Interview with Andrew Steele from DNAFit

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All right. Thanks for coming on the show, Andrew. I’m excited to to dive into my genetic blueprint. 

Andrew Steele: Excellent. No, thanks for having me, Mike. I’m looking forward to talking you through it. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, totally. So before we get into the, my test results. Can you tell me and tell the [00:03:00] listeners a bit about you, your story, how you can you’re an Olympic athlete, how you came to work at DNA fit, and then a little bit about the process of what DNA what is DNA fit?

Just so that for the people that don’t know basically 

Andrew Steele: it’s literally just a little swab test. So almost looks like an earbud. That you rub on the inside of your cheek and we analyze from that a selection of gene variants which look at markers specifically focused around exercise and nutrition.

So your training and nutrition plans and how you can choose the best way for you based on your genetics. 

Mike Matthews: Cool. Yeah. When I was doing it, I was like, Oh, I just rub it on my cheek and that’s it. And then it unlocks all the mysteries, 

Andrew Steele: Image of Oh, I’m gonna have to go to a clinic and get a biopsy.

So no pretty easy. We just send it by the post and we’re based here in the UK but people seem to buy the kit from all over the world. 

Mike Matthews: So it’s quite good. Yeah, that’s cool. And so now tell me a bit about you just so listeners know who are you? What’s your story? 

Andrew Steele: My, I have two distinct hats, that I wear.

Yeah. The first one being, and that happens in the first part of the day [00:04:00] is that I’m a professional track and field athlete. So I’m a Olympic athlete here in the UK running for Great Britain specifically in the 400 meters and the four by 400 meter relay. That, that is part of the reason why I came to be involved with DNA fit.

And I’ll touch upon that briefly without boring people too much in my story. But effectively, I’m a professional. athlete and I’m still in full time training. As soon as I finished training, I’m in the office in inverted commas for DNA fit here. So I run the company, I manage all the work we do across professional sport and our fitness and training interventions and look after a lot of our other sort of special projects as well.

But really the story of how I came to be involved with the company is quite good in terms of putting into context. The use of genetics because it’s quite, it’s a fairly new concept to people, like my DNA tells me something about this or not about how I work out or how I eat.

And it’s, it’s some people’s minds. Genetics is a scary side, overly scientific world. And that, I don’t know [00:05:00] if you had any preconceptions about. what a gene test was or a DNA test before? 

Mike Matthews: Not really. I, it’s not an area that I wouldn’t say I’m nowhere. I’m not, I wouldn’t consider myself an expert at all.

I’ve just in my, all the research I’ve done more on the health fitness side, I’ve come across the fair amount of stuff. So I had to add, I think the right type of expectations, but yeah, I know that a lot of people, I think, especially in, when it comes to, to just fitness and overall health.

Many people think that their genetics are probably working against them. It’s probably like the, and the general connotation, like if they, they know that person that quote unquote can eat whatever they want and stay, it’s genetics or they think that because they have always been overweight, that they’re genetically doomed to be overweight, things like that.

I think. Yeah, that’s it. 

Andrew Steele: And that’s a. Yeah. That’s part of it. And the real key is that genetics is not about predeterminism. It’s not about what someone can or can’t be. 

Rather, 

Andrew Steele: we just provide this extra level of information so you can play to your strengths. So you can take that knowledge and make the best choices.

I think of it as [00:06:00] like inclinations. Yeah, that’s it. Basically, we just use it to add to the whole picture to make the best decisions just as you would measure. Can you watch your benchpress PB? What’s he? How? How’s your resting heart rate? In any realm of health and fitness, you would you measure things.

And this is an extra measure that we add into the picture. 

Right? 

Andrew Steele: So basically, I would probably I’ll just quickly tell you how I came to be working with DNA fit as a physician. Yeah. An Olympic athlete. I had my first Olympic games was at the Beijing Olympic games in 2008. And back then I used to train in, in the four years prior to Beijing, I trained what was considered the wrong way for a 400 meter runner.

We did a lot of endurance training, a lot of like what we’d call Northern graft here in the UK. So I’m from Manchester in the North of England, where we’ve got a kind of Hardworking reputation of no nonsense. And I used to do this sort of lots and lots of longer running, almost like a middle distance athlete, like an 800 meter runner.[00:07:00] 

Whereas the 400 for people that don’t know the track and field, it’s officially a sprint, it’s a long sprint, but it’s officially a power event. So I used to train what was considered. a little bit unorthodox for the 400 meters. Then I did a lot of endurance, but with some sprint as opposed to the common way, which was a lot of sprint with some endurance, as you can imagine.

I used to do this and evidently it was relatively successful for me. I reached Olympic level. I reached the Olympic games. And in the process of doing that, I actually ran a pretty. Important benchmark for me, which was running under 45 seconds. So anyone that runs a 400 under 45 kind of enters this new threshold in people’s minds of level of athlete they are.

So I reached the Olympic semifinal and we came fourth in the four by 400 meter relay by the absolute smallest fraction of a second fortunately, but either way. It was quite a positive first Olympic games. It was like okay, here we go. In four years time I’ve got the London Olympic games, the [00:08:00] home Olympic games.

Such a huge like opportunity once in a lifetime, once in 10 lifetime opportunity. Everything of course was geared towards like, how do we take you from semi finalist to medalist and how do we take the relay team from fourth place to first place over these four years? Now I ran around, I ran 44.

94 seconds in 2008 and what I needed to win a medal was about half a second quicker. That 44. 4 would have been pretty safe bet that I’d be in with a shot of a medal there. So we needed half a second over four years. Sounds like pretty easy on the outset. Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: anyone that’s played sports, I mean at that level just knows that there’s a point where It’s so hard to improve just even small.

Andrew Steele: That’s it. Yeah, the margins become very fine Don’t they between success and failure? So either way, We decided on this. We’re like, we need to take you from here to here over four years time. How do we get there? Do we stay doing the same or do we change? And [00:09:00] we looked at my abilities in my races and where my strengths and my weaknesses were.

My strengths were very much in the last 100 meters. I was the strongest guy on the track in terms of 100 meters. But I was probably the weakest guy in the track in terms of acceleration, in terms of the first quarter of my race. Getting out of the blocks up to my top speed was taking me like over a hundred meters, right?

So the other guys were gaining half a second on me straight away. So we were like, look, let’s just get that half a second that we keep the endurance as well as we can, but we got to make you world class short sprinter as well as just a world class 400 meter runner. So we decided to change the emphasis towards this new, no, the more common way, which was mainly sprint training with endurance as opposed to the other way around, which I’d done most of my career.

Over those four years we did that a couple of other things got in the way of the process I had a partial rupture of my Achilles tendon and I also had mononucleosis for about 18 [00:10:00] months, which didn’t help of course But effectively this change in training didn’t work for me We got to the day of selection in London 2012 and I was on average about a second slower than I was four years prior And I ended up missing out on the home Olympic Games on the thing that I’ve been working towards for seven years So It was ah, this is, that was really sickening, really nauseating and had such a long term goal and we missed out.

So that was very tough and it took me a while to get over that and to let the dust settle. But afterwards I was thinking to myself, I was going, what happened there? What went wrong? And how can I fix it? So come Rio 2016, the next Olympic Games, which would be my last in terms of physical career ability.

I get back to where I was and better. And I decided I realized that, that old way that everyone told me was wrong for 400 meter running was evidently a lot more effective for me because over those four years, I, and not only. Didn’t really get much [00:11:00] better at the short stuff, the zero to 50 meters, but I actually lost my individual calling card, which was my stupidly good last 50 meters.

I was like, I lost my individual strength. I lost what made me who I was. And maybe that unorthodox method of training was actually the right way for me. And I’d come to this decision. I decided to change back to that way and so on and made a few sort of big points to deliver over the next four years up to Rio 2016.

But shortly after I was actually in Scottsdale, Arizona on a training camp there. And I got sent a little swab, the swab I alluded to before in the post Through one of my coaches through my strength and conditioning coach, and it wasn’t even called DNA fit at the time. It was just a DNA test for sport, and I thought, Hey, whatever.

I’ll do this with cynicism, perhaps to start with. And then I was really fascinated when I got my results because In a way, it confirmed a lot of that which I’d been forced to learn through that painful and quite costly [00:12:00] trial and error over those four years. I had a majority of endurance genetics. I had two gene results in particular which signaled the raised probability of Achilles tendon rupture.

