IntellxxDNA Genomics Testing

IntellxxDNA Genomics Testing

helping you discover

'Your Book Of You'!

by

Cate Cummings APRN FNP IFMCP ReCODE 2.0 Certified Practitioner

 

I am excited to share with you a unique offering that we at BWC For Horse Lovers have added to our practice. We are now offering genomics testing using IntellxxDNA. Genomics is the science of small changes called variants in your DNA. IntellxxDNA genomics allows us to provide state of the art personalized medicine. Your DNA is ultimately 'Your Book of You' or your own personal 'User Manual'. Getting to know yourself down to the DNA level can truly help you optimize your health!

IntellxxDNA allows for me, as the clinician, to look at over 600 variants in your DNA that help make you unique. These variants can contribute to chronic diseases such as cognitive decline, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, gut issues and more. It also allows me to look at gene variants related to how various nutrients and hormones are transported throughout your body and into your brain and identify nutrients and hormones that you may need more or less of.

The good news is that not all variants are bad for your health (some are beneficial!), and most are modifiable with diet and lifestyle factors. This makes IntellxxDNA Genomics testing very empowering for you to better take control of your health!

Chronic illness is not due to one gene, but due to the combination of many small gene variants and how they interact with our diet, lifestyle, and environment. Inflammation and genes involved in tissue repair and detoxification also contribute strongly to chronic disease. 

Some of the kinds of patients who have strongly benefited from IntellxxDNA include patients with a family history of memory problems. While we tend to call many memory problems "Alzheimer's", when we look at the DNA level we see that cognition and memory concerns can come from genes involved in inflammation, nerve degeneration, amyloid processing, brain growth factors, brain vitamin and nutrient carriers, clotting factors and so much more. If your memory is not where you want it to be or you have already had a parent start to show signs of cognitive decline, IntellxxDNA can be a powerful tool for helping me guide you with targeted prevention of memory loss.

Other patients that have strongly benefited from IntellxxDNA and who will likely benefit are people with intermittent IBS (helping discern whether the problem is related to gluten, histamine intolerance, or other causes of gut permeability). IntellxxDNA can also be used to help optimize weight and blood sugar, help you understand some of the underlying contributing factors to heart disease, macular degeneration, cataracts, osteoporosis, or other health issues that may run in your family. For others, genomics is just about helping to create overall wellness and personalized prevention.

The genes we would explore together are not your destiny but instead your roadmap for staying well!  The majority of gene variants in the IntellxxDNA report can be "modified" by diet, lifestyle, and supplementation.

If you would like to benefit from the IntellxxDNA report please reach out to me, Cate Cummings, APRN FNP IFMCP ReCODE Certified Practitioner, at 325-423-2075, or you can schedule a Free Discovery Phone Call with me at bwcforhorselovers.com so that we can discuss your interest in getting IntellxxDNA genomics testing done. Because it does take 6-8 weeks to get DNA processed and back, we are ordering these reports now for review beginning in later June and July, 2021. 

You can read more about the IntellxxDNA  genomics testing at IntellxxDNA.com.

As stated earlier in this article, the results of this test help determine 'Your Book of You' when it comes to your genetic inheritance on a functional level. This report has tremendous value in terms of helping a person understand how they can help their body function at its' best. This important analysis explains your genetic makeup as it relates to common biological pathways which helps the clinician and the client work towards better optimization of your body and brain! All that is required is a simple saliva sample that you can do at home.  

IntellxxDNA provides a 'clinical decision support tool' that can provide a deeper understanding of how to best support body processes so that you can truly optimize your health. It is important to view the IntellxxDNA genomics test results as one piece of the total picture of your health and must be coordinated with other health parameters. Receiving the genetic results help you fine-tune your diet, lifestyle, and supplementation to help your genes interact optimally with your environment.

What I love about the IntellxxDNA report is that even though the lab has no knowledge of your family or personal medical history, the genetic reports dovetail very closely with a person's family and personal medical histories. The report will likely help expand your understanding of why a particular health condition runs in your family, or in your personal life.

