Dr. Amy Nett: The HDRI methylation profile actually has a lot more markers than the Doctor’s Data. Doctor’s Data basically looks at, I think, methionine, cysteine. I think it looks at s-adenosylmethionine, s-adenosylhomocysteine, maybe—oh, I think maybe it looks at methionine, but I want to say it looks at something like a total of five markers.
The HDRI profile also looks at s-adenosylmethionine, s-adenosylhomocysteine. It looks at about, I want to say six or seven different markers of folate metabolism, so it looks at 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, 5-formyltetrahydrofolate, I think 10-formyltetrahydrofolate. Sorry, I don’t have it in front me so I’m not exactly certain. Folinic acid, it looks at active folate in the red blood cell. It also looks at oxidized and reduced glutathione levels, and then you can do add-on markers looking at oxidative stress, which include nitrotyrosine, nitric oxide, and catalase. So we use the HDRI functional methylation panel because I think you get a lot more information.
Interestingly, we did try to use the Doctor’s Data methylation panel for a while. I found almost everyone on the Doctor’s Data panel pretty normal. There wasn’t a lot of indication for impaired methylation. Using HDRI, I want to say about 80 percent of our patients have some markers for impaired methylation.
So which one is accurate? You know, I don’t know. I think Doctor’s Data you’re just getting fewer data points so people are going to be missed. I think you’ll get some false negatives. HDRI might be a little bit too specific. So hard to say but I fare with HDRI functional methylation panel because you’re getting so many more markers.