Oh wow. But you had, and I had this slow recovery speed and my mononucleosis is effectively an overtraining fatigue illness. So I was like, ah, that’s me. Well done guys. But also I wish I’d had this four years prior. If you’d just shown me this, it wouldn’t have changed everything, but it would have been an important influencer, at least for the people that paid my bills and were putting pressure on me to change my training.

So I was like, you look. I can really see the benefit in this and I took it on board and thankfully this year I had my best season by far since Beijing. Continue to improve. Hopefully I’ll be back there in Rio, not only running 44, nine, but running a little bit quicker as well. So yeah, fingers crossed.

So look at, the. The use in professional sports is quite obvious. You can see that, but what I really started to think was actually, Hey, if we take this and we [00:13:00] extrapolate this down to the general consumer, the general user who is just starting to get healthy or get fit. Now, obviously I’m an Olympic athlete, so I can.

If I get things wrong, I’m going to assess what went wrong and I’m going to change in order to get better again. That’s my job. I’m not going to just give up, but the everyday person, the motivation to change your activity levels or to change your nutrition, to change your life really is so fragile.

Because we, it’s very difficult, it’s very difficult to set out on a new journey to say, I’m going to, I’m going to change this. I’m going to be disciplined. I’m going to not eat that food. I’m going to do this exercise, which I don’t like. And I find really difficult. And so anything you can do to increase the probability of success there to create lasting change, because if someone doesn’t see results after a month.

They’re not going to carry on trying, or they’re not going to reassess. Or maybe that didn’t work for me. They’re just going to stop. So I was like, if we can just add this to people from the very start, so they don’t have to go through this trial and error process, then that’s a really [00:14:00] useful motivator and incentive to increase the probability of success and therefore make a larger change to people’s.

Like activity levels and health, basically. 

Mike Matthews: Compliance really is the big thing. For the average person that just, they want to be fit. Even people that want to be extraordinarily fit, that’s still as much that’s way easier than trying to do what you’re doing. No, we’re not people even like me.

I’m not. Trying to necessarily squeeze every ounce of strength out of my body or every ounce of performance out of my body. I want to be in shape. I like to look a certain way. I like to feel a certain way. And it’s like a longevity health thing and a bit of vanity thrown in.

And and that, that’s, I think where a lot of people are at. And for that, it really is that. If you just stay consistent, even if you’re not, even if you’re doing quite a few things incorrectly, or if you’re not training optimally, or you’re not maybe the diet is a bit overly restrictive and you don’t have to necessarily do it that way.

Just complying with it over time. Give somebody five years on like [00:15:00] subpar with a subpar weightlifting program and subpar diet routine. They’re still going to probably after that time a fair amount of people are going to be fine. Fairly happy with where they’re at. That’s it. You just need 

Andrew Steele: them to adhere 

Mike Matthews: to something, don’t you?

Exactly. That something is so important 

Andrew Steele: compared to nothing, 

Mike Matthews: And then, of course, optimally, they would start off in the beginning, knowing what they’re doing, and then, those five years, obviously, five years, you could take someone from, normal or overweight, completely out of shape, to You know ripped or whatever and just complete totally fit in five years So that’s 

Andrew Steele: it.

And I think you know with them one of the interesting factors about this like genetic information is the motivation It brings because it’s so personal. It’s rather than say that I’m gonna Eat this food because I’ve heard it’s good for me. That’s so general, but actually I’m going to eat this food because in particular, I have this gene which does this.

So I need it for this reason, et cetera. So it’s a really good motivator to make things a little bit more personal, a little bit more of a very, [00:16:00] individual journey that someone embarks upon to keep into adhering and stuff. Give that motivation to start as well. Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: I found it interesting personally because it confirmed some of the things that I already knew that I just I wasn’t surprised, which when we get into it all chime in here and there on those points and then also just gave me some Good.

I feel more informed about how my body works and or at least the blueprint of it. Obviously a lot, some of these things are going to change with lifestyle and yeah, I might, genetically my body in my case, I guess it does very well with carbohydrate, which isn’t surprising, but even if I, if it didn’t do well with carbohydrate, that’s something that can be improved upon 

Andrew Steele: with 

Mike Matthews: lifestyle.

Andrew Steele: There’s some, there’s a really important point you’ve touched on there, Mike, and that’s that genetics is not the whole picture, and I don’t know whether it’s because of pop culture and books and films that make people think it’s more than it is, but actually, genetics is just one part of the whole picture, and that’s what we really try and stress, and actually, your environment is so important.

So we only [00:17:00] report on a good housekeeping thing here. We have a protocol before we actually include a gene in the test. So firstly, it has to have been shown, every gene variant has to have been shown in multiple peer reviewed, clinically validated studies for its association with each particular section.

So there’s no like single studies in here or just rat research on preliminary or whatever. That’s it. The second point is that all those studies have to have been on humans, not on rats or mice, and they have to have been shown for their effect there. And then thirdly, that there has to be an actionable lifestyle or environment change that can support or help that gene’s activity.

We don’t tell you anything that you can’t do anything about. Because to me, that’s a very controversial area. And, to say that, Oh, by the way, you’ve got this chance of this. See you later is as a little bit wrong, almost, you 

Mike Matthews: know, put certain ideas in people’s head. You have the opposite of placebo and the nocebo effect where, these are real things [00:18:00] where.

The reality is what is going on in our minds affects our bodies. And so in just the listeners, like you have the placebo effect where you’re given a sugar pill, but you’re told it’s something to treat a certain problem. And then it it actually treats the problem just because you think it does.

And then on the flip side of the nocebo effect where you’re giving something inert, but you think it’s harmful and it harms you. So it could be the same thing where. You’re told something negative. You’re told that you’re genetically predisposed to this or that, or in a way where it’s almost like fatalistic, where you’re screwed.

And then you start thinking that, and there’s a very real chance that you could start manifesting some of that just because you believe it. 

Andrew Steele: Very much and that’s, that the mind state there is so much of an important factor is almost more important than genetics in some ways that people mustn’t read into the word genetics or the word DNA more than another factor to add to the whole picture.

Yeah. And that’s what we try and be really clear about because people have inbuilt perceptions of what this is and it’s our job as a company, to educate people back to its use, but also its limitations as well. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Great. All right. So [00:19:00] let’s just jump into it. So we have the first point here on the diet report for me, which is carbohydrate sensitivity.

Andrew Steele: Great. Okay. So what do I mean by sensitivity? What do we, what are we referring to here? Your listeners will be very clued up on their nutrition. So I won’t be really basic, but effectively the whole blood glucose disruption, insulin resistance, et cetera, from sugar, from simple carbohydrates and refined carbohydrates.

Et cetera. It’s affected how intense that is or not depending on a panel of certain genes. So we’re having basically 

Mike Matthews: like how well your body can deal with a large glucose loads. 

Andrew Steele: Basically. Yeah. So with glucose loads, so either a sharp spike in high glycemic index foods or an overall load of high of medium glycemic index foods, et cetera.

So we’re looking at basically. your individual response to carbohydrate. So now what does it, what does a calorie of carbohydrate mean to you individually? What are your genes tell us about that? In your case, as you said you’re very low and actually quite rare that I come across someone [00:20:00] with as low a response as you in these, the particular five genes we look at in relation to carbohydrate here, you only have one of the gene variants, which is associated with A raised response, the rest you have the lower response versions of those genes.

That would on a really simple superficial level that would say that you should be a little bit less scared of carbohydrates than perhaps the media delivers us to think so of late. And I don’t know if you’ve found that yourself, 

Mike Matthews: like 

Andrew Steele: through your experience. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: I have always done well with carbohydrate.

And it also, to be fair I’ve, I always, I grew up playing sports. I don’t know, I was hitting a baseball when I was three or something. So I always like had a, I was always burning a lot of energy in general. So I had a high carbohydrate. Yeah. Need in general, but but yeah, especially I’ve noticed it a lot in the last several years as I’ve become more informed myself about just the physiology of just I guess the, all the various physiological processes related to training and diet.

And I’ve, and I find that, I can eat absurd amounts of carbohydrate And not even [00:21:00] feel anything like I don’t even so that makes sense where 

Andrew Steele: I am. I’m a professional athlete training six days a week, twice a day. And I still have to watch my carb intake. 

Mike Matthews: So there’s an example probably there of I you’re training more than me.

I’m weightlifting depends on what I’m doing with my program. It’s three to six days a week. And I do cardio three to four days a week. So I get in maybe an average of six hours of exercise a week, but still. Yeah, it’s that, that makes sense. Like I wasn’t surprised when I saw that. 

