How do we test for epigenetic modifications?

Dr. Amy Nett: There’s really not a way to test for epigenetic modifications. A lot of times, we’ll get that information from the history. For example, if I’m worried about someone potentially having a metal toxicity, we know that there’s a strong influence from epigenetics. For example, if someone’s mother or maternal grandmother had a mouthful of dental amalgams, that is going to cause an epigenetic change for that person, that they are going to be much more susceptible to developing a mercury toxicity. We know that it increases their, what we call, metals resistance. It’s most often those epigenetic modifications. We’re going to be listening very closely to the history. We’re going to be collecting history about parents, grandparents, getting information from that perspective, and then it’s listening to, what is your patient’s diet and lifestyle? Are they doing stress management? Are they watching their diet? Those are the places that we’re looking for to understand how the environment is changing their genetic expression, but we don’t test for it specifically.