the online certification. It’s free. You can take several modules and see if it’s for you. And again, it’s not for everybody. If somebody is looking for a report that says, I want a two-page report that tells me what to do. This isn’t it. This is for those serious practitioners who really want to dig in once… Take the online courses, think about this a little bit, and what I offer. I can’t do it for every client, but if someone’s new, we’ll do a one-hour consult either with the doctor or with the doctor and the patient until the doctor’s up to speed and knows what to do.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Hey, I’m calling Dibs on you no matter what, because yeah. We find these come up with so many unique things and just knowing it so well, for back of your hand. Well, yeah, I think it’s just been a great addition to our practice, and a number of doctors like Dr. Hunt in our office as just embraced it. And I think you’re just doing a great service, and you’re so dedicated and still a nice guy.

Bob Miller CTN

Well, thank you. And Dr. Hunt is a pleasure to work with you really is. I always tell everybody-

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

She’s awesome. I don’t know where it’d be without her.

Bob Miller CTN

Absolutely.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

But yeah, so we use it in practice. We’re going to actually put together a program for Peptides, where we look at your genomics that will offer a special discount. And along with this Peptide Summit, and of course, we’re going to use Bob, and we’re going to hassle him to be on all the calls.

Bob Miller CTN

Okay, We’ll do it.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

He has nothing else to do. And hey Bob, as always, it’s a pleasure. I just learn so much every time I talk with you, and I just appreciate everything you’re doing.

Bob Miller CTN

Well. It’s my honor. And we want to be of service to humanity. That’s our major goal.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Awesome. Awesome. Hey, thanks so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. And I’m sure the docs are going to get a lot out of this. And again highly recommend that this is something you add to your armamentarium, another major tool for treating your patients.

Bob Miller CTN

Thanks a lot. It’s been a pleasure.