Andrew Steele: No. That’s great.

That’s good to hear. I think. And in my case, I was right the opposite end of this scale. So very high. And I’d had to find that out the hard way because I was like, what was 

Mike Matthews: your experience? So what would happen is you get tired and just grog you and eat a bunch of carbs. 

Andrew Steele: Basically, obviously I, we’ve been, I’ve been fed this idea of, Oh, I’m a sports person.

So I need energy all my career, we need big balls of pasta and all this stuff. And actually, I remember lamenting the fact in the, in Beijing Olympic games, there’s the athlete food hall. And in there it’s 24 hours a day, every cuisine from around the world for free, including a free 24 hour day McDonald’s.

Then let me point out, [00:22:00] which seems so against the Olympic spirit, but Hey, it’s the most popular. Line really is the most popular by far, by the longest line in the 

Mike Matthews: was the buffet food that bad. 

Andrew Steele: No, it’s excellent. The food is excellent, but people just chose them. I don’t know. That’s just, that’s that’s, 

Mike Matthews: that’s straight brainwashing is what that is.

Andrew Steele: But Hey, no, if they can get away with it, then they 

Mike Matthews: can 

Andrew Steele: get, I know. 

Mike Matthews: I’m just saying that’s the effect. That’s how strong their brainwashing marketing is. That doesn’t even make sense. McDonald’s is disgusting. 

Andrew Steele: So I remember sitting in there and thinking, I’m at the salad bar and I’m filling my bowl with green leaves and protein basically, and then, and my teammates are eating big bowls of pasta or pizza or something.

And I’m thinking. Why am I having to do this and you don’t and I’d found out over the years working with a nutritionist closely. I was very early adopter of a lower carbohydrate for a sports person, your lower carbohydrate eating plan for a sports person. It was quite unheard of at the [00:23:00] time I started.

But I found that I was, if I didn’t, I had, my body fat was too high, even though I’m a professional sports person, all the activity I do, my body fat was always too high and I’d found that out and then I was, I had, see how you’ve got this table and for the listeners, they’ll see at some point, I’m sure there’s a table with various genes, the gene result Mike has, and then whether that has a strong effect, a medium effect or no effect on this marker and Mike has only one gene, which creates an effect.

My genes created. All of them are great in the fact that you’re very lucky that I say, that 

Mike Matthews: actually corresponds with a bit of research. I wrote an article on it, which I’ll link in the description for people listening, but I’m on just carbohydrate need in general. And do you need to go low carb to lose fat, which is the, really the thing to do these days.

And of course, like. When you have protein matched when they’re in a high protein diet, there are several RCTs that show that there, there is no benefit in terms of fat loss by going low carb or higher carb if you’re in a calorie deficit and you’re not, and you’re on a high protein diet, [00:24:00] but.

With what you’re saying is it’s a bit different because of your situation, because again, as an elite athlete trying very little things make a difference. And where I’ve seen it working with people is carbohydrate sensitivity seems to come into play when we’re talking body composition seems to come into play when people are lean and want to get really lean.

Yeah. 

Andrew Steele: Okay. Yeah. So the fine. 

Mike Matthews: That’s what I’ve seen that people that are just quite overweight and which actually it makes probably makes better sense for them to do go lower carb just because their bodies probably don’t do very well with it. Because if you’re overweight, your insulin sensitivity is going to be, it’s not going to be good.

That’s for sure. It’s not going to be great. But I’ve worked with a lot of people that they just didn’t moderate carb intake. Yeah. Let’s say a guy is 250 pounds and he starts with 200 grams of protein, 200 and 250 grams of carbon, 50 grams of fat a day. I’ve worked with a billion people that fit that profile and do great.

But where I’ve seen it it can vary is when you get lean. And you want to get really lean and that, and my guess is it would come down to [00:25:00] something more like this because the, I wouldn’t say it’s common for me to see that somebody really needs to go low carb to get really lean. Because I guess you do gain as you get leaner, you gain and you become more insulin sensitive.

And especially if you’re also training your weightlifting three or four hours a week, and you’re doing a lot of high intensity cardio, which you’re doing a lot of things to in, in just eating well in general, you’re doing a lot of things to improve insulin sensitivity. But I’ve definitely seen that where there are certain people that just respond better to lower carb Then 

Andrew Steele: that’s it.

It’s all the question of like responders, so high of the high versus low responders, nobody is a non responder, so it’s effectively just how high or low responder are you to these various markers. And and that’s what our genes can tell us. And they, but they don’t tell us that this won’t work for you or this will work for you.

Is it just pointing someone towards the enlightening, the correct answer. More correct path or the probability of the more correct path. So it was very confusing. If you’re just thinking I’m going to start losing weight now. I want to really lean up. [00:26:00] What do I do? And currently it’s very zero carb, very high fat.

That’s on trend at the moment, but actually. Then you don’t know what’s going to happen in six months. Someone will say, Oh, you only eat raspberries now. It’s very confusing. So we just have to it’s probably already planned out. Yeah. What’s the next 

Mike Matthews: trend? We’re going to let this 

Andrew Steele: somewhere is planned it out.

We’re going to let 

Mike Matthews: this high fat thing ride out for a bit. Yeah. 

Andrew Steele: Talking of fat 

Mike Matthews: shall we have a look at, yeah let’s look at, let’s move on to the next one, which is fat sensitivity. 

Andrew Steele: So effectively we use this, the same concept here. That’s what our individual response to fats is.

So we have a panel of genes here that look at that and the cumulative effect of that. And there’s one interesting result to to pull out for you, Mike, which is the there’s the FTO gene. Now. Overall you’re a lower sensitivity. You’re not very low, like in the carbohydrates case, but you are less than medium.

So less than average response to fats, which is good. [00:27:00] But then the FTO gene is sometimes called the fat gene in the media. In your version called AT. So you’ve got one copy of the A version of the FTO gene and one copy of the T. So you’re officially called heterozygous. And the A version codes for an increased level of ghrelin, the hunger hormone.

So in some, in, in one study, in fact, that people that had two copies of the A were 70 percent more likely to be obese forever. Just because they’re 

Mike Matthews: hungry all the time. 

Andrew Steele: So this isn’t responsible for you being hungry all the time. You do create more than someone with TT, you’re basically coding for raised ghrelin activity.

Mike Matthews: What’s just ironic about that is I don’t get hungry. It just, it doesn’t matter. I don’t, I can not, I can fast for. 24 hours and I would maybe feel low on energy, but I would not feel hungry. I’d never feel hungry. Oh, amazing. Good for you. Good for you. People, that’s I’ve never, cause just being in the fitness world, people [00:28:00] are like, fuck you like for dieting.

You know what I mean? Cause I’ll be, I can be in a calorie deficit. It doesn’t matter. I just don’t get hungry. I can eat when I want to eat. I eat however much I want to eat. I can not eat. It just doesn’t matter. 

Amazing. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I mean that that’s gotta just be a. Because I, it wasn’t, that wasn’t the case when I was younger.

When I was in my early twenties, I would get very hungry. But also there’s a bit of a psychological thing there because I used to think that if you didn’t eat protein every two hours, you’re gonna lose all your muscle. You know what I mean? So yeah, I would be like internally anxious if I hadn’t eaten because I’m thinking I’m like losing all my gains or something.

So 

Andrew Steele: you almost train your mentality to. Care that much about your food. It’s 

Mike Matthews: not overly overthink it. Basically, that’s how that’s completely how I feel about it now, because you mean now that I’m more informed and I have a lot more experience where I know that my body does tend to do well on, I would say probably three to five meals a day is I feel good on that.

If I only if I miss if I have to eat two meals in a day, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like It’s, I’m at a point now where I’m also just maintaining the physique that [00:29:00] I want. So psychologically, yeah, that’s gone where I don’t have any sort of anxiety about food or eating as long.

I know if I hit my numbers every day and I get the majority of my calories from nutritious food and my balance, I have a balanced diet and that’s pretty much it. And so it’s just an interesting, it was an interesting thing to then see now that for whatever reason, there may be a physiological change that comes with it or whatever, but 

Andrew Steele: There’s the interest.

There’s one other really interesting gene here in this, which is the the FABP2, which is the long name for it is the fatty acid binding protein. And like its name suggests. That gene’s job is effectively to bind protein from the intestine into the bloodstream, basically. To take protein from the gut to the blood, and we don’t really want it in the blood.

