Episode 148
Dr. Sam Shay, DC, IFMCP:
The Autoimmune Triad: Unveiling the 3 Genetic Factors Behind Chronic Illness with Dr. Sam Shay
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Sam Shay, a functional medicine practitioner specializing in genetics and autoimmunity. We delved into the fascinating world of functional genetics and its impact on autoimmune conditions.
First Aired on: Jul 15, 2024
Episode 148
Dr. Sam Shay, DC, IFMCP:
The Autoimmune Triad: Unveiling the 3 Genetic Factors Behind Chronic Illness with Dr. Sam Shay
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Sam Shay, a functional medicine practitioner specializing in genetics and autoimmunity. We delved into the fascinating world of functional genetics and its impact on autoimmune conditions.
First Aired on: Jul 15, 2024
In this episode:
Dr. Sam Shay is a chiropractor, acupuncturist, functional neurologist, and functional medicine practitioner. He’s also a stand-up comedian who uses humor to educate about living on the autism spectrum.
Episode Summary
We discussed:- Dr. Shay’s personal journey into functional medicine
- The importance of genetic testing in understanding health
- How genetics relate to autoimmunity
- The difference between functional and Western genetics
- Key genes involved in inflammation and autoimmunity
Key Takeaways
Dr. Shay’s Journey into Functional Medicine
- Experienced health issues as a child, including insomnia and digestive problems
- Conventional medicine didn’t provide solutions
- Turned to natural health in high school
- Pursued education in holistic health, chiropractic, acupuncture, and functional neurology
The Importance of Genetic Testing
- Genetic testing provides permanent, valuable information about your health
- It helps understand individual responses to diet, lifestyle, and nutrients
- Dr. Shay found his optimal diet (low-carb paleo) through genetic testing
- Genetic information can be used to address issues like chronic inflammation
Functional vs. Western Genetics
- Western genetics often focuses on single genes causing specific diseases
- Functional genetics looks at gene clusters that drive disease processes
- Functional genetics aims to empower patients, not instill fear
Key Genes in Autoimmunity
- Inflammation genes
- Free radical damage scavenging genes in mitochondria
- Liver detox genes
- Vitamin D receptor genes
- Methylation genes
- Cardiovascular circulation genes
The Three Requirements for Autoimmune Disease
- Presence of a trigger (e.g., H. pylori, gluten)
- Leaky gut allowing the trigger to enter the bloodstream
- Specific genes creating antibodies that attack the trigger and similar human cells
Genetic Diet and Trigger Foods
- Genetic testing can help identify optimal diets and potential trigger foods
- Example: Histamine intolerance can be identified through genetic testing
Other Resources:
Connect with Dr. Sam Shay, DC, IFMCP
Watch this interview:
Episode Transcript
Sam Shay: [00:00:00] genetics is not telling you what's happening now. It's, it's the filter through which what everything is happening now is passes, passes through to express into its final form.
Sam Shay: And genetics will tell you how to optimally live. And also what are the, uh, risks that one has inherited that if you don't address now, you don't find out what those are. Now you will find out eventually.
(Intro Bumper)
Julie Michelson:[00:01:00] Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity Podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Dr. Sam Shay, Doctor of Chiropractic and Institute of Functional Medicine Certified Provider. Dr. Sam solves health puzzles for busy health conscious moms, mompreneurs and adults with Asperger's so they can exit survival mode and re enter community.
Julie Michelson: Known as the friendly lab nerd, Dr. Shay specializes in functional lab and genetics analysis for data driven results. Dr. Shay is also a stand up comic using clean, observational comedy to educate and entertain. In today's conversation, we're talking about the missing link to autoimmunity, functional genetics testing, and how empowering it can be to understand what's driving your inflammation so that you can heal your symptoms.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Sam, welcome to the podcast.
Sam Shay: Hey, it's great to be here.
Julie Michelson: I am excited [00:02:00] for our conversation today. And I would love to start with you sharing a little bit of your journey, um, about how did you become the friendly lab nerd? Um, and how'd you get into functional medicine?
Sam Shay: Sure. Well, I, I came, I came to natural health, um, the same way most comedians come to comedy.
Sam Shay: Through tragedy.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Sam Shay: And so I was very sickly as a kid and my I had a lot of problems growing up. Um, it started with my parents nuclear divorce when I was six where me and my siblings were caught in the blast radius. And that led to, uh, crippling insomnia. It was for over a decade, which actually stunted my growth.
Sam Shay: It was so bad, uh, really bad digestive problems, chronic pain from a lot of bullying and, uh, uh, attacks in school and, uh, really high stress at home, really high [00:03:00] stress at school. Um, terrible, terrible diet. My, my parents did not understand nutrition at all, which made total sense because they were both psychiatrists and their, their answer, their answer to all of my problems was a, uh, uh, Was that I was either making stuff up, seeking attention, or needed antidepressants.
Sam Shay: And basically they're just giant psychiatric cameras looking for a nail.
Julie Michelson: Sure.
Sam Shay: And,
Julie Michelson: Two of them,
Sam Shay: that's double jeopardy. I get it. No
Julie Michelson: wonder you're a comedian.
Sam Shay: Yeah, it could have been much worse. So, um, so what, what happened was that I got very, very sick and the, the, what, what the, what Western medicine had to offer me was not working.
Sam Shay:In fact, it was making things worse. And. I decided in high [00:04:00]school to take control of my health through natural medicine and then, uh, found a mentor and then went to college to do pre med and a holistic health practitioner degree on weekends and evenings. And then ultimately went on to get my doctorate in chiropractic, uh, got an acupuncture degree, became functional neurologist for eight years before I switched full time to functional medicine, functional testing, and ultimately genetics.
Sam Shay: And so I'm a bit of a health. Um, but a combo of multiple different fields and, uh, I got into functional testing because I really liked having just data to work with it. It suited my mind and the way my mind works. And I like that. There was a third party lab that could verify. And, uh, I, then I really loved, uh, genetics.
Sam Shay: I started genetics back at the time of this recording eight years ago. [00:05:00] And from at, at the time I was doing lots of functional testing. Functional testing is not genetics testing in my world. Functional testing is checking. It's the thumbprint of what's going on in your body. Now it's like, what's your hormone levels.
Sam Shay:Now what's your amino acid levels. Now what's your active gut infections, what's going on. you know, blood tests and so on. Whereas genetics is not telling you what's happening now. It's, it's the filter through which what everything is happening now is passes, passes through to express into its final form.
Sam Shay:And genetics will tell you how to optimally live. And also what are the, uh, risks that one has inherited that if you don't address now, you don't find out what those are. Now you will find out eventually. And. better to seal up the cracks in your genetic code as best you can now before they become a wider chasm.
Sam Shay: So both, both are very valuable, but they're different lenses [00:06:00] into the system. And for me, what genetics did for me that, that changed my world immediately was I genetically, I, and in my thirties, when I figured out, you know, to really study genetics, I had chronic joint pain like an old man. Like, inflammatory joint pain, it was just awful, and I had these weird diet ups and downs and gut problems that had been plaguing me my whole life.
Sam Shay: And I had, like, an organic Portlandia Mediterranean diet, where I knew the names of my farmers. And it just, I was having bloating, gut problems, weird energy crashes. And when I ran my genetics, I've, I learned a couple of things. One, I'm a hyper inflamer genetically. And what that meant was that there's, there's, certain lifestyle tweaks that I only found out through genetics.
Sam Shay:Uh, one of those terms is called neutrogenomics, not nutrition, [00:07:00]but neutrogenomics, which to, to help the listeners understand what that means that there's the nutritional dose of say fish oil. Which is like one gram. It's like, and that's fine. It's great. One gram. Yay. Hooray. You throw, it's like widgets into the machinery.
Sam Shay:Neutrogenomic is when you have a much higher amount of a specific nutrient that doesn't just throw widgets into the machinery. It's changing the machinery. You actually change the genetic expression in a meaningful way. with specific nutrients. So like the research shows that it's a minimum two grams of EPA DHA to create a neutrogenomic effect to mobilize the genes for inflammation to become more anti inflammatory as opposed to just you know, some amino some fatty acids floating around with under two grams.
Sam Shay: So once I learned things like that, it's not just fish oil, there's other stuff as well. I was the joint pain. I was able to get the joint pain out. I was able to stop feeling pain in my [00:08:00] joints for the first time in years. Additionally, I learned my, um, my, I was genetically Uh, not suited for Mediterranean style diet in terms of
Julie Michelson: carb
Sam Shay: tolerance, I have the second lowest carb tolerance you can have.
Sam Shay: So I'm basically low carb, paleo bordering on keto. And within one week of changing my diet, the gas, the bloating and the, the weird energy cycling stopped. So it, it, the, the genetics. radically changed my world in ways that the functional testing didn't. Again, functional testing is great. Wonderful. Do it all the time.
Sam Shay: It's a different, it's a different lens. Other goodies I found out from genetics is that I have the gene for caffeine induced anxiety and depression.
Julie Michelson: Oh,
Sam Shay: caffeine induced. Now there's a percentage of people listening to this are going to like clench when they hear that. I was like, Oh no, my life slash business runs on coffee.
Sam Shay: What will I [00:09:00] do? Like it's, I get it. But, but it made me anxious and depressed. I was conflating energy with anxiety and, and that, that was a big problem. That was a big problem. And there was other things that I found like histamine intolerance and, and other things that, that were very, very significant, but those were the big highlights.
