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

Photo credit: Tatiana

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.