That’s where we don’t want it. And then, the three versions of that gene are either very good at that job, mixed, or not so good at that job. And you’ve got the version which isn’t very good at its job. It’s not very good at taking the fat oxidation, and breezy, higher levels of triglyceride in the blood.

So basically in your case, the [00:30:00] fact that you eat is not necessarily being taken very well into the bloodstream to put it in a really simple way. So that’s good. Yeah. Yeah. That, 

Mike Matthews: yeah. And that’s, and just for the listeners to clarify there. When you, dietary fats are stored very efficiently as body fat.

The energy cost is very low. I think it’s somewhere between zero and three percent because the molecules are similar to what, body fat, how it’s, how it’s put together on a molecular level. Whereas carbohydrate, for instance, the energy cost is higher because it needs to go through a process called de novo lipogenesis where the body turns the glucose into body fat.

What you would want is what like what Andrew is saying is where you want as much fat oxidation to occur In terms of staying lean when especially in during bouts of overfeeding Ideally your body you want it to be burning off to be oxidizing as much as what as much of what you’re eating as it can Which means there’s less leftover for storage essentially 

Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: so you’re good at well, you’re gene that’s not good at [00:31:00] its job is good for you in and again just to correlate that to my experiences is I’ve noticed especially over the holidays and I was out of town for the weekend where I can eat quite a bit of food and if I don’t, of course there’s a point where it just becomes too much, but in, in concentrated, like bouts of overeating, where I’m going to eat a 5, 000 calorie dinner, just something ridiculous.

I just noticed in general that my body, of course I’ll gain body fat, but I don’t gain fat. I’m not like I’m not a hardcore ecto type person where they just don’t, it’s really hard for them to gain fat, but I definitely am on the. I’m more in that direction than the endomorphic where, they’re just very efficient at gaining body fat.

So I’ve noticed that where my body tends, it seems like it just tends to deal with calorie surpluses a little bit better than average. Yeah. Hey, I wish I was 

Andrew Steele: like, 

Mike Matthews: I’m not bragging. I’m just saying that that makes sense on these results, 

Andrew Steele: that’s good. Okay, great.

So look, that’s when [00:32:00] those two markers are really where we where we move people towards suggesting various macro splits or not based on these two responses to fats and carbs. There’s no real there was no evidence which has been strong enough to pass our protocol yet on particularly on protein or anything along those lines.

So we just stick to our carbs and our fats so far. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. In my case, what the diet that, that works best for me is obviously a moderately high protein intake somewhere around a gram per pound. And then I have a moderately high carb intake depends on what I’m doing with it, but it’s always on a moderately high.

And then I have a moderately low fat intake somewhere around probably 0. 3 grams per pound of lean mass is just like my general level of intake. And yeah, that it works well for me. My body always feels good. I have energy in the gym and that’s good. That’s my balance. 

Andrew Steele: Definitely with someone on the carb side of things, if someone came to me as an with a, what you have, they’re very low responder.

I would certainly discourage them from [00:33:00] trying the, the low carb high fat I don’t feel good 

Mike Matthews: on it. It’s just, 

Andrew Steele: I don’t feel good. No, that’s it. And genetics may be part of the reason that it may not be. We don’t know the full, like everything about the person. 

Mike Matthews: There’s also, I guess the physical, I’d have to get, I’m not gonna, I’ve done it for shorter periods of time and if I were to really stick to it, I’m sure for six months that my body would, it would have to adjust to some degree.

Andrew Steele: Yeah we’d all have to adjust if we stick to something for six months, but but how adherable it is to you part of the genetics you want to play with your genetics rather than against them, so that’s it for sure. The next real like marker we look at on the diet side is this detoxification ability.

Yeah, this is interesting. So quite interesting here. This is not to make this so clear, this is not going on a detox in common. Obviously as you will know, your listeners will know as far as food being said. Yeah. So I’m not telling you to go and drink only kale juice for three weeks. Here, this is not going to tell you that, but we look at basically the genetics around both phase one and phase two detoxification function [00:34:00] in the liver.

So this can be the most lot of. the most sciencey part of the test almost to try and get across. So I’ll be really like blunt, simple, just so people get a sense for it. But in phase one we focus on the risk of DNA damage. So the risk of potentially toxic risk from too much of these PAH and HCA, which if people aren’t familiar with potentially toxic compounds that we get.

In our diet, the richest source is from char grilled meat, high temperature cooked meat, so the tasty bit on the meat, basically. The blacker, yeah. Now in the UK, it’s not very common here that our customers eat this char grilled meat that often. In the US, it’s a good deal more common, in hot countries, of course.

And, barbecue, char broiled, etc. The, What we do is we can look at these two genes, which affect how fast you activate the enzymes in these, but in liver detoxification in phase one so there’s a CYP1A2 [00:35:00] gene and the EPHX1 gene, and they, depending on the version you have, they are the code for the fast activity or the slow activity or one of each, so mixed.

And in your case, Mike, you’re the fastest possible. You’ve got the you’ve got both of those genes. You’ve got the version of the gene, which activates them faster. And the faster you activate, the higher the risk of DNA damage. So you want to be the slower end ideally, but in your case, you’re the faster end.

There’s no evidence to say you don’t need, you need to cut this out completely. You don’t need to never have meat with any high temperature cooked. Yeah, I just shouldn’t be doing it every day. We try it. We say like maximum two servings a week. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. 

And I probably have one a month maybe.

And it’s like a steak from a restaurant. 

Andrew Steele: Okay, cool. That’s great. If, so what we say to people is look, if you’ve got the choice. of the cooking method. Think, can you make the choice which leaves less of that Maillard reaction it’s called, that’s the char grilled, nice, burnt bits on the meat, if you [00:36:00] can.

And if, if it’s not your choice and it has to be done, then that’s a lifestyle factor which we can’t change, and so be it. But if you can make the choice, think if you can avoid less of that. It might be keeping the meat moving in the pan, sautéing it, steaming it, etc. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, guess it depends how I’m cooking.

I, sometimes I’ll be broiling, but again, it’s not there there’s not much in the way of burning it’s in, I eat a lot of chicken and I eat fish and turkey and things that I guess the most, 

Andrew Steele: the highest risk the highest concentration food types would be those that are long, slow smoked, then high temperature grilled.

Your ribs and your your sort of brisket or pulled pork that’s gone through two of those phases, which increased the levels of PAH and HCAs. And they’re only potentially toxic, but they can lead to DNA damage, which then leads to much worse things on a chronic long term level. Good to be aware of it, Mike, if you find your habits changing and then that kind of feeds into phase two detoxification here, which is the next page, which is the GSMT1 and GSTT1 genes.

Now in [00:37:00] phase two detoxification, we need an enzyme effectively to put it really basically to metabolize away potentially toxic substances. Okay. A scientist would probably slap me for over but basically we need these two genes to generate this enzyme that 

Mike Matthews: can clear the toxins out. Yeah.

Andrew Steele: Let’s say that. That phrase clear the toxins sounds so much which I hate. But to say it in that way, yes we actually have this gene active or we don’t, we have the deletion or the insertion, the null version or the active version, basically. And depending on what version you’ve got, you need to either get this enzyme from somewhere else or you’re generating it, naturally.

Enough in your case might your you’ve got the deletion of one of those two genes So one of those genes is the null version. It is not generating the enzyme you need But luckily you can completely cancel out the lack of that genes activity by increasing cruciferous vegetable intake [00:38:00] in particular, which are broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, and cauliflower, basically.

The average recommendations say, oh, five fruit or veg a day, or five veg a day. They don’t specify what the veg is. In sum up with your gene result, we’d specify that of that veg, at least four times a week, it should be a cruciferous vegetable. Cool. And what’s the molecule in those vegetables that’s really it’s this DIM, D I M.

If you but you can also supplement if you can. Yeah, exactly. I’m not sure of the research of whether that’s as efficient or not. Probably not. I 

Mike Matthews: mean, it’s always food in its natural state pretty much always beat supplements. But I guess well, not always. I guess there are certain some things you really a certain types of vitamins and things that Yeah.

You probably 

Andrew Steele: struggle to get enough vitamin D if from just from diet if you’re, unless you’re eating herring. So yeah, that’s one of those, but in dim, dim, you can get a dim supplement for sure. And that’s, that’d be an individual’s choice. We try not to make any distinction between what’s better [00:39:00] or not there, but but yeah, basically get your dim in for you in particular, that would be perhaps quite useful.

Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Also I think it was something about garlic and onions on there. Yeah, that was also good for me. Yeah. So the Allium vegetables. Yeah, I love garlic now. I’m eating a ton of garlic and onions. And then also I do a few times a week. I either do like cauliflower or broccoli and I like Brussels sprouts a lot as well.

So it’s also funny that I don’t know if that’s just a. a thing or if it’s just a coincidence that it seems like I tend to gravitate toward the certain types of foods that my body does benefit from. I really like cruciferous vegetables. I really like garlic onions. I’m not a big fan of charred burnt meat.

Like I think it’s, I think it’s okay, but I don’t, it’s not like I ever have cravings. You don’t crave it. Exactly. 

Andrew Steele: That’s really interesting. And I, That would take someone with an extremely amazing psychological behavioral PhD to yeah. No, I’m just, 

Mike Matthews: I’m just saying it. I remember thinking that going through it like, Oh, that’s interesting.

Cause I kind of gravitate toward those things and gravitate away [00:40:00] from. 

Andrew Steele: And I often find that the people say, yeah, I know. So sometimes it’s reconfirming or reframing what they thought their instinct was. And other times it’s oh, okay. I need to make a big change then, but I generally find probably a majority of people are like, Oh yeah, that’s right.

Actually. If I’m true to, if I’m honest to myself, no, I don’t really care about that food, but I have always eaten lots of this, et cetera. So yeah, that’s good to hear. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m just there, conscious of boring people with loads and loads of individual and. Information’s here on the genes, but we look at then four pages of whether you’ve got a raised or normal need for antioxidants, omega 3 the B complex vitamins, and vitamin D, and just whether the genes signal the normal need or something above that.

So in your case, yeah we’ve got the four pages. So we’ve got a raised need for antioxidants and in particular one gene which signals a race need for selenium. So your Brazil nuts might be a little bit more important to you than someone else with a different gene type. So I didn’t 

Mike Matthews: get on that Brazil [00:41:00] nut wagon.

I just suffer, man. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah. Fine. Hey, get the selenium. Yeah, that’s good. And an omega three, is an interesting one and maybe something which some people overlook actually in their, health and fitness choices. We’ve all kind of heard of oily fish are good for us.

Deep sea cold water fish are good for us. That’s because of their omega three content generally. And some people have genes, which signal a. Like a raised basal inflammatory response, like a raised cytokine levels, et cetera. And more omega 3 would be needed than the average to tamper that or to counteract that.

In your case, Mike, you’re a normal, so the average recommendations would apply. There’s no harm in you taking extra omega 3. Some people, they would have gene results would say, look, you might need almost threefold the average recommended daily allowance. That, that would be important to know 

Mike Matthews: just for overall health.

Sure. Yeah. Cause really long term health. It’s so important, especially if you’re a raised knee. Yeah. Yeah. I take about three grams a day, [00:42:00] so I take more than I may need, but it’s not a, it’s not an absurd high amount. 

Andrew Steele: No. And three grams is not super high in, in, in sporting circles. Some people are on 10 grams a day, and and that’s fine.

But if you are paying for that, then there’s probably a pretty expensive way to live. 

Mike Matthews: That’s by a couple hundred dollars. If you’re buying the it’s high quality stuff. Exactly. Like natural triglycerides and 

Andrew Steele: yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. 

Andrew Steele: And then the same general principle applies vitamin B and vitamin D.

The vitamin B is around the MTHFR gene, which is associated depending on the version with raised levels of homocysteine, which needs to be, it’s requirements need to be met by B complex, et cetera. The 

Mike Matthews: mother, the motherfucker gene. I remember that one. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah. That’s right. I’m trying to remember who told me that originally, but I didn’t want to be so crude and then the vitamin D receptor gene.

Whether you’ve got an impaired, like calcium absorption and vitamin D need based on gene, which you are heterozygous for. So you’ve got a slightly raised need, but in my opinion, we could all do with a lot more vitamin 

Mike Matthews: D. Absolutely. We just have all so much research that, Michael Holick, Dr.

Michael Holick is, he’s been the pioneer of [00:43:00] that. And now we know what was once thought as sufficient is now It’s such an excellent at the bottom of at the bottom, 

Andrew Steele: it’s so important for so many different realms, not just the obvious immune health, which everyone talks about, so yeah, I consider that very important and in your gene type, it’s even more important than 

Mike Matthews: someone else. So I take, I actually had a blood test one of these days just for fun to see where everything’s at. Cause I take between my, at my normal dailies, 5, 000 I use a day. And but I know that a buddy of mine was doing 5, 000 IUs a day as well.

And he went and got for a long time and he went and we live in Florida or not that we’re in the sun that much. Cause we just sit inside cave trolls and work, but he went and got tested and he was low, he needed more. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah, that’s it. So that would tell him, okay, I’m going to take advantage of the fact I’m in Florida and actually get, yeah, I know.

Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: sure. So then we got now we move into salt, alcohol and caffeine sensitivity. That’s 

Andrew Steele: right. Yeah. So you’re very quickly. The salt is like from a general health, like health bodies and governmental agencies [00:44:00] very much push the low salt. Yeah. thing. And in some people, the gene results create a raised risk above the average of hypertension high blood pressure predisposition based on the normal salt intake.

In your case, you are a raised predisposition to that. So 

look, 

Andrew Steele: if you’re doing a lot of exercise. and you’re sweating, you’re a lot of activity, you probably don’t need to be too careful on your salting, but on a longer term basis, if you find your habits are quite high in terms of salt intake, then it might be keep this in mind, that you are at a raised predisposition of hypertension health problems from excess salt.

Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I generally stick to the Institute of Medicines, like two to two to three grams of sodium a day. And I do about double that in potassium. Yeah, 

Andrew Steele: that’s good. And that’s about right. We look at that saying between two and three grams is about the sort of normal range.

Anything above that is where we start to talk of excessive sodium intake. So yeah, bear that in mind. It’s a good motivator to when you’re picking up, when you’re cooking your food, do I need to add this salt now or not? [00:45:00] Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: I actually save my salt for dinner. I like to cook. So I usually You know, I get I might need a teaspoon of salt for or so, which is about, I think it’s like 2.

2 grams of sodium for a teaspoon, something like that. So the majority of my salt, I just save it for dinner. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah. Great. And then we have this alcohol response. Now this is not what everybody wants it to be. Everyone is going to tell me I should drink more, right? But have you ever heard the phrase, a glass of red wine a day is actually good for you?

Sure. Yeah. And it’s very commonly said in your gene type, Mike, it’s not true. I 

Mike Matthews: disagree. No, I don’t even like alcohol. 

Andrew Steele: That’s great. And if there’s no harm in not drinking, of course we’re talking about. Literally fully moderate alcohol consumption, so literally let’s say one unit a day, a small glass of wine a day.

I say red wine because of its resveratrol and various other stuff around it, but in some gene types, moderate and moderate only intake is actually associated, has a positive [00:46:00] effect. On HDL cholesterol. So actually on the, positive effects on blood lipids. In your case, it’s not doing the positive effect.

It’s not doing the negative effect either, but you’re not getting energy, something actively good out of let’s say a small glass of wine a day. And no need to start drinking. Yeah. That’s all I need is an excuse to become an alcoholic. Yeah, good. So you’re actually what we call almost a, a rapid metabolizer.

So the the acetaldehyde is actually rapidly metabolized 

Mike Matthews: into, and what would that mean? The reason why I ask is my brother has been much more into drinking. That was more his thing. I don’t, he hasn’t gotten one of these tests, so I don’t know where he’s at, but I know that. Actually, it’s not true.

He did do a test. I don’t know what it was exactly. He did some tests where basically what they told him is because I guess he can drink a lot and he just doesn’t get hangovers. And so I wonder if I were to drink with this gene, does this mean that my body would process the alcohol quickly? And I, or is it that not related or how would that 

Andrew Steele: It’s not really as simple as that as far as I understand, but you [00:47:00] metabolize the alcohol into the toxic intermediate, which is acetaldehyde faster.

So that means I would get drunk faster, not entirely sure, but because there’s so much other around your tolerance and you know what you just eat and et cetera, but it has been associated with with. worse 

Mike Matthews: hangover symptoms. Worse, okay. So yeah, my brother might be different because apparently he can get blackout drunk And he’s fine the next day.