Sam Shay: And once I saw. That genetics testing is by far without even a close second, the highest value test anyone can run on themselves in their entire life because the results for your genes are permanent. So you just amortize over how many decades
Julie Michelson: you
Sam Shay: plan on living. Whatever you invest now in genetics is trivial, trivial compared to other tests you have to keep redoing every 6 12 months or whatever.
Sam Shay: So, once I, once I figured out how, how valuable genetics is, I've gone really, really heavy into it. And so [00:10:00] that's, that's how I got involved in genetics. And now you can just talk about so many different things like, like autoimmunity and other subjects from a genetics lens and really empower people.
Julie Michelson: Which is amazing.
Julie Michelson: Um, and I, I love, I, you know, almost all of us got to this place through our own healing journey and then we get to pay it forward and impact others. Right. Can you explain for listeners, when you say genetic testing, like if somebody had, you know, ran their 23 and me, or are you talking about like, if they went to their PCP and said, I want to do a, you know, genetics test, is that what you're using or is it different?
Sam Shay: Not, not quite. So, so there's, there's many, many, many, many, many types of genetics tests is everything from like what percentage Irish you are to my paternity for legal cases. Um, there, and then there's, then there's like super niche. genetic testing for very highly [00:11:00] specific genes that are a very deep concern for individuals, like if you've got the risk for Huntington's or Down syndrome or whatever it might be.
Sam Shay: Um, those are really niche Genetics test. That's not the stuff I'm talking about. I'm talking about, like, I'm not even hunting for genes that cause a specific disease, right? That's that's more like the germ theory approach to genetics, where it's one
Julie Michelson: thing. One
Sam Shay: germ causes one disease, right? And so Western genetics.
Sam Shay: Western genetics is like, we got to find the one gene that caused this one disease. And that's, that's different from functional genetics, which is looking at what are the gene clusters of not the disease, but the drivers. Of the diseases that sit above the diseases so that if you look at the drivers of disease, you're looking upstream and looking at a higher [00:12:00] order of the genes to look at that's going to be beneficial for whatever your health goals and objectives and performance objectives are long term.
Sam Shay: So I'm looking at really only about 100 to 115 genes tops. Out of the 30, 000 and and those those 100 or 100 plus are followed for very specific criteria. One is that they fall into one of the seven drivers of of diseases, which was inflammation, free radical damage, In the mitochondria, specifically liver detox, vitamin D receptors, meaning your ability to use vitamin D methylation.
Sam Shay: Spoiler. It's more than more than just MTHFR. I know. I think I actually figured out why MTHFR is so popular. Um, but I did, I did like three other podcasts just on methylation to rebut Gary Brekka's insistent these five genes for your methylation are [00:13:00] all you need, you know, and that just caught the storm and I just, I got upset and decided
Julie Michelson: to quit.
Sam Shay: We
Julie Michelson: say that the MTHFR is, it's kind of like bell bottom genes. Like it's back up on a peak now where everybody thinks that's what, you know, but the reason
Sam Shay: I think I think the reason I got up there was that it was, it was the equivalent of a founder's effect that MTHFR was really like the first public gene for, for, for functional genetics that just like hit zeitgeist and it's never like, it's gone, it's gone from like gold.
Sam Shay: place to like bronze metal. It's like gone up and down, up
Julie Michelson: and down. It's up right now. I feel like
Sam Shay: Gary Brecca it's, it's because he was on Joe Rogan and he talked about all you, and I was like screaming into my podcast, you know, reporters are like, what are you talking about? So anyway, if people are interested in going down the nerdy methylation rabbit hole, I've got like three podcasts channel on methylation, wherever about Gary [00:14:00] claims.
Sam Shay: But anyway, so the methylation is. It's, it's, it's part of the seven, uh, and then there's cardiovascular circulation, and then there's fat energy metabolism. So those are the seven drivers. And by the way, they're an order of hierarchy. Inflammation is at the top of the file, which by the way, spoiler alert for those methylation podcasts, inflammation regulates methylation.
Sam Shay: It's not really the other way around. So, so met inflammation. So methylation is downstream from other processes and like inflammation. So, uh, so when you look at, you know, the most important genes, do they fill in the gaps? Are they part of those seven? Are they part of those seven major drivers? Uh, Are they the upstream genes of those drivers?
Sam Shay: So there's hundreds of genes that relate directly, indirectly to inflammation. I'm looking at, I'm interested in the top 15 that control the rest. Then I want to know of those genes that, that control, which of them [00:15:00] have at least 10 percent variation in the population, meaning at least 10 percent has a red or yellow dot.
Sam Shay: I'm not looking for the 0. 001 percent obscure gene, which is important to that person for sure. Geneticist niche, like that's the PhD niche expert on that gene that is good for them, but it's not the broader strokes I'm looking for. And then the fourth criteria is do the genes have peer reviewed research done on humans in good journals that show that lifestyle diet nutrition alone shifts the epigenetic expression.
Sam Shay: of that gene for the better. Now, epigenetic expression is jargon for is, is the gene behaving well or is it rebelling? And, and genes are, think of them like dimmer switch. They can get brighter, they can get dimmer. And so good lifestyle will rotate the dial towards more brighter expression and poorer lifestyle will move it towards dimmer.
Sam Shay: a dimmer [00:16:00] expression. And but people have different dial settings. They have different end and end and beginning ranges. That's what the variation is. So you can have a red dot, which means a bad copy from mom and a bad copy from dad. And you've got a, you know, a bad gene, but with good diet, lifestyle, nutrition, et cetera, your red dot, your bad gene can behave more green, like it can behave more like a green dot.
Sam Shay: It will never be a green dot, but it can behave more like it. And the reverse is also true. You could be blessed with a bunch of green dots and. Yeah. You can have a really bad lifestyle diet nutrition and the green dot will careen backwards Into behaving like a red dot. So that's just
Julie Michelson: that's the whole point of all of this, right?
Julie Michelson: Especially as we're talking about autoimmunity, you know I know listeners have heard it a million times as of anybody who knows functional medicine, but you know The environment really [00:17:00] is the trigger. I don't care what, I care what your genetics are so that we can create the right lifestyle for you. But the whole, you know, my mom, my aunt, and my cousins all have RA.
Julie Michelson: So I'm, I, you know, I'm just doomed. No, you're not. This is why you're not.
Sam Shay: No, that's the difference between functional genetics and Western genetics. Western genetics can have the vibe of nihilistic fatalism, right? It's like, Oh, I'm doomed and, and, um, for people who can't tell I'm on the spectrums. In fact, I, I, I use, I use fun, I use lots of fun, scrabble words because words.
Sam Shay:And I'm also a standup comic as well. And, uh, it's, it's just fun to play around with. I also, the other thing is I use, I, I, I decode some of the jargon because I have, I trust the intelligence of my listeners and my clients that, that part of the problem of any ivory tower profession, where it's, whether it's medicine, law, clergy, [00:18:00]Uh, engineer, whatever there's, they create this cloak of confusion with polysyllabic words.
Sam Shay:And I can't stand that even though I love polysyllabic words. Love me. Love me a 50 scribble word. Love it. But, but the thing is the whole point of our profession is to empower the people who benefit from the profession aren't in the profession. So the, so I, I'm quite comfortable. decoding some jargon heavy words, because then whoever, whoever you go and do your genetics with, you will be more empowered and not overwhelmed with the jargon.
Sam Shay: So the, when, when you, when people talk about Western genetics is the vibe of nihilistic fatalism that you're, that you should just give up now,
Julie Michelson: where it's functional.
Sam Shay: Why bother? Functional genetics is, no, there's a lot of gray space and a lot of things we can do that's going to minimize the, in risk of whatever you've inherited.[00:19:00]
Sam Shay: Best example, the terrifying BRCA2 gene. 50 percent of all women, at least according to the last statistic I looked up on a couple years ago, 50 percent of all women who have BRCA2 never get breast cancer.
Julie Michelson: Right, we don't talk about that.
Sam Shay: So, you know, so before people Angelina Jolene themselves, you know, understand that there are genes.
Sam Shay: That's an example of that, that, that gene that's more downstream of those seven drivers. Like, I don't test for BRCA2. I don't do it because I'm, that is downstream. I'd rather look at the ones that are upstream. So if people are going to use, uh, it is possible to use 23 and me and ancestry, as long as it's not like from white.
Sam Shay: You know, whatever, 2005 or something, because there's genes have been updated and, and, you know, the different clusters and so on. Um, so the, the thing about it is that there's two types of genetics testing people need to be aware of. One is variant testing, which is what [00:20:00] 23andMe and Ancestry and what we're talking about, like green, yellow, red dots.
Sam Shay: Do you have a, a, a good copy, a so called homozygous wild type, which means that. You know, you're, you've got two good copies and then there's the yellow dot, which is called heterozygous hetero, meaning different. So you've got a mixture. So you've got one good copy, one bad copy. Doesn't matter whether it's from mom or dad, just one or the other.
Sam Shay: Right. And then you've got a homozygous variant. Unless you're
Julie Michelson: like my kids and you want to point the finger, then it matters.
Julie Michelson: I tell them no charge for the genes I passed on.
Sam Shay: That is hilarious. So, uh, this is genetics testing is the one time you can legit blame your parents. That's the one, one time you could. All right. So when you've got, so the variant testing is looking for the good, bad, and like yellow dot, which really, really, it doesn't mean it's in between or it's in the middle.
