Chemical Food Triggers Behind Your Skin Rash Flares

Photo credit: Skinterrupt

I had the honor of being interviewed by Jennifer Fugo, Clinical Nutritionist, Founder of Gluten Free School, the Healthy Skin Show, and Skinterrupt for her Podcast, The Healthy Skin Show.

During our interview, we discussed:

Identifying natural chemical triggers found in many healthy foods that may be behind your skin flares...

Why this happens, and...

What you can do about it.

Here's a hint...

It's NOT about removing all these foods from your diet.

In fact, elimination diets and restrictive diets over time cause even more health problems and worsening of your symptoms, including your skin rashes.

Here's the deal...

“It’s well known that the source of many skin problems lies in the gut."

In the episode you'll learn:

• How impaired gut health impacts the skin’s health in a myriad of ways

• The differences between food allergies, intolerances, and sensitivities

• Some common chemical triggers you might want to watch out for in what you eat

• Simple steps you can take to see if you have a food sensitivity

MTHFR And Methylation, How Your Skin Is Affected, And What You Can Do About It

Photo credit: Tatiana

MTHFR what?

MTHFR is an acronym for an enzyme called methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase. This enzyme is involved in methylation reactions, which act like a switch turning genes on and off. Methylation is essential for biochemical processes, including those important for healthy skin, like:

• Processing amino acids to make proteins

• Using antioxidants

• Detoxification

• Breaking down histamine

The problem with MTHFR

If you have an MTHFR genetic mutation, methylation pathways may be adversely affected, which can cause problems like:

• Inability to convert folic acid (synthetic B9) to folate, the active form needed for these reactions.

• Glutathione (your body's master antioxidant) production can be impaired. Lower antioxidants increase inflammation (a driver for rashes like eczema). Glutathione plays an important role in liver detoxification too.

• Methylation breaks down Histamine!

  • Your body makes histamine. It’s necessary for brain health and digestive health, and it’s released by immune cells when they are triggered.

  • Histamine is found naturally in many healthy foods.

  • Histamine is made by bacteria, like those in the gut, and histamine-producing bacteria are found in probiotic supplements.

  • That’s a lot of histamine! If methylation is impaired, it can interfere with how your child’s body processes it. If their body can’t, the excess can increase itching, rash flares, allergy-like, and many other symptoms.

What you can do about mTHFR

• Avoid folic acid in food (it’s added to processed foods) and in supplements, so read labels. Ingesting folic acid with MTHFR can increase homocysteine, which increases inflammation (again a driver of rashes like eczema).

• You can test for MTHFR through functional labs and your conventional doctor (request it). There are a lot of different genetic mutations that can exist with MTHFR, but the two that are considered most problematic are C677T and A1298C (AKA 677 and 1298). Remember, just because there’s a gene for something doesn’t mean it’s expressed. Only when it’s expressed does it result in symptoms.

• Supplement with the active form of vitamins B9 (methlyfolate), B12 (methylcobalamin, adenosylcobalamin, hydroxycobalamin), and B6 (pyridoxine-5-phosphate/P5P).

• Eat foods naturally rich in these nutrients like salmon, oysters, mussels, leafy greens, beef, organ meats, legumes, and eggs.