Yeah, and then wake up the next day without even a headache. And ironically, he’s probably 

Andrew Steele: also getting a positive effect on his cholesterol from the first Yeah, I don’t know. After that, he probably cancels out the benefit of it. Yeah, exactly. Good. So that’s basically what we can signal, have you got the version of the gene which gives you a positive Cholesterol response from moderate and moderate only I must stress alcohol and then we have caffeine.

So do you drink much coffee Mike or 

Mike Matthews: not coffee? No, I wish I liked It smells so good to me. It tastes horrible to me. So unfortunately, but I do I do get my caffeine, not [00:48:00] every day. If I’m not working out, if I, I have one or two days where I’m not lifting in a week, I’m not doing pre workout.

But my average caffeine intake, I would say is between 200 and 400 milligrams a day. 

Andrew Steele: Fine. Perfect. In your case, anyway, you’re what metabolizer of caffeine, which means that there is not been associated any Increased health risks from excess caffeine intake. So that’s interesting 

Mike Matthews: because caffeine in, I, when I have caffeine, it hits me very quickly and it’s out very quickly.

Andrew Steele: Yeah the rapid metabolizer would imply that too, so that’s good. Those that are slow they’ve been, in, in the studies shown that when they their caffeine intake is, let’s say, excess of 300 milligrams a day on a chronic level those with the slow version of that gene were associated with raised risk of bone mineral density, health problems and the other, the stuff which has been linked to excess caffeine, but in your gene type, they weren’t associated with it.

So basically if you want to [00:49:00] drink caffeine every day, then there’s no, nothing stopping you. And if you go into excess, then it seems that you’d be okay as well. Interesting. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. That that again, corresponds to my experience that I never, I don’t go into excess intakes. I don’t really feel the need to, but like I said, I know that I can have 400 milligrams of caffeine on an empty stomach and I’ll feel it.

I’m not going to get jittery. I’m not going to be like, my heart’s not going to be racing. And then within an hour, 45 minutes to an hour, I’ll feel I could go take a nap. I feel totally back to normal. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah, cool. I’m seriously into my caffeine so much. So I’ve done, barista course professionally and et cetera, but 

I 

Andrew Steele: can drink coffee pretty late in the day and it has no impact on me and I’m a fast metabolizer too.

So that’s fine. Yeah, that’s it. Keep going with it with the caffeine. Yes. 

Mike Matthews: I Love caffeine. There’s my one drug of choice caffeine. Yeah. 

Andrew Steele: Hey as a professional athlete, it’s the only vice I can have So I need it here for sure. And then the last two markers Michael just the lactose intolerance and celiac [00:50:00] predisposition.

So I’ll quickly touch on the lactose one because it’s quite on trend to cut out lactose or dairy from people’s diets nowadays and If you’re not lactose intolerant, then, or casein allergic, then, it’s probably a bad idea to cut it out in order to lose out a big source of calcium. And protein.

Yeah. Yeah. Great protein, so look, there’s the LCT gene, which is called the lactase persistence gene. We’re all born with the ability to generate lactase that as humans, as mammals, that’s what we’re born with. Yeah. And And this lactase helps us digest lactose basically now in a huge majority of the human population that ability turns off after early life after we stop needing our mother’s milk after a couple of years or so Then we stop generating lactase and therefore we become officially lactose intolerant now At some point in history, an individual in, they predict central northern Europe developed a mutation which [00:51:00] allowed him or her to continue generating lactase all their life.

And then you have half of this person’s gene and half of the rest of people’s genes. So you should generate enough lactase on a genetic level to have normal amounts of lactose. You have half of the lactase generating gene. and half not. I don’t know if you found any problems with lactose or 

Mike Matthews: no, I have to eat a lot for it to be a problem.

Or I found if it’s very low quality, I don’t generally eat low, but if it’s like there’s certain types of dairy in the past where it’s upset my stomach, but generally speaking no, like I have, I’m obviously fine with whey protein. My, the whey protein that I personally use is a whey isolate.

So it has basically no lactose anyway, whey concentrates are fine. And Yeah, I don’t drink milk much just because it’s I feel like it’s a waste of calories, but i’ve never really had a problem with dairy. No 

Andrew Steele: Yeah, good. That’s it. Genetically that you, that would be what I would probably guess.

That’s it. Some people, they can, you can read a little bit into ancestry somehow from the LCT gene too. Yeah, that’s what I was just thinking. But [00:52:00] but yeah you’ve got half of the lactase generating gene. You should not have much problem with that unless it’s in huge levels, of course.

Yes. And I’ve 

Mike Matthews: actually noticed that before. for where I’ve had in the course of a day, maybe a couple of cups of Greek yogurt and some cheese for dinner, something like that. There is a point where it will upset my stomach, but it takes a lot. 

Andrew Steele: Okay. 

Mike Matthews: Right. 

Andrew Steele: That’s very good. And then the last one we look at is predisposition to celiac.

Now this is the medical gluten intolerance, not the currently trendy. I’m cutting out gluten, which I’ve written, which I’ve written about. It’s so stupid. How have you? Yeah, I was wondering where your opinion lay on that. Yeah, as far as, medicines concerned, there’s not really any such thing as non celiac gluten intolerance, but there was a 

Mike Matthews: big study that came out just recently that showed essentially what people, just for listeners to long story short, you had people that, that believed that they were gluten sensitive.

And when they eat, when they ate gluten, they had, certain or foods with gluten, they had a GI problems. And basically what it boiled down to is in the [00:53:00] study, when they. When they were being given straight gluten, but they didn’t know it was gluten. They had no reactions, but then researchers went a bit further.

And what they found with these people is that they were sensitive to certain types of carbohydrates, which are known as FODMAPs fermentable oligosaccharides, blah, blah, blah. It’s a long acronym, but wheat. Is one of them. There are others like different types of beans, random foods that when food maps were cut out of these people’s diets, then their GI issues became markedly better.

So what, when in many cases, what people think is a gluten intolerance is actually just that their body isn’t good at breaking down this type of carbohydrate. And then what happens is it goes, it passes through the small intestine, not fully digested and it ferments in the large intestine. Then you get gas and you just don’t, you get bloated and don’t feel good.

Just for the listener, that’s a, that’s something to keep in mind. If you think you might be gluten sensitive, you’re probably not. You might just be running into food intolerances, certain foods, certain types of foods that your body just doesn’t do well with, but it’s not the gluten. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah, it’s very common that [00:54:00] people, I might be gluten intolerant or not. And if you are medically celiac, then you need to know, that’s a serious thing. What the average risk is about one in 100. So our genetics play quite a sort of role in putting us into one of three like predisposition categories.

So the average about one in 100. In your gene type, Mike, you are in the higher predisposition risk. So you’re in the one in 35 category. By that doesn’t still not that higher risk one in 35. And I would normally say, make sure this is not diagnostic. We can’t tell if you are or you aren’t.

Absolutely. What we’d say is that, one in 35, I normally ask them on, how do you feel after eating gluten? Do you feel particularly bad symptoms? And if so, then please go to your doctor to start the process of being diagnosed celiac or not. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s in my case. No, I have no symptoms.

I’ve been eating grains For my entire life and never had him. So it’s impossible that I’m celiac. ’cause I [00:55:00] would’ve, it would’ve developed by now. I would’ve had enough of the autoimmune, it would’ve beaten my small intestine to shit by now, and I would have the problem. You know what I mean? Yeah. 

Andrew Steele: I think especially for someone you who’s evidently so in tune with their lifestyle, their health and fitness you would probably know if you didn’t feel quite right.

Definitely. That’s it. So my father was Celiac and he actually only really realized in his sixties. Oh wow. And actually, but he was never healthy, so you couldn’t really say that he would have noticed it anyway. Yeah, and that’s a 

Mike Matthews: good point too, because symptoms can be masked by other conditions that, you were, you just, if you always just feel like shit, then how do you know Oh, I just ate that bread and I feel like shit as usual.

So I don’t know. Yeah, 

Andrew Steele: But I’m always tired anyway, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, that’s the but so what we normally say is look the other end of the genes. put someone in less than one in 2000 risk of it. So they’re pretty unlikely. In your case, you’re more likely, but it’s still one in 35.

That’s just to be aware of that. And should someone have [00:56:00] particularly bad symptoms, we just encourage them to start getting diagnosed or not, 

Mike Matthews: yeah. Which would be a good idea, even without a gene test. If you notice that, it’s worth going to a doctor and finding out, because if you leave celiac untreated, it’s, it gets real bad.

It’s so important. 