Sam Shay: Yellow dots are generally considered less worse red dots. [00:21:00] It's
Julie Michelson: not slightly
Sam Shay: less benign green dots. And what's funny, this, this talk about humor, so this is, this is funny when, when I, when people get their reports and they see, you know, a mixture of green, yellow, red dots or whatever, their relationship to the yellow dot, their emotional relationship to the red dot is actually based on, do this is true.
Sam Shay: So just bear with me. This is based on, do they trust their government? Hear me out. Hear me out, hear me out. Because if you are, if you are in Europe, the northern European countries love their governments, like, like the Scandinavia and all that. So they obey the laws. When they see a yellow light, this is related to traffic lights.
Sam Shay: When they see a yellow light, they press the brakes. Okay, now let's go a bit south in Europe to say, I don't know, Italy, Italy, right? Do they have
Julie Michelson: brakes in Italy?
Sam Shay: I think that's funny. Uh, and, and they do not, they [00:22:00] do not like their government. They don't like, Mussolini couldn't even corral his own government.
Sam Shay: Like, And the, uh, so when they see a yellow dye, that means press the gas harder. Like that's so, so people's own emotional relationship to the yellow dot relates to their relationship with traffic, which relates to their relationship with authority. Isn't that interesting? I
Julie Michelson: love that. That's, that's really fascinating.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Sam Shay: So, um, so If you have 23 million ancestry, you have green, yellow, red dots, which gets so much information. Problem, it misses the copy variant, it means the copy variant analysis. Copies variant analysis is a diff, it's a three dimensionality to genetics, almost no one knows about, talks about, or much less can, use.
Sam Shay: So the three dimensionality is the, not the type of gene you've got, but the number of duplicates of the gene in between the, the start and the end point of when the [00:23:00] enzyme reads the gene. So it like makes duplicates of that enzyme or whatever it's approaching or whatever it's making. That's relevant when it comes to assessing what your carb tolerance is.
Sam Shay: So that carb tolerance test is not a variant test. You can't get that from 23 and mere ancestry because it's not looking at duplicates of the gene, just the Version of it. The best way to understand this is imagine your digestive system is a medieval fort and you've got the Visigoths charging the gates and you've got you know, a number of cannons on the wall of the fort.
Sam Shay: So the cannons, the, the version of the cannon is, is the Canada green, yellow, red dot. So does the can, in this case, the cannon would from the codes for salivary amylase, the enzyme that breaks down carbs, the Visigoths are carbs charging your intestinal tract right now. So The cannon shoot the version of the cannon will shoot out like 90 things an hour versus 100 versus 95.
Sam Shay: In this case, the green, yellow and red, like the [00:24:00] green say is 100. The yellow is 95. The red is 90 in this and this gene. The actual difference between green, yellow, red is trivial. Not trivial is the number of duplicates of the gene. I'd rather have five You read cannons than one green cannon. So there is between like 500 and 450.
Sam Shay: Now those numbers I'm just making up just for sake of illustration. The number of cannons matters. Way, way more than the version way more. So for me, you can, so the human body can have up to 20 very, very, very rarely can go higher. The genetics companies sound like a 22 once, maybe a 24, but it's between one and 20.
Sam Shay: I'm a two. But two, I have two, two cannons. That's it. Just two.
Julie Michelson: Oh boy. You better, you better treat those cannons. Well,
Sam Shay: Well that and also minimize the environmental input of too many carbs. So so for me it my my carb issue was [00:25:00] not a quality because all my you know Quinoa was so inorganic and picked by left handed monks on the last harvest blah blah blah It wasn't a quality issue.
Sam Shay: It was a quantity of carb issue, right? So, so people can get a lot of information out of the 23 mean ancestry, but there's, there's some other novel things in genetics that would need a fresh cheek swab to analyze, uh, these, these, you know, this, this, in this one in particular, uh, your, your carb tolerance, like, are you keto?
Sam Shay: Are you paleo? Are you Mediterranean or are you high carb? Is,
Julie Michelson: is this like something that people can order for themselves or is this why people need to come see someone like you?
Sam Shay: Well, right now, um, I have to send the swabs off to Australia. And so right now I do this test here, uh, in the, in the U S um, and I have to like gather up the swabs and then bundle them off and send them off to Australia.
Sam Shay:[00:26:00] Right. As at the time of this recording, I'm working lab to onshore a A genetics lab in the states to do this in the states to cut down, uh, turnaround time and logistics and
Julie Michelson: probably cost. Eventually, it definitely think
Sam Shay: it definitely cost. But it's it's just the real thing that people struggle with is right now.
Sam Shay: It's about an eight to 10 week turnaround, which
Julie Michelson: is still, it never changes. So
Sam Shay: that's I want people to hear it's like, you're not going to lose fidelity of the data. The data will last you for decades, waiting an extra month and a half to two months on the normal other tests. It's fine, but we have a real patient's problem in this culture.
Sam Shay: So we're, but we're working on the
Julie Michelson: magic pill now.
Sam Shay: So, so that's, that's where [00:27:00] 23andme, Ancestry, and so on, they're, they're, they're useful. And, but there's, there is a niche portion that they miss. And if people don't have 23andme and Ancestry, they don't, you know, you know, I also do the, the, the variant analysis as well, you know, not the full 23andme and Ancestry does, because I only do those.
Sam Shay: Well, they're useful for health. I mean, some people may want to know what percentage Irish they are, you know, and
Julie Michelson: Oh, sure. It's fun. You know, I, my, yeah, I mean, I have a, my family's all Ashkenazi Jews, right? So there's things you want to know about your genetics, but that's not what we're talking about here.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, that's not, we're talking about everything that Dr. Sam is saying for listeners. If you haven't picked up on it directly relates to autoimmunity, you know, remember that hierarchy inflammation was that top, top piece and inflammation is, was driving your autoimmunity.
Sam Shay: Yeah, I can, I can speak a bit more specifically to [00:28:00] that.
Sam Shay: So if, if people are concerned about autoimmunity, there's three, when, when I, when I went through IFM, um, my certification for IFM, the, I can't remember the gentleman's name, but he was like the major autoimmune researcher who lectured live. And he said that there's three requirements for an autoimmune disease.
Sam Shay: Number one is you need the, whatever is going to, what the trigger,
Julie Michelson: Uh huh.
Sam Shay: And so for, let's just pick Hashimoto's for example, because, and there's, there's a couple of triggers there. So that those triggers can be H. pylori, it could be gluten, it can be blastocystis hominis, um, it can be a couple other infections.
Sam Shay: So you need the trigger, you need exposure to the trigger. Then you need the leaky gut for the trigger to leak through into the bloodstream. And then you need the gene specific. to creating the antibody to attack that trigger. And the antibodies are, they're not heat seeking missiles, they're shape seeking missiles, and they will attack the [00:29:00] trigger, but also any human cells that look similar in full or in part to whatever that trigger was.
Sam Shay: It's, it's equivalent to like a Bloods, Crips, Turf Warfare, and you happen to be wearing a red shirt and you wander into Crypt Territory. When you walk into a blood territory, you just get caught in the crossfire because they think you're on the other team. So my, um,
Julie Michelson: this is what we call molecular mimicry for those that have heard that term.
Sam Shay: Yeah. Molecular mimicry. So the where genes comes in is in two of those three steps. The last step is, do you have the gene to make the antibody? That's not the genes I'm looking at. I'm looking at the genes that would provoke the cause of the leaky gut in the first place. That's that's where the gene tests that I look at is relevant to autoimmunity It's like what are the things that drive a leaky gut?
Sam Shay: Making allowing the triggers to even leak through in the first the triggers can't [00:30:00] get through into the bloodstream Then there's no autumn then there's no molecular mimicry So I'm looking at the second layer, which is the leaky gut layer and what genes directly or indirectly influence the integrity of that gut.
Sam Shay: So the specific genes, the specific gene clusters before against naming genes on a first name basis is first off the inflammation, which was at the top, the number one on top. So the genes that regulate inflammation. are absolutely critical for maintaining gut lining integrity. Number two, you would look at the genes for free radical damage scavenging in the mitochondria because, I mean, you can literally go on to PubMed and just type in like, Free radical damage autoimmunity and just like look at paper after paper after paper And there's three specific genes in the mitochondria That are the that code for the enzymes to clean up the free radicals and to make the image easier for [00:31:00] people to understand The mitochondria you've heard this like the electricity factory or the power plant of the cell But I'm not sure people really get just how big of a deal that is 10 percent of your body weight is this factory.
Sam Shay: Imagine every cell is a city. Now imagine 10 percent of the entire footprint of the city is that electricity, is electricity factory to run that city. Now, now imagine that 95, that, that electricity factory burns protein, fats, and carbs in the presence of oxygen to generate the electricity. Literally, that's why we breathe is to provide oxygen for this 10 percent of your body weight of your cells to generate the electricity to run the rest of the cells.
Sam Shay: That's important because, you know, if New York lost electricity, it would be about three days until it turns into Mad Max. So you need to have, if you need to have the electricity. So the, the problem is that 95 percent of all free [00:32:00] radicals. Are generated in that mitochondrial factory. Think of free radicals as sparks that fly off the burning of the fuel, the burning of the product.
Julie Michelson: Think of a factory.
Sam Shay: Yeah. So you've got sparks in there, but now you need janitors running around putting out these sparks. So, you know, it doesn't catch on fire. That's, you know, free radicals leads to inflammation. So the enzymes are MnSod, GPX1, and Cat, or for catalase. Mn Sod for manganese, not magnesium.
