Evolutionary Psychiatrist Emily Deans recently tweeted that she tests resistant depression patients for MTHFR status and finds ~50% of them to be C677T homozygous, which is the most severe reduction in MTHFR activity among the common polymorphisms. This is only in about 13% of the population.
Although this is from an unpublished case series in a single clinical practice and not a peer-reviewed study of a random sample of a specific clinical population, it is still quite a staggering difference, close to 3.8 fold.
I believe anyone with mental health issues should be tested for methylation status.
I swear half the folks I’ve been testing lately are MTHFR C677T *homozygous* mutants!! It’s only 13% of the population but a much bigger % of resistant depression patients I see.
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New conversation
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I don’t test everyone, but the folks who come to me have already been around the block a few times…I find genetic testing to be super helpful in that population.
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I don’t find methylfolate is that helpful in heterozygotes, but for homozygotes I can take a person on 5 nonworking meds and just use a straightforward antidepressant + methylfolate. (theoretically could just use methylfolate alone but I’ve not been successful with this yet)
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End of conversation
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Do you test through a regular lab w insurance coverage or do you have to use 23&me or others like that?
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I like
@genomind —they try to bill insurance and if it doesn’t go through there is a very reasonable cash fee. 23&me tests a limited number of snps though useful info can be gleaned from them too. -
You can send MTHFRC677t even to a regular lab, like quest. But tbh insurance only tends to pay for it if recurrent miscarriages in a woman.
