What Is Methylation & Why It's Critical To Your Health: A Functional Medicine Expert Explains

In case you didn't know, we're big fans of optimizing cellular health around here. Quite literally the foundation of the human body, trillions of cells are constantly working overtime to make sure you remain healthy and balanced. So when naturopathic doctor and functional medicine expert Kara Fitzgerald, N.D., came on the podcast and wanted to talk about a cellular process called methylation, we were game.

At its core, the methylation cycle is a biochemical process that happens at the cellular level: A methyl group, which is a simple structure of one carbon and three hydrogen molecules, converts an amino acid called methionine into S-Adenosyl methionine (SAM-e). SAM-e is then able to travel around the body and donate methyl groups to a multitude of different compounds—from your DNA and neurotransmitters to supporting metabolism. At the very end of the trip, SAM-e then converts to homocysteine—an amino acid in your blood that makes the powerful antioxidant glutathione.

While this process is natural, it does have the potential to go awry: After SAM-e converts to homocysteine, it's recycled back into methionine to start the process all over again. However, if you don't have enough nutrients in your body (namely, B12 and folate) or perhaps there's a defect in any of the enzymes that help the aforementioned recycling process, homocysteine can actually accumulate in your body. High levels of homocysteine, which is something Colleen and I both have personally dealt with, are a risk factor for clotting and heart disease. 

Beyond the blood clotting risk associated with high homocysteine, there's a wide range of health concerns linked to methylation imbalances: cardiovascular disease, asthma, Parkinson's disease, even conditions like autism, dementia, and ADHD. "Because it's ubiquitous, it's involved with so many processes in the body," Fitzgerald explains. "It's broad, wide, and deep." 

The key, according to Fitzgerald, is to start with your food choices and start getting the nutrients and antioxidants you may be missing. By supplying your body with those powerful antioxidants, you can stabilize free radicals that lead to chronic levels of oxidative stress and help manage that chronic cycle mentioned above.

In terms of which foods, Fitzgerald suggests lots of folate-rich nutrients and B12. That includes beets ("they have a remarkably high folate content") and cruciferous veggies ("antioxidant powerhouses"). She also recommends eggs, if you can tolerate them, as they are "methylation superfoods." Additionally, she suggests "a little chicken, clean beef, or beans if you're vegan or vegetarian."