Sam Shay: Manganese superoxide dismutase. That's what it stands for. He's the head janitor. I call him Mr. Sod, not Mn Sod. Mr. Sod. And if he has a variant, if he's got a yellow red dot, he's a bit slow on putting out the sparks. So, if someone has a red or yellow dot in, say, MN SOD, they're at a higher risk for autoimmunity because they're at risk of their mitochondrial factories catching on [00:33:00] fire.
Sam Shay: Then, so that's mitochondria. liver detox. And then there's vitamin D metabolism and genetics. And so the vitamin D genetics is particularly interesting because you need vitamin D to keep the cells of the intestine closely tight together, which is the opposite of a leaky gut. A leaky gut means that the You know, the cells are lined up like shoulder to shoulder, but if they're like pulled apart, the gap in between the shoulders, that's the leakiness of the leaky gut.
Sam Shay: And it's vitamin D that helps keep the cells in the intestines shoulder to shoulder. So understanding your vitamin D genetics is critical because if you have weaknesses in your vitamin D metabolism, genetically, then there's very specific things you can do nutritionally, not just take more vitamin D, there's other things you have to do to keep those cells of your gut shoulder to shoulder.
Sam Shay: And then there's other genes, like, you know, there's other genes [00:34:00] involved, like methylation has its own role in autoimmunity. Uh, cardiovascular circulation genes that is very close relationship to poor cardiovascular health and the, uh, promotion of autoimmune disease. So, there's, there's, if you look, and then, and then the other piece on genetics is that if you look, if you know your genetic diet, Like, like mine is like low carb paleo, then you're not going to trigger inflammatory responses.
Sam Shay: You know, your diet is, you can also genetically identify a part of the 100 genes is also these genetic, uh, trigger foods. Are you genetically vulnerable to histamine, which is, I mean, if it's. I mean, that's about as close to inflammation without, I mean, it's like inflammation as far as I can tell. Um, if you're sensitive to histamine, you're genetically, then histamine foods are going to create this kind of slow moving.
Sam Shay: I call it a slow moving bee sting through your whole body because [00:35:00] histamine, you know, bee stings your arm. The B didn't inject a half quart of water into your arm, but what the body did, it's like, Oh, look, a really concentrated dose of venom. We're going to let's switch the flood, which is called histamine.
Sam Shay: We're going to flood the area with water to dilute it. The diluted that's that's histamine is I think the evolutionaries response to venom, whether it's a bee sting, scorpion, centipede, spider fly, certain plants got, you know, whatever insects, it's your emergency switch to venom to flood the area quickly, perhaps disastrously, but flooded quickly because that venom is going to cause problems no matter what.
Sam Shay: And the problem is that there's foods that are high in histamine or that trigger more endogenous or internal creation of histamine or that shut down the enzyme that breaks down histamine. So if you eat any of the three types of foods, you're basically creating a slow moving bee sting [00:36:00] in your whole body.
Sam Shay: And you're going to create this global inflammatory response that is going to affect your gut. And going to affect your immunity and your inflammation overall. So those are just some of the examples of how genetics absolutely relate to autoimmunity. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: I love, and I love that analogy because it's the same with, you know, we, we talk about inflammation, it's the same thing.
Julie Michelson: Our, our acute inflammatory response. that protects us, saves us, heals us. We're talking about the chronic inflammation, that kind of slow burn. Um, and then eventually it catches up with you
Sam Shay: or
Julie Michelson: can.
Sam Shay: Inflammation is like inflammation. We would die without inflammation. We would die without histamine. We would die without cortisol.
Sam Shay: And it's there for like acute. acute situations. And the problem is that certain people genetically, the 15 major genes for inflammation, I broke them down into initiation of [00:37:00] inflammation, propagation or sustaining or flaring up of the inflammation, expanding it. And then there's putting the inflammation out.
Sam Shay: So there's different gene clusters. Some people are they, they, they really do a great job preventing inflammation from starting. I talked to a person yesterday about this. Um, she had what I call the inflammation sandwich, where she had green dots in the cluster of initiation genes and putting out of genes.
Sam Shay: But she didn't, she had red dots all up and down the propagation. And what her lived experience was like, she can be, she has, she's really clean and clear on her diet and her lifestyle. She's a good, good, good. And then she steps out a line and then it just, Flares. Wham. Easy. Yeah. And then like it can come back down, but she gets these super demoralizing, like massive explosions of inflammation [00:38:00] because middle bit that turns a little flame into a bonfire is so hypersensitive.
Julie Michelson: So
Sam Shay: you can even look at someone's genetic clusters and, and look at how to help navigate their an inflammatory, anti inflammatory, um, Procedures or protocols, uh, and fine tune them accordingly,
Julie Michelson: which is so empowering, right? I mean, and sometimes even just that understanding of like, Oh, this is what's been going on for my lifetime, a decade, whatever.
Sam Shay: Yeah. She felt so validated, gaslit by all of her friends. Oh, you just need to diet and exercise more. No.
Julie Michelson: Well, and, and, you know, doctors and, and I say it all the time on the podcast, my disclaimer, I live with one. I love him, you know, and he's amazing. But standard Western medicine approach is to gaslight because they don't have the answer.
Julie Michelson: They [00:39:00] don't, it doesn't fit the diagnosis medication box.
Sam Shay: I don't know what you're talking about. Psychiatrist. I have no idea what it's like. No idea what's a gas lighting. Never heard of it. It's called Kindergarten.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. You just didn't know the word for it till kindergarten. Oh, I
Sam Shay: learned pretty quick.
Julie Michelson: So I, oh my goodness.
Julie Michelson: Well, I say, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours about this. Um, but we are at that point. I promised I would let you go on time today. So, and it does, it could be what we do. anything, but what is one step that listeners can take today to start to improve their health? Any, any one thing you want to share?
Sam Shay: So if people haven't had their genetics done, have a health professional who is skilled and looking at functional genetics, get a genetics test [00:40:00] because It is the single highest value test you will ever run in your whole life with not even a close second. The, the genes are permanent. The data is permanent.
Sam Shay: There's more information about the genes that are built, but, but the genes themselves do not change. It is the single most important test you could ever run. I just encourage you to work with someone who's qualified. To run functional genetics. It's that their focus is to empower you, not to scare you.
Sam Shay: Right,
Julie Michelson: right. This is not doom and gloom. This is, that's right. That's what said
Sam Shay: functional genetics on the other side and, and just like budget for it, you know, plan for it. This year it will give yourself the gift of getting your genetics run and that gift is going, literally gonna be the gift that keeps on giving.
Julie Michelson: Love it. Amazing. And for people that are listening on the go and aren't going to check out the show notes, where's the best place for listeners to find you?
Sam Shay: Very easy. Dr. Sam Shay. com. Uh, [00:41:00] I'm not spelled like a stadium. It's D R S M S H. Only the
Julie Michelson: East coasters know how to spell it that way. Anyway,
Sam Shay: Dr. SaShayea, my website, I've got A free ebook, genetics, ebook and genetics mini course, um, it says on the website or you can just drsamshay.
Sam Shay: com forward slash genetics. I've also, I'm also all over YouTube. You can put my name in there. I've got playlists on genetics and functional testing. I've got my stand up comedy playlist. Yes. I was just gonna,
Julie Michelson: I was going to throw that in there. If you didn't, you guys need to check out Dr. Sam's comedy and we'll have you back on to talk about, cause it is one of my favorite topics, the healing power of laughter and how comedy fits into all overall wellness, because it's
Sam Shay: important.
Sam Shay: Absolutely. And in fact, my, my main objective with comedy is edutainment that I talk about what it's like to live on the spectrum. And that's what my hour. Uh, premiere comedy special is at the fringe festival, [00:42:00] uh, and as of this recording next, it's going to be next week. And if someone had spent 60 minutes with me 30 years ago to explain how my spectrum brain works and how to adapt to the normal world.
Julie Michelson: Nobody, nobody understood 30 years ago.
Sam Shay: Uh, technically, Dr Asperger's work, uh, was really publicized. It was popularized in the West, starting really in the eighties, but, and they actually made it into the DSM four in, um, uh, nine and it became standardized diagnostic terminology in the DSM four. I think it was nine.
Sam Shay: Two or 93. I'm just going to say now
Julie Michelson: I'm aging myself because my, my psychology training was all DMS three. So
Sam Shay: I'm like, wow,
Julie Michelson: I guess it has come on.
Sam Shay: Yeah. But there's, there's a whole, I mean, I cover the whole history, the fraught history of the term Asperger's in the special, like, like it has, it has a pretty dark history to it.
Sam Shay: Uh, I I'm actually trying to reclaim the [00:43:00] word Because, uh, you know, despite its dark, I mean, just spoiler for people, Dr. Asperger had troubling ties to the Nazis and, and the, the, they use the good doctors work to justify the sterilization of, you know, quote, undesirable children like me. But. I'm and it's not, it's, it's hotly debated whether dr Asperger was complicit.
Sam Shay: It is genuinely argued vigorously if he was complicit in that relationship or not. The
Julie Michelson: reality is the work is the work. Like, well, even more important value,
Sam Shay: but even more importantly, I'm proud to call myself an Aspie because it was ultimately an ironically Asperger's syndrome that brought down the Nazis because, and I can prove it with three names.