Andrew Steele: And that’s what people don’t realize. I think they think of it as gluten intolerance. It’s not, it’s a real medical condition, to know for sure. 

Mike Matthews: So that’s the diet report. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah. That’s basically the last mark on the nutrition side of things. We have a little table at the end there, which shows a whole host of the micronutrients themselves and whether what the normal recommended daily allowances and then whether the genes on that we analyze signal a raised need or not based on that.

So yeah, that’s just an overview. And then we’ve got these four markers that we look at in terms of fitness genetics or performance genetics, depends what you want to call it, whether it’s exercise, fitness, training, performance. It all basically focuses around the activity we do to get better and what the genes say about that.

So we have four sections. This power endurance response is [00:57:00] mainly the, yeah. The real headline section that people always ask us about. So should we have a quick dig into that? And yeah, let’s do it. Obviously we work with a lot of professional sports, like your premiership soccer teams here.

And a lot of those, and this is, you can imagine is particularly useful in team sports when people are, what are those strengths to 22 people at the same time. Yeah. But actually as an individual trying to get fitter, it’s. at the moment, it’s all about trends again. So at the moment, it’s very on trend to be doing just hit, just very high intensity interval training and nothing else.

And then it used to be that you had to hit the road and go for miles and miles if you were considered to be doing the right exercise. So again, it’s all very confusing. So what we’re trying to do is give this extra layer of information to help point someone or give them more info to choose which way they point based on.

Who they are rather than just try something because it’s I read about it in this magazine, 

Mike Matthews: etc. Yeah, there’s also people need to keep in mind though. What are their goals? [00:58:00] Like I’m a bit. I’m a big advocate of hit over lists if for when it comes to fat loss because At this point, whatever, I’ve probably looked over myself 20 to 30 different studies that there’s just no question you burn more fat over time doing higher intensity interval cardio than incline walking or jogging.

And that’s why I enjoy a hit and I recommend it just because my why I’m doing cardio is It’s for cardiovascular health, but also because I want to burn. It’s for fat loss reasons, really primarily, yeah. 

Andrew Steele: And that’s it. The goal is so important. We must make clear that we never ever use genetics, say power and genetics, endurance genetics to change somebody’s goal, to say what’s a good or bad.

There’s no such thing as good or bad. There’s no such thing as can or can’t in terms of genetics. It’s just tweaking the method you use to reach that goal, whatever it may be. To. Almost play for your genetic strength. So there’s no such thing as a, Oh, is that a good profile for a marathon runner or a bad profile?

Yeah. Or 

Mike Matthews: even Oh, should I still be lifting [00:59:00] heavy weights or should I go? You know what I mean? 

Andrew Steele: Yeah, that’s it. So we always take into account the goal, what the level they are how often can they train? Do they have a gym? What do they want to do exactly? The preference is really important too.

We take what is adjustable and can we adjust that taking into account these genetics? So in your case you come out as a bit of a mixed bag in terms of our sort of percentage score about a third of these panelists are the power response genes and two thirds, the endurance response.

But there’s one key gene result, which is interesting to look up there. The ACTM three gene, which is almost like an a list gene. If there’s such a thing, this is the headline gene, if anyone ever talked about sports or exercise and genes, the ACTM3 gene comes up. That’s because one version of it it’s the C version.

Sometimes they refer to it as the R version in the studies. It’s the C version has been associated. It basically codes for a protein which is better at [01:00:00] fast paced muscle production. In 97 percent of Olympic level sprint athletes, they all had. At least one copy of the C version. And you have one copy of the C version, Mike.

So I’m basically an Olympic swimmer. All right, cool. You’re already an Olympic swimmer. All you need to do is put the spikes on and you’re there. Okay. So look, what we do is with this I don’t want to. We don’t want to neglect either realm but you’ve got that key ACTN3 gene, which would imply that, you’re going to see a good response from this fast, high intensity side of things because you can build this protein, the fast paced muscle protein, basically.

That’s really important to note. There’s the IL 6 gene, which you’ve got there. The GG version is particularly strongly associated with the power response. And, but then you’ve also got a few of the other genes, which are, really quite well associated with endurance response too. The double insertion of the ACE gene, II version of the ACE gene the other ones, the PPARA gene.

And so there’s a whole host there, which you’ve got on the endurance side too. So [01:01:00] what I would, When you work out, I get, you’ve found out entirely what works for you, over, over the years for sure. Yeah. Yeah. My body 

Mike Matthews: responds well to particularly well to have your weight lifting but again it’s a goal thing.

Like my goal it. Go back five years because my first five or six years was close. Seven years. I didn’t really, I wasn’t very informed in the gym. I was doing a lot of high rep stuff and magazine workouts. And yeah, I, my, I built some muscle, but nothing really that impressive.

And, but where my body really started to change was when I, my, my workout programming and got better. And, it’s probably more just a factor of. Switching from shitty like isolation type magazine, bodybuilder workout to more barbell, heavy barbell training, squatting, deadlifting, pressing that’s going to change.

That’s going to change anybody’s body. And that’s, I see that now, working with, I’ve worked with thousands of people that there’s nobody that doesn’t respond to heavy barbell training. It just is what it is. But yeah, so I find it is dictated by my goals which aren’t necessarily performance like, I’m fairly strong and [01:02:00] if I were willing to get fatter, I could get stronger, that’s for sure but I have seen that my body, it does respond well to heavier weightlifting.

I’ve been able to build a good amount of muscle Pr pretty high FFMI for a natural weightlifter, probably around 24. And so 

Andrew Steele: yeah. Great. Yeah. Your a TM three gene is certainly helping you along the way there, I would say. Yeah, that makes sense. I, so what we try and do is say, look, we want to take advantage of that.

At least one of the workouts per week, we wanna make a high intensity low reps, lots of sets. recovery. We might look at even like six sets of three or something along the Olympic powerlifting type methodology to take advantage of those. And then we would supplement that at the other end of the week, perhaps, or whenever it works in someone’s schedule with the more traditional not that traditional, but still, the bodybuilding world.

So take advantage of the endurance response side of things. And that’s how I train. 

Mike Matthews: I train, I periodize in my workouts. So I’m going to be doing, I’m going to be starting my workouts with very heavy powerlifting one to three rep [01:03:00] type stuff. And then the middle of my workout is a moderate four to six, five to seven.

And then the end of my workout is a couple sets in the higher rep ranges. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah, very good. And one, one, one tweak you could think about in the future is even splitting that up into different days. So I’ve done that 

Mike Matthews: before too as well. Yeah. 

Andrew Steele: The sort of polarization of of the training, which people love in sports science thanks to a few sort of very long term studies.

One that was 38 year length study on the Dutch speed skating team. And the biggest change was this polarization from when they were did power, they did just power. Yeah. Or instead of just endurance. Yeah, really interesting. So that’s where you are. You’ve got this ACTN3 the A list power gene but there’s also a couple of really important endurance response genes there, which I wouldn’t want to neglect either.

Good that you span both ends of the spectrum there. Yeah, that’s interesting. And then so we’ve got three markets here now, I don’t want to dwell too much into depth on each of them, but we have a VO2 max response. So if you have [01:04:00] measuring your VO2 max levels, we have a high responder versus low responder there.

And if that was a goal of yours which I’m guessing is perhaps not your VO2 max, 

Mike Matthews: yeah, and that would just be if VO two max, just so this knows like how well your body uses oxygen. So I guess a higher VO O2 max, we just more for longer endurance stuff. And that was never really my thing.

No, those that are really into their, triathlons, iron Man’s. Yeah, no, the sports I played the most the sport I played the most growing up was hockey. And that, that’s a very it’s high intensity activity and then downtime. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah. So if somebody’s goal is really improving their endurance sport, then they’re use VO two max as a measure of how well they’re doing.

This is important to know because some genes create a kind of genetic resistance to reaching the highest levels of VO two max. They don’t stop you, but they make your make a low responder. They make it a little bit more difficult to work harder for it. You need to know that. And you need to give yourself, a longer.

So turn around time and when you’re going to reach your goal or how you work out differently in order to make it the most efficient if that’s your [01:05:00] goal. I see. And if it’s not your goal, then it’s good to know. But but that’s where it stops in that case. If you’re not trying to improve your VO2 max.

Cool. And then we have recovery and injury. So recovery speed. We are looking at the genes here associated with a pro-inflammatory response. As your listeners will know, every time we work out, there’s effectively an inflammatory response in the body that’s part of working out, that’s part of training.

That’s what makes us better. Yeah. But some genes signal actually are raised above the normal. Levels of inflammation and you’ve only got two of those genes. So you’re actually towards the faster end of our recovery profile there. So this is not a recovery between exercises or between sets.

This is recovery on a macro level, systemic recovery. Yeah, that’s it. So what we normally do is just try and if someone has only got a, three or four days in the week to work out. And they were slow recover. Then we have to really, the importance of spreading this out. So the CNS recovers fully and et cetera, et cetera.

If you ever, do you [01:06:00] find that you feel like a faster than average recoverer? Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: for sure. I’ve been able, it’s all, I’ve always been where I can push my body pretty hard, even when I’m in a calorie deficit, I can push it pretty hard. I, I max out at about, I would say five hours of weight lifting and two hours of hit per week when I’m in a calorie deficit.

But that’s a quite, and that’s all like my weight lifting is intense. A lot of heavy weight lifting. So that’s a, that’s quite a bit of exercise when it went into calorie deficit and this, 

Andrew Steele: yeah, that’s quite a heavy load. Yeah. Yes. 

Mike Matthews: And, but my body, I’m totally fine. Like I have no, if there are any.

I’m sure you have the standard. I’m sure my hormone profile is, it’s affected by some degree just because it is what it is, but I don’t have any, nothing that I noticed. I don’t feel a major drop in libido. I don’t feel a major drop in energy. I feel generally fine. So that, that, that makes sense that I would have that result.

Andrew Steele: Yeah, great. That’s good. Don’t be scared of your load and just how you feel. And 

Mike Matthews: [01:07:00] yeah, and again, it’s like I said, I was saying earlier, just for the listeners, a lot of the, this is something where I just would come to. And this is something I talk about, fairly often part of this whole world is learning your body.

There are certain principles and laws and rules that apply to everybody. But then there are things like this where you have to learn what your body can take. And I have worked with a lot of people where I know that they can’t do as much as I can do in a calorie deficit. They know that their body does best and they feel fine on three days of weightlifting and maybe an hour to hour and a half of cardio per week.

And so by, by getting a test done like this, it can help speed that process up of just learning where your body’s sweet spot is. Because for really the goal is a lifestyle and longevity, not, train not burn yourself out in two years and then be done. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah, that’s it. It’s a lifestyle thing.

And we want to, we want to just help people understand a little bit more about who they are and some of the cards they’ve been dealt almost as a special as a human. The, the recovery, because [01:08:00] often people’s choices are, they’re guided by one of few things, the media, what they read in men’s health and men’s fitness, whatever what their friend does, or they, an associate or the guy at the gym who also works out and he does this four days a week back to back.

And 

Mike Matthews: yeah and frequency in high volume, high frequency, high volume is very popular right now in the weightlifting scene. Where, people are trying to do, they’re trying to do push, pull legs, rest, push, pull legs on it. And they’re trying to, it’s commonly where one of those, three of those workouts are going to be very heavy.

And three of those workouts are going to be, 10 to 12 rep. And I’ve emailed with a lot of people that have tried to do those and it just beats them down. Even in a calorie surplus. It’s two or three months, almost one for one. And that’s very popular right now though, because it’s pushed by a lot of guys that are on drugs that don’t disclose that they don’t.

So people don’t know yeah, what you don’t know is the, eight grams of drugs that guy’s on every week. And that’s why 

Andrew Steele: he’s recovering. He’s 

Mike Matthews: recovering five times as fast as you. 

Andrew Steele: That’s chasing this thing we call it sports [01:09:00] science and the super compensatory effects, where you get more than.

The cumulative effect of double the, so it’s and that’s, yeah, that’s a very rarely used when you’ve got to be so careful and using the super compensatory effects, for sure. Cause if you get it wrong, you just burn out and you don’t get any effects. So you don’t get any benefits.

So that’s it. So yeah, the inflammatory response there was quite an important factor to be aware of if you’re trying to plan your week and, especially if you’re tempted by this high frequency, high volume school of thought. And then the last one is injury risk. Now, we’re really concentrating around injury predisposition here.

This is not necessarily meaning you’re going to be injured or you aren’t, but certain genes signal a raised probability of mainly injuries around tendon ligament type of thing. So there is some stuff around inflammatory response and prevalence of muscle tears, for example, but for most guys going to the gym and working out, the tendons can be the real.

issue there. So Achilles tendinopathy, patella tendinopathy, et cetera, et cetera. Now in your case, Mike you’re [01:10:00] higher than average. You’re not the very high, but in particular the col1a1 and col5a, 5a1 genes they’re focused around collagen. Basically they are they are basically the collagen found in your connective tissues and your tendons, ligaments and cartilage.

And depending on the. They’re associated with either an increased risk or moderate or non increased risk. So you’ve got the you’ve got the let’s see where your call five, a one, the TT version. In particular that’s reported it to. Contribute to increased risk of tendinopathies.

Now if you’re not, you’re probably not gonna get an Achilles tendinopathy if you’re not road running or you’re not using your Achilles tendon a lot. Yeah. . But if you ever had any issues like in, in soreness or pain or, you Yeah, I’ve had, 

Mike Matthews: I’ve had with my patellar tendon on my right leg.

But it also is related to tightness in the quad. ’cause I work with a massage therapist. There’s been like. With tight like my VMO has been very tight. I didn’t really notice it. I was feeling it more in my patellar [01:11:00] tendon. But generally speaking, no, I haven’t I’ve never had any injury.

I’ve just had, I’ve strained muscles here and there. Nothing. Not even. Yeah. Mild type of strains, nothing major. But again, that’s probably more because I’m pretty strict on my form, and I’m just not stupid in the gym I, I use weights I can handle I’m, I keep my form in I’m not pushing the boundaries of weekly volume, I’m not going super high frequency.

So I guess knock on wood, no, I haven’t, I 

Andrew Steele: think just be away, if you find your patella or any flaring up a little bit, treat it with the the importance, maybe a greater importance than you might be tempted to. Cause you’re at this just slightly raised predisposition for these things.

You your genes are just signaling, look, 

Mike Matthews: the risk is a little bit higher here. Yeah, and that’s good to know because what I’ve always done is when things are bothering me at all, I just back off of it and let them get better. And then get back to what I’m doing, even if that means that, I guess it wasn’t because of this wasn’t a [01:12:00] tendon issue, but for instance, as I was building my squat up I was having hip flexor, my hip flexors were getting so sore and I had to drop weight to 225 and just work with 225 for probably three or four weeks before they finally just to settle down and then I can move back up and wait.

Just 

Andrew Steele: to allow the adaptation there and get it to come back to normal. So that’s it. I would take away from those that the GDF five and the two cold genes are particularly focused around their tendinopathy actually. And you’ve got the raised predisposition that they had the half raised or fully raised position on all three of those.

Yeah. Bear that in mind, especially just watch your tendon and your sort of. Your collagen influenced areas. So tendons, ligaments and cartilage when you’re loading up. So that’s about it. That’s your, that’s the summation of your fitness and nutrition genetic profile. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. And like I said, it’s it’s great because.

It confirms some things that were, I’m not surprised where I, it gravitated towards certain things or away from certain things. And [01:13:00] then just ed, I feel educated more on how my body works. And like for instance, injury risk thing, something good to keep in mind, because again, I’m all about longevity and I’m not a competitive power lifter, so I don’t have any reason to.

Be like, Oh, I don’t care. I’m, I got to hit that. I gotta pull 500. So I was going to go for it. You know what I mean? 

Andrew Steele: That’s it. And yeah that’s what we want to, we want to, we don’t ever want to put, we’re not trying to put someone on a diet or here’s your training plan.

We’re just trying to better equip you with more information so you can make the most educated choices basically. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. And so listeners can learn more. It’s dnafit. com. Is where you can check it out. 

Andrew Steele: Yeah. Yeah. So come in that and I’m a, if anyone wants to, quiz me on the use of it at all.

I’m just on Twitter at just Andrew steel or one word. So I’m there. Any questions and so on, feel free to get in touch with me there guys too. Okay. Awesome. 

Mike Matthews: Thanks a lot for taking the time, Andrew. This was great. Pleasure, Mike. Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe.

I put out new episodes every week or [01:14:00] two. Where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www. muscleforlife. com where you’ll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you’ll also find a bunch of different articles that I’ve written.

I release a new one almost every day actually. I release four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I’m involved in over at muscleforlife. com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.