Even better is the fact that the IntellxxDNA Report contains information as to what a person can practically do to modify their diet, lifestyle, and environment so that you can optimize your body function moving forward and hopefully prevent future illness, and it helps us work together to make a more tailored treatment plan. This genetic test only has to be done once and provides an important roadmap for you to optimize your health for the duration! The IntellxxDNA Report makes functional medicine far more personalized than it would otherwise be because it provides very relevant and clinically applicable genetic information. I would like to invite all interested persons to make this a part of their initial consult laboratory work-up at BWC For Horse Lovers. It will make your treatment plan more efficient and cost-effective because you and I will better understand how best to support your body!

Some people may wonder what is the difference between an IntellxxDNA Genomics Clinical Decision Support Tool which is a Direct to Health Care Provider (DHCP) test versus a Direct to Consumer (DTC) Genomic test. Here are the main differences:

Let’s first recognize that genomic data is not the same across different companies regardless of whether they are DTC or DHCP genomics testing. Here are some important things to know.

  1. Content: Each company chooses the genomic information it would like to focus on. The focus of IntellxxDNA™ is actionable, clinically relevant genetic variants. Specifically, we focus on improving outcomes, preventing chronic illnesses, and optimizing brain health.
  2.  Clinical Relevance: Whether or not the genomic information presented by a tool is clinically relevant is an important and distinguishing factor that must be considered when deciding to use a specific test. But even more importantly, along with that clinically relevant information, what does the test offer in terms of potential modifications? In other words, what can the clinician and client do to help support the body with this gene variant?
  3. Reproducibility: The various technologies used both to harvest, and more importantly, to analyze genomic data have varying benefits as well as varying levels of reproducibility and reliability. IntellxxDNA™ has contracted with a CLIA/CAP certified lab that uses a variety of techniques to obtain accurate patient genotype information. Downloading large amounts of raw data from a direct to consumer test designed primarily for ancestry information and “edutainment” is not appropriate for medical decision-making. Having worked with a validation lab, we can tell you with confidence that some of the downloadable SNPs in the raw data have accuracy of less than 50%. There are important variants such as Apo E2 that validate at less than 75% accuracy and that is why the 23andMe health report does not report on many variants. You will note the boxed warning on the 23andMe raw data page: “The raw data provided by 23andMe has undergone a general quality review however only a subset of markers has been individually validated for accuracy. The data from 23andMe’s Browse Raw Data feature is suitable only for informational use and not for medical, diagnostic or other use. Consult with a healthcare professional before making any major lifestyle changes.”
  4. Chronic Diseases are Multifactorial: Many DTC companies look at genes or SNPs independently rather than in combination. This action limits the information that can be provided about a particular disease state, what the SNPs mean clinically, and what can be done. IntellxxDNA™ reports on panels of interpreted key contributing SNPs and key SNPs that relay benefit. This provides a more complete picture for discussion and can be reassuring to a patient that their “genes are not all bad”.
  5. Robust Number of SNPs Evaluated in Each Panel: Some companies will report on a health risk by identifying only two SNPs in a disease pathway. For example, in a well-known DTC health report test reporting on Parkinson’s, if the patient has 0 SNPs in their Parkinson’s profile, the patient might assume that they will not get Parkinson’s. However, this test is choosing to look at only 2 SNPs when there are more than 100 SNPs that have been associated with Parkinson’s Disease risk and the two SNPs they present only explains about 5% or less of Parkinson’s.

In essence, it is impossible to compare a DTC test or any genomic company to another as they are all different from each other! DTC testing helped launch the field of genomics and has been an amazing tool for connecting individuals to their ancestry across the world and giving some basic awareness regarding the role of genomics in health and wellness.

IntellxxDNA™ is the only clinical decision support tool developed by and for integrative and functional medicine practices. For patients looking to optimize brain function, optimize their overall health, and prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity, etc., IntellxxDNA™ is the tool of choice for providing accurate, clinically relevant, and clinically actionable genomic information.

Reference: 

https://www.intellxxdna.com/

If you  are interested in finding out more about how we can help you at BWC For Horse Lovers, you are welcome to:

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