Sam Shay: Oppenheimer, Einstein, and Turing, all of them had Asperger's, so I'm quite proud to be an Aspie. If you're in a
Julie Michelson: good club. Well,
Sam Shay: it's the irony is like if they, [00:44:00] if we're, you know, if they're, you know, if he's Dr. Frankenstein and he named us as the monster, I'm going to be Frankenstein's monster because we took him down, you know?
Julie Michelson: I love it. I love it.
Sam Shay: So I'm proud to call myself an Aspie and that's one of my goals of the special is to reclaim the word.
Julie Michelson: Which I think is, is amazing because it, yeah, you give us such a, such perspective and understanding. Um, and, and so, uh, I, I love, I, I know, I promised that I, I probably won't make it in person to the special, but check out the comedy on YouTube.
Julie Michelson: Um, because like all good comedy, we learn a lot, right. In addition to the laughter and the healing, there's, there's a lot, a lot more to it. So. Dr. Sam, thank you so very much for your time today.
Sam Shay: Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember you can get those show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living.
Julie Michelson: show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
​ (Outro Bumper) [00:45:00]
Sam Shay: And genetics will tell you how to optimally live. And also what are the, uh, risks that one has inherited that if you don't address now, you don't find out what those are. Now you will find out eventually.
(Intro Bumper)
Julie Michelson:[00:01:00] Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity Podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Dr. Sam Shay, Doctor of Chiropractic and Institute of Functional Medicine Certified Provider. Dr. Sam solves health puzzles for busy health conscious moms, mompreneurs and adults with Asperger's so they can exit survival mode and re enter community.
Julie Michelson: Known as the friendly lab nerd, Dr. Shay specializes in functional lab and genetics analysis for data driven results. Dr. Shay is also a stand up comic using clean, observational comedy to educate and entertain. In today's conversation, we're talking about the missing link to autoimmunity, functional genetics testing, and how empowering it can be to understand what's driving your inflammation so that you can heal your symptoms.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Sam, welcome to the podcast.
Sam Shay: Hey, it's great to be here.
Julie Michelson: I am excited [00:02:00] for our conversation today. And I would love to start with you sharing a little bit of your journey, um, about how did you become the friendly lab nerd? Um, and how'd you get into functional medicine?
Sam Shay: Sure. Well, I, I came, I came to natural health, um, the same way most comedians come to comedy.
Sam Shay: Through tragedy.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Sam Shay: And so I was very sickly as a kid and my I had a lot of problems growing up. Um, it started with my parents nuclear divorce when I was six where me and my siblings were caught in the blast radius. And that led to, uh, crippling insomnia. It was for over a decade, which actually stunted my growth.
Sam Shay: It was so bad, uh, really bad digestive problems, chronic pain from a lot of bullying and, uh, uh, attacks in school and, uh, really high stress at home, really high [00:03:00] stress at school. Um, terrible, terrible diet. My, my parents did not understand nutrition at all, which made total sense because they were both psychiatrists and their, their answer, their answer to all of my problems was a, uh, uh, Was that I was either making stuff up, seeking attention, or needed antidepressants.
Sam Shay: And basically they're just giant psychiatric cameras looking for a nail.
Julie Michelson: Sure.
Sam Shay: And,
Julie Michelson: Two of them,
Sam Shay: that's double jeopardy. I get it. No
Julie Michelson: wonder you're a comedian.
Sam Shay: Yeah, it could have been much worse. So, um, so what, what happened was that I got very, very sick and the, the, what, what the, what Western medicine had to offer me was not working.
Sam Shay:In fact, it was making things worse. And. I decided in high [00:04:00]school to take control of my health through natural medicine and then, uh, found a mentor and then went to college to do pre med and a holistic health practitioner degree on weekends and evenings. And then ultimately went on to get my doctorate in chiropractic, uh, got an acupuncture degree, became functional neurologist for eight years before I switched full time to functional medicine, functional testing, and ultimately genetics.
Sam Shay: And so I'm a bit of a health. Um, but a combo of multiple different fields and, uh, I got into functional testing because I really liked having just data to work with it. It suited my mind and the way my mind works. And I like that. There was a third party lab that could verify. And, uh, I, then I really loved, uh, genetics.
Sam Shay: I started genetics back at the time of this recording eight years ago. [00:05:00] And from at, at the time I was doing lots of functional testing. Functional testing is not genetics testing in my world. Functional testing is checking. It's the thumbprint of what's going on in your body. Now it's like, what's your hormone levels.
Sam Shay:Now what's your amino acid levels. Now what's your active gut infections, what's going on. you know, blood tests and so on. Whereas genetics is not telling you what's happening now. It's, it's the filter through which what everything is happening now is passes, passes through to express into its final form.
Sam Shay:And genetics will tell you how to optimally live. And also what are the, uh, risks that one has inherited that if you don't address now, you don't find out what those are. Now you will find out eventually. And. better to seal up the cracks in your genetic code as best you can now before they become a wider chasm.
Sam Shay: So both, both are very valuable, but they're different lenses [00:06:00] into the system. And for me, what genetics did for me that, that changed my world immediately was I genetically, I, and in my thirties, when I figured out, you know, to really study genetics, I had chronic joint pain like an old man. Like, inflammatory joint pain, it was just awful, and I had these weird diet ups and downs and gut problems that had been plaguing me my whole life.
Sam Shay: And I had, like, an organic Portlandia Mediterranean diet, where I knew the names of my farmers. And it just, I was having bloating, gut problems, weird energy crashes. And when I ran my genetics, I've, I learned a couple of things. One, I'm a hyper inflamer genetically. And what that meant was that there's, there's, certain lifestyle tweaks that I only found out through genetics.
Sam Shay:Uh, one of those terms is called neutrogenomics, not nutrition, [00:07:00]but neutrogenomics, which to, to help the listeners understand what that means that there's the nutritional dose of say fish oil. Which is like one gram. It's like, and that's fine. It's great. One gram. Yay. Hooray. You throw, it's like widgets into the machinery.
Sam Shay:Neutrogenomic is when you have a much higher amount of a specific nutrient that doesn't just throw widgets into the machinery. It's changing the machinery. You actually change the genetic expression in a meaningful way. with specific nutrients. So like the research shows that it's a minimum two grams of EPA DHA to create a neutrogenomic effect to mobilize the genes for inflammation to become more anti inflammatory as opposed to just you know, some amino some fatty acids floating around with under two grams.
Sam Shay: So once I learned things like that, it's not just fish oil, there's other stuff as well. I was the joint pain. I was able to get the joint pain out. I was able to stop feeling pain in my [00:08:00] joints for the first time in years. Additionally, I learned my, um, my, I was genetically Uh, not suited for Mediterranean style diet in terms of
Julie Michelson: carb
Sam Shay: tolerance, I have the second lowest carb tolerance you can have.
Sam Shay: So I'm basically low carb, paleo bordering on keto. And within one week of changing my diet, the gas, the bloating and the, the weird energy cycling stopped. So it, it, the, the genetics. radically changed my world in ways that the functional testing didn't. Again, functional testing is great. Wonderful. Do it all the time.
Sam Shay: It's a different, it's a different lens. Other goodies I found out from genetics is that I have the gene for caffeine induced anxiety and depression.
Julie Michelson: Oh,
Sam Shay: caffeine induced. Now there's a percentage of people listening to this are going to like clench when they hear that. I was like, Oh no, my life slash business runs on coffee.
Sam Shay: What will I [00:09:00] do? Like it's, I get it. But, but it made me anxious and depressed. I was conflating energy with anxiety and, and that, that was a big problem. That was a big problem. And there was other things that I found like histamine intolerance and, and other things that, that were very, very significant, but those were the big highlights.
Sam Shay: And once I saw. That genetics testing is by far without even a close second, the highest value test anyone can run on themselves in their entire life because the results for your genes are permanent. So you just amortize over how many decades
Julie Michelson: you
Sam Shay: plan on living. Whatever you invest now in genetics is trivial, trivial compared to other tests you have to keep redoing every 6 12 months or whatever.
Sam Shay: So, once I, once I figured out how, how valuable genetics is, I've gone really, really heavy into it. And so [00:10:00] that's, that's how I got involved in genetics. And now you can just talk about so many different things like, like autoimmunity and other subjects from a genetics lens and really empower people.
Julie Michelson: Which is amazing.
Julie Michelson: Um, and I, I love, I, you know, almost all of us got to this place through our own healing journey and then we get to pay it forward and impact others. Right. Can you explain for listeners, when you say genetic testing, like if somebody had, you know, ran their 23 and me, or are you talking about like, if they went to their PCP and said, I want to do a, you know, genetics test, is that what you're using or is it different?
Sam Shay: Not, not quite. So, so there's, there's many, many, many, many, many types of genetics tests is everything from like what percentage Irish you are to my paternity for legal cases. Um, there, and then there's, then there's like super niche. genetic testing for very highly [00:11:00] specific genes that are a very deep concern for individuals, like if you've got the risk for Huntington's or Down syndrome or whatever it might be.
Sam Shay: Um, those are really niche Genetics test. That's not the stuff I'm talking about. I'm talking about, like, I'm not even hunting for genes that cause a specific disease, right? That's that's more like the germ theory approach to genetics, where it's one
Julie Michelson: thing. One
Sam Shay: germ causes one disease, right? And so Western genetics.
Sam Shay: Western genetics is like, we got to find the one gene that caused this one disease. And that's, that's different from functional genetics, which is looking at what are the gene clusters of not the disease, but the drivers. Of the diseases that sit above the diseases so that if you look at the drivers of disease, you're looking upstream and looking at a higher [00:12:00] order of the genes to look at that's going to be beneficial for whatever your health goals and objectives and performance objectives are long term.
Sam Shay: So I'm looking at really only about 100 to 115 genes tops. Out of the 30, 000 and and those those 100 or 100 plus are followed for very specific criteria. One is that they fall into one of the seven drivers of of diseases, which was inflammation, free radical damage, In the mitochondria, specifically liver detox, vitamin D receptors, meaning your ability to use vitamin D methylation.
Sam Shay: Spoiler. It's more than more than just MTHFR. I know. I think I actually figured out why MTHFR is so popular. Um, but I did, I did like three other podcasts just on methylation to rebut Gary Brekka's insistent these five genes for your methylation are [00:13:00] all you need, you know, and that just caught the storm and I just, I got upset and decided
Julie Michelson: to quit.
Sam Shay: We
Julie Michelson: say that the MTHFR is, it's kind of like bell bottom genes. Like it's back up on a peak now where everybody thinks that's what, you know, but the reason
Sam Shay: I think I think the reason I got up there was that it was, it was the equivalent of a founder's effect that MTHFR was really like the first public gene for, for, for functional genetics that just like hit zeitgeist and it's never like, it's gone, it's gone from like gold.
Sam Shay: place to like bronze metal. It's like gone up and down, up
Julie Michelson: and down. It's up right now. I feel like
Sam Shay: Gary Brecca it's, it's because he was on Joe Rogan and he talked about all you, and I was like screaming into my podcast, you know, reporters are like, what are you talking about? So anyway, if people are interested in going down the nerdy methylation rabbit hole, I've got like three podcasts channel on methylation, wherever about Gary [00:14:00] claims.
Sam Shay: But anyway, so the methylation is. It's, it's, it's part of the seven, uh, and then there's cardiovascular circulation, and then there's fat energy metabolism. So those are the seven drivers. And by the way, they're an order of hierarchy. Inflammation is at the top of the file, which by the way, spoiler alert for those methylation podcasts, inflammation regulates methylation.
Sam Shay: It's not really the other way around. So, so met inflammation. So methylation is downstream from other processes and like inflammation. So, uh, so when you look at, you know, the most important genes, do they fill in the gaps? Are they part of those seven? Are they part of those seven major drivers? Uh, Are they the upstream genes of those drivers?
Sam Shay: So there's hundreds of genes that relate directly, indirectly to inflammation. I'm looking at, I'm interested in the top 15 that control the rest. Then I want to know of those genes that, that control, which of them [00:15:00] have at least 10 percent variation in the population, meaning at least 10 percent has a red or yellow dot.
Sam Shay: I'm not looking for the 0. 001 percent obscure gene, which is important to that person for sure. Geneticist niche, like that's the PhD niche expert on that gene that is good for them, but it's not the broader strokes I'm looking for. And then the fourth criteria is do the genes have peer reviewed research done on humans in good journals that show that lifestyle diet nutrition alone shifts the epigenetic expression.
Sam Shay: of that gene for the better. Now, epigenetic expression is jargon for is, is the gene behaving well or is it rebelling? And, and genes are, think of them like dimmer switch. They can get brighter, they can get dimmer. And so good lifestyle will rotate the dial towards more brighter expression and poorer lifestyle will move it towards dimmer.
Sam Shay: a dimmer [00:16:00] expression. And but people have different dial settings. They have different end and end and beginning ranges. That's what the variation is. So you can have a red dot, which means a bad copy from mom and a bad copy from dad. And you've got a, you know, a bad gene, but with good diet, lifestyle, nutrition, et cetera, your red dot, your bad gene can behave more green, like it can behave more like a green dot.
Sam Shay: It will never be a green dot, but it can behave more like it. And the reverse is also true. You could be blessed with a bunch of green dots and. Yeah. You can have a really bad lifestyle diet nutrition and the green dot will careen backwards Into behaving like a red dot. So that's just
Julie Michelson: that's the whole point of all of this, right?
Julie Michelson: Especially as we're talking about autoimmunity, you know I know listeners have heard it a million times as of anybody who knows functional medicine, but you know The environment really [00:17:00] is the trigger. I don't care what, I care what your genetics are so that we can create the right lifestyle for you. But the whole, you know, my mom, my aunt, and my cousins all have RA.
Julie Michelson: So I'm, I, you know, I'm just doomed. No, you're not. This is why you're not.
Sam Shay: No, that's the difference between functional genetics and Western genetics. Western genetics can have the vibe of nihilistic fatalism, right? It's like, Oh, I'm doomed and, and, um, for people who can't tell I'm on the spectrums. In fact, I, I, I use, I use fun, I use lots of fun, scrabble words because words.
Sam Shay:And I'm also a standup comic as well. And, uh, it's, it's just fun to play around with. I also, the other thing is I use, I, I, I decode some of the jargon because I have, I trust the intelligence of my listeners and my clients that, that part of the problem of any ivory tower profession, where it's, whether it's medicine, law, clergy, [00:18:00]Uh, engineer, whatever there's, they create this cloak of confusion with polysyllabic words.
Sam Shay:And I can't stand that even though I love polysyllabic words. Love me. Love me a 50 scribble word. Love it. But, but the thing is the whole point of our profession is to empower the people who benefit from the profession aren't in the profession. So the, so I, I'm quite comfortable. decoding some jargon heavy words, because then whoever, whoever you go and do your genetics with, you will be more empowered and not overwhelmed with the jargon.
Sam Shay: So the, when, when you, when people talk about Western genetics is the vibe of nihilistic fatalism that you're, that you should just give up now,
Julie Michelson: where it's functional.
Sam Shay: Why bother? Functional genetics is, no, there's a lot of gray space and a lot of things we can do that's going to minimize the, in risk of whatever you've inherited.[00:19:00]
Sam Shay: Best example, the terrifying BRCA2 gene. 50 percent of all women, at least according to the last statistic I looked up on a couple years ago, 50 percent of all women who have BRCA2 never get breast cancer.
Julie Michelson: Right, we don't talk about that.
Sam Shay: So, you know, so before people Angelina Jolene themselves, you know, understand that there are genes.
Sam Shay: That's an example of that, that, that gene that's more downstream of those seven drivers. Like, I don't test for BRCA2. I don't do it because I'm, that is downstream. I'd rather look at the ones that are upstream. So if people are going to use, uh, it is possible to use 23 and me and ancestry, as long as it's not like from white.
Sam Shay: You know, whatever, 2005 or something, because there's genes have been updated and, and, you know, the different clusters and so on. Um, so the, the thing about it is that there's two types of genetics testing people need to be aware of. One is variant testing, which is what [00:20:00] 23andMe and Ancestry and what we're talking about, like green, yellow, red dots.
Sam Shay: Do you have a, a, a good copy, a so called homozygous wild type, which means that. You know, you're, you've got two good copies and then there's the yellow dot, which is called heterozygous hetero, meaning different. So you've got a mixture. So you've got one good copy, one bad copy. Doesn't matter whether it's from mom or dad, just one or the other.
Sam Shay: Right. And then you've got a homozygous variant. Unless you're
Julie Michelson: like my kids and you want to point the finger, then it matters.
Julie Michelson: I tell them no charge for the genes I passed on.
Sam Shay: That is hilarious. So, uh, this is genetics testing is the one time you can legit blame your parents. That's the one, one time you could. All right. So when you've got, so the variant testing is looking for the good, bad, and like yellow dot, which really, really, it doesn't mean it's in between or it's in the middle.
Sam Shay: Yellow dots are generally considered less worse red dots. [00:21:00] It's
Julie Michelson: not slightly
Sam Shay: less benign green dots. And what's funny, this, this talk about humor, so this is, this is funny when, when I, when people get their reports and they see, you know, a mixture of green, yellow, red dots or whatever, their relationship to the yellow dot, their emotional relationship to the red dot is actually based on, do this is true.
Sam Shay: So just bear with me. This is based on, do they trust their government? Hear me out. Hear me out, hear me out. Because if you are, if you are in Europe, the northern European countries love their governments, like, like the Scandinavia and all that. So they obey the laws. When they see a yellow light, this is related to traffic lights.
Sam Shay: When they see a yellow light, they press the brakes. Okay, now let's go a bit south in Europe to say, I don't know, Italy, Italy, right? Do they have
Julie Michelson: brakes in Italy?
Sam Shay: I think that's funny. Uh, and, and they do not, they [00:22:00] do not like their government. They don't like, Mussolini couldn't even corral his own government.
Sam Shay: Like, And the, uh, so when they see a yellow dye, that means press the gas harder. Like that's so, so people's own emotional relationship to the yellow dot relates to their relationship with traffic, which relates to their relationship with authority. Isn't that interesting? I
Julie Michelson: love that. That's, that's really fascinating.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Sam Shay: So, um, so If you have 23 million ancestry, you have green, yellow, red dots, which gets so much information. Problem, it misses the copy variant, it means the copy variant analysis. Copies variant analysis is a diff, it's a three dimensionality to genetics, almost no one knows about, talks about, or much less can, use.
Sam Shay: So the three dimensionality is the, not the type of gene you've got, but the number of duplicates of the gene in between the, the start and the end point of when the [00:23:00] enzyme reads the gene. So it like makes duplicates of that enzyme or whatever it's approaching or whatever it's making. That's relevant when it comes to assessing what your carb tolerance is.
Sam Shay: So that carb tolerance test is not a variant test. You can't get that from 23 and mere ancestry because it's not looking at duplicates of the gene, just the Version of it. The best way to understand this is imagine your digestive system is a medieval fort and you've got the Visigoths charging the gates and you've got you know, a number of cannons on the wall of the fort.
Sam Shay: So the cannons, the, the version of the cannon is, is the Canada green, yellow, red dot. So does the can, in this case, the cannon would from the codes for salivary amylase, the enzyme that breaks down carbs, the Visigoths are carbs charging your intestinal tract right now. So The cannon shoot the version of the cannon will shoot out like 90 things an hour versus 100 versus 95.
Sam Shay: In this case, the green, yellow and red, like the [00:24:00] green say is 100. The yellow is 95. The red is 90 in this and this gene. The actual difference between green, yellow, red is trivial. Not trivial is the number of duplicates of the gene. I'd rather have five You read cannons than one green cannon. So there is between like 500 and 450.
Sam Shay: Now those numbers I'm just making up just for sake of illustration. The number of cannons matters. Way, way more than the version way more. So for me, you can, so the human body can have up to 20 very, very, very rarely can go higher. The genetics companies sound like a 22 once, maybe a 24, but it's between one and 20.
Sam Shay: I'm a two. But two, I have two, two cannons. That's it. Just two.
Julie Michelson: Oh boy. You better, you better treat those cannons. Well,
Sam Shay: Well that and also minimize the environmental input of too many carbs. So so for me it my my carb issue was [00:25:00] not a quality because all my you know Quinoa was so inorganic and picked by left handed monks on the last harvest blah blah blah It wasn't a quality issue.
Sam Shay: It was a quantity of carb issue, right? So, so people can get a lot of information out of the 23 mean ancestry, but there's, there's some other novel things in genetics that would need a fresh cheek swab to analyze, uh, these, these, you know, this, this, in this one in particular, uh, your, your carb tolerance, like, are you keto?
Sam Shay: Are you paleo? Are you Mediterranean or are you high carb? Is,
Julie Michelson: is this like something that people can order for themselves or is this why people need to come see someone like you?
Sam Shay: Well, right now, um, I have to send the swabs off to Australia. And so right now I do this test here, uh, in the, in the U S um, and I have to like gather up the swabs and then bundle them off and send them off to Australia.
Sam Shay:[00:26:00] Right. As at the time of this recording, I'm working lab to onshore a A genetics lab in the states to do this in the states to cut down, uh, turnaround time and logistics and
Julie Michelson: probably cost. Eventually, it definitely think
Sam Shay: it definitely cost. But it's it's just the real thing that people struggle with is right now.
Sam Shay: It's about an eight to 10 week turnaround, which
Julie Michelson: is still, it never changes. So
Sam Shay: that's I want people to hear it's like, you're not going to lose fidelity of the data. The data will last you for decades, waiting an extra month and a half to two months on the normal other tests. It's fine, but we have a real patient's problem in this culture.
Sam Shay: So we're, but we're working on the
Julie Michelson: magic pill now.
Sam Shay: So, so that's, that's where [00:27:00] 23andme, Ancestry, and so on, they're, they're, they're useful. And, but there's, there is a niche portion that they miss. And if people don't have 23andme and Ancestry, they don't, you know, you know, I also do the, the, the variant analysis as well, you know, not the full 23andme and Ancestry does, because I only do those.
Sam Shay: Well, they're useful for health. I mean, some people may want to know what percentage Irish they are, you know, and
Julie Michelson: Oh, sure. It's fun. You know, I, my, yeah, I mean, I have a, my family's all Ashkenazi Jews, right? So there's things you want to know about your genetics, but that's not what we're talking about here.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, that's not, we're talking about everything that Dr. Sam is saying for listeners. If you haven't picked up on it directly relates to autoimmunity, you know, remember that hierarchy inflammation was that top, top piece and inflammation is, was driving your autoimmunity.
Sam Shay: Yeah, I can, I can speak a bit more specifically to [00:28:00] that.
Sam Shay: So if, if people are concerned about autoimmunity, there's three, when, when I, when I went through IFM, um, my certification for IFM, the, I can't remember the gentleman's name, but he was like the major autoimmune researcher who lectured live. And he said that there's three requirements for an autoimmune disease.
Sam Shay: Number one is you need the, whatever is going to, what the trigger,
Julie Michelson: Uh huh.
Sam Shay: And so for, let's just pick Hashimoto's for example, because, and there's, there's a couple of triggers there. So that those triggers can be H. pylori, it could be gluten, it can be blastocystis hominis, um, it can be a couple other infections.
Sam Shay: So you need the trigger, you need exposure to the trigger. Then you need the leaky gut for the trigger to leak through into the bloodstream. And then you need the gene specific. to creating the antibody to attack that trigger. And the antibodies are, they're not heat seeking missiles, they're shape seeking missiles, and they will attack the [00:29:00] trigger, but also any human cells that look similar in full or in part to whatever that trigger was.
Sam Shay: It's, it's equivalent to like a Bloods, Crips, Turf Warfare, and you happen to be wearing a red shirt and you wander into Crypt Territory. When you walk into a blood territory, you just get caught in the crossfire because they think you're on the other team. So my, um,
Julie Michelson: this is what we call molecular mimicry for those that have heard that term.
Sam Shay: Yeah. Molecular mimicry. So the where genes comes in is in two of those three steps. The last step is, do you have the gene to make the antibody? That's not the genes I'm looking at. I'm looking at the genes that would provoke the cause of the leaky gut in the first place. That's that's where the gene tests that I look at is relevant to autoimmunity It's like what are the things that drive a leaky gut?
Sam Shay: Making allowing the triggers to even leak through in the first the triggers can't [00:30:00] get through into the bloodstream Then there's no autumn then there's no molecular mimicry So I'm looking at the second layer, which is the leaky gut layer and what genes directly or indirectly influence the integrity of that gut.
Sam Shay: So the specific genes, the specific gene clusters before against naming genes on a first name basis is first off the inflammation, which was at the top, the number one on top. So the genes that regulate inflammation. are absolutely critical for maintaining gut lining integrity. Number two, you would look at the genes for free radical damage scavenging in the mitochondria because, I mean, you can literally go on to PubMed and just type in like, Free radical damage autoimmunity and just like look at paper after paper after paper And there's three specific genes in the mitochondria That are the that code for the enzymes to clean up the free radicals and to make the image easier for [00:31:00] people to understand The mitochondria you've heard this like the electricity factory or the power plant of the cell But I'm not sure people really get just how big of a deal that is 10 percent of your body weight is this factory.
Sam Shay: Imagine every cell is a city. Now imagine 10 percent of the entire footprint of the city is that electricity, is electricity factory to run that city. Now, now imagine that 95, that, that electricity factory burns protein, fats, and carbs in the presence of oxygen to generate the electricity. Literally, that's why we breathe is to provide oxygen for this 10 percent of your body weight of your cells to generate the electricity to run the rest of the cells.
Sam Shay: That's important because, you know, if New York lost electricity, it would be about three days until it turns into Mad Max. So you need to have, if you need to have the electricity. So the, the problem is that 95 percent of all free [00:32:00] radicals. Are generated in that mitochondrial factory. Think of free radicals as sparks that fly off the burning of the fuel, the burning of the product.
Julie Michelson: Think of a factory.
Sam Shay: Yeah. So you've got sparks in there, but now you need janitors running around putting out these sparks. So, you know, it doesn't catch on fire. That's, you know, free radicals leads to inflammation. So the enzymes are MnSod, GPX1, and Cat, or for catalase. Mn Sod for manganese, not magnesium.
Sam Shay: Manganese superoxide dismutase. That's what it stands for. He's the head janitor. I call him Mr. Sod, not Mn Sod. Mr. Sod. And if he has a variant, if he's got a yellow red dot, he's a bit slow on putting out the sparks. So, if someone has a red or yellow dot in, say, MN SOD, they're at a higher risk for autoimmunity because they're at risk of their mitochondrial factories catching on [00:33:00] fire.
Sam Shay: Then, so that's mitochondria. liver detox. And then there's vitamin D metabolism and genetics. And so the vitamin D genetics is particularly interesting because you need vitamin D to keep the cells of the intestine closely tight together, which is the opposite of a leaky gut. A leaky gut means that the You know, the cells are lined up like shoulder to shoulder, but if they're like pulled apart, the gap in between the shoulders, that's the leakiness of the leaky gut.
Sam Shay: And it's vitamin D that helps keep the cells in the intestines shoulder to shoulder. So understanding your vitamin D genetics is critical because if you have weaknesses in your vitamin D metabolism, genetically, then there's very specific things you can do nutritionally, not just take more vitamin D, there's other things you have to do to keep those cells of your gut shoulder to shoulder.
Sam Shay: And then there's other genes, like, you know, there's other genes [00:34:00] involved, like methylation has its own role in autoimmunity. Uh, cardiovascular circulation genes that is very close relationship to poor cardiovascular health and the, uh, promotion of autoimmune disease. So, there's, there's, if you look, and then, and then the other piece on genetics is that if you look, if you know your genetic diet, Like, like mine is like low carb paleo, then you're not going to trigger inflammatory responses.
Sam Shay: You know, your diet is, you can also genetically identify a part of the 100 genes is also these genetic, uh, trigger foods. Are you genetically vulnerable to histamine, which is, I mean, if it's. I mean, that's about as close to inflammation without, I mean, it's like inflammation as far as I can tell. Um, if you're sensitive to histamine, you're genetically, then histamine foods are going to create this kind of slow moving.
Sam Shay: I call it a slow moving bee sting through your whole body because [00:35:00] histamine, you know, bee stings your arm. The B didn't inject a half quart of water into your arm, but what the body did, it's like, Oh, look, a really concentrated dose of venom. We're going to let's switch the flood, which is called histamine.
Sam Shay: We're going to flood the area with water to dilute it. The diluted that's that's histamine is I think the evolutionaries response to venom, whether it's a bee sting, scorpion, centipede, spider fly, certain plants got, you know, whatever insects, it's your emergency switch to venom to flood the area quickly, perhaps disastrously, but flooded quickly because that venom is going to cause problems no matter what.
Sam Shay: And the problem is that there's foods that are high in histamine or that trigger more endogenous or internal creation of histamine or that shut down the enzyme that breaks down histamine. So if you eat any of the three types of foods, you're basically creating a slow moving bee sting [00:36:00] in your whole body.
Sam Shay: And you're going to create this global inflammatory response that is going to affect your gut. And going to affect your immunity and your inflammation overall. So those are just some of the examples of how genetics absolutely relate to autoimmunity. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: I love, and I love that analogy because it's the same with, you know, we, we talk about inflammation, it's the same thing.
Julie Michelson: Our, our acute inflammatory response. that protects us, saves us, heals us. We're talking about the chronic inflammation, that kind of slow burn. Um, and then eventually it catches up with you
Sam Shay: or
Julie Michelson: can.
Sam Shay: Inflammation is like inflammation. We would die without inflammation. We would die without histamine. We would die without cortisol.
Sam Shay: And it's there for like acute. acute situations. And the problem is that certain people genetically, the 15 major genes for inflammation, I broke them down into initiation of [00:37:00] inflammation, propagation or sustaining or flaring up of the inflammation, expanding it. And then there's putting the inflammation out.
Sam Shay: So there's different gene clusters. Some people are they, they, they really do a great job preventing inflammation from starting. I talked to a person yesterday about this. Um, she had what I call the inflammation sandwich, where she had green dots in the cluster of initiation genes and putting out of genes.
Sam Shay: But she didn't, she had red dots all up and down the propagation. And what her lived experience was like, she can be, she has, she's really clean and clear on her diet and her lifestyle. She's a good, good, good. And then she steps out a line and then it just, Flares. Wham. Easy. Yeah. And then like it can come back down, but she gets these super demoralizing, like massive explosions of inflammation [00:38:00] because middle bit that turns a little flame into a bonfire is so hypersensitive.
Julie Michelson: So
Sam Shay: you can even look at someone's genetic clusters and, and look at how to help navigate their an inflammatory, anti inflammatory, um, Procedures or protocols, uh, and fine tune them accordingly,
Julie Michelson: which is so empowering, right? I mean, and sometimes even just that understanding of like, Oh, this is what's been going on for my lifetime, a decade, whatever.
Sam Shay: Yeah. She felt so validated, gaslit by all of her friends. Oh, you just need to diet and exercise more. No.
Julie Michelson: Well, and, and, you know, doctors and, and I say it all the time on the podcast, my disclaimer, I live with one. I love him, you know, and he's amazing. But standard Western medicine approach is to gaslight because they don't have the answer.
Julie Michelson: They [00:39:00] don't, it doesn't fit the diagnosis medication box.
Sam Shay: I don't know what you're talking about. Psychiatrist. I have no idea what it's like. No idea what's a gas lighting. Never heard of it. It's called Kindergarten.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. You just didn't know the word for it till kindergarten. Oh, I
Sam Shay: learned pretty quick.
Julie Michelson: So I, oh my goodness.
Julie Michelson: Well, I say, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours about this. Um, but we are at that point. I promised I would let you go on time today. So, and it does, it could be what we do. anything, but what is one step that listeners can take today to start to improve their health? Any, any one thing you want to share?
Sam Shay: So if people haven't had their genetics done, have a health professional who is skilled and looking at functional genetics, get a genetics test [00:40:00] because It is the single highest value test you will ever run in your whole life with not even a close second. The, the genes are permanent. The data is permanent.
Sam Shay: There's more information about the genes that are built, but, but the genes themselves do not change. It is the single most important test you could ever run. I just encourage you to work with someone who's qualified. To run functional genetics. It's that their focus is to empower you, not to scare you.
Sam Shay: Right,
Julie Michelson: right. This is not doom and gloom. This is, that's right. That's what said
Sam Shay: functional genetics on the other side and, and just like budget for it, you know, plan for it. This year it will give yourself the gift of getting your genetics run and that gift is going, literally gonna be the gift that keeps on giving.
Julie Michelson: Love it. Amazing. And for people that are listening on the go and aren't going to check out the show notes, where's the best place for listeners to find you?
Sam Shay: Very easy. Dr. Sam Shay. com. Uh, [00:41:00] I'm not spelled like a stadium. It's D R S M S H. Only the
Julie Michelson: East coasters know how to spell it that way. Anyway,
Sam Shay: Dr. SaShayea, my website, I've got A free ebook, genetics, ebook and genetics mini course, um, it says on the website or you can just drsamshay.
Sam Shay: com forward slash genetics. I've also, I'm also all over YouTube. You can put my name in there. I've got playlists on genetics and functional testing. I've got my stand up comedy playlist. Yes. I was just gonna,
Julie Michelson: I was going to throw that in there. If you didn't, you guys need to check out Dr. Sam's comedy and we'll have you back on to talk about, cause it is one of my favorite topics, the healing power of laughter and how comedy fits into all overall wellness, because it's
Sam Shay: important.
Sam Shay: Absolutely. And in fact, my, my main objective with comedy is edutainment that I talk about what it's like to live on the spectrum. And that's what my hour. Uh, premiere comedy special is at the fringe festival, [00:42:00] uh, and as of this recording next, it's going to be next week. And if someone had spent 60 minutes with me 30 years ago to explain how my spectrum brain works and how to adapt to the normal world.
Julie Michelson: Nobody, nobody understood 30 years ago.
Sam Shay: Uh, technically, Dr Asperger's work, uh, was really publicized. It was popularized in the West, starting really in the eighties, but, and they actually made it into the DSM four in, um, uh, nine and it became standardized diagnostic terminology in the DSM four. I think it was nine.
Sam Shay: Two or 93. I'm just going to say now
Julie Michelson: I'm aging myself because my, my psychology training was all DMS three. So
Sam Shay: I'm like, wow,
Julie Michelson: I guess it has come on.
Sam Shay: Yeah. But there's, there's a whole, I mean, I cover the whole history, the fraught history of the term Asperger's in the special, like, like it has, it has a pretty dark history to it.
Sam Shay: Uh, I I'm actually trying to reclaim the [00:43:00] word Because, uh, you know, despite its dark, I mean, just spoiler for people, Dr. Asperger had troubling ties to the Nazis and, and the, the, they use the good doctors work to justify the sterilization of, you know, quote, undesirable children like me. But. I'm and it's not, it's, it's hotly debated whether dr Asperger was complicit.
Sam Shay: It is genuinely argued vigorously if he was complicit in that relationship or not. The
Julie Michelson: reality is the work is the work. Like, well, even more important value,
Sam Shay: but even more importantly, I'm proud to call myself an Aspie because it was ultimately an ironically Asperger's syndrome that brought down the Nazis because, and I can prove it with three names.
Sam Shay: Oppenheimer, Einstein, and Turing, all of them had Asperger's, so I'm quite proud to be an Aspie. If you're in a
Julie Michelson: good club. Well,
Sam Shay: it's the irony is like if they, [00:44:00] if we're, you know, if they're, you know, if he's Dr. Frankenstein and he named us as the monster, I'm going to be Frankenstein's monster because we took him down, you know?
Julie Michelson: I love it. I love it.
Sam Shay: So I'm proud to call myself an Aspie and that's one of my goals of the special is to reclaim the word.
Julie Michelson: Which I think is, is amazing because it, yeah, you give us such a, such perspective and understanding. Um, and, and so, uh, I, I love, I, I know, I promised that I, I probably won't make it in person to the special, but check out the comedy on YouTube.
Julie Michelson: Um, because like all good comedy, we learn a lot, right. In addition to the laughter and the healing, there's, there's a lot, a lot more to it. So. Dr. Sam, thank you so very much for your time today.
Sam Shay: Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember you can get those show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living.
Julie Michelson: show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
​ (Outro Bumper) [00:45:00]
settings
Divider Text
My Guest For This Episode
Connect with Dr. Sam Shay, DC, IFMCP
Dr. Sam Shay, DC, IFMCP
Dr. Sam Shay, DC, IFMCP solves health puzzles for busy, health-conscious moms, mom-preneurs, and adults with Aspergers so that they can exit survival mode and re-enter community.
Known as the friendly "lab nerd", Dr. Shay specializes in functional lab and genetics analysis for data-driven results.
Dr. Shay is also a Stand-Up Comic, using clean, observational comedy to educate and entertain.
Popular Episodes
Episode [Block//Episode Number]
Aired on: [Block//Air Date %F j, Y%+0]
Aired on: [Block//Air Date %F j